Everyone is always after YOUR money – to get it they will tell you all the things they think you want to hear.
People trying to get you to start an online business are no different – they want you to buy their domain and hosting service, their systems, software and anything else you need to “get started and start earning money today!”
The truth though is sometimes quite different and in this post I will cover the pros and cons of starting an online business.
Grab a coffee and pencil and paper.
Table of Contents
Why Start an Online Business – Pros
First the good news .
What everyone says about the good stuff is mostly true.
Having an online business does:
- Not need any special technical skills to get started. Yes you will need a website and you will need to populate it with information.
The good news is twofold:
1) This scares a lot of competition away and
2) Website building has been refined and is today very easy – no coding skills are needed. Anyone can handle the technical side of things. - Allow you to work from home or anywhere else you choose – for example while traveling, on the beach or sitting in a coffee shop. All you need is a computer and an Internet connection.
- Provide you with the freedom to work your own hours – at night, an hour or two a day, over weekends or while waiting for an appointment. You work the hours that suit you and your lifestyle.
- Cost a great deal less than a traditional brick and mortar business. Overheads are minimal with no rental agreement or lease to sign, no insurance, no electricity costs, no cleaning costs, no staff problems to contend with and even less customer complaints etc.
You can literally run your business for almost free but please check with a local tax consultant for your particular region as to some things you may have to do. - Your business is open 24/7, 365 days a year. One of the greatest advantages of an online business is the customer reach. It’s limitless and wherever in the world there is an Internet Service your business is able to make money.
- Earnings really are limitless. The Internet has made it possible for anyone and everyone to shop from the comfort of their lounge.
Covid has, in many cases, made it compulsory!
The internet is booming and growing daily with news that the younger generation shop online as a preference. Statistics show that 73% of those aged 19-25 prefer online shopping than going to a traditional shop.
That’s an age demographic that will continue to shop and do business online for years to come.
Need proof that the Internet Online Sales Monster has just started – check out these stats. - Sell anything you want. On top of all these pros you can sell anything you want. With Affiliate Marketing, for example, you can piggy-back on Amazon and sell anyone of the over 5 million products they offer. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of their reputation as the most trusted online retailer in the world and share in their $470 BILLION of sales?
- There are literally thousands of ways to make money online and not all are hard work. Some are pretty easy and provide huge profits.
Which ones?
Maybe that can be an article for the future.
I could go on but you get the picture and are continually told how great the potential is – all true.
Now let’s look at the realities of starting an online business (aka the cons).
The Negatives of Starting an Online Business – Cons
Like I said everyone is after your money and only tell you the good stuff. Don’t hold it against them.
What they don’t tell you is how difficult it is to actually make sales – note I did not say how difficult it is to start an online business, that is the easy part.
Getting customers is the hard part.
- Every online business needs a website and a hosting company – these are basically the only real up-front, and ongoing, costs and can be obtained for free (although this is not an ideal option).
However, a website that no-one ever gets to visit is not going to bring in any customers. - The first negative is therefore a lack of customers.
When you start your online business you will have zero customers and that will probably continue for several months until you master the art of SEO or decide to throw money at advertising. - Why does it take so long to get traffic to your online business?
The answer lies in the very system we are trying to break into – The Internet!
There are currently over 252,000 new websites produced every day!
Google and other search engines have to consider how many of these new sites are serious and how many are “here today and gone tomorrow”.
Until they have worked out that a site is here to stay, and is providing useful information to their (Googles) customers, they won’t rank it.
It won’t show up in search engines results until the search engines consider the site a value to the end user. It is our job to prove that value and that takes time. - No traffic, no sales and no income can lead to negativity and ill-feelings.
Knowing this and having enough funds and belief in your product and niche to ride out this period of seemingly inactive production is essential. - Not fully Understanding your niche target market can result in endless and fruitless work.
You have to know your customers and put yourself in their shoes; learn to speak their language and address their fears and desires.
They’re looking for solutions – your job is to provide those solutions. - Selling instead of helping will kill your business even if you get ranked at #1 in the search engines.
People are so fearful of getting scammed (and who can blame them?) that they assume everything is a scam until proven otherwise.
If you can master the art of helping people they will trust you and automatically buy from you without you having to sell them anything. - Family and friends may think you are insane – okay I lie, they will think you are insane!
After a while you may even start thinking so yourself.
This is natural but if you know what you are doing, and how and why you are doing it, it is simply a matter of continuing “rewardless” (in the short term) until you start seeing positive results.
In the long term today’s work will pay you over and over for years to come. This is why online income is sometimes referred to (incorrectly in my opinion) as passive income. You have had to work really hard to get it so how can it be passive? - There’s a lot to learn all the time. The Internet is continually evolving and there are new algorithms thrown at us, new trends and new products continually making it a dynamic animal.
You will have to keep up with these if you want to continue to earn a seriously good income.
You’re building an Online Business and you should treat it as seriously as you would any other business.
I want to sum this up with:
- Be prepared for no income for at least the first 3 months after starting your online business.
- Don’t chuck your current job until your online income matches or exceeds the salary your are earning.
- Keep your family “in the loop” and onside, if possible involve them so that they can understand why things are happening yet appear not to be happening.
- Be prepared to learn a lot and work hard – especially until the first sales start coming in.
It does get easier – I promise.
If you’re still here let’s move on (nearly finish now – I promise).
How Do You Start an Online Business
I’ve covered this question quite comprehensively throughout my site
You may want to read this post – The first steps to starting an online business.
Essentially you need:
- To know what type of online business model you want – see next paragraph.
- A website and a hosting company.
- A niche or an idea that you know sells. Trying to reinvent the wheel online is really hard and it is best, easiest and safest to start with a tried and tested formula.
- To know exactly what you are in for – see paragraph above.
All that remains is .
Which Online Business is Best to Start
This will depend largely on your skills and lifestyle requirements – we are all different with different skills and different life experiences.
Let’s be honest here it makes a lot of sense to use a business model that matches your current skill set.
Read this post to see different online business models and corresponding skill set requirements.
My only advice here is to do tons of research and learn as much as possible before taking the plunge and committing financially.
In the online business environment knowledge, followed by massive action, really is everything.
And remember.
Google is King so play to their rules for guaranteed success.
Success goes something like this – please Google with your website, that contains helpful content, that attracts traffic (customers) looking for the solution you are offering and then having them act on your recommendations (sales).
Google wants you to succeed.
Weigh It All Up – Do the Pros Outweigh the Cons For You?
To sum up I want to end by saying if you can go into the online world with an open mind and the determination to succeed then you will.
But online marketing is not for everyone.
Some people like to be paid for the work they do as they complete it. That is quite normal we have bills to pay and are used to getting rewarded for our work once it is complete.
But that method pays you once and once only – to earn more you have to get up and repeat the exercise for each day you want to get paid.
The online world on the other hand pays you over and over for work done today or doesn’t pay you at all for today’s work.
For example this post you are reading will never pay me anything – I am okay with that. It is after all an information page with no sales attached.
It’s sole purpose is to please Google enough to rank it and then in turn help you make an informed decision.
I sincerely hope it has helped you.
On that basis I would love to read your thoughts in the comments section that follows so please drop me a line and I promise to get back to you as soon as possible.
And remember …
Keep trucking!