Your first one is to plan and create the different steps - 'processes' - that make up your Internet infopreneur business. No matter whether you picked the direct selling model or the content publishing model, there are some things in common that you must do in the correct sequence.



Step #1 - Niche Research

Look for a problem in the marketplace that you can help solve. See what bothers people, and think about a solution you can offer them. Another approach is to see what's 'hot' - wildly popular trends that many thousands are following - and come up with an offer you can extend them.

The critical questions to ask yourself during your niche research are these:

- Is the niche big enough?

- Is the niche profitable enough?

- Is the niche easily targeted and reached?

- Is the niche scalable?

Step #2 - Mindset and Belief Systems

Once you've located a niche to go after, you need to sit back and ask yourself an important question -

"Can I do it?"

The answer to this question determines, in large part, your success or failure. If you go into the hottest, most competitive niche, but believe firmly in your mind that you cannot win because you are going up against smart, deep-pocketed marketers, you'll very likely fail.

On the other hand, if you view it as a challenge, and set out with optimism, ready to try and break into the system, knowing you will win at all cost, your chances of massive success just multiplied!

Step #3 - Planning and Strategy

You need a business plan. It should be detailed, elaborate, practical.

Assess your strengths and weaknesses, and those of your competition. Include detailed market analysis, listing out opportunities and your plan to take advantage of them. Spell out targets and goals, estimate costs and investments, chalk out deadlines and time frames.

Create detailed process charts for every aspect of your online infopreneuring business. Trace each step from beginning to end, explaining how things will work, who takes responsibility for each step.

Prepare for growth. If your business will be growing steadily, outline the plan for such growth. How will it happen? On what time schedule? Which areas will get priority?

Assemble your team. Study your plan to see which skills you already have in-house, and which ones you need to recruit or hire. Share your plan with your team, so you're all on the same page.

Step #4 - Tools and Resources

Like any other real-world business, your Internet business too requires certain essential elements. Tools like statistics analysis programs, scripts to run split tests and track ads, autoresponder email services to follow up with prospects, web hosting services to store your files and many more.

Have a budget for is education. A commitment to ongoing learning is your biggest competitive advantage. Another important - yet frequently ignored - resource is skilled people to handle specialized tasks.

Step #5 - Building Your Web Presence

Create (or get licensing rights) to an information product or service, build a website for your business, construct a sales process (including writing a great sales letter), set up a payment processing system to handle online transactions securely, place name/address capture forms on your site, organize a method to follow up with prospective buyers, and more. Later, you'll incorporate affiliate marketing systems and joint venture arrangements for further growth.

Step #6 - Testing and Tweaking

Once you've got your basic set up ready, it's time to start driving visitors to your website sales letter (or sending out the letters to prospects by mail) and seeing how the process performs. Testing is hard work - and the most important.

Everything else being equal, testing is the single activity that will give you the highest return on your investment - by helping you improve conversion and boosting profits.

Step #7 - Relationship Building

Next, you'll focus on the more powerful things like relationship building with your clients and visitors - to ensure future growth and viability.

List building is a critical business skill. Publishing an email newsletter (or ezine) is one way to keep in touch with your prospects. So is publishing a blog (or weblog) and distributing an RSS feed. By focusing on one of these at a time, creating a process for each, and testing it until you are satisfied with the results, you will ensure steady growth for your infopreneur business.

Step #8 - Traffic Generation

Your next business growth driver is increased traffic. Get more visitors to your website. Mail your sales letters to more prospects. Advertise more aggressively. Involve your visitors and customers in the activity, by putting in place referral systems, launching your own affiliate program and getting delighted customers to help growing your business.

All else being the same, a site which gets 10,000 visitors will naturally out-perform the one with 1,000 visitors. So, on the Web, more traffic is a good thing (as long as the traffic is targeted to your business).

Try and look beyond the specific solutions I'm listing here, to see the underlying PRINCIPLE. Build your infopreneur business, one element after the other. Test each stage and make changes to improve results. Drive a flood of targeted traffic to the site. Your business can't help growing.