Your Business Plan & Commitment

To proceed further in creating your online business you need to have a plan of action or a Business Plan to achieve your goals. A business without a plan is like wandering blindly and relaying on luck. So planning is essential for starting a business. While making a Business Plan you need to answer the following questions:

• Name of your online business.
• Vision of your online business.
• Who is your Target Market?
• What will you be selling to your Target Market?
• What makes your business different from your competition?
• Your Marketing Strategy.

Once you have pen down the answers of the above questions, then you will need to commit to it.

I am sure that by now you must be inspired and very excited about starting your new online business, but excitement is not enough to keep going. You need commitment and commitment is a choice.

So if you want your business to be successful, then you should commit to your vision. Write down your commitment on a paper, sign it and date it. This way whenever you start loosing your inspiration and excitement you can go and read your signed commitment, to get on track again.

Action Plan

• Pen down your Business Plan.
• Commit to you vision.

Until the next tip, take care.

outsource2me

Finding Your Niche

A “Niche” is defined as a "situation or activity specially suited to a person’s interest, abilities, or nature". (American Heritage Dictionary 4^th edition)

Knowing that we want to start a business is not enough; the important thing is knowing what kind of business to start.

Your online business should be something you are ‘passionate’ about, it should be something which interests you or suits you nature. Working for something you are passionate about will yield great results. If you are passionate about something your commitment towards it will be very high. Your passion should dictate your ‘niche’.

Having a specific knowledge/skill or your work experience can also be your niche. I recommend grabbing a pen and a paper and start jotting down atleast twenty things which you are passionate about or have knowledge about.

While brainstorming for new ideas for your future online business, keep in mind that a successful business is the one which is providing a product or service that others will actually buy or pay for. Satisfy the need of your target market, and your target market will keep your business profitable.

Beware that an idea may seem promising, and destined to make you rich, but the real test will only come when you actually launch your online business. So what ever the idea/niche may be, it should be researched well before investing your time and money into it.

• Some of the questions which need to be asked:
• How big is the niche?
• How competitive is the niche?
• How profitable is the niche?

Google your idea/niche (in quotes) and look for these things:

• How many results?
• What kind of sites are in top 10?
• Who is your competitor?

If the results are few, then your niche may be too vague. If it is too many, then you need to zoom in on a tighter niche.

Action Steps

Gain the knowledge of your niche and what the market wants. There are so many online business ideas to choose from, so be sure to pick one that you’ll enjoy running and that will keep you motivated.

As always feel free to ask question or leave your comments below. 

Until next time take care!

outsource2me

Start an Online Business

Thousands of people all over the world are making money on the Internet having a full time online business, or as part time worker to make extra income.

The opportunity to work at home part time and make extra money online or to build a full blown home based online business is wide open for everybody nowadays.

Online business is not a job; it is a full time commitment. Not any one can successfully run an online business. It takes a lot of hard work, patience, and commitment to build an online business.

The cost of an online business varies from zero to millions. The more time you devote the better chances of success. No one can make money without putting in long hours and hard work.

If you want to run an online business or make extra money online then there are 15 ways to do it:

1. Ebay	2.Info Products	3.Affiliate Marketing
4. Work from home jobs.	5. Adsense	6.MLM
7.Couching/Counsulting	8.Service site	9. Web hosting
10.Membership site	11.Social Network site	12. Freelancer
13. Paid Blogger	14. Domainer	15. Online Trading

• As stated there are bunch of ways to make money online, but the BIG questions is how to differentiate and separate the real opportunities from the scams. There are a lot of scams out there, so you need to be on your guard.
• Never pay any one a fee in exchange for the promise of a job.
• Don’t buy any business opportunities, until you have done your home work. Research can eliminate buyer’s remorse. To find out more about scams and business opportunities visit 

 

Resources required for an Online Business:

• A Computer.
• Doesn’t need to be the latest and greatest
• Recommend Windows XP or newer
• Consider a laptop
• An Internet Connection.
• Broadband
• Online Personal Finance software.
• Here are some choices to manage your personal finances and money you will be earning through your online business. Adaptu, Mint, MoneyStrands, IExpenseOnline.
• Free email programs for windows.
• There are many free email programs, and at least one perfect for you. Yahoo, Google, Hotmail
• Time tracking products.
• Using time-tracking software can help you get a handle on how and where your time goes. Plus most time-tracking software's have other useful features such as invoicing. You can check out these recommendations Paymo, Replicon, TrackMyHours & ManicTime.
• Photo editor.
• You will always need some kind of Photo-Editor to create and edit images like, PhotoScape, Pixia.
• Event Calendar
• If you would like a bit more organization in your business, then online calendars might be just the thing for you. Google Calendar, 30Boxes.
• VoIP software.
• Skype is the most popular voice communication service in the world.
• Network & computer security.
• You need tools to help you monitor and protect your computer and your network without emptying your wallet. AVG, Avast, Spam-Aid.
• Office Productivity tools.
• Zoho, ThinkFree Office.
• Screen Capture tool.
• Capturing screen shots in Windows. Greenshot, SnagIt
• Zip Program
• WinZip.

There are a few other things that you’ll need which will be specifically covered in upcoming tips, so don’t worry about them for now

Action Steps:

Go through the list, and do as best as you can to get them. Do some research on your own and see what else is available on the net.

You don’t need to be a computer expert, but there are some things you’ll need to know.

You are welcome to post your questions and comments below.

See you next time.

Have a great day!

outsource2me

Outsource the work

Nowadays competition has grown so much among businesses that it has become difficult to hire permanent experts staff for different jobs separately, especially if you are a small businesses or a start-up.

Getting a start-up on its feet can require a lot of hard work and patience, juggling many tasks at one time can be an enormous burden on the entrepreneur. To resolve this issue a start-up or a small business can always outsource the specialized tasks to outsiders called Freelancers.

Freelancers are people who are self-employed and work independently and sell their specialized services without any long term commitment. Freelancers are paid on project basis either per hour, per call, per word, or in lum sum basis. A freelancer takes direction from its clients on what the end product should be or how the task should be performed.

Freelancing is not an option, but has become a necessity for start-ups and small businesses to stay competitive. There is cost saving and enormous benefits for tapping into the talent pool of freelancers. By outsourcing your tasks to a freelancer, a business saves time and money. For example, to launch a start-up specialized skills are required which may be beyond the capabilities of either the staff or the entrepreneur him/her self like launching a website, writing a business plan, setting up the social network on internet like facebook, linkedin, etc,. Hiring a freelancer with specialized skills for specific tasks will save a lot of time and money. “Outsourcing is going to be the distinction for small business to stay competitive.” according to Lorri Rowlandson, president of Rowlandson Inc., an outsourcing advisory firm.

An entrepreneur may be jack-of-all-trades who can take any role, but if the task is very specialized, it may get done faster if outsourced to a freelancer who knows the job, and this will give a chance for the entrepreneur to better spend time on day-to-day tasks. There is a lot of stress on entrepreneurs to get so many things done and time is wasted if you are teaching yourself how to do things, where as time is critical for small businesses.

Expert freelancers can be hired from online marketplaces setup to bring freelancers and the clients at one place. Employers can hire freelancers to do work in areas such as software development, content writing, data entry, designing logo and stationary, sales and marketing, and accounting & legal services. Projects can be successfully outsourced through freelancer.com, Elance.com, oDesk.com and vWorker.com, to name a few.  When using these marketplaces an employer can limit the risk of security when confidential company information is being exchanged. Freelancers can be hired by going through their portfolios and user reviews.

While outsourcing lines of communication should be open, the entrepreneur should be straightforward and be specific when assigning tasks, avoiding using phrases which are informal or acronyms. Make sure to leverage all kinds of communication tools like email or Skype. Payments can be made through PayPal or Western Union.

All in all outsourcing can be an effective way to do business and succeed, where the only limit to what can be outsourced is your own imagination.