Business Opportunities Are Everywhere
WELCOME to Biz Opt! We cover several types of business opportunities to help you get started or improve your business. Marketing is the key to success in all businesses. So we will try to cover marketing and the changes that have taken place in this field.
This site is designed to help both online and offline businesses to gain the knowledge and tools necessary to grow their businesses. The editors have many years of experience in both “brick & mortar” businesses and online sales.
Hopefully, we can help you to gain the experience you need to succeed in the niche you have chosen. We have made many of the mistakes and hopefully, we can help you avoid some of them.
Of course, we all make mistakes when we start a business, and even when we try to grow an established business. So let us dig in and learn what we need to know to make things go smoothly.
We can avoid many mistakes if we take the time to learn what works and what does not. There are many business opportunities available to you today. If you already have a business you can always make it better and we would be glad to help.
There are three main areas that slow are kill business growth. If you are not willing to jump in and work on there three your business has very little chance in today’s fast-changing world. So let’s take a closer look at each of them.
First – Training
It is easy to say that you went to college or you are a hands-on learner. The truth is that all of us need to be in a constant learning mode. Whatever you do you need training. Nothing stays the same and that is especially true in today’s world.
You may have a great mind and have had good training in the past, but today is a new day. If you are young you may not even know about some of the old ways to build your business. It is possible that you understand many of the new marketing methods. This does not mean that you can not improve your skills.
I go to training all the time and I spend a lot of time reviewing areas that I have studied in the past. You may have all the skills to build a successful offline business, but commerce is always changing. Skills will need to be upgraded to meet the changing business environment. You need to be constantly alert to the business environment.
Most of my business is now online due to the many business opportunities where I don’t have to leave home to make a living. Because of my choice to work online, I refer back to the great training at Wealthy Affiliate.
They offer an extensive library of marketing lessons to help you stay up to date. Their first 10 lessons are free and extremely important to anyone wanting to start an online business or even promote their offline one.
If your business is going to compete you must learn how to market in changing times. To stay ahead of your competition you will have to use online marketing and you will have to learn how.
Second – Marketing – Materials
Business cards are still important in this digital world. They are inexpensive and easy to carry and handout when you meet people. Business cards give you credibility. It may seem odd but they are very important in online marketing as well. You will meet people that you may want to get to your site and they will not remember if you just tell them. (This will also help convince those who are skeptical about your business.)
If you are trying to build business relationships the rule of thumb is to give a person a business card. And keep on until they call you by your first name. So they are good for offline and online businesses.
You want your business card to be up to date and have something to make it stand out from other cards. This is one of your cheapest forms of advertisement. (Except of course signs for those who have a brick and mortar location.)
If your business has contact with prospects you need a brochure. It does not have to be real fancy. The purpose of the brochure is to give an explanation of what you do and how it benefits a prospect.
Do not just think of a physical brochure. You should have a digital version on your website.
Depending on your business you may also need many other types of printed material. Don’t think that just because everything is seeming to go digital printing is out. It can still be very effective. The thing that we always have to consider is the value compared to cost. Is there a cheaper way to get your message to your prospect.
Third – Marketing – Website/blog
One question that I am asked regularly is, “Do I have to have a Website?” My answer is always YES. You may have a good offline business, but you still need a Website. Your website will increase your sales, even if you do almost nothing with it. Why? Because people are still impressed by it or expect it of all good companies.
If you are building an online business you can sell affiliate products without one, BUT you will need one to build your brand. A Website makes selling easier. Like this website. It provides good business information, but I also list affiliate products on it. If I like a product I want to share it, but I certainly don’t want to pass up an affiliate commission.
Affiliate commissions do not raise the price of a service or product. They are what any good business person does. You do it because you don’t want to pass up any revenue for your business. So add affiliate links to your website. You may not earn a lot, but it should at least cover the cost of maintaining your website.
If your business is offline your competition will have a Website. You will lose customers if you don’t. So this next portion is for you as well as the person who wants to take advantage of online business opportunities.
Wealthy Affiliate offers you the help you need to build your website step by step. This 10 lesson training will guide you through the process of building your website. If you follow the steps you will have a website and can start referring prospects and customers to it.
Here is what they give a person for FREE.
WA gives you a free 10-lesson course and upon completion a Wealthy Affiliate Online Entrepreneur Certification. They also provide you a free domain and hosting to build your site on. After the completion of the training, you can continue to use the hosted site if you so choose.
Whatever business opportunities you may want to pursue, you will need help getting started.
After building your free site you decide you want to continue the training you can. If you decide to go on with their program and training you will need to purchase a membership. I will receive a small affiliate commission on the program if you decide to upgrade.
In the last 5 years, I have spent over $20,000 on different programs trying to find one for me. One that I was proud to be a part of. Just three years ago I found Wealthy Affiliate and I now have 10 websites hosted with them.
This is a big help when you have little money and need to learn how to create a successful online business. One that generates revenue. This getting started course (level 1) is your first step to realizing your potential as an online business owner.
If you have an offline business you can benefit from the same free training. If you like it to stay, if you don’t leave, it is totally up to you. No hard sales. You don’t even have to talk to a person, but you can. With over a million members there is always a member that you can ask questions.
This is what you will learn
- You will discover the process of earning revenue online. It is important that you understand how income is generated online. It is different than other types of jobs or businesses.
- One of the first things any business needs is to build a list of their financial and non-financial goals. Not necessarily a business plan, but you must have an idea of where you are going. If you don’t you will never get there. Almost all failure online is due to unreal expectations. Building a business is not a get rich scheme.
- As part of lesson 3 you will be given access to over 500,000 niches. This word may be new to some of you but it simply means a segment of a business. A small part that you can focus on to build a profitable business.
- You will learn the techniques to find your very NICHE. It is not rocket science, but you will need help even if you think that you know yours. Many people build websites in niches that they can not earn income from.
- By lesson five you will start to build your very OWN niche website. Don’t be frightened, you will be shown how to do it step by step. If you hit a snag there will be someone to help. You just type a question into the chat and a member will usually answer within minutes.
- You will learn how to optimize your website using WordPress. This will help your website to be picked up by search engines such as Google. This is very important because it gives you free traffic.
- Your site needs to be search engine friendly and in this lesson, you will learn some simple free tricks. This is a very important lesson. You can have a beautiful site that no one ever sees. You search engines are your best friends, but sometimes they are confusing.
- How to create quality content that gets ranked for your website. For the search engines to send people to your site you need to have quality content. You need lots of it and it needs to be good. If you don’t like to write this can be really hard. There are ways to make it easier.
- In building quality content you need to understand keywords. You will learn the process of researching keywords that will get you traffic.
- You will learn a quick and easy way to create your own low competition keyword list. Whatever you are attempting to sell you will need to use the right keywords in your articles.
Conclusion
Once you have completed the free lessons you will be at a point where you will need to make a decision. If you have learned a lot like I did when I first did the free training you may want to go on. Are you may decide to work on and research everything you need to know yourself.
Whatever you decide I wish you the best in selecting the business opportunity that interests you. If you find it is too hard you can always come back. I did and I am not ashamed that I could not do it on my own.