For many people, owning and running their own business is a dream. Many online marketers and entrepreneurs never saw themselves starting an internet based business, and now it is a fact that there are thousands of online business success stories.
Starting an online business has many advantages over doing so in the traditional business world. The start-up costs of an internet based business are extremely low, as you do not need new offices, inventory, staff, machinery or any other of the things that you might need to get a real-world business off the ground.
There are some disadvantages to running a business on the internet as well. It is worth considering these downsides now, because ‘forewarned is forearmed’.
When you are doing business transactions over the World Wide Web, it is harder to build relationships with your prospects and customers than it would be if they were able to walk into your office or shop. After all, it has to be easier to get acquainted with someone who lives 100 meters away than it would be to get to know somebody on the other side of the world.
For your online business to be successful, it is essential you do everything possible to earn the trust and respect of your prospects and customers. It is only by doing so that you can make money on a consistent basis.
The majority of online businesses are based on selling products and services, although there are a significant number of people who make money from paid advertising as well.
Both of these business models have one basic flaw, related to the fact that every ‘deal’ is a one-off, so you must always be selling, or bringing new visitors to the site where you feature paid advertising, in order to make a living.
If you have progressed to the stage where you can create your own digital information products, you will have periods when you’re not bringing in very much money – during the product creation period, for example – balanced by times when your product is selling well and there is money pouring into the bank.
The intrinsic problem with this particular business model is that there is no consistency, and there is no reliable income. There is another inherent risk which relates back to the notion of building trust.
If you are selling your own products, there will be people who buy your product and do not like it. They may ask for a refund, and may not buy from you again because they don’t trust the quality of your products.
From the customer’s point of view, they have given you an opportunity to impress them with your value and quality but you have failed to meet their expectations. It is unlikely that they will give you another chance. It would be far more logical and profitable if you could run a business that overcame these problems. How much better would it be if your business could bring in a regular cash flow, and presents you with multiple opportunities to impress your customers at the same time? Such a business model exists, which is one of the reasons why owning and running membership sites has become so popular over the past couple of years.
If you have a membership site where the members pay a regular subscription, then you automatically have regular cash flow coming in. Because you deliver to your members on a regular basis, you also have many opportunities to re-emphasize the value of what you offer. This is only scratching the surface of why running your own membership site is such a good idea.
Before getting into the real ‘body’ of this report, let me start by dispelling a common myth.
