If you own a small business or run a service of some kind and haven't entered the online business world you're not alone. The most popular reason given by most people is that they just don't understand how it works.
People don't naturally enter into challenging or complicated arenas when they know they lack the knowledge and experience to succeed.
The evidence is now overwhelming that unless you take your business into the online business world quickly you'll soon be out of the competition.
The Basics
Every business needs:
1. Clients or customers
2. A valuable product or service
3. More clients or customers
In truth there is a lot more that a business needs but without the flow of people who want and purchase what you offer the rest of it is superfluous.
Why Do It Online?
The volume of clients and customers available continues to grow and the most successful new business ventures in the last decade are all web based.
Automation eliminates most of the tedious minutia (in some cases all of it) that otherwise saps our time and energy.
Clients and customers who've experienced the value you offer have many ways to share you and your business with others.
Nuts and Bolts
There are a few requirements your online business world cannot do without:
1. You need a presence (web sites, blogs, profiles, information)
2. You need a way to be discovered (ads, articles, videos, forums)
3. You and your business need a unique identity (a brand)
In addition you need a means of tracking what's working, who's visiting and who's buying.
How Your World Works
Online you have an opportunity to establish gigantic worlds where everyone can find something they need or want. This is what larger companies are busy doing almost to the point where they're in direct competition with their own brick and mortar retail stores.
You also have an opportunity to create tiny business worlds that speak to a specific niche and offer them exactly what they're looking for.
Your world can be modified as often as you like to speak to current trends, or duplicated to speak to other niches. How well you communicate to your audience will determine how well your online business works.