Understanding how to start a legitimate online business starts by first understanding the way online marketing and sales works. Below I have outlined 5 different phases that you can use to help you prepare and successfully launch your online business Although following these phases will drastically increase your chances of success, ultimately the key to your online success will fall on your own unique ability to get things done! Your drive, determination, ability to set goals and follow through with them will determine your level of success with your online business. Most people tend to rush into things without doing their proper due diligence and research. You need to first know what it is you’re promoting or marketing. Is it a physical product or service? Who your target market is and what do they expect to gain from your company or business. Once you take a moment to figure this out then, you’ll move on to phase 2 of your initial set up.Phase 1 – Register your Business EntityThis is so Important but yet most people totally skip it. Getting your company registered with your state will save you a ton down the road. You can find tons of resources online to register your business name with your state. If you want to create a legitimate online business do yourself a favor and take care of the legal side of your business right from the beginning It will allow you to operate as a legally registered business, accept forms of payment under your business name, hire staff (if needed), write off business expenses, open up business accounts, open up a line of credit for your business, save you in instances when someone trying to sue you and you have the benefit of being able to write of business expenses using your company’s Tax ID number.Phase 2 – Choosing your nicheThis is the simplest step but, for some can take the most time to overcome. I suggest you choose a niche in which you know. Try to go into a niche that you’re comfortable with that you’re also interested in. Don’t let the products decide what niche you’re going to go into. You choose your niche and then you choose a product that fits your specific niche. Don’t try to spread yourself too thin either. If your business is structured around music & equipment, avoid complicating things right off the bat by introducing other non related products that don’t coincide with your main product. Get good at selling one thing before you move on to the next.Phase 3 – Selecting Your Base of OperationsThis is the phase where you decide what online platform you will use to base your initial campaign from. If its physical products then you might want to start off by creating a seller account in the marketplace where your targeted audience is known to be, that receives a good volume of traffic. If you plan on going the digital route or information marketing, you will most likely need to create a website of your own. Whichever you choose, keep in mind that this should be your central hub for all traffic and communications between you and your potential customers. Your online business needs to look as legitimate as possible right from the start. People base a lot of their buying & interaction of perception. The more authentic and legitimate your online business looks, the greater your chances of converting visitors into potential customers and traffic into leads which ultimately converts into a paid customer.Phase 4 – Preparing Your Home Base to Open ShopOnce Phase 2 is completed and you’ve found your central hub make sure that you’ve done everything cosmetic that you can possibly do. If you want to look like a legitimate online business right from the start then it would be beneficial to have a company logo created and a few different website banners designed that match your overall theme. You can have this created for cheap by going to a site like fiverr.com. You also want to decide on a color theme for your website that matches your logo. You’ll need to choose who or what will be presented as the face of your online business. People want to know who or what figure represents this company in the public eye.Phase 5 – Getting CustomersOnce you have went through the 4 phases and you have a product or service to promote your next step will be to drive customers or leads to your online business. What’s having the best product or service in the world if no one can find it? No good at all. There’s two forms of driving customers to your online business or as we online marketers refer to it as “driving traffic” and that’s the free way or the paid way. Paid ways include but are not limited to google ads, banner advertisements on other high traffic websites, TV advertising radio & newspaper ads. Some free ways to drive traffic and generate leads/customers consist of social media, word of mouth, youtube.com, blogging & article marketing or joining a network with other like-minded individuals The free ways could appear to be slower, results wise but in the log run can be the base source of stable traffic & leads for your business, if your marketing budget was to dry out. Consider your budget and map out your strategy wisely.
What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate
The results of this past election proved once again that the Democrats had a golden opportunity to capitalize on the failings of the Trump Presidency but, fell short of a nation wide mandate. A mandate to seize the gauntlet of the progressive movement that Senator Sanders through down a little over four years ago. The opportunities were there from the very beginning even before this pandemic struck. In their failing to educate the public of the consequences of continued Congressional gridlock, conservatism, and what National Economic Reform’s Ten Articles of Confederation would do led to the results that are playing out today.. More Congressional gridlock, more conservatism and more suffering of millions of Americans are the direct consequences of the Democrats failure to communicate and educate the public. Educate the public that a progressive agenda is necessary to pull the United States out of this Pandemic, and restore this nations health and vitality.
It was the DNC’s intent in this election to only focus on the Trump Administration. They failed to grasp the urgency of the times. They also failed to communicate with the public about the dire conditions millions have been and still are facing even before the Pandemic. The billions of dollars funneled into campaign coffers should have been used to educate the voting public that creating a unified coalition would bring sweeping reforms that are so desperately needed. The reality of what transpired in a year and a half of political campaigning those billions of dollars only created more animosity and division polarizing one extreme over another.
One can remember back in 1992 Ross Perot used his own funds to go on national TV to educate the public on the dire ramifications of not addressing our national debt. That same approach should have been used during this election cycle. By using the medium of television to communicate and educate the public is the most effective way in communicating and educating the public. Had the Biden campaign and the DNC used their resources in this way the results we ae seeing today would have not created the potential for more gridlock in our government. The opportunity was there to educate the public of safety protocols during the siege of this pandemic and how National Economic Reform’s Ten Articles of Confederation provides the necessary progressive reforms that will propel the United States out of the abyss of debt and restore our economy. Restoring our economy so that every American will have the means and the availability of financial and economic security.
The failure of the Democratic party since 2016 has been recruiting a Presidential Candidate who many felt was questionable and more conservative signals that the results of today has not met with the desired results the Democratic party wanted. Then again? By not fully communicating and not educating the public on the merits of a unified progressive platform has left the United States transfixed in our greatest divides since the Civil War. This writers support of Senator Bernie Sanders is well documented. Since 2015 he has laid the groundwork for progressive reforms. He also has the foundations on which these reforms can deliver the goods as they say. But, what did the DNC do, they purposely went out of their way to engineer a candidate who was more in tune with the status-quo of the DNC. They failed to communicate to the public in educating all of us on the ways our lives would be better served with a progressive agenda that was the benchmark of Senators Sanders Presidential campaign and his Our Revolution movement. And this is way there is still really no progress in creating a less toxic environment in Washington and around the country.
What Are The Greatest Changes In Shopping In Your Lifetime
What are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime? So asked my 9 year old grandson.
As I thought of the question the local Green Grocer came to mind. Because that is what the greatest change in shopping in my lifetime is.
That was the first place to start with the question of what are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime.
Our local green grocer was the most important change in shopping in my lifetime. Beside him was our butcher, a hairdresser and a chemist.
Looking back, we were well catered for as we had quite a few in our suburb. And yes, the greatest changes in shopping in my lifetime were with the small family owned businesses.
Entertainment While Shopping Has Changed
Buying butter was an entertainment in itself.
My sister and I often had to go to a favourite family grocer close by. We were always polite as we asked for a pound or two of butter and other small items.
Out came a big block of wet butter wrapped in grease-proof paper. Brought from the back of the shop, placed on a huge counter top and included two grooved pates.
That was a big change in our shopping in my lifetime… you don’t come across butter bashing nowadays.
Our old friendly Mr. Mahon with the moustache, would cut a square of butter. Lift it to another piece of greaseproof paper with his pates. On it went to the weighing scales, a bit sliced off or added here and there.
Our old grocer would then bash it with gusto, turning it over and over. Upside down and sideways it went, so that it had grooves from the pates, splashes going everywhere, including our faces.
My sister and I thought this was great fun and it always cracked us up. We loved it, as we loved Mahon’s, on the corner, our very favourite grocery shop.
Grocery Shopping
Further afield, we often had to go to another of my mother’s favourite, not so local, green grocer’s. Mr. McKessie, ( spelt phonetically) would take our list, gather the groceries and put them all in a big cardboard box.
And because we were good customers he always delivered them to our house free of charge. But he wasn’t nearly as much fun as old Mr. Mahon. Even so, he was a nice man.
All Things Fresh
So there were very many common services such as home deliveries like:
• Farm eggs
• Fresh vegetables
• Cow’s milk
• Freshly baked bread
• Coal for our open fires
Delivery Services
A man used to come to our house a couple of times a week with farm fresh eggs.
Another used to come every day with fresh vegetables, although my father loved growing his own.
Our milk, topped with beautiful cream, was delivered to our doorstep every single morning.
Unbelievably, come think of it now, our bread came to us in a huge van driven by our “bread-man” named Jerry who became a family friend.
My parents always invited Jerry and his wife to their parties, and there were many during the summer months. Kids and adults all thoroughly enjoyed these times. Alcohol was never included, my parents were teetotallers. Lemonade was a treat, with home made sandwiches and cakes.
The coal-man was another who delivered bags of coal for our open fires. I can still see his sooty face under his tweed cap but I can’t remember his name. We knew them all by name but most of them escape me now.
Mr. Higgins, a service man from the Hoover Company always came to our house to replace our old vacuum cleaner with an updated model.
Our insurance company even sent a man to collect the weekly premium.
People then only paid for their shopping with cash. This in itself has been a huge change in shopping in my lifetime.
In some department stores there was a system whereby the money from the cash registers was transported in a small cylinder on a moving wire track to the central office.
Some Of The Bigger Changes
Some of the bigger changes in shopping were the opening of supermarkets.
• Supermarkets replaced many individual smaller grocery shops. Cash and bank cheques have given way to credit and key cards.
• Internet shopping… the latest trend, but in many minds, doing more harm, to book shops.
• Not many written shopping lists, because mobile phones have taken over.
On a more optimistic note, I hear that book shops are popular again after a decline.
Personal Service Has Most Definitely Changed
So, no one really has to leave home, to purchase almost anything, technology makes it so easy to do online.
And we have a much bigger range of products now, to choose from, and credit cards have given us the greatest ease of payment.
We have longer shopping hours, and weekend shopping. But we have lost the personal service that we oldies had taken for granted and also appreciated.
Because of their frenetic lifestyles, I have heard people say they find shopping very stressful, that is grocery shopping. I’m sure it is when you have to dash home and cook dinner after a days work. I often think there has to be a better, less stressful way.
My mother had the best of both worlds, in the services she had at her disposal. With a full time job looking after 9 people, 7 children plus her and my dad, she was very lucky. Lucky too that she did not have 2 jobs.