The more time I spend on line doing business, the more I become a fan of doing business in the real world, with real products and real people. Now this is not to say I don’t think there is a place for doing business on line but it certainly has its limitations. With that said, I am sure all my Internet marketing friends are clutching their chests screaming “Blaspheme!”… “Heretic!”… “Off With His HEAD!” but read on and I think I can provide some clarity to my opening assertion.
The web is awash with “Opportunities” that can make you rich overnight and services that can make your website # 1 in google in mere weeks, days or even hours. People pour hundreds if not thousands of dollars into these simple / easy programs, systems and services in hopes of financial freedom but in the end getting little or no return to show on their investment. There are those who make money off of these programs, systems and services but they are the top 1 – 5 % of the people involved and Joe Average is rarely if ever part of this elite group.
So what do you need to do to succeed online and ultimately in the real world? Well here is a short list of the things you need to have and to consider in order to be successful online. You will notice there is no mention of any program, service or opportunity in this list.
1. A genuine desire to work online. Online business takes a HUGE commitment and you have to want to do it.
2. Time… Time to learn, time to develop your business time to establish relationships that lead to success. Overnight success is a fallacy.
3. REAL product to sell. You cannot successfully sell something you cannot see touch or gain a benefit from. A good rule of thumb is… If it isn’t tangible it isn’t marketable.
4. Pride in you business. If you cannot tell your family and friends what it is you are selling online it will never translate into a something you can sell to strangers.
5. A website that is yours. This means you have access to all the workings of the site and you can modify it anyway you want. A URL which leads to an affiliate page is not a website you own. You are not working for yourself; you are working for someone else. This will also mean that you have a hosting account on which that website resides.
6. Membership in some sort of web 2.0 community that provides you with a blog, access to a forum and all the tools you need to network with other business people. Facebook, myspace, youtube, squidoo or even my own social network called Global Business Net.
7. Take a course on how to be a webmaster. It is imperative to have some knowledge of how a website works in order for you to be successful. If you do this, you will be able to protect yourself from businesses that sell basic web mastering services for insane prices when you can do it all yourself at a fraction of the cost. The cost of the course may seem costly up front but it will be a fraction of the cost of having someone do it for you.
8. Find a way to anchor your online business in the real world. A good online business should be marketable in the real world as well.
Take the time to really investigate online business and what it involves before you make the commitment to enter the dog eat dog world of ebussiness. Be a online business owner not another online business victim.
Tags: Business Online Information Web2.0
