The Right Way to Start Your Online Business

This is the first in a series of articles on How to Successfully Begin and Operate an Internet Business. This article is primarily about the business challenges particular to an online business opportunity. Some things are unique about online businesses. So we'll focus on those things, and not so much on all the issues and steps to start an offline business.

Your Key Points to Remember:

• The internet business sphere has both extreme advantages and disadvantages compared to the non-internet business world.
• Think about a shopkeeper. He greets people who come into his store, and he creates relationships with his customers. But if you have an online business you never meet your patrons. So you don't have a chance to establish relationships face to face.
• Instead it's about what shows up on customers' computer screens. It's about the words, the graphics, the music, the videos on the customer's computer screen. It's about optimizing the customer's online experience.So you have to think about your customer's "online experience" and how to make your customers feel good. They have to feel comfortable, to like you, and trust you. You must do this on a computer, not in person.
• What business will you be in? This is what you have to figure out. If you have NOT figured out what business to be in, you shouldn't waste your time and money on starting up an internet business.
• Deciding what business to enter can be much easier for offline businesses. If you're in a town with two bookstores, you won't want to start another bookstore. If that town has 10 dentists you don't want to start a dentistry office there. If that town doesn't have a pharmacy, then that's a good business to start there.
• Keep in mind that the internet puts you in direct contact with internet users throughout the world. Therefore it's conceivable that every internet user in the world is one of your potential customers.
• This doesn't mean you have to study Chinese or Hindi or Arabic or even Spanish. It means you have to think in a broader context.

When starting an internet-based business you should really think in larger terms. You should think about the entire world and the potential that gives your business. You're better off if you think outside of all the boxes you've ever been in. You need to think in new ways about how a world-wide business is possible and can open up new opportunities for your business. The next article in this series will explore how to find not just the best type of business, but the best business for YOU.

Leo J. Vidal, JD, MA, CPA is a former Regional Director with the CPA firm Deloitte & Touche and has been a business consultant for 27 years. If you have or are just starting an internet business, to learn secrets that most people will never learn about Making Money Online visit Leo's Online Business Success resource center at http://www.myinternetcashathome.com and receive over $1,000 of free information and services.

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