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The Growth Stages Of My Online Business
By dave | February 2, 2008
While my business is already in the third stage, I wanted to show you these 4 different growth stages. Knowing these, how they relate to eachother and what it means for your business is essential for your success. You need to be changing or shifting roles, the moment your business changes.
This is a process, not a step-by-step plan. You can’t say at a given day that it’s time for the next stage. You and your business can slowly roll into it, but can’t be forced. By forcing, or going to fast you actually destruct your business.
1. Preparation & Startup
In this phase you plan your business, it’s products, marketing and all the neccessary things. You create a timeline for the development of your business, marketing and products. The three most essential parts of business.
This is also the stage you write a business plan and possibly get a loan from the bank to finance your startup.
This stage has been the most exciting for me, since I could actually brainstorm and day-dream about the future. Eventually I got lost because of analysis paralysis. At some point you keep planning and don’t take any action. I found my cure by unsubscribing from all those newsletters, blocking incoming email from everyone I didn’t know and even emptying my whole computer and bookcase.
By throwing it all away you start again with only the things you got in your mind, the information you know. You force yourself to find a solution to any problems, thinking creatively only from the knowledge you already have. And if you absolutely have to find additional information you search for it. Not buying anything else except the thing that can actually help you complete your business plan.
2. Initial Growth
Now we’re actually starting the hard work. A business needs a website, products and a main communication channel. Setting the first and latter up is rather easy with blogging software like Wordpress. You can have a website up and running in less then 5 minutes.
But then there’s the issue for generating leads/subscribers and sales. To make myself stand out of the crowd I’ve designed special area’s and communication tools only for paying clients. Next to that I also have more frequent contact with clients, since they pay me money and will continue to do so. I’m always letting this know to my regular subscribers, so they know what to expect when they decide to buy.
I’m using this blog, the accompanying email list and RSS feed to communicate with my market. By doing this I have a Push and Pull meganism in my marketing. My blog is attracting readers, my emails are pushing content to readers. Both attract a different kind of people, thus I immediately doubled my potential market reach.
I started out with just one product, a low-level and low-priced one. Of course the quality is very high. A lower price gives visitors and easier way to make the step to become a customer. Plus this product gives a full explanation of who I am, what I’m all about and what I can do for them. This product is called ‘Confessions Of a Serial Entrepreneur’, and costs just $7.
To bring some cashflow into the business, which is needed to get into the third stage ‘exponential growth’, I created newsletters and so-called forced continuity products. I’ve done this with my membership site Systematize For Profits, where I share my online business systems, and my Over My Shoulder newsletter. Since the beginning I’ve grown the first to over 1,000 readers thru joint ventures, cross promotions and by offering free trials with other products.
Giving away free trials/samples and coorperation with other people who are on the same or a bit higher level then you is essential to get onto the next stage. You can’t possibly get there alone, you need help. Also, don’t aim to get a partner that’s 10 times bigger and better then you - most likely 99.9% won’t be interested in you.
3. Exponential Growth
That’s where my business is now. Several products and services are available, the communication is almost fully put on autopilot. And freelancers and Virtual Assistants have taken over most of my work. Further almost everything is systematized. There’s little that can go wrong, and the business continues to grow even without me working on it.
It was a long learning curve to discover that not every freelancer and VA is equal. Some are outright terrible, others are worth hundreds of dollars more than they’re asking me. By having a clear system in place and knowing my numbers, I know how and where to re-invest my profits. For example I know that the average freelancer contributes $7,316.84 in profits per month.
Knowing these kind of numbers helps you find the weaknesses and strengths of your business, which in turn gives you a competitive advantage. Simply put, I can spend more money on marketing than my competition because I know I can earn more.
During this stage I form my business into a franchise, making it easy to adapt the business plan and model to a completely different market. By doing so I eliminate myself from the process of starting a new business to grow my income further.
Last but not least I’m working hard on forming my best clients into an inner circle group of friends and strategic partners that contribute to my success, in return for my services and knowledge. By helping them and their businesses, I’ll be the first they help out whenever they got the time. For my best clients I’ve become more of a friend then a business owner.
4. Continuous Growth And Branching Out
The moment you’re no longer the catalyst for change, innovation and new ideas you are in the fourth stage of business. At this point your freelancers, VA’s and strategic partners come up with innovations. Of course there needs to be a system in place to track these suggestions, test them against certain criteria and then implement them.
Many entrepreneurs are very creative and can’t imagine stepping out of the business and having others being ‘in charge’ of the growth and innovations. However this is an essential step if you want to focus on a second or another business venture.
When your business is completely franchised, you or your freelancers can adapt the model to new markets. By having a proven model to follow, this new business will be setup much faster and also save you a lot of doubt and worries.
These are the four stages of online businesses, as applied to my own. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. If you really like this article, feel free to social bookmark it or send it to your friends.
By the way - you may find others calling you lazy…
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Topics: Business Strategy |
8 Responses to “The Growth Stages Of My Online Business”
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pingback:
Posted: Feb 2nd, 2008 at 2:36 pm1The Growth Stages Of My Online Business - Affordable Website Marketing - Just another website promotion and online advertising weblog about seo and search engine marketing[…] Original post by dave and posted by Alfred Moya […]
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pingback:
Posted: Feb 6th, 2008 at 12:39 pm2The Characteristics Of a Highly Successful Entrepreneur | Online Marketing & Exponential Business Growth Blog[…] The Growth Stages Of My Online Business […]
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pingback:
Posted: Feb 6th, 2008 at 10:59 pm3How To Write A Business Plan[…] The Growth Stages Of My Online Business […]
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InvestorBlogger
Posted: Feb 8th, 2008 at 5:27 pm4It’s a good general plan: I’ll be reading this post over several times to make sure I understood it all.
What are these “Virtual Assistants” you talk about?
kenneth
InvestorBlogger’s last blog post..The 80/20 Principle: It’s just a rule of thumb
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dave
Posted: Feb 8th, 2008 at 5:47 pm5Hey Kenneth,
a virtual assistant is just like a normal assistant/secretary that most businesses have. Big difference is that a virtual assistant works completely online.
That way you don’t have to offer him/her a contact, pay for insurance and such. He/she doesn’t even have to work the same hours or live on the same continent you do.
-Dave
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pingback:
Posted: Feb 9th, 2008 at 7:06 am612th Edition of the Carnival of Making Real Money February 10th, 2008 | Making REAL Money Blog[…] Origano presents The Growth Stages Of My Online Business posted at Online Marketing & Exponential Business Growth […]
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pingback:
Posted: Feb 13th, 2008 at 2:53 pm7Resource For Bloggers Carnival - 7th Edition[…] Origano presents The Growth Stages Of My Online Business posted at Online Marketing & Exponential Business Growth […]
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Potential joint ventures
Posted: Feb 14th, 2008 at 1:17 pm8Hi Dave,
Virtual assistant is very advantageous. You need not pay him a lot and at the same time get the work done. Looks good.