Monday, August 31, 2009

3 Internet Business Principles

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Doing business on the internet successfully is similar in many ways to doing business the old fashioned way. Many of the principles that make brick & mortar businesses successful help to create winners on the internet each day when it comes to new businesses turning a profit.

Spending a large amount of time the past four years building my business by working with other successful businesses online, some patterns of success start to emerge. Some trends start to seem evident to me, the businesses that seem to work are almost destined to, and the ones that flop, for the most part, seem that way from the start as well. Here are 3 quick and easy tips to avoiding failure when creating virtually any business online.

Sell Something Unique 

In the industry this is called the unique selling proposition, or USP for short, but to you it should be marching order number 1. Selling something unique is no longer  recommended, it's a must if you want to succeed online with a limited budget. Whatever you sell, it can be similar to other products or services online today, but it should answer that critical question, what makes your offer better than any other similar offer?

Sell Something People Already Want 

Find a crush of demand, and put your product or service front and center. It's as simple as that. If everyone is buying a Kindle e-book reader, sell them leather cases. If everyone is buying cheap sweaters for fall, then sell them the cheapest most comfortable sweaters you can find. By creating a business to meet an already salivating base of hungry customers, your chances of success skyrocket.

Marketing is Everything 

You could have the best product or service in the world, but if nobody knows about it, you're doomed to fail. Countless businesses ignore marketing, or worse yet, think they can get by on word of mouth alone to make enough money to stay afloat. Don't be fooled, behind 99% of the profitable companies on the internet there is a solid marketing plan, trust me, we created a lot of them. Stay savvy on SEO, social media marketing techniques, and anything Google does for small business and you'll be a step ahead of the game.

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