Internet Business Set-Up - Progress is Haphazard

Internet Business Set up Can be Haphazard

Follow progress on my internet business which teaches others how to start their small business online.

For those of you who have not visited us before, I am putting together an online business.  The business will teach others to do th sane using ebooks, online courses, video, audio and offline seminars.  Our goals is to help get 1,000 small business up and running in the next five years.

Oh, and to:

• boost my potential pension using e commerce and
• describe my progress and help me get things in order in my own mind.

I was trying to find a word that would describe progress so far and I have to say that haphazard does not go far wrong.  It is not that I haven't been working hard - every hour of the day is spent either thinking about the business or doing something in relation to it.

It is just that there are so many things you have to do when you set up a new online business.  They all seem to need to be done at the same time, and as you do one thing, you are reminded that you should be doing something else.  Also, so much of what you do is related and you need to make the links as you go, or you are likely to forget them.

The good thing about that is much of what you do or write can be used more than once.  A web page can be re-written and circulated as an online or offline article, a blog can become part of your sales materials, a sales page can be updated to be a new web-page.

I though I would run through what I should have done by now, what I have done and work out what needs to be done this week

Know What Your Market Is

So far I have got a very clear idea of what market I want to be in.  This market is made up of people who want to learn to make money online.

Know What Your Niche Is

I also know exactly what my niche is and I have set up all my goals with this in mind.  My niche  is made up of  people who have possibly not thought of starting this kind of business before.

These people may not be natural e-ntrepreneurs perhaps, but they have been pushed into starting an online business by current financial circumstances.

Know What Your Business Model Is

There are as many ways of running a business online as there are offline.  In my free course course I will be describing four business  'models' (apologies for the jargon), and I will be combining three of them in my own new business.    The four models and I will be combining them in my own new business.

 The four models we describe are:

1. Affiliate Business
2. Drop Shipping
3. Start Your Online Business
4. Your Offline Business Online

Start Communicating

It can take a long time to get noticed on the web, so the sooner you start the better.  I have got my web-site up and running and written 12 pages of content.  However, it is best ot wait until you have 30 pages or more before submitting the site to the search engines, so there is a while to go yet.

It is also good to get as many incoming links as possible before submitting to the search engines for the first time.  To try and achieve this, one of the things I am doing is creating useful links from this blog to  various pages on my web site.

I Can See Clearly Now

OK, well that has clarified that what I need to do this week is frantically write pages for our website and compliment them with articles and blog entires that are linked to the website.

If anyone out there has got a good suggestion as to where else I should try and get links from, let me know - I will be very grateful.

Make Money Online as a Drop Shipper

Make Money Online. No Capital? No Problem.

Read here for free information on 4 cheap ways you can earn money online working from home. 

Drop Shipping

Drop shipping is a great method for getting involved in e commerce and work from home without having to invest your own and your family's life savings.

Drop shipping is more like a standard business than being an affiliate. It gives you the opportunity to create an online shop with a wide range of products without the hassle of having to hire staff, keep stock or manage deliveries.

 What are the Pros and Cons?

What are the pros and cons of building an online business rather than an affiliate business or a drop ship business?

 Pros

You:

• Run a proper business but do not have to manage staff, stock, warehouse and distribution.
• Get money from your customer before you pay the supplier.
• Can design the look of your business from scratch.
• Get to try out being a shopkeeper with none of the disadvantages.

Cons:
You personally:

• Must manage the website, marketing and all sorts of other tasks alone. 
• Have little control of the quality of the goods or service your customers get.
• Have to learn a whole new way of working.

Who Might Want to Build Their Own Online Business?
Those who might want to build their own online business include:

• People who don't yet know much about running an internet business, but are totally excited at the thought of finding out.
• People who know a bit about business (on or offline) are ready to begin their own venture.
• People who want to dip their toe into making money online.

How Does It Work?

You will have to set up an e-commerce website that has a suitable shopping cart and credit card processing facilities. Try the website 'Taming The Beast' to get great information about the best shopping cart software and services. 

This site has some brilliant information. If you do go there and you are interested in being an affiliate as well as drop shipping, read carefully. This site is an excellent example of an outstanding affiliate site!

• Find your suppliers:  Check out the internet for suppliers you might be interested in, check out whether there is a market for you and sign up. 
• Check out the sites that come up for the products that interest you, and choose those products / services you are interested in. Try to get recommendations from other drop shippers if possible so you know what type of customer service the organisations you are interested in provide. Don't forget, the drop shipper can make or break your business through great or bad customer service.
• Look at the Dropship Resources Directory.  This is a great resource if you are looking for a drop shipper is OneSource . This website lists over 8,000,000 products from 234 categories.
• Open an account: Open an account with the relevant drop shipper.
• Populate Your Website: Put images and information about your chosen products on your site and incorporate it with your chosen shopping cart.
• Market Your Site. A big subject for later discussion.
• Purchases: When people visit your site and buy products, you collect their orders and payment from your site. (BTW a good shopping cart will do all this automatically).
• Inform the Drop shipper: Send full order details to the drop shipper company. They will bill you at the price you have agreed, then they will complete the order sending it to your client. In most cases the labels on any packages will indicate it comes from you.

A good drop shipper will provide you with everything you need to know in terms of how to pass orders and payment back, how to follow things up etc. Indeed a good drop shipper will work hard to help you create a great sales site. After all, for every sale you make, they also make a profit.

Recommendations

We do not recommend one drop shipper over another. I will never mention a drop shipper if I know anything bad about them, but no-one can know everything. Also different people have different approaches. What I like in a drop shipper, you might find to be really boring, useless etc.

If you want to go with any drop shipper, can I suggest that you do your own in-depth research beforehand because often you are handing over bank details.

Also, if you have decided to go with a drop shipper that has not been mentioned in our materials, we would love you to go to our forum at and let others know what you think. Or just go there and join in any conversation that interests you!

Do I Have to Pay to Join a Drop Ship Supplier?

Another question that often comes up is whether you have to pay to join a drop shipping programme. The answer is that you do not with most programmes as their profit is already ensured.

Some programmes charge for joining 'higher' levels. Again I would think hard about this. If you are a good seller, they should pay you, not the other way around.

There are many ways of setting up your ecommerce website. You can use the standard templates offered by many Internet Service Providers, you could design it yourself or have it designed for you by a professional company.

The one thing you must ensure is that you have the appropriate shopping cart to deal with drop shipping. Research and find the one that is right for you.

There are Many Other Resources Available

We at My Business Coach Online are working as hard as we can to bring you free and low cost products to help you manage all these factors in detail. Also look out for other free products on the internet.

At My Business Coach Online we offer information about three other ways of doing business online, and you can read about them on later blogs:

Affiliate Marketing,      Starting Your Online Business      Put Your Offline Business Online

Remember you can get a free introductory short course to affiliate marketing here.

Mix and Match 

If you are not sure which type of online business is for you, it does not matter – you can use them all. Consider some of these examples:

 How about putting your own existing offline business online, and adding a range from a drop shipping warehouse.

• You could have a drop shipping site with some links to affiliate goods.
• You could have your own online business with a range of drop shipping goods and a few affiliate items as well
• You could put all four approaches on one site.

 The point about this is that you are here to enjoy yourself and to make money online. You should try different approaches to make sure that you are not missing the thing that would push your site into the stratosphere.

Your Internet Business Can Only Succeed If Your Mind is Behind It

Your Online Business Needs Your Brain

 Setting up and running an internet business requires an E-ntrepreneur to do so many different things it is not funny.  In fact it can be terrifying.   It can't be done unless your mind is working for you and not against you.  And that means setting great goals and sticking to them!

Setting great goals is more complicated than just saying "I want to own an online business" or "I want to be a millionaire". Our subconscious brain needs things to be specific. Oh and it needs things to matter as well.

SMART Goals

Lets look at SMART goals briefly first. All goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time bound. Breaking this down a great goal would be "I want to earn $2,000,000 dollars by 12 Dec 2014 by running a successful business selling nappies online".

It is Specific in that it says exactly what will happen, it is Measurable – a certain amount of money by a certain date. It is Achievable, it is Relevant to me and it is Time bound. (12 December 2014)