Structuring Your Online Business Plan

BUSINESS PLAN

In order to have a viable online business, it is not simply specializing in one job and seeking client work based on that, as that does nothing to leverage the advantages of the internet as a communication medium, since you can seek and find that very kind of work with the telephone, knocking on doors, or getting contact through friends or family, it does not make a difference if you do it with an email or a phone call.

In order to leverage the power of the internet, a trend which is growing for good reason is entrepreneurship where you can run your own business online, but it requires you to put on more than one hat, whether or not you are starting solo or are already part of a team. I have broken it down into three main fields each with their own system of initiatives and routines you will need to schedule into your week where you can track your progress to motivate you while scheduling for times to study and learn from those that motivate you.

The following is a description and suggested processes for each one of those fields along with different considerations, issues, challenges and opportunities for growth found through this business development process. In terms of the cash flow, that will be based on a combination of basic logic and experience gained through trial and error, consistent study and willingness to improve no matter how hard you fail or how great you succeed.

BUILD AN AUDIENCE

Although you will come to learn, if you have not already that positive visualization, hard work in a focused and strategic path towards consistent growth will allow you to be the maker of your own destiny, be in control of your own success and be the master of your own ultimate process, not an end result which should not be the goal. Having a higher purpose to serve others as much as your own dream role in a harmonious way requires you to be a master at war, but before any of the above can even start, you are going to need an audience.

Online there are many ways to build an audience from fan pages on facebook, email newsletter forms and systems, gaining followers on Twitter or instagram as well as through crowd funding, marketing campaigns and promotional products. I personally am most experienced in building audiences on Twitter which I’ve connected to my LinkedIn account for a long time, but now connect to the Production Hackers blog. I will go through what I’ve learned and continue to implement to grow and interact with my Twitter audience as a channel as well as what I’ve learned about other social media network growth along with platforms like Youtube.

DEVELOP A PRODUCT

The number one way to make money online is also the number one way to make money anywhere else: sales. There are no sales without products. This may be the bread and butter to your business and will allow you to potentially create, maintain and increase a passive income. A key factor in the wealth of many of the richest business owners and investors is this ability to grow a passive income, to the point of “making money in your sleep.” That is why it is integral for you to be consistently completing high quality products which have real value to the audiences you’ve been growing and building your relationships with.

It’s not only important that you develop these products to completion on the regular but that you ensure they are setup in some kind of working market allowing as much access to your products as possible with multiple options for streams of income including free products to establish your credibility, paid products to test out market demand, different levels of subscription or membership, as well as in-app purchases that do not affect the core experience. By implementing one, some or all of these forms of accessibility to your audiences, you open up multiple ways of entry for the potential adopters among your base while increasing the streams of income and potential for revenue development. Without a way to buy your product, the products themselves may just be unnoticed wasted efforts.

MARKETING CAMPAIGN

You have your audience, you have your product with ways to access, subscribe or buy, but how is anyone in that audience going to trust your brand of products? They may trust you as a blogger or social media personality, even an advisor from your field of expertise, but a book in that field, though may seem logical, it is still your first time as a published book author when you are starting out. Same goes with products. You have to have your audiences convert their trust for you as an online brand or personality to an online author, developer and legitimate product source. To do this you are going to consistently at some level need to be running a marketing campaign layered overtop of consistent media network output.

The basis of how marketing is supposed to work is not only in developing a base such as in the first field, but growing a network of people who not only interested in supporting you as buyers, fans or consumers but that ae willing to support you with their time, effort, thought and work. You need to develop relationships which can eventually turn into team members and vital forces in energizing the demand for not only your products and services but the incentive for people to get involved as committed members of your movement. This allows for a butterfly effect and grassroots growth enabling it to be your launch pads for fundraising through an email or crowd funding campaign as well as accelerate momentum on promotional campaigns and increase the overall amount and speed of growth of your subscription or membership services.

BONUS: COMPETE WITH YOURSELF

Now that you have gone over the basis for creating a business foundation; grounded in real people who can support or work for you, real value your brand can provide, as well as a recognized reputation people can continue to learn about and rely on; you can enhance this system by leveraging this groundwork to amplify your productivity, motivation and reach. This is achieved by competing with yourself. Not only should you compete with yourself in terms of improving your knowledge, understanding, practice, experience, judgment and efficiency, but by literally having your own products and methods compete with each other. Also by having your different media output compete with each other along with your different channels for audience growth face off to generate mutual growth and a greater overall driving force to your business.

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