Building An Internet Business From The Ground Up....
By: John Skorczewski
Hello,
Good morning!
In Last Week's IssueI talked to you
about one of the most important aspects of successful Internet business. This week I want to talk about how
I build successful Internet businesses...
Before I start today, I want to apologize to you.
I realize that my articles have been a little sales pitchy lately (as several of you have *ahem* pointed out)...
So I'll try not to pitch any products for a while and give you nothing but solid articles.
Of course, selling products is sort of in my blood....so I hope you'll forgive me if I slip every now and then....but
I'll honestly try not to.
To that end, I sat staring out of my window last week trying to think of something that would be truly
useful to you. After many blank hours it finally hit me....
I'm going to write a series of articles that may run throughout the entire summer, dedicated completely
to teaching you my way of building an Internet business...step by step... in great detail.
I've built a couple dozen successful online ventures in the last 9-10 years and I always always always
follow the same basic game plan....or road map....
So I thought I would spend the next month or two explaining exactly what that road map is. Hopefully
you'll find it useful.
So let's dive right in!
The first step you must take is to determine what product you want to sell.
Never ever start a business (Internet or otherwise) because you have a good idea for a product or service.
Instead find a group of people that want something....find out what it is they want, and then simply give
it to them.
If you look at every business venture from that point of view, you can hardly go wrong.
What do I mean? Well, I see it all the time with my consulting clients. They come up with a great idea
for a product, spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to develop it, spend thousands of dollars building
a web site, then spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to begin marketing the product....
.....only to find out (after spending all that money) that people aren't interested in buying whatever product
they've developed.
Instead, before you spend a single penny to develop a product or build a web site...find a group of
people that have some need/want/problem that needs to be filled.....figure out a way to fill that need, and then
tell those people that you've got the answer to their problems!
Having a hard time visualizing this? Here's an example....
Back when the Internet was just starting out, people were building web sites but having lots of trouble
getting traffic to them. Search engines were springing up and people were using them to find
web sites.
I used to hang out at lots of marketing message boards back in those days, and everyone was grumbling
that they needed to get their web sites listed on all those new search engines, but they didn't know how
to do it or have the time to learn.
Opportunity!
So I built a little program that would automatically submit their web sites to all the popular search engines
quickly and easily.
I didn't have to spend a single penny on advertising....all I had to do was go back to those message boards
and let the people know what I had developed....
Orders poured in....immediately.
That software has morphed and grown over the last 5-10 years into our Submission-Spider
Search Engine Submission Software (And No, that's NOT a sales pitch for you to go buy my software!).
The point is, I listened to what people wanted at the time and then simply gave it to them.
So many people come to me and say that they just bought a shopping cart web site that is pre-stocked with
candle's and bath oils....or music CD's....or whatever other cookie cutter bunch of products that the site
"promises" that you'll easily be able to sell....and are having trouble making sales.
I always ask the same question.....what group of people told you they were interested in buying these products?
Nobody can ever answer that...they just assume since this is an "Internet Business" that it will be successful,
that people will simply want to buy whatever it is they're selling. Yes, we can sometimes make these sites successful...but
it's going to take *sooooo* much more work, *sooooo* much more ad dollars....and *soooo* much better copy
to do it....and there's no real guarantee that any of it will work!
So to sum up...step one to starting an Internet Business is to find a market, a group of people, that have a
problem/want/or need of some kind and find a way to fill that need.... don't spend a single penny until you
find a group of people that have a need that you can fill.
After you find a group of people that have a need.....figuring out how to fill that need, how to market the
ensuing product....becomes as easy as pie.
That's all for this week. See you next Monday!
John Skorczewski
(pronounced Score-Chess-Key)
Editor, WebPromotion-Weekly
http://www.WebPromotion-Weekly.com
Want to use this article in your own ezine or web site? You can...as long as you add this signature line
(including the links):
John Skorczewski is the publisher of WebPromotion-Weekly, a free ezine about Internet Marketing,
Promotion, Advertising, And Search Engine Submission as well as the creator of the popular Web Site Promotion software,
the Submission-Spider
