You want to start your own online business, and to begin with you must build it with limited time because of your existing job, life or family situation – sound familiar?
I was the same way – the last thing I wanted to do is use my hour each day to work on a dead-end project or worse yet, work my butt off only to put money in someone else’s pockets without putting me in a better situation.
The fact is that most unsuccessful attempts to start an online business fail because they a) Don’t follow a plan of any kind – instead taking the shotgun approach or b) Follow a faulty plan that is designed to make other people money – not you.
When I first started out online 8-years ago, we hit some dead-ends pretty fast – but in doing so found one specific online business plan that really works no matter who puts it into action.
It works mainly because YOU have a product that can be controlled and sold 100% by you – you are not relying on making someone else wealthy, but instead can leverage your product to finally achieve the time and financial freedom we all seek as entrepreneurs.
There are 10 steps to this proven online business plan, and while this may seem like a great deal of work, the fact is that you can master this entire process in as little as 6-weeks while still working away at your current job.
So here is the plan.
1. Uncover a hot desire within a target market by visiting forums, discussion groups, blogs and social networking sites that clearly indicate a niche market with an interest in a subject area. Then, pull out the biggest frustration, challenge or desire from within that market – this will tpyically be a question like “How do I keep 10-pounds off for more than 6-months” or “What investment plan should I follow given today’s highly volatile economy?”
2. Publish a blog on your topic posting daily for a few weeks to build traffic. By blogging and submitting to various blog directories as well as social networking sites you will get more traffic along with some backlink advantage from authority sites improving your search engine position over time. You are “putting up your sign” for your new online business.
3. Start building your list right away by putting an opt-in forum with a bonus download on your main page(s). List building is so important because…
a) 8 out of 10 visitors will not buy on first visit to your site
b) You can double (and often triple or more) your conversion of visitors to sales by exposing them multiple times to your sales page
c) You can survey your list for further ideas, case studies, or sell them other people’s products and make affiliate commissions
d) You’ll have an eager group of customers highly motivated to buy from you in the future
4. Create your own book, ebook, manual, course, guidebook or formula in the form of either a digital written, audio or video product OR in the form of a physical print or Audio/Video shipped on CD or DVD. Address the major desire you researched in step 1 and structure the information as your own solution system. You can see an outline on how to structure your information product business in the complimentary video: http://www.infomarketerszone.com/public/254.cfm?sd=2
5. Write your compelling sales letter by targeting specific desires within your marketplace and turning those desires into benefit statements. For each compelling question your market has explicitly asked or is thinking about you should have a solution in your infoproduct and a benefit statement on your sales page.
6. Generate traffic by using multiple techniques such as writing articles submitting them to high authority article directories, publishing to your blog on a daily basis, advertising using pay-per-click, becoming active on leading social networking sites and emphasizing your affiliate program.
7. Seek out JV partners and super affiliates. Setup your affiliate program using the capability built into Clickbank or using other affiliate tracking software – then actively seek out top affiliates within your marketplace. Make it a part of your system to seek out at least 3-4 top JV partners each month.
8. As you begin selling your products (or giving away early review copies) work with your customers to build PROOF that your information and system works. This will build momentum and result in many more ebooks being sold. The entire process of building proof around your product should be built into the original design – for example, you can’t hope to get proof if you haven’t structured your infoproduct as something that is testable or usable.
9. Monitor and improve by building in an ongoing testing and monitoring function into your business system. What is working, what is not and make adjustments. For instance, you may be getting a TON of traffic, but conversion sucks – so you make changes to your sales letter. Or, you may suffering for traffic, so work a little harder at writing more (or better) articles, blog posting, and recruiting affiliates who can flood your site with traffic. It’s a plan-do-review process that leads to top selling sites.
10. Finally, structure your communications to your subscribers and customers in a way that they guide your business toward the best opportunities. By allowing comments to blog postings, surveying your subscribers and customers, speaking with your customers 1:1 and running frequent brainstorming or coaching calls your customers will tell you exactly what they want giving you the biggest advantage of all to stay ahead of your competition.
We know this plan works, we’ve applied it to multiple markets and have coached using this system for the last 5-years and now you can apply it to your own desire for an online business plan.