What are the differences between an online business and an offline business?
Suppose you are interested in starting a magazine offline, or a sports shop or a grocery store what are the steps you take?
The first thing you will decide is what kind of shop you should start.
What are the things that will help you decide this?
1. The interest of the people in the locality where you want to start the shop. What are they likely to buy?
2. Your own previous knowledge as well as interest. What kind of shop will you be able to run well?
3. The investment you would require to set up the shop and fill it with goods. How big or how small should the shop be?
Once you set up the shop what do you do? How do you make others know you have got a shop?
More or less the same kind of procedure you will have to go through to set up an online business.
A significant difference between the online and offline shop is:
You can start with $0 online.
You can get resources and help for free.
Can you ever think of setting up a business offline without previous investment?
Earn Online
Ok what are the ways to earn online? How do people earn online?
People sell products and services online to make money. If you want to make money online this is what should be your final goal, to sell products and services to others.
Keeping this vision in mind you have to start from scratch.
Today you do not have a product. You do not know what kind of service you can sell. You do not think anyone will buy from you.
So how do you start?
You work for people who have products and services to sell. You start earning as well as learn the skills of marketing.
You work with someone directly or indirectly.
Your blog or site provides an opporunity for others to sell their products through you.
For example, advertisers pay Google to display their ads on sites and blogs.
You have a blog that is indexed by Google. You have permission from Google to place Google Ads on your site.
When someone visits your site, they also find the information in the ad relevant to what they are looking for, they click on it and go to the advertisers site.
The advertiser pays Google and Google shares this money with you.
So indirectly you are working for these advertisers and helping them sell their products. In return you make money.
If you are clever, you would increase the sale for these advertisers by drawing people who are interested in that product to come to your site.
How do you do that?
By having relevant content that people with such interest are looking for.
For example, the advertisement is for golf clubs. This particular advertiser is selling golf clubs. They place an ad with Google through Google AdWords Program.
You have a site about golf. The content is very good to attract all golf lovers to your site.
Google places golf ads on your site.
Your readers come to your site, read your content and go directly to buy the golf clubs.
Because they clicked on the ad on your site, Google pays you.
Develop SkillsÂ
If you understand the whole thing properly, you will use this period of working for others in such a way that you develop your skills. In future these skills are going to help you sell your own products. May be you will start selling golf clubs later in your life.
Zero is a number which is nothing and everything. In India we have the concept of “Poornam” - complete, full, etc.
Remember when you are starting with $0 - it is not nothing - because your efforts are going to make this 0 come at the end of 10 or 100000000000.
Is there any difference in the appearance of the 0 in 10 and in 100000000000?
If you add 0 + 0 what will you get - Zero.
But if you put one extra 0 at the end of 100,000 what do you get? - 10,000,000
Some of your efforts result in 0 while some others get you millions.
How did that extra 0 get a special meaning and emphasis?
The way you approach life and any business will make or break the whole thing for you.
I have received emails from many who start with illegal activities of clicking on ads, scamming others or hacking sites.
What is the vision for these people? What do they want to achieve? What are the skills they are practicing to achieve those goals?
Fast forward, go ahead 5 or 10 years in life and look back at whatever you are starting today. How is the step you are taking today going to help you establish a successful business which will earn you millions of dollars?
Let us start…
Fill in these blanks:
10 years ahead I want to have a successful business selling ………….
To do that I will require approximately ……. amount of money and ……… skills.
Today I will start a blog on …….. topic. (This should match with what you wrote in the first blank)
I am going to develop the skills of ……………. through ……….., ………….., …………….
Finally..
1. Whether it is a job or business you will have to work. So do not quit your day job in the hope that you will make money without working.
2. Whether it is a job or business you need skills. In a business you pay others to do what you cannot do yourself. If you do not have the money to get things ready made you will have to work harder to learn and do it yourself.
3. Whether it is a job or business you need to have a vision for your life. You decide where you want to go, how you want to reach there and take the necessary steps. Temporary actions will yield temporary results.
4. If you do not have money to start with, develop your skills, work under a person whose business is similar to what you want to start. This will help in getting paid to work, developing the skills necessary for that business and learning the pit falls that you need to avoid.
5. Creativity costs you $0. If you do not have the money, you have to be more creative to come up with new ideas that can get you work, partners and great results.
