Business Alone

What I am about to tell you may shock you, enrage you, or maybe just disgust you -- but I will not mislead you!

You deserve to hear the naked truth about starting a business on the Internet from someone who has spent his entire career in the small business development field and the past 10 years online.

I want you to understand what is going on all around you in this frenzied and "enlightened" time of global communication, instant access, and light-speed digital transmissions.

Most of us have contemplated starting our own business at one time or another - in fact, some have called this almost universal desire - the new "American Dream."

Are you prepared for a job change?

Any one of a thousand catastrophes could hit your employer in these uncertain economic times. Even positive business events like mergers, buyouts, and spinoffs can have serious negative impacts on your ability to keep fulltime employment and draw a paycheck from your employer.

Your job could be gone tomorrow; it happens to thousands of hard-working employees every day. Today you're gainfully employed - tomorrow you're job hunting!

But enough of the gloom and doom . . . let's talk about an amazing new job alternative that you can take advantage of today that has the power to refresh your life, secure your financial future, and turn the tables 180 degrees so that you become the owner of your own business and the master of your own destiny!

Please give me a little slack if your State is different than mine. I guess there's a good chance that the sequence of obtaining the necessary business licenses could vary from State to State.

My business was registered in Utah, first as a sole proprietorship and later on as a Subchapter S Corporation.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a lawyer and my experience in this realm is limited to just one State. I will tell you what I did. You may find things are done a little differently where you register your business.

I began my license quest at the county administrative office. That ended up being a mistake since they needed to have my DBA and State business registration information before they could process my application.

When you do business online, you have to get a little personal with your customers. There's no way around it.

Being personal is fine with most of us, if we like and trust the person that's moving into our space. But online, being personal is a real challenge and a very sensitive issue for the business owner.

From the very beginning, you'd like to know how to reach your prospects individually. So, you go after a first name, last name, and an email address at the very least.

There is a critical business principle that you need to learn and implement in your solo Internet business that will serve you extremely well. In all digital businesses it will become either an invaluable friend or a nightmare of an enemy.

Some stay in business for years and spend a lot of valuable daily time on managing this area of their business, while others adapt and implement an automated system that does almost all of the manual work for them.

I'm talking about implementing and operating a system of records and data keeping that will aid you in maintaining your business and your customers.

Have you ever noticed an advertisement in a magazine, a brochure, a newspaper, or online that looked like it was produced on an old typewriter?

Chances are pretty good that the owner of the ad produced it himself using non-professional graphics tools. He sent the ad in "camera ready" to save a few bucks, and it gets published looking like child's play.

Is that the type of material you want associated with your business?

Occasionally you will find announcements, brochures, and web sites with frequent misspellings, incorrect grammar, and other structural problems that can only be construed as a lackadaisical attitude on the part of the owner.

Depending upon the type of solo business you operate, and the needs that your business has to communicate with the "outside" world, you may want to consider setting up a private area on your company site.

I'm not talking about creating a forum, chat room, or discussion board as is commonly done among niche community web sites.

I'm not talking about a private membership site either. In both these models, your web site is open to the public and you attempt to recruit members (paying or otherwise) that have to identify themselves before entering by submitting a user name and password.

Have you ever noticed a shopping cart full of groceries sitting next to the checkout stand at the supermarket?

I've seen it happen a few times and usually figured that someone simply left their wallet or purse at home and would be back soon to claim their abandoned goods.

It's not a big problem since most stores are accommodating about the oversight.

But online, shopping cart abandonment is a huge problem! No one really knows the extent of this loss to e-tailers, but I have seen some estimates that suggest fifty percent or more of all online sales processes are never completed.

Often, new business owners figure the only way to increase sales is to put your product or service in front of more people.

Such a strategy usually means that you spend increasing amounts of money on advertising so you can extend your reach in to more and more markets.

Increasing sales by ramping up advertising is one way to pump up the bottom line. But there may be other more effective uses of your business operating budget.

Every new technology faces the same uphill battle when it comes to public acceptance and dispelling people's fears that something bad will happen to them as a result of some unknown or unanticipated problem.

Many people say they are hesitant to make a purchase online because the either fear the process or they fear that their money will be lost forever because the seller will "take the money and run."

I'm too young to remember the early days of inventions like the car, the radio, and the telephone, but there were great fears among the public about what these new devices would do to society.

Many people were slow to adopt and embrace change. It wasn't until they actually saw and understood the advantages and noticed other folks were using the inventions without harm that they decided to give them a try.

Here are a few additional suggestions of practical things you can do in your business to gain the trust of your prospects by calming their fear of purchasing on the Internet and dealing with an unknown company:

6. Be very clear and precise about what the customer is getting with his purchase. Don't leave anything unclear or in doubt. If anything, be overly specific and descriptive so the customer doesn't wonder what his dollars are actually purchasing.

7. Make the actual buying process as easy, straightforward, and intuitive as possible. Don't ask for more personal information than is necessary. Now is not the time for a customer survey. Explain each step you ask the customer to take. If the buyer is going to be taken away from your web site (for instance, to have a credit card transaction approved), explain to him why he is leaving the site and how he will be returned automatically.

Obviously, there are some subscription or membership models that make more sense than others. I'm sure there are profitable membership models in every industry and niche, but there are some models (regardless of niche) that seem to thrive on the subscription web site platform.

I was once a member of a professional organization that catered specifically to subscription web sites. I joined, not because I had a site, but because I was contemplating starting this type of business and wanted to learn all about this model prior to actually committing money to the idea.

I pulled out some notes I had written about the topic (because this organization is no longer in business) and I can share with you the five types of subscription models that are typically the most profitable.

Regardless of the information subscription niche that you choose as the subject of your business, you will need some type of web site software platform.

In another post, we discussed the five usual platform options available to the small business.

Which option is right for your business will depend upon your financial capability, the functions that you want in the site, the type of information presentation you deliver, and your own capability to maintain and operate the software and web site.

But whichever alternative you've narrowed your overall model choices down to, you will still need to choose between many specific company products.

Creating and operating a new business can be an extreme challenge.

There are so many details to worry about, so many things that can go wrong, so many unknowns and variables in every niche market . . .

It is a daunting task to undertake such an unnerving challenge.

New businesses require huge amounts of time, owner effort, and uncommon commitment.

Some don't even begin to pay a return on the initial investment for many years . . . and others never do provide a return.

The folks over at the Better Business Bureau commissioned a study in 2007 of the adult online shopper's most important issues.

It seems that approximately 60% of those surveyed are primarily concerned about two things: (1) that their personal information could be stolen and sold online or reused by someone else, and (2) that their credit card information could be hijacked by some unscrupulous operator (59%).

The type of fraud I'm referring to is credit card or payment fraud as opposed to things like embezzling, tax evasion, or product scams.

The Internet presents a special environment for payment fraud because transactions take place all over the globe often without one or even two parties being physically present to inspect or insure that everything happens as it should.

Anonymity enables dishonest people to become bold and brazen.

Credit card numbers and individual identities are stolen everyday by the unscrupulous.

Web sites and shopping carts are hacked in every industry.

Abuse of the payment system is commonplace nowadays.

There are several usability issues, methods, and procedures that you need to consider when designing and developing new business web sites, regardless if you hire a professional for the design or attempt to build the site yourself.

Most important are issues relating to ’upfront’ decisions such as setting clear and concise goals for your web site, determining a professional and smart set of user requirements, ensuring that the new site meets user’s expectations, setting usability goals, and providing useful content within the niche you've chosen.

To ensure the best possible outcome, designers should consider a full range of user interface issues, and work to create a site that enables the best possible user experience.

The latest research suggests that the best way to begin the construction of a web site is to have many different people propose design solutions (parallel design), and then to follow up using an iterative design approach.

This requires conducting the appropriate usability tests and using the findings to make changes to the Web site.

Web sites should be designed to facilitate and encourage efficient and effective human-computer interactions.

Designers should make every attempt to reduce the user’s workload by taking advantage of the computer’s capabilities. Your web site prospects will make the best use of you site when information is displayed in a directly usable format and content organization is highly intuitive.

Prospects also benefit from task sequences that are consistent with how they typically do their work, that do not require them to remember information for more than a few seconds, that have terminology that is readily understandable, and that do not overload them with information.

Your site visitors should not be required to wait for more than a few seconds for a page to load, and while waiting, they should be supplied with appropriate feedback. Prospects should be easily able to print information.

In addition, designers should never ‘push’ unsolicited windows or graphics to users.