So let’s move on with what I believe are the essential seven critical steps to starting a home based business online:

1. Starting with the end in mind

I know that this is stating the obvious but you need to have a vision of what you want to achieve in your business. It is almost inconceivable to think that any businesses would not have their why or mission at the heart of what they do:

“Not having a vision and plan for what you want to achieve in your business is like a boat with a broken rudder and no navigation system! You very quickly start heading in the wrong direction and land a long way from your planned destination” – Damon Tindall (Online Business Entrepreneurs)

So write down what you want to achieve and put a realistic time frame on it too. The beauty of building an online business is that if you take the right actions for long enough, you can usually achieve great results much faster than in most traditional brick and mortar type businesses.

The written down vision for your business now helps to form your mission statement and is at the core of every action you take in your business. You can take this vision one step further in the form of a poster or video that allows you to regularly visualize your future business success and ideal lifestyle!

“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” – Jack Welch

2. Make sure your goals and ideas are viable for building a business online

There are two schools of thought here. Firstly, that if you follow your dreams and are passionate about your goals you will achieve them no matter what obstacles you come across.  The alternative view is that there is no point in starting a business if you do not have a market for your product or service, particularly if your goal is to generate profit.

I think the argument of pursuing your particular passion in business has a lot of merit. Why? Well because it is this passion that gets you out of bed of a morning and keeps you going through the typical roller-coaster ride experienced by all businesses. In saying this I do not wish to diminish the importance of conducting basic market research. As we know there is little point in selling pineapples, when everyone wants to eat oranges. So if you can tap into current or emerging market trends and they correlate somewhat with your interests, then you certainly have an advantage over the majority of new online businesses.

3. Stan, what is your Plan?

There is no doubt inadequate planning is the biggest cause of lost time in any business. Why is planning so essential? This is because good planning allows you to be able to maximize your valuable resources, including your time and it also helps you to predict any problems could potentially prevent you implementing aspects of your business or marketing strategy. Finally it assists you to identify any shortfalls in skills that you may have or any low pay-off activities that could be better managed by outsourcing them to someone more specialized.

While planning is critical, it is important to not become so transfixed on planning that you neglect to take action to grow your business. As such, it is important to keep in mind basic planning is great, but when combined with action, persistence, focus, creating momentum and thinking big, it is even better!

After completing some preliminary market research, the next step is to undertake a SWOT Analysis:

STRENGTHS – What are the strengths within my business model and what are the key skills and knowledge that I bring to the table?

WEAKNESSES – What weaknesses exist within the business model that I may need to correct so I can achieve long term success? What skill and competency deficiencies do I have, that could be easily outsourced to other specialists?

OPPORTUNITIES – Identify what opportunities exist to expand your business in the future or to capture a larger section of your target market.  These opportunities may or may not exist now, but by keeping your eyes open you have the best chance of remaining innovative and more importantly staying in front of the competition.

THREATS – It is important to not only address threats that may come from your major competitors, but to also identify areas within your own business including any personal skill and knowledge deficiencies, that may compromise your future business growth.

Remember that your SWOT analysis is just the start of the planning process and each major initiative to build your business online should be supported with appropriate planning.

“Hindsight explains the injury that foresight would have prevented” – Author Unknown

4.  Find a good training and mentoring program

What to look for in any business training program:

• It is interactive allowing you to put theory into practice.
• It should be the shortfalls in skills and knowledge that you have identified from your SWOT analysis, or relevant to the need to acquire new knowledge and skills for core business activities.
• Provides materials that you can take away with you to revisit at a later time, as it almost impossible to take in everything you need to know from a training seminar.
• Look for a training program that is willing to offer a money back guarantee if you are not satisfied.  There is nothing worse than the feeling when you have been over-promised and undersold.

I would also recommend finding a mentor, who has a track record of success with an online business or within internet marketing industry. The most successful business leaders and entrepreneurs surround themselves with people they consider more specialized than them. Mentors can also provide valuable guidance and a ‘set of tracks for you to run your business on’, in the early stages of your new venture.

5. Resourcing and Outsourcing Considerations

I cannot stress enough the importance of identifying what are your high pay-off activities and low pay-off activities in building a business online. Here is a suggestion that may help you with this process. Create a document that has four columns and then write the headings – High return on investment, Low return on investment, Outsource It and Resource It.

• In the first column list those activities that are critical to the achievement of your strategy or to improving your bottom line.  These are the activities that provide the greatest return on your investment time, effort and other resources.  For example my number one priority in my particular online business is talking to qualified business prospects.
• The second column will see you list those activities that have to be done as part of your online business or online marketing efforts.  This may include for example – creating banner advertising, developing auto-responder systems, recording videos and so on.
• In the third column, we can consider outsourcing the low return activities to someone else with greater expertise.  By outsourcing to a specialist where possible, we are able to free up more time to concentrate on our most productive business actions. You would be surprised if you do some research just how little it costs to outsource.  However you should avoid outsourcing the key relationship building interactions with your customers.  This is where personal contact is expected and the failure to provide this can quickly devalue your brand!
• The final column is for determining what resources will be required to achieve all facets of building your business online. These resources may include lead management programs, communication systems with key stakeholders, establishing social networking accounts and of course the money to implement and finance new business building strategies.

6. Like a good scientist – Test, Measure and Analyze

The simple message here is that you will be well served by implementing systems that facilitate you being able to analyze the potential effectiveness, measure the actual effectiveness and analyze ways to increase the future effectiveness of any online strategy you implement. For example Alexa is a free tool that provides traffic metrics, search analytics, demographics, and much more for registered websites.

7. Build and promote brand YOU

YOU are without doubt the most important asset in any online business and you must ensure that your name Googles well.  As you start your own internet-based business, your goal should be to be listed in many of the spots in the major search engines as possible! Although granted this is easier if you have an unusual name, but it’s still possible nevertheless even if you don’t. To achieve this you must build your personal brand, which is underpinned by integrity and trust, while also establishing yourself as an expert in your field of endeavor.

“eBay’s business is based on enabling someone to do business with another person, and to do that, they first have to develop some measure of trust, either in the other person or the system.” – Pierre Omidyar

More specifically you can lay claim to your virtual real estate by doing just a few of the following:

• Have your own website and blog (mine is Online Business Entrepreneurs). You could even register a domain with your name.
• Write and publish articles through the likes of Ezine articles assists in building your profile as an expert.
• Building and promoting your social media profile through the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Linked-In.
• Creating your own YouTube Channel that allows you to promote your brand via personalized videos.

Having completed the seven critical steps to starting a home based business online, you have now built a strong foundation for future success in your venture. Congratulations you have officially begun the journey to becoming a profitable online business entrepreneur.