Written on March 16, 2010 at 6:00 am by admin

How to Start Your Own Business – 3 Surefire Strategies

Filed under Social Media for Individuals 60 comments

Are you a blogger but haven’t figured out how to make money from your blog? Or are you a savvy business professional who’s interested in starting your own business by hanging out a virtual shingle? If you’re either, this blog will get you started on the right path.

There are three distinct, LEGITIMATE, surefire ways to make money online. THESE ARE NOT “GET RICH QUICK” SCAMS. In fact, I can promise you won’t get rich quick. But the money you earn from doing one or all of these (if performed strategically) will earn you enough cash-flow to get you started.

BECOME AN AFFILIATE MARKETER

You may be very familiar with the term – maybe you’re already an affiliate for one or more products – but haven’t figured out how to make money at it. For the purposes of this post, let’s back up and start at the beginning. Affiliate Marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates (you) for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts.

There are a couple of ways you can become an affiliate marketer. First, you can choose a couple of products that you use and believe in and only sell those items, directly through an affiliate program by the company. This is the route I’ve chosen; I’m an affiliate for Third Tribe Marketing, GoDaddy and the Frugal Premium WordPress theme (all affiliate links). Or, you can go to a website like Commission Junction. They are an affiliate management agency; meaning, hundreds or thousands of companies invite you to sell their products and earn commission through this aggregated site. This is nice because you have a wide variety of products to choose from.

CREATE YOUR OWN PRODUCT/SERVICE TO SELL

This is probably the most obvious and definitely the most difficult (and probably the reason you haven’t started your own online business yet). A lot of people think they have to create their own product or service to sell in order to start a business. You don’t necessarily have to be the creator. There are two ways you can go about this.

First, if you’re really passionate about something, become a consultant or independent contractor. Start a blog (if you haven’t already) and showcase yourself as an expert. If you’re an excellent accountant but a terrible marketer, hire a web marketing expert to help start you off on the right foot. To make a successful business, you have to do more than throw out that virtual shingle. And a marketing expert can help (feel free to contact me!).

Second, you can partner with someone who has the ability to build something you thought of but don’t have the expertise to build it yourself. By creating a partnership, there is little financial investment for you, likely only a time investment for the other person, and you then you share in the profit of the product once it’s on the market. Not a bad deal, right?

CONTINUITY PROGRAMS

This is probably the ultimate money-maker. But it takes work and some strategic marketing. A continuity program is a subscription-based “product” where a customer pays a monthly fee to access whatever it is you have. I’m working on one for my business, which will likely be some kind of coaching/mentoring product. I have a friend who records weekly podcasts that his clients would find interesting and mails them CD’s so they can listen to them on their drive to work. Lots of options here; you just have to think outside the box a little. And figure out how to get the word out.

Stay tuned for more posts on these three topics.

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