How to Build a Business Online in 7 Steps

June 19, 2011 0 Comments

build a business online in 7 steps Over the next few weeks I am going to write several blog posts that will explain 7 steps you can take to build your business online using the internet. These posts will be relevant to you if you are the owner of a physical business and are looking to acquire more customers in the most cost effective way possible, or you are currently running an online business but are not getting as many customers as you would like or expected to get.

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As I continue to mentor many business people the one common factor I come across all the time is that business owners, like yourself, are always looking for more customers, and ways of finding them that won’t cost an arm and several legs! The good news for you is that the internet satisfies that criteria and what’s more, it is easier than you might think to find those customers for your business.

All it takes is 7 steps; the very same steps that I am going to describe in my upcoming posts over the next few weeks. I will be including some simple exercises you can do to get building your business using the power of the internet. Don’t be tempted to skip over them, you will get more value by completing the exercises at the appropriate times than just reading each post and saying to yourself “that’s interesting” and doing nothing about it! I have been there I know what it’s like not taking action.

So get yourself a drink (preferably non-alcoholic so you can focus on what you are about to read ), a pen and paper and be prepared to take notes as you learn How to Build Your Business Online in 7 Steps.

Enjoy.

Step 1: Research

Before you do anything you need to spend time doing some simple research. Don’t worry all of the tools you need are free and available online. Don’t cut corners on this first step as everything else that follows depends on the output of your research and the conclusions you draw from it.

Even if your business has been running for years and you know all there is to know about it, you should still do this step as you are going to find out if your business can profit from your online activities and therefore whether you can find new customers from the internet in your particular market. The chances are you can, however not all markets are served well online so this step will tell you if it is worth completing the remaining steps.

Step 1.1 – Understanding your business

The first part of this step involves you taking a look at your present customers, those you have already sold to. What you need to do is the following:

Get a list of your customers together with the amount of money they have paid you for your products or services.
Place their names into a spreadsheet together with the amount they have paid.
Order them in descending order of the amount they have paid you so you have the customer who has paid you the most at the top, the customer who has paid you the least at the bottom.
Create a third column in your spreadsheet that keeps a running total of the percentage of your total sales each customer represents.
When you have done this take a look at the list of customers that bring you approximately 80% of your total revenues these are your important customers.
Sort these customers into categories, I recommend doing this by the type of market they are in ie. retail, banking, engineering and so on. Come up with categories that make sense to you.
When you have done this you will have several categories of customers that you need to concentrate on selling more to and the type of customers you want to attract more of.