Starting a business in today’s world doesn’t have to come from the invention of some new gadget or the creation of some social media platform.
In fact a lot of businesses that are popping up these days are small businesses of 1-5 people, that provide a unique feature or a unique selling point (USP) of a product or service that consumers want.
Gone are the days when you needed to have a professional completed business plan, an extensive amount of borrowed business capital to get started and after your business is up and running, It might take a year or two to break-even and make a profit.
In recent times, we have seen how a few block and mortar stores have lost revenue because of the global pandemic, while online business have grown exponentially.
According to the United Nations Website “As lockdowns became the new normal, businesses and consumers increasingly “went digital”, providing and purchasing more goods and services online, raising e-commerce’s share of global retail trade from 14% in 2019 to about 17% in 2020”.
There is so much demand for online businesses nowadays, so it's a great opportunity for anyone to get started.
In the remainder of this article I will show you the "5 proven steps for developing a profitable online business."
Step 1: Brainstorm 3 to 5 Business Ideas
For this step think about products or services that you are:
. Your Passion could be something like “survivalist” . When you are passionate about something, you tend to share your enthusiasm and knowledge with anyone who will listen.
If you are in a passion based market your prospects will appreciate your knowledge and this will help you to build a bond which includes Know, Like and Trust (KLT).
Customers buy from people who they trust and this will give you the ability to sell a product or service to your prospects.
Another business idea could be Hobby or Entertainment related . One example of a hobby niche could be something like “Building a Chicken Coop” or any other DIY type project.
There are lots of hobbies with avid fans who are willing to spend money on things that they love. Your job as a business owner is to find these people and sell them what they want.
Sometimes a business Opportunity occurs when you can identify a potential gap in a market. It may be something very simple like “ a better mousetrap” or the potential of improving someone else's product or service that you are quite familiar with.
If you are able to provide more value than your competitor you will make sales.
A Cause Based Business could be a motivating factor for developing your product or service. One example of cause based business could be something like “personal development” or “self improvement” .
Consumers love to associate themselves with a group, no one wants to have the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO), so if you are able to locate people with similar affinity to your cause they will be willing to spend any amount of money to be a part of your network.
Now that you have brainstormed a couple business ideas, your next step is to Test the Market Profitability.
Step 2: Test The Market For Profitability
You want to ask yourself , “ Are there enough buyers in my market” ? “Will people pay me for my product or service” ? “ Can I make a profitable business in this market” ? “Is there any potential for growth” ?
A quick way of determining if a market is profitable is to check Amazon or Google to see what people are buying.
Amazon has a list of Best Sellers in all sorts of categories. If your market has a similar product or service on Amazon best seller list then you can create a profitable online business in this market.
Google Shopping and Google Ads show paid Ads of products and services of business owners and advertisers. An advertiser will only continue to pay for Google Ads if the business is profitable.
If you are seeing Ads in your market, then that's a sign that your market is profitable.
Step 3: Select One Of The Markets From The Idea and Profitability Step
This step is just to select one of the 5 markets from the above 2 steps to focus on. You can always select a market that you are passionate about that also produces a good revenue potential.
It’s easier to communicate with an audience when you are an expert in the market.
Step 4: Research Competitors and Opportunities In the Market
Now that you have chosen your market, it’s time to do some competitor research.
You have completed some of this competitor research in Step 2 using Google and Amazon. However you want to go a bit deeper to find out who your competitors are and what they are selling.
Is it a physical product or an ebook? What does their sales funnel look like? Is it a regular web page or an ecommerce site?
Another important metric is to look at the reviews of your competitors. What people like or what they don’t like about the product?
Amazon has 5 rating reviews for all products other business owners have listed on their website.
Reading through a few of these reviews will give you an idea of what you can improve on if you are to create a similar product.
Another tool you can use for research is answerthepublic. This tool shows you all the questions people are asking in a given market.
This gives you an opportunity to create an ebook to answer common questions and provide solutions for your audience in your market.
Step 5: Create An Online Presence For Your Business
The Last step is one of the most critical steps. You need to have an online presence so your prospect can find you.
You need a tool that allows you to build a webpage or an ecommerce store as well as an email marketing software so you can communicate with your prospects.
There are several solutions out there, but I recommend using an all in one platform like groove that gives you all the tools and training that you need to build your profitable online business.
Go Here to Get Access to a Groove Account
Below is a Walkthrough of Groove and how you can use it to build your web page.
Jamie M. is an author at A1MarketingTools.com that provides guides and tutorials on various online marketing tools for entrepreneurs and business owners.