Start a Small Business Now - Brilliant or Barmy?

Starting a Small Business In a Recession

Is this brilliant or barmy? It totally depends what kind of business you want to start.

The Times Says Brilliant – If You Are Business-Like.

Lauren Tompson in The Times, last Saturday, discussed the fact that many people being laid off in the current recession are using their redundancy money to set up their own small business.  People are finding that it is harder to find a new job at the moment and 'taking the risk' of starting their own small business seems a good way to go.

Pros and Cons

There are many pros and cons to starting your own business

Pros:

• There are opportunities in the market for two basic reasons:  1.  The recession will have weeded out many inefficient businesses, and left a gap in their market and:    2.  Life is changing and opportunities are springing up that just did not exist 10 years ago.
• Banks are beginning to lend money again and interest rates are at a historic low.
• Starting your own small business could give you much more control over your life.
• You may be able to work from home, thereby cutting down on travel and child-care costs.
• You may want to create another income stream, not a whole business.

Cons

• If you do not plan, prepare and produce very efficiently, you are at risk of losing your shirt.
• You do need to produce a good business plan before the bank will even consider you for a loan.
• You may end up working longer hours for less money.
• You may find you hate being an entrepreneur.

7 Things you Must Do for Business Success

• Do your business marketing - make sure people will buy your product – even in a recession.
• Put together a good business plan.
• Make sure you understand all the different ways there are to run a business today.
• Understand what legal structure will suit you best
• Look for loans and grants through local and governmental organisations
• When going to the bank for a loan, don't forget to ask them about the Government's enterprise finance guarantee scheme.
• Take advice from everyone, especially Business link.

Business Link can help you achieve your business start up dreams. Use their online business start up guide along with the many other useful services they provide.

What Business?

The Times' article really focused on off-line businesses. Chris Simpson of Business Link (government funded adviser) said that he "had seen a growth in hair-dressing salons, fitness instructors, reiki practitioners and other well-being businesses."

If you are wondering about the best industry to be in, Check out our analysis on good industries to be in in 2010 to see what the experts said about this.

Online or Offline?

What Chris did not mention is that many small business start-ups can start their business from home and run it online. Why would you want to do that? Well, our website runs through 4 business models we think all of you could handle with not too much trouble. but in summary

• You get access to a huge market
• Your start-up costs are generally much lower.
• You can work from home.
• Small companies can look big online.

Susi Glennan, a work from home, teach at home Mom, tells how running an online business from home has helped her maintain an income while achieving the lifestyle she wanted. "I find time to keep my house somewhat organized (I like that Susi – Ed) and food on the table after a long day of educating my children and running my business."

Rob Marcus of Chat Moderator believes that the online business and the family mix very well after hiring his wife. "I admit that private meetings concerning strategic direction run on a shorter fuse than I'ver experienced in previous organisations, but this could be because of being married or simply being joint owners." Rob says.

So could an online business or money making activity be the answer you have been looking for?   Find out by reading all about it and by sending for our free introductory course to affiliate marketing Then join out 'Society of Small Entrepreneurs or SoME© to learn more about the subject.

Is Starting Your Small Business Online The New Black?

Online Literacy - A 'Must Have' Skill for Starting Your Small Online Business

Everyone used to be educated in the 3Rs.  Reading, wRiting and 'Rithmetic once upon a time was enough to get you a job for life.

But there is no such thing as a job for life today.  So what can you do to prepare yourself for our dramatically changed conditions?

Today a 4th skill is required if you want to be sure of maintaining your financial independence.  Today's 'must have' skill is Online Literacy. 

How To Start a Business Online-3 Absolutely Vital Actions

Learn How To Start A Business Online.

Create so much trust customers will roll in by making sure 3 vital factors are in place: transparency, trust and security.

Transparency

Up to 50% of your customers will be contemplating buying online for the first time. Let's imagine that Joe is in this position on your site right now. If you want to make the most of this opportunity, it is vital that you make it really easy for Joe to:

• Move around your site.
• Find what they are looking for
• Pay.

 Your E Commerce Site

Here are 13 fundamental questions to ask yourself about your e business. In fact this is so important to your success you might want to ask a friend to go through your site and ask these questions. You may be too close to see the problems.

1. 1. Is it clear, simple and easy to read? 
2. Is it free from too many wizzy bits and graphics that are likely to slow it down? Joe has an ISDN connection, and her brother Chris still has an analogue connection which are both a lot slower than broadband.
3. Is it free from links that will take Joe's attention off buying?
4. Did you do the planning so that Joe can find what she wants easily – i.e. through an in-house search engine and/or clear links?
5. Are there good, clear, accurate product descriptions and images?
6. Can/do you put information and advice on your website Joe will love? Because if you can, the search engines will love you too.
7. Does the product description include a notice that the product is out of stock if this is the case?
8. Does the product description include notes about all costs involved with the purchase (postage etc).
9. Can Joe put the product directly in the basket?
10. Can Joe continue shopping or go directly to check out as she wishes?
11. Is the check-out system really simple to use? If you have a system that shows Joe how many steps there are and where she is in the process, she is likely to feel more comfortable and is therefore much more likely to buy.
12. Can Joe have her basket beside her in full view all the time?
13. Can she change items at all times (deleting or changing quantities)?

Trust

Building trust is not that difficult. Deciding that you will fun an ethical and efficient home business will give you just the start-up impetus you need. There are x specific areas you can build and deepen the trust between you and your customer. These are guarantees, clarity and reliability.

Guarantees

Guarantees make your customers comfortable. Who do you trust the most? The site you stumbled across on the internet with no personal information and no contact details, or your best friend?

Stupid question huh? Well, everyone on the internet feels the same as you. So how do you go about creating that 'best friend' feeling quickly?

Give your customers exactly what they want to feel comfortable as quickly as possible.

For example on our online businesses we have a 100%, no quibble cash back guarantee. Our customers do not have to give a reason for returning the product. This means that they feel comfortable about ordering the products from the start – they know they will not be lumped with something they bought by mistake.

So has this policy cost us a fortune? No, because when we started our business online, we kept that 100% guarantee in mind every time we created and marketed products. We worked really hard at matching our marketing to our products and the products to our market. Result? Very few returns.

Confidentiality Counts

Fraud frightens people. Remember Joe? Before she puts anything about herself into the forms on a website, she wants a good, clear privacy/ confidentiality policy and statement that she can link to from every page on your website that reassures her.

But her brother Chris can't be bothered to read all that legal stuff no matter how clear it is. For people like Chris, wherever you ask for information from your customers, keep two points in mind:

• Wherever you ask for information include a short statement clarifying your attitude to privacy. For example:
• "We HATE spam and we promise NEVER to pass your details on to anyone else."
•  Ask for the absolute minimum of information. If you only need an email address, don’t ask for shoe size and marital status.

Clarity Counts

It is not just her personal information Joe is worried about. She is very concerned that her financial details may be lost or stolen. How can you persuade her she is safe?

• Show and Tell. Tell her she is secure and tell her how and why. Mention your SSL encryption and show her the little closed padlock in the browser proves it is safe. Flash the names and certification of whoever takes your payments.
• It could be a good idea to put a whole page on your site describing why it is safe to shop on your site for people who are nervous.
• This could include a description of your purchase, order and despatch process to increase the feeling of security for your customers.
• Point out any safety measures involving storage of her details and how her order is collated and sent out.
• If you can get your site tested and certificated by an independent body, do it and point this fact out to your visitors.

Reliability

Be the Small Business That Does What it Says on the Tin

If you promise to send stuff in 2 days, send it in one. If you promise 100% cash back guarantees, honour them quickly and gracefully.

All of us have had to battle with an anonymous on-line organisation to get our money back when their products were faulty. It often seems that the bigger the organisation, the worse they are at responding to complaints.

Which online business would you go back to? The one where you had to wear your fingers, ears and temper to stubs to get your cash back? Or the small business that sent a prompt response to your complaints saying they were really sorry you were disappointed; your refund is in the hands of a trusted 3rd party (e.g. PayPal) and you will receive it as soon as the unwanted product is retuned?

Very few of us running a home business can offer prices that are so low we can afford to ignore a customer's distress. Things will go wrong and you should have a process in place to deal with it. Just make sure the process leaves your customer feeling really good about you.

Turn the Tables

In fact, if you are really good at this you can grasp this opportunity to leave your customers feeling not just good about you, but indebted to you.

Let's say you follow the planning and put in place all the recommendations above:
You promised and gave full refunds.

• You responded quickly, politely and warmly.
• You apologised sincerely for the problem.
• And finally, you gave them a free gift to compensate.

 This does not mean giving something that costs you money. After all, you are a small business online, and you can’t afford that.

You could give something like an e-book or report either on the subject of their purchase or on something everyone is interested in.

For example, I have created a report on using the internet safely and generally keeping yourself secure in the digital universe. A report like this would be of interest to anyone using the internet, and could be used as the free gift you give your disappointed customer.

You are more than welcome to download the internet security report here (email and name) and to use it in the way I described as long as you leave accreditation details in it.

You have now given you customer more than they gave you. Research shows that all over the world, when people feel they owe someone, it makes them feel uncomfortable and they try to repay that 'debt' somehow.

You can offer them ways to help them do so and thereby feel better about themselves.

• Include links to your e business in all your communications with those customers so that they can go back easily and perhaps buy something else.
• Give them the opportunity (with links) to tell others what they think of you on your endorsement page or on any social networking site you belong to.
• Ask them if they want your e-zine or updates on your products.
• Ask if any of their friends would be interested in hearing about your products.

In Conclusion

Being an online business means your reputation is even more important to you than if you had an offline business. Pay attention to detail, design a great site and keep your mind on your customer.

Ever Onwards and Upwards

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.

Is It Easier to Start a Small Business Online and Succeed Than it Used to Be?

A few years ago the answer to that question might have been no!  But things are changing and changing fast.

According to recent research done by Forrester Research which compared the results of 2009 with those of 2008:

• 42% of retailers increased their visitor to order conversion rate in the first half of the year.
• In 2008 web sales grew 18% compared to 2007.
• 50% of online retailers surveyed during the first half of 2009 were optimistic about sales over the next 12 months.
• A massive 87% of online retailers said their ecommerce operation was profitable last year.

Online Businesses can be profitable - in the right niche

Find the Right Niche to Make Money Online

Anyone can make any amount of money they chose online, as long as they chose the right niche.

What is a Niche?

A niche is a tiny, usually specialised corner of a market.  For example, there is a market for Jewellery. Within that there are markets for precious jewellery and costume jewellery. There are markets for Celtic, Indian and Chinese jewellery to name a tiny few.

Let's go with Celtic jewellery. You could say the market was split into types of trinket (necklaces, bracelets etc). You could break the market up by what the jewellery was made of (gold, silver, semi-precious metals, plastic etc). You could break the market up by colour – blue, gold, red etc. There are as many ways to break markets up as there are features to the jewellery.

You might find that there are enough people interested in blue, plastic Celtic jewellery. If this just happens to be your passion, and there are not too many competitors – you have found the perfect niche, and have taken a great step along the path of making money online.

Find out what markets are considered to be hot then send for our step by step how to choose the perfect niche for you by sending for our free introductory course on Affiliate Marketing.


Why Should I Go for a Small Niche?

The great thing about the internet is that you can reach a huge market. The worst thing about the internet is the huge range of competitors you are exposed to.

Focusing on a small niche minimizes the competition (if you chose the niche well) and actually makes it easier to reach out to your potential customers.

How Does A Small Niche Make Reaching Customers Easier?

People searching on the web have a good idea what they want and they use words to find it. “Green cow” might be their Google entry; “vacation in Ethiopia” might echo round Yahoo’s database.

It is this use of words that will help us find the perfect niche.

Slicing up the pie

Take the examples above. You might have decided that you want to sell cows or vacations. But if you just head for those markets, you will find it is very crowded. (20,000,000 results for cows and 56,000000 for vacation on Google at the last search).

But if you used Google Adwords tools or Wordtracker, you would discover that people are quite specific in what they search for.

You might find for example, that there are 200 searches a day for ‘green cows’ and 500 for ‘vacation in Ethiopia’. Now we are beginning to slice that pie up into manageable slices. And now you are beginning to see the outlines of a niche, a place you can make ‘all your own’ with a very definite group of potential customers and little competiton.

Finding your niche, understanding the people in it and giving them exactly what they want is one of the key secrets to making a success of starting a small business online.

Step by Step by Step

Again, if you want step by step instruction as to how to find your niche send for our introductory course in Affiliate Marketing.

Get Your Home Business Online With Great Organisation

Get the Small Business Online with Job Squaring

Yahoo….It worked. In previous blogs I talked about the new E-ntrepreneur marshalling bees. ‘It is therefore’, I stated somewhat pompously, ‘vital, when managing a business start up, to be organised, systematic and methodical’.

My trouble is, like a lot of you, I’m not.  Organised, systematic and methodical I mean. Not by nature anyway. So I have to be careful to make a habit of the things I think are useful when it comes to the planning to set up my internet business. But seriously, I think I have come up with a useful tip in terms of job squaring.

WOULD YOU RATHER START YOUR OWN ONLINE BUSINESS OR RIP YOUR FINGERNAILS OFF?

STARTING YOUR OWN SMALL BUSINESS IS HARD

“Start online business; rip my own fingernails off”

Do you remember that great advert where a little girl is asked by her sister “which do you prefer? Chips or Daddy”. This as a plate of luscious French fries is placed in front of her by her mother. Staring dreamily at the plate she intones “Chips, Daddy... chips, Daddy” as she tries to make this impossible choice.

This advert was funny and touching because it seemed like such a silly choice. Clearly she was a small, hungry girl who felt that she had to make the choice based on her feelings at that moment in time rather than on the long-term factors.

But perhaps the advert held a hidden truth. Perhaps the advert illustrated a truth about us that makes us all uncomfortable. Perhaps the vast majority of us would prefer to do anything rather than start our own business.  (And by the way, I did mean your artificial nails.... natch!)

Starting a New Online Business

If it is true that you can't teach an old dog new tricks I am in trouble.  Arthritic, smelly, fur falling out all over the place and four-legged I might not be, but transister radios were cool when I was a teenager.  Yup, I am that old - I can even vaguely remember the Beatles the first time round!

I am comfortable with the world wide web, I know how to use most of the programmes on my computer; I even know how to use all the apps on my mobile phone.  So I feel fairly comfortable with new technology.  But not with nechworking (a little word I came up with to describe the technology of online networking). 

Why am I bothering you might ask yourself.  I am bothering because I intend to plunge into the icy internet pool  and start a business online.