Where to Start?
That's the question
you may be asking yourself today as you venture into a new
partnership, a new marketing campaign, a new web site, starting
your list or any of the other new things you may be starting for
you online business.
Maybe you've started a similar project before so you have some
experience and you know what you're going to do. Maybe you've
never done this type of thing before so you have to learn how.
No matter what you're starting and no matter if you have
experience or not, the 7 things you must do first are:
- Decide what you're
going to start.
- Decide what the goal
of the project is.
- Make a plan on how to
reach your goal.
- Break each step of
your plan into smaller, doable steps.
- Learn what you must
do for each step of your plan.
- Learn how to do the
things necessary to implement your plan.
- Do it.
(Side note - If your
project is big like starting a business for a new targeted
market or writing an eBook, you should do some research first to
make sure the targeted market buys things online or the
information in your eBook is in demand.)
If your among the few
who are lucky enough to have the resources to pay others to do
some of the work then you may not have to learn how to do things
like create a website or write an article. But, if you're like
most online business people, then you're a do-it-yourselfer and
you must learn enough about every aspect of having an online
business to do everything.
This is a Big Task for those first getting started.
Remember when you first started your online business and you
weren't quite sure what to do?
You may have launched your first attempt of having an online
business by joining some affiliate programs and advertising them
in ezines. Maybe you created a site and filled it full of banner
ads promoting your products.
Did you have much success?
If you did then consider yourself lucky because you are in the
2% who didn't fail.
If you didn't have much success but continued learning and
trying then you are in that same 2%.
Starting your online business is like growing your online
business. You have to have a plan, you have to have a goal, you
have to learn and you have to start. If you do something wrong,
you have to learn from your mistakes and change something. If
you do something right, you remember how you did it so you can
repeat it when you start your next project.
Now I could repeat one of today's most common pieces of advice
and say that "not getting started is the biggest mistake" but I
won't. The reason I won't say it is because while not getting
started is a big mistake, not having a plan of action is just as
big.
Image going to visit a friend you haven't seen in awhile. Not
getting into the car won't get you there. But then, getting into
the car and driving around aimlessly because you don't know
where your friend lives won't get you there either.
No matter whether your an experienced online marketer or someone
just starting out. You must start with a plan.
--------------------Susan Carroll owner of http://www.friendswhocare.us has formed a global community of online business people through her weekly newsletter.
Susan recently finished a free report about adding automatic content to your website that search engines can see. It's available at:
http://www.friendswhocare.us/content.htm