Do you have a system?
Today I want to talk about how you are working your online business. You see most people get into creating a business online because they have a job that doesn’t pay enough, an existing business that doesn’t pay enough or are out of work and need to make an income from somewhere.
The group that you happen to belong to will have dictated how you have approached the prospect of making money online. You will have come at it from a different starting point and this has an important impact on your progress.
You have a job that doesn’t pay enough
If we start with those that have a job that doesn’t pay enough then their lifestyle is one of going out to a place of work where they spend several hours working for someone else then coming home to spend time with their family, do the household duties that we all have and hopefully relaxing at some point, maybe watching some TV or enjoying a hobby.
So generally speaking for this group spending hours working for the boss is work and the rest of their time is in some measure what we could refer to as leisure. They work at work and do family stuff at home.
So what happens when they decide that the way to a better future is to start a home-based business built around the Internet? The office for their new business ends up in the corner of the living room or in a back bedroom at home – where they are not used to working. They work at work remember not at home.
Why is this important? It’s important because all too often the home-based business is approached like it’s a hobby, something to do a little bit of when there’s some spare time. It’s all too easy in this situation to react to things like demands from family members, friends and the constant stream of rich-quick results offers.
We are all conditioned as we grow up by circumstances and experiences around us and it’s very difficult to change that mindset without determined consistent effort.
You have a business that doesn’t pay enough
What about the business owner who’s business isn’t paying enough? Well his life is much the same except that now he’s the boss working for the company. His life is much like our first group – work at work and family stuff at home except that he also has business pressures that don’t get left at the office.
However, members of this group do have the benefit of being used to going out of the house to run a business, they have a business mindset and will be used to planning their activity. But if they choose to run their original business in their office and the new web business at home though, they have the same issues as our first group.
Having run a traditional business is no guarantee of success online. Rich Shefren’s career history is a good example. If you haven’t read any of Rich’s stuff, especially his Internet Business Manifesto, you should look him up. His main site is at www.strategicprofits.com.
That’s not an affiliate link although I am an affiliate. I consider myself very lucky to be coached by Rich and feel everybody needs his kind of help.
Anyway, way before Rich was successful online he was very successful offline, creating and selling several multi-million dollar businesses. After selling his last offline business, Rich decided to get started online. And guess what, he went through the same pain that most of us have. He got information overload, he got swamped by all of the work that seemed to be needed to get done. He worked longer and longer hours – sometimes all night. He started to feel like a failure, maybe his offline success was just luck, maybe he wasn’t that great at business after all. He was ready to give up.
Can you imagine, going from multi-million dollar business success to this. So how did he go from this to where he is now? Well we’ll cover that later, for now let’s look at the last group.
You are currently unemployed
Then we come to the unemployed group. They are likely to have the most difficulty of all of us because they have the constant pressure of how they are going to pay the bills. I’ve been in this situation so believe me I know what this sort of pressure is like and what it can do to you.
You become consumed by being broke, often you don’t sleep well, your mind is chattering away at you all the time and you are desperately seeking a way out. In this situation you are wide open for anything that remotely looks like it will get you out of the pain in the quickest time possible.
And the scam artists that seem to have flooded the Internet these days know that only too well. They don’t need to create good products anymore they just need a good copywriter to churn out one empty promise after another to become very rich at your expense. Don’t get me wrong it is possible to make money online, thousands of genuine people are everyday but not without effort and not overnight.
My last post about Dean Holland is a very good example.
Like our group with a job, this group are not normally conditioned to think of home as the place of work and have all of the same distractions. In fact, the pressure from family to get a job will be strong and will have to be taken into account.
The answer is … The same one for everybody, we need a plan and a different mindset. If you get to read what Rich has to say you’ll see that what took him from frustrated virtual failure online to where he is now and what will take you to success is a change of mindset. A change from Opportunity Seeker to Strategic Entrepreneur.
For each of our groups working their online business from home has contributed to an Opportunity Seeker mentality. When we change to a Strategic Entrepreneur, we plan our business and work our plan.
If you decide to become a niche marketer, you research some possible niches to go for, decide on ONE that you will start with, create a plan around how to develop your web marketing for that niche and work it until it’s making you money. Yes you might, and should build a list of possible niches for the future but you work on one at a time.
Part of that process will involve listing all of the activities that need to be undertaken to get your niche to that stage and which of those activities you are going to do and which ones, if you can afford it, you are going to outsource. If you can’t afford to outsource then what will you need to learn to do yourself to make it happen.
Remember, it may be possible to trade skills. You may have skills that someone with the skills you need could use and would be happy to do a deal.
Create a system
As you go through the process, document what you do and create a system from it. As you create your system think of what someone picking it up for the first time would need to be able to duplicate it -Think McDonalds.
I’m sure many of you will know that the creator of the McDonalds business was Ray Croc not the McDonald brothers. The secret to McDonalds success that Ray Croc brought to it was a system, something that could be duplicated by students in every corner of the world to produce exact copies of the burgers and fries no matter where they were.
And the secret to your strategic business is a system that you can slot people into and manage and grow.
Do you have a system?
I hope you enjoyed this look into building your online business. Leave me your comments, I want to hear from you so that I can provide more content that will really help you move forward.
Until next time,
Trevor
“Remember nothing happens until we take action”
