7 Steps to Creating a Profitable Online Business

If you can create a profitable online business,
you’re almost guaranteed to be able to leave
your 9-5 job and work for yourself, living a lifestyle
where you don’t need to get up early in the morning
and you have no one to answer to but yourself.

Here are 7 steps on how you can create a profitable
online business for yourself.

1. Find a niche and do your research
You need to find a niche which you are interested
in selling to and do some research on the type
of products that are selling.

Write down improvements you can make to the
existing products and imagine how well the
market will accept it.

2. Write an eBook
Write an eBook based on a popular topic you have
found on your research. Make sure that the best
information is given. You want your customers to
be more than pleased after reading the content
shared in your eBook.

3. Design a professional web page
To sell an eBook, you need to have a good looking
web design so that the prospects will trust you.

Having an unprofessional, awful design will
hurt your sales. So outsource your web design
if you’re not capable of doing it yourself.

4. A Sales Letter
You need to write a good sales letter which
explains the benefits of the product to the
customers. A good sales letter is hard to
write. If you are not good at writing sales letters,
you may consider outsourcing it to a copywriter.

This is the most important factor in marketing
your product. It is what persuades the prospects
to buy your product.

5. Create a squeeze page
Create a web page with the sole purpose of
capturing your prospect’s email address. All
your traffic generation methods should be
promoting this link.

6. Develop an autoresponder series
Follow up with your subscribers with an autoresponder
series after they sign up on your squeeze page.

You should educate the subscribers with good
information and promote the eBook you wrote.

7. Create more products
Create another related product and sell it to
the existing customers and subscribers on the
list which you have built.

Create another eBook or an audio version of
the eBook. The objective is to continue
building your list of subscribers and customers
so that you can sell more to them.

This is the blueprint to a profitable online business.
Many people have managed to earn a consistent
6-figure income doing this by outsourcing it to
professionals and taking the profits themselves.

————————
Get 10 online businesses in your name and
earn a huge amount of cash at

http://nicheblowout.com/?aff_id=1501.

The system includes design, sales letter, ebook,
video squeeze page, autoresponder series and
download page.

- Baylan
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Checking out http://ping.fm to post to my social networks from one place. Have used Seesmic, too. Do you use a service?

My Marketing Mind

My marketing mind has been on overdrive lately helping create new avenues of exposure for clients. It’s time consuming, and I love it. For most business owners, marketing is the next to last thing they want to do – right before Sales. “Baylan, what am I doing wrong?” they ask me. “Help me!”

It’s pretty easy to find out what isn’t working. Just look at your message, listen to your customer feedback, see what areas of your business are not generating the money you want. Check where the money might be silently slipping away. Ask yourself, “What is wrong with my business?” in order to identify the main problem area.

The better question is “What am I doing right?” This question places your mind into a creative mode. You will find more of what is going well, and therefore will identify what can be expanded or duplicated.

Ask yourself, “If I could only do one thing to get more of THAT, what would I do?” Then commit to doing it consistently, like planting seeds for sunflowers to grow. Pick the seed, choose and prepare the location, plant the seed, space the seeds consistently to make the row, water and feed regularly, and watch closely.

Some efforts will die quickly. Don’t worry about them. Just move on to find what works well. Some efforts will grow exactly what you want, time and time again. A very few will spin off a hybrid that can take you in a new direction. Decide if it’s where you want to go, now or later.

Most importantly, make a decision each day to be open to serving more people, and to be willing to share the gift of what you do in ways that work for all involved.

Keep planting those seeds. Once you have consistent results, you can expand to other methods and areas. Until then, get your foundation strong by doing what you do best. You’ll be happier that you did.

“Slowly Evolving” post on my blog

Times continue to be challenging for business. Check my post at http://baylansnews.wordpress.com/ to get a little personal perspective.

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Technorati and the 31-day Blogging challenge

Just joined Technorati!

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Am really looking into the different ways people are using the internet to get their message out.  So I joined the 31-Day Blogging Challenge to be a better blogger as tweeted by @GuyKawasaki on Twitter.  The challenge will be led by @problogger. You can join too at:  http://adjix.com/e4v4

Check it out!

Accessing Capital NOW

Small businesses are struggling to survive, and access to capital is the biggest stress they are experiencing today.  Here is an announcement for an upcoming workshop on March 27th:

Please join the Contra Costa Council’s Small Business/Entrepreneurs Task Force

and co-hosts, the El Cerrito and San Ramon Chambers of Commerce, for a workshop/symposium on

Accessing Capital NOW!

Financial Leaders that are Lending

Friday, March 27, 2009 • 7:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

FEATURED PANELISTS
Jim Baird, Bay Area Development Co. – Real Estate Lending

James H. Brandt, Financial Advisor, Wealth Management,Smith Barney –
Asset/Securities Backed Lending
Alton W. Do, Director-OBDC/Micro Lending
Andrew Krone, Sr. V.P. Marble Bridge Funding
Jack Lucas, Sr. V.P. Bank of the West, Orinda
Mark Quinn, SBA San Francisco Office, Region 9

BREAKOUT SESSION EXPERTS
Bob Kouba, VP Relationship Banking, Scott Valley Bank
Jack Lieberman, VP, US Capital, San Francisco
Julie White, BlueKey Business Brokerage, M&A

SPONSORED BY
BlueKey Business Brokerage, M&A
Jeff Brown, An Accountancy Corporation
CPA Firm of Capital Tax & Accounting – The Small Business Accountants
De La Housaye & Associates, A Law Corporation
Smith Barney
Smith Barney is a division of Citigroup Global Markets Inc. Member SIPC

MEDIA SPONSORS
Contra Costa Times
San Francisco Business Times

Members and Elected Officials: $35 • Non-Members: $50

Holiday Inn Concord
1050 Burnett Ave., Concord

Blogging Course

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

Small Business Development & The Filipino American Community

Just received this from Jose Pecho, Region 8 Chair of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA):

Historic Filipino American Meeting with Obama Administration: Radical Changes Urged to Prevent Foreclosures and Encourage Filipino American Small Business Development

March 17, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO: During the week of March 9, something very rare happened in Washington DC. Filipino American leaders were at the bargaining table with the Obama Administration. Faith Bautista, President and CEO of Mabuhay Alliance, joined by Jose Pecho, Region 8 Chair of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA), met directly with four key Obama Administration leaders with responsibility to solve the foreclosure crisis and encourage small business development. These Filipino American leaders met with Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, and the Chairman of the Financial Services Committee Barney Frank.

Faith Bautista informed each of them that virtually none of the government efforts or bank efforts to solve the foreclosure crisis were working. She urged that the government form direct partnerships with local community groups to solve the foreclosure crisis and that top officials meet with Mabuhay Alliance in California to tour areas of California most hard hit by the recession and the foreclosure crisis.

As a first step, government officials have agreed to attend the press conference led by Mabuhay Alliance and the head of the Asian Pacific legislative caucus Ted Lieu in Los Angeles on April 2^nd. They will unveil innovative methods to keep homeowners in their homes. They will also be announcing a joint taskforce, led in part by Mabuhay Alliance that will seek to eliminate predatory for-profit companies that falsely promise to protect but in fact steal their equity in their homes.

Mabuhay Alliance and NaFFAA also took the lead in urging that the government spend up to $100 billion to help small businesses including the estimated 400,000 Filipino American owned businesses in securing credit necessary to preserve and expand their businesses.

One of the key suggestions is to increase the SBA (Small Business Administration) budget from $1 billion to as much as $30 billion so it could provide technical assistance and capacity building to small, minority and women owned businesses. Another suggestion is to provide up to $5 billion to microbusinesses which create one out of six private sector jobs. (Mabuhay Alliance has been a leader among Asian American organizations in this field.)

In addition, Mabuhay Alliance and NaFFAA criticized the federal government for failing to award 400,000 Filipino American owned businesses and professionals. (Last year the government awarded $650 billion in contracts with 97 percent going to giant white owned businesses.)

And as part of the effort that began in November 2007, as a result of the Desperate Housewives attack on the credibility of Filipino American professionals, Mabuhay Alliance and NaFFAA raised the issue of Filipino American empowerment. One matter raised was the lack of Filipino Americans on the board of directors of Fortune 500 corporations. (Only two of the 6,000 board members of these corporations are Filipino Americans.)

As a result of a Mabuhay questionnaire sent out to 10 prominent Filipino American organizations last week, the Filipino American community will be submitting the names of three prominent Filipino Americans to be on the board of directors of Citigroup. The Secretary of the Treasury, Chairman of the Federal Reserve and Chairman of the FDIC are part of the selection process for the board of directors of Citigroup since the government is now its largest shareholder.

Mabuhay Alliance and NaFFAA also secured provisional interest from the FCC in holding a hearing in Los Angeles this fall on discrimination against Filipino Americans and other minorities. It will be co-hosted by the Filipino American community to discuss the absence of minorities within the entertainment industry and the need to end racial and ethnic stereotyping.

The national NAACP, the nation’s most prominent African American civil rights organization, informed Mabuhay Alliance at a DC meeting that it would join in this effort to end racial stereotyping. The FCC is likely to request that all Hollywood and TV network CEOs attend.

Faith Bautista, President and CEO of Mabuhay Alliance, who helped arranged the DC government meetings stated, “Desperate Housewives demonstrated to four million Filipino Americans that unless we are united and outspoken, we will continue to be attacked. Mabuhay Alliance and NaFFAA are proud to be part of a growing and long awaited united Filipino American effort to expand our influence and ensure that never again will the Filipino American community be negatively stereotyped or unfairly attacked.

Our successful DC meetings with key Obama Administration leaders demonstrated our growing influence and unity. We are optimistic that our efforts regarding averting to end the foreclosure crisis, expand small business opportunities and create more minority job opportunities will help expand the economic, social and political rights of our community.

We are particularly optimistic because we have growing support for these efforts from the Pan Asian, the Latino and the African American communities. [Due to the efforts of Mabuhay Alliance, the Filipino American community now has effective working relationships with the CEOs of more than two dozen Fortune 500 corporations including, Sempra, AT&T, Verizon, BofA, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan Chase.] We will be meeting with the CEOs of US Bancorp and AT&T early next month in Los Angeles on further empowering the Filipino American community.”

Small Business Survey in California

Every year the advocacy group, Small Business California, conducts a survey of small business issues.  The results of the survey are sent to every Legislator and the Governor so they understand the priorities of California small businesses.

I’m asking California small business owners to fill out the survey by Wednesday, February 25th, to help identify advocacy issues: http://tinyurl.com/bgqan6

or http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB228QR44U46V

To learn more about Small Business California, the work done in 2008, and past survey results, visit http://www.smallbusinesscalifornia.org .

This is your chance to be heard!