I know from personal experience that starting out anything new can be scary. My daughter, for example, was frightened to learn how to swim, and she'd much rather watch the same movies over and over than see something new. But often times, new experiences can enhance our lives and our businesses.
That's one reason I love teaching coaches and trainers how to become online entrepreneurs. Because the opportunities that exist online far exceed what you can do in your local community. But knowing the steps to get online can be daunting. What's involved? Where can you connect with the right prospects for your business? How can you be sure of success?
Any successful online venture involves a few essentials: driving traffic, building a list, and making sales. But before you can have of those activities in place, you need to have the basic framework for getting there. In this brief article, I'm going to show you the vital steps for getting your online business started the RIGHT way.
Step #1: Clearly define the goals for your online business activities
[Short on time: check out the video here]This one may sound obvious, but you'd be shocked how often I get clients coming to me asking for help running Facebook ads or want to get traffic to their website, but have no real plan in place for what's going to happen next.
Without clearly defining your goals, you can't lay out any sort of roadmap from start to finish. Because if you don't know where you want to take someone it's hard to know what the steps are to get there.
So before you do anything else it's vital to clearly define what your goals are. Do you want someone to sign-up for your email list? Do you want to get them to attend a live event or webinar? Do you want someone to read a blog post or watch a video? And after they take one of these steps, what comes next?
Do you see how defining a goal clearly can help you become more effective and efficient in your online business?
Step #2: Clearly define what your target market wants
[Short on time: check out the video here]There're two parts to this step. The first part is understanding your target market. A target market is a subset of the total population. This means that you cannot be selling or providing a product or service to everyone. If you try, your messages is going to suffer from being too broad, which makes it meaningless to just about everyone. But if you narrow in on a specific audience, with specific problems, you can be far more specific and compelling in the details you are communicating.
Once you've got an idea of who this target market is, you next need to understand what they “want.” Notice I didn't say “need.” Why is is more important to determine what they “want?” Because that's what they are going to respond to. At least initially. Once you've got their attention, you can educate them about what they “need.”
Step #3: Give your target market what they are asking for
[Short on time: check out the video here]Yup, obvious yet again!
Of course, you are knowledgable enough in your field of work to know that what a prospective client might be asking for isn't typically what they really need. But, just for a movement, think back to the previous step. Didn't we talk about how people focus on what they “want?” So if you know what they want, why on earth would you try to give them something they aren't looking for?
But all isn't lost, because once you get them to commit to investing either their time, attention, or money in the thing they “want,” that's when you let you expertise take over and start showing them the path to solving their underlying problem (i.e. what they need).
Bonus Step
If this all sounds a bit cerebral, and you'd like something more tangible, I've got just the thing to help you out. In practical terms, when it comes to an online business we want to get people's attention and connect with them first, using the principles described above. And then you need to use that framework to drive traffic, build a list, and sell stuff. But so many of us screw these simple things up. Luckily I've got something to help… I'd like to invite you to take the next step with your free instant access to my 3 Guides to Avoiding Online Business Mistakes.
So, if you're a aspiring online entrepreneur who wants to know how to drive super-targeted traffic, build a responsive email list correctly, and actually generate online income then my 3 Guides to Avoiding Online Business Mistakes will help shed light on what NOT to do, and help you to discover the RIGHT ways to get going. Grab it now.
