Introduction

There are many advantages to creating your own online business – but many people do so out of necessity. It’s an ideal business model for:

Stay-at-home parents with small children

Those with disabilities

Those whose lifelong careers have been made obsolete

Those who absolutely hate corporate life or 9-5 jobs

Those with isolation or transportation issues (e.g. you live 1,000 miles from anywhere

The “retired” who still need to supplement their income

Those recovering from traumatic life change

Anyone!

In other words, if you have an internet connection and an entrepreneurial spirit, you can create not just your own business, but your own economy – and aim as modestly or as high as you please.

“Are You an Entrepreneur?”

If you’ve been researching online business opportunities for any length of time at all, you may have heard this question asked more than once. Thousands of articles have been written over the years as to what makes a great entrepreneur. While it’s true that some people are born entrepreneurs to the point of money-making genius, most people are born somewhere in between. The range fluctuates all the way from enjoying modest success that just meets your needs with a simple system to manifesting an idea into a mega-million-dollar, multi-faceted business empire (Apple).

You can read articles on entrepreneurship. You can take quizzes like this one at Acton MBA. But here’s the truth: Anyone capable of even the smallest degree of creative thought and imagination can become a successful online entrepreneur. Not everyone will become a legend and make mega-millions… but every day, thousands of real people grow their online businesses into comfortable incomes that more than meet their needs.

Identifying your Money-Making Business Model

The real trick is to find the idea or business model that “clicks” with you and your personality. After that, learning the basics is something everyone can do. Finding the one business model that sets your soul on fire or makes the hours fly by is the only true path to real success.

Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses – An important part of finding your ideal business model: Identifying not only your likes and dislikes, but your strengths and weaknesses too.

Taking stock of yourself and your assets… Finding a business model you can “click” with… Identifying a niche that needs you…

This is all part of the first step – correctly identifying your money-making business.

The Importance of Having a Plan

How do you know if your business idea is the best one for you? Well, you don’t know. All you can do is work as hard as you can with the information and tools you have, and one of two things will happen: Either you will start making money and start getting feedback, good or bad, from your niche market… or nothing will happen and you’ll sit in a vacuum (or even lose money).

Don’t worry if the latter happens to you: It’s all part of the learning experience, something you can’t escape, no matter how much you want to shortcut things. (In fact, the more you skim over vital steps, the worse results you’ll reap!)

If there’s no feedback or you lose money, don’t assume you had a rubbish idea and rush on to the next one. Instead, think of your experience as an opportunity. (That’s what the most successful entrepreneurs always do!) Analyse your business model. Look for your mistakes. If you still love the business model and can see a profit in it, fix the mistakes and have patience – in universities and colleges, business students are routinely told it not to expect to break even in less than two years, when starting a business.[1]

But make no mistake – part of creating a successful business plan involves thorough and careful research.

This is the stage most people rush through when it’s the stage they should focus on the most intensely. The more specifically you can identify your exact target customer, the better success you’ll have, once you start.

And another area to plan: How are you going to reach and communicate with your idea customer or client? This shouldn’t occur in a haphazard, impulsive ways. It should be carefully thought out beforehand, spaced at regular intervals finely tuned to your customer’s progression through your offerings. It doesn’t matter what your business model is: Plan to reach your target client in multiple ways.

And do your homework.

This involves:

1. Researching your niche, your niche customers and their habits

2. Researching rules and regulations affecting your specific business model

3. Researching the tools and resources you’ll need, expenses you can’t avoid and skills you must learn

Outsourcing: The Successful Entrepreneur’s Biggest Secret – Remember also that the most successful entrepreneurs don’t do everything themselves. They outsource, gathering teams of specialised contractors or employees to take care of certain areas – so even if you must do everything yourself initially (and there is a lot to be said for starting out simply) plan to outsource regularly further down.

What can you most successfully outsource? Any task that you:

Find yourself struggling with

Find yourself putting off

Lose hours of time in performing

Do not directly generate money with

Online Business Models that Work

The beauty with working online: You can start simply and grow your business to just the size you want.

Keeping it simple doesn’t always mean your profits will be correspondingly small. In fact, some of the most successful entrepreneurs have made the most money by focusing on one simple idea and mastering it all the way to the top.

Let’s look at five online business models proven to work

1.Affiliate Marketer – This model is not as easy as some might have you think. You won’t be generating thousands within a week or two of setting up: More people get quite excited when they make their first sixteen dollars in one month than those making their first thousand. You must enjoy it and have an affinity for it – and if you do, this may be the ideal model for you.

An affiliate marketer quite simply promotes other peoples’ products and receives a commission.

There are many ways to do this:

Niche blogging
Review blogging
Displaying ads and banners on a niche-specific website
Running a course and promoting products your participants will need

And sometimes affiliate marketers do all the above! You don’t have to be an expert in your niche to be an affiliate marketer – though do expect to become one! But it helps if you already have expert status or are well-known in your chosen subject

2.Virtual Assistant – You’ve heard the saying “you can never be too rich or too thin”. Well, it’s the same with VAs: There can never be too many good ones. And when a “good” one does hit the scene, she is snapped up quickly by clients.

§Your best bet as a VA is to specialize. Don’t try to be all things to all clients[2] – that’s a one-way ticket to becoming burnt-out: Instead, focus on one area you love and are talented in – and focus all your marketing towards people who need that service.

Popular areas VAs are always needed in and often specialize in. (Make one your specialty, if it resonates with you):

Project management
Social media management
Office management
Article marketing (can include copywriting)
Audio services

Video services
Transcription services
Formatting HTML and web pages
WordPress maintenance
Bookkeeping and invoicing
Testing and tracking
Shopping cart management
Autoresponder management
Customer Service and support

3. Copywriter --There is a high demand for reliable copywriters. Notice the adjective “reliable”, rather than adjectives such as “top-notch” or “hot” or “fabulous”. Learning copywriting is a simply-acquired skill – but not everyone can do it. A love of writing helps (and sometimes hinders). But if a marketer or corporation finds a copywriter who can complete assignments consistently and on time, they are like gold. In fact, you may find yourself turning work away.

Copywriters should also specialise – but if you want to provide complete copywriting services, plan to outsource the types of content you don’t like writing; or find more difficult to finish. And plan to add passive streams of income too. (For example, writing an eBook series and selling it on Amazon.)

Areas copywriters can choose to specialise in:

Articles and blog posts (keyword-optimized)

Sales letters

Web copy

Ad writing

Direct response copy

Information products (eBooks and reports)

A copywriter who makes serious money for her clients can command a high rate of pay in the thousands – but for those just getting started, there is always a demand for articles and blog posts. Expect to be paid anywhere in the range of $10-25 per 500- word piece.

4.Coach – One of the most potentially lucrative online business models is that of coaching. You can blossom into coaching from any of the previous four business models we’ve looked at – and this is the step that takes these models from the “job” range into the “own personal online economy” range – or you can become a coach straight away, if that’s what you’d like to do.

There are many types of coaches:

Business Coach
Lifestyle Coach
Fitness Coach
Content Coach
Skills Coach
Accountability Coach
Spiritual Coach
Financial Coach

And many more.

An example of a content coach would be a copywriting coach. An example of a skills coach would be someone who coaches you specifically in handling AutoCAD or WordPress.

You need three things to set yourself up credibly as a coach:

Strong background in your coaching area
Expert status and reputation in your coaching area (it helps to be well-known)
Credentials

You can get away with becoming a coach without credentials, but unless coaching training has been part of your previous work history, it’s well worth your while to become certified in your area. Not only will it add to your credibility and allow you to charge competitive rates, you’ll learn priceless information that will help you please and retain clients.

5.eStore Owner – You can turn your hobby into an online business – and there are several ways to do this. You can:

Create physical products and use Etsy.com or a Shopping Cart to display your catalogue, shipping them directly from your location
Use a product fulfilment company such as Café press to create the products for you (using your designs) – and ship them directly
Find products, create a catalogue using a shopping cart and have the items drop-shipped directly from the manufacturer

A retail background – especially behind the scenes – would make this an ideal fit for you.

Taking It to the Next Level

The ideal way to create a viable, strong online economy for yourself lies in:

Careful research

Building a solid reputation

Employing good promotion techniques

Creating a community around your brand

Becoming the “go-to” person for your niche

Knowing how to get the best mileage out of products you create (E.G. creating five products out of one work session)

Adding streams of passive income that can work for you, while you engage directly with customers or clients

Working smarter not harder can increase your success considerably. If you sell any type of product of all that is your own, consider adding an affiliate program to your online business and let others make money for you. You are already the owner of your own company, when you create your ideal career online: Don’t stay trapped in an hourly rate, trading money for time. Make your time do triple duty and more. Start out simply – but if you want to make more than a nice little supplement, plan to end up expanding your business so you can reap the income you want to create.

You can, if you’re cash-strapped, do it with little to no start up and investment – though you should realistically budget about forty dollars a month for basic online necessities such as your web hosting and an Autoresponder. (You will find that most services are charged in $ as they have an international client base).

Working online also means minimal costs for equipment and overhead. You won’t have to pay rental for office space and when you work at home you can claim a portion of your premises (the area or room where you work, in square footage) on your Income Tax.

You can set the hours you prefer, working as little or as much as you like. You can prioritize your time, and create a balanced lifestyle – and take breaks when you need to, instead of when your company designates break times.

And you can let the cat out, the dog in (and bandage little Emily’s knee).

The main thing to keep in mind about creating your own online economy: You can custom-tailor it to your needs, preferences and lifestyle – and achieve your goal of earning exactly the amount you need… or more!

This is just a taster … imagine what more information you will gain, and the progress you will make when you sign up for the Start and Grow Your Own Business Course.

[1]Many do, so don’t let that discourage you.

[2] Unless that’s your specialty!

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