There are patterns in the way successful people operate. You can learn a lot from going through what they write, paying attention to the way they advertise, how and where they spend money. If you put their methods into practice you can expect to accomplish at least some of what they accomplish. You just need to know what to look for.

Let me first point out that many of us tend to look in all the wrong places. All the tools you need to build a successful business strategy are available at your fingertips and almost all of them are free!

For those who have absolutely zero money to invest, one of the great things you have at your disposal is Google. It's just a search engine, right?

It's way more than that. For one thing, Google has tools you can use to actually analyze trends--that means you have access to information they have already compiled that tells you what the bulk of the people are searching for... and that is valuable information when you're trying to figure out what sorts of products and services you want to offer.

Work smarter, not harder... Here are a few tips to get you started:

Tip #1:
Diversify. Set up multiple profit centers so you aren't depending on just one thing being hot all the time. Products and services go through popularity trends and you want some products or services making you money when others aren't.

Tip #2:
Go have a close look at what other successful people are doing and copy it. This goes for anything from how they write articles or ad copy to how they set up their web pages. Look at the top listings in Google for anything you are interested in adding to your business and analyze their web sites.

Tip#3:
Use Google Trends to stay on top of what's hot. Decide what types of products or services you want to offer in your online business based on the analysis they've already done for you. Just do a Google search on "Google Trends" and you'll get there.

Tip#4:
Affiliate promotion - This is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to make enough money initially to fund the rest of your operation. To establish your first profit center, go have a look at all the products and services vendors are making available to Affiliates at places like Click Bank. The rule of thumb in picking the best products to promote is that you want to pick products that have a high commission percentage of course, but also those which pay recurring residual income every month on each sale. These are things like subscription services or other types of membership services. Click Bank has some great analysis tools that show you how many affiliates a given vendor has. Products with higher numbers of affiliates are the ones where the affiliates are making real money. It also means the product is popular and therefore worth your time to promote.

In future articles I will talk specifically about selling tangible products online: How to the top sites as a tool to spot trends you can leverage. There are important things you can learn from the top power sellers online today.