07 Things You Need To Know Before Starting An Online Business

If you are thinking about starting an online business this year 2021, there are a few things you need to know!

Digital entrepreneurship has become a dream for some people and a great achievement for others.

The online universe has been growing more and more and offering more opportunities and chances to earn money. After all, people access the internet daily, and are doing research for products and services.

Nowadays, a business that does not even have a website on the internet runs great risks of decreasing its sales and not being able to grow in the market.

Setting up an online business offers many benefits, such as owning your own business, spending more time with your family, being able to work from anywhere, among many other advantages.

However, not everything is perfect. For you to really succeed on the internet, you need to do it in the most correct way possible.

So, with that in mind, I've separated some tips on what you should do before setting up an online business.

Keep reading and check it out!

What to know before starting an internet business

If you are thinking about starting an online business this year 2021, or if you have already started to set up an internet business, but you still don't live 100% with your online earnings, the following list will be very important for you.

I have separated 7 factors that are very important for you to succeed in digital entrepreneurship.

These are things you need to know beforehand, but they are also practical things that you will apply day to day within your online business. Come on!

1. Entrepreneurial Mindset

Some people turn up their noses at this subject, but it is extremely important for you who want to set up an internet business.

I can't start talking about entrepreneurship without talking about mindset. You need to align your thinking to be a digital entrepreneur. Some important points you need to know about this are:

Entrepreneurship is taking risks

You will take some risks, yes. The big difference is that in digital entrepreneurship these risks are very small.

For example, imagine that last year, before the pandemic, you decided to set up a restaurant. You rented the place, set up an industrial kitchen, hired employees, took care of all the furniture, etc. Then the pandemic came and you had to close. Imagine the risk.

In the online business, there are possibilities for investments for less than R$ 30 per month. In many cases you can work with a very lean structure. It's a very minimized risk.

Of course, there is every risk of expectation, time and work. But the financial risks are minimized compared to traditional businesses.

And online businesses have as much potential as a physical business or even more. That's because the return vs. risk is much higher in online business. You get much more return for much lower risk within digital entrepreneurship.

So you need to adjust your mindset to what it really is to undertake.

Don't compare yourself to others

You will see other people creating online businesses, suddenly classmates, having results faster than you, but you don't buy with them.

Compare yourself with yourself. See your evolution over time.

2. It's not enough to take courses

This is an illusion that many people still have, they think that just buy a course and after a certain period of studying they will have results. It's not like this.

There is no magic formula where you take the course, do a few things and you will get results. You need to apply real, structured digital marketing.

So the online business depends on digital marketing as a means of sale and there is a whole structure behind it and you need to apply it, you need to be consistent.

For example, I always worked behind the scenes of the company, 5 years working without showing up. When I decided to show up, I put in a point that I became consistent.

For example, making two videos on the YouTube channel and creating content on Instagram, publishing articles here on the blog consistently, and so on.

I had to be consistent so that this part of the online business that I'm in now worked out. So you need that too.

And it's not from one hour to the next that your videos or your Instagram account will explode. This takes time and work.

It's these small achievements that will make you grow and get results. But in addition to consistency, you will also need to be patient.

My YouTube videos, for example, haven't exploded, but I'm sticking to my job, always trying to do better. This is a continuous improvement process.

3. You need to invest

There is no business without investment. Either you will have to invest more time or more money, but one or the other you will need to invest.

If you are going to focus on actions, which we call organic to bring people into your sales funnels , you will need to invest more time.

If you're going to invest in paid traffic , you'll need to pay for it. There's no way, investments are part of the reality of an online business.

You need to keep this in mind before undertaking on the internet .

4. Results are progressive

You won't make a lot of money quickly. It can even happen, but there are rare exceptions of people who, for example, went from 3,000 to earn 100,000 per month.

The results are progressive. Know that an explosion can happen, but this is not the norm. And again, don't compare yourself to other people.

Remember: everyone has their time and journey to follow to get the results they want.

5. You need a structure

I'm talking about setting up an online business, not applying a sales technique or anything like that.

I'm talking about structure, every business needs a structure. If you're going to create a store, you need a structure. The same thing happens with online.

You need a structure, even if it's minimal. This is very important for you to really have a vision of digital entrepreneurship.

You will have a business and you need to start thinking that way from now on.

6. A complete approach is always preferable to a single approach

What does that mean? If you only focus on one strategy, you are completely hostage to it. The ideal is always to have a complete approach, with several points of contact with potential customers.

These various touchpoints we call the omnichannel approach. You surround potential customers who will buy from your business.

If you are starting to invest in digital marketing, you may be tempted to just apply one strategy, which can be: Google Ads, Email marketing , Facebook Ads, etc.

These are ways of generating traffic and sales on the internet, but the model of a complete online business is not just small techniques, like Google Ads, for example.

The complete approach is always to prefer. That's because, imagine you are going to buy a product and you see an ad on Google, you might buy it or you might need more information.

And if you need more information, you'll probably search Google or search for videos on YouTube. And then you will find another person/company who will be talking about the solution you are looking for.

And that person can even offer you a bonus, encouraging you to shop with them.

Now, imagine if this were with your potential customer. He's on Google, looking for information, and he only finds your ad, because you've decided to only invest in Google Ads.

He will be able to find much more content in other media and you may lose sales to your competitors.

7. You need to study

To close with a flourish, I need to talk about one of the points that I think is most important for setting up an online business. You definitely need to study.

There is no way, within digital entrepreneurship, or in anything you propose to do in life, you will need to prepare, and study is exactly that.

But when it comes to studying to set up an internet business, it is practical. It's learning and getting your hands dirty.

Within digital marketing, there are three fundamental points for you to master it and make your online business sell every day. These points are:

• Traffic : which can be paid or organic;
• Sales Funnels : There are several models of funnels and they aim to attract people, relate to them and make sales to them.
• Copywriting : it's writing, persuasive communication, using mental triggers and the right words to touch the person's "pain" and so that they get the idea that they need your product.

It is worth saying that copywriting is applied at all stages of your online business, in traffic generation, in sales funnels and so on.

Conclusion

In this article, you've checked out some extremely important tips that should be applied even before you set up an online business.

After all, the more prepared you are to take the first steps towards digital entrepreneurship, the greater your results can be.

I hope you enjoyed the tips and I wish you much success in your journey as an online business entrepreneur.