Roadmap to Win Online Landscape as a New Entrepreneur – Insider’s Perspective
How do I become a successful online entrepreneur from scratch? Originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Great questions! So, below I am going to mention the tips to become an online Entrepreneur. The main focus here is to make sure that you know everything about starting your own business and find success along the way!
So, let’s get started!
1. Do Not Quit Your “9 To 5” Job Yet
This point might seem like the opposite of your entire idea to escape the rate of 9 to 5 jobs and living from paycheck to paycheck. But continuing your 9 to 5 job is important initially because what if your business idea does not work, or you might need more funds to run your business.
Your 9 to 5 job can provide the regular income to make sure that all your finances are sorted out. Working hard is crucial, but money is important because as your business grows you will need more money.
Instead, you should have a plan to leave your 9-5 job, and save money so that it can cover your personal and business expenses for at least one year without earning.
Call this your start-up fund because when you start your focus should be on your business rather than worrying about money and expenses.
2. Finalize Your Niche
One of the most common mistakes that a lot of newbie entrepreneurs make is that they try to target everyone! By everyone, I mean that you do not know who they’re going to sell their product or service to.
It comes from the fact that they think that the larger audience base allows them to sell their product to a larger audience and increases the chances of sales.
This is where they get wrong, but in today’s age, you’ll not succeed if you try to sell it to everyone. When you select a niche, then you automatically prequalify the audience that they would be interested in their product and services. Therefore, you should finalize your niche and make your product fit their requirements and problems.
3. Do your Research and Study your Competitors
The next tip here is that you do some research and keep a keen eye on your competitors, as you have a lot to learn here. Your research will give you insights into how your competitors are targeting their customers, their pricing, and their marketing strategy. This is crucial information that will help you to gain momentum and figure out your own strategy for your online business.
4. Follow the Plan with Consistency & Reap the Benefit of Compounding
Once you have a business plan ready, then you need to put in your work hours consistently and reap the benefits of compounding.
Compounding is not only applicable to money but to hard work as well. When you work consistently your efforts are compounded one over the other and you will become better at organizing and conducting yourself as an online entrepreneur.
5. Do Not Sell to Your Customers, Serve them & Over-Deliver!
The Customer is the King, period! You must consider all the problems that your customers might be facing and focus on solving them with your business.
Create a buyer persona highlighting all the characteristics of your ideal customer for targeting. Create a solution for their problems and make sure that you position your offering as the best solution in the whole market. Use effective copywriting to target and communicate with your customers and demonstrate the benefits of your products and service.
Do not run after money! Successful businesses are built on problem-solving, not on profits. Do not get this wrong, profit is essential for growth, but you have to focus on serving your customers, not selling to them.
When you solve problems, then your brands will get recognition, and as the word-of-mouth travels faster! Make your customers your advocates and you will witness exponential growth.
6. Focus on Social Listening
Social listening refers to tracking the popularity and recent trends over social media channels. It will allow you to know what people are talking about on social media channels and stay updated with all the trends going viral.
Trends will help you to understand the audience’s reactions, it is important because it gives you the opportunity to use these trends and flip them!
By flipping, I mean that you can use the trend to somehow align with your product and services to get in front of more and more people.
These days people are transitioning from a sale dominated to a trust-based business economy. These days trust and relevance can make your products and services a preferred alternative for customers.
These days people spend a lot of time on social media channels and even a piece of small negative news might impact the sales of a company. Also, competitors wait for such opportunities to use the same news for their own benefit.
The best example here is the Auto Industry. No matter which auto giant (GM, Toyota, Hyundai, Kia), if they fail to deliver, then an individual has the power to bring them down. One negative review can spread like wildfire, and people listen. As a result, this is the prominent reason why big brands invest billions of dollars in online reputation management.
Starting out you might not have billions of dollars, but you can focus on delivering the best value to your customers. Social listening allows you to know what people are talking about and then leverage the opportunity to promote your product and services to your audience. It is an effective way to build brand loyalty and spread the word about how much you value your customers.
7. Your Network Is Your Net Worth!
Once you have started to make some progress and make sales, then you should focus on building your network.
A business network means that you form formal relationships with others within your industry. The best way to do this is to collaborate with others, it can be for a product or a blog post, or anything that can benefit the customers of both parties.
Keep your connections close and you can leverage opportunities that you wouldn’t be able to do on your own.
8. Make Progress with Gratitude!
Gratitude is the essence of healthy relationship building. As you continue to grow your business, make sure that you keep yourself humble and thankful towards others.
A simple “thank you” goes a long way, and you do not know when you might need someone in your journey as an entrepreneur. Gratitude is something that not a lot of people follow, but it is as important as your profits.
Read any success story and you will find that gratitude is the key ingredient for success because one-day people will share your success story. Make sure it portrays your humble beginning and your gratitude towards everything you achieved.
