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Starting Your Online Business: The Right Mindset and Plan Essential

April 06, 2012 By: Yvonne A Jones Category: Mindset

questions when starting your online businessStarting an online business is not hard, but there are two sets of challenges that the new online marketer faces.

1)  Knowing what to do to move forward quickly as far as systems and technology go.

2)  Having the right mindset and a plan.

Perhaps the right mindset and plan should be listed first since your plan will determine what systems you will need to implement and what technology you will need.  Why is mindset so important?

Entrepreneur vs Employee

1)  Will this be just a hobby or do you plan to build a real business?

2)  If you are or were employed, someone else told you when to come to work, when to take lunch, and when to stop working.  Whether you’ll be transitioning from a full-time job while you build your online business, or you’re going full-force into your online business, you will now make those decisions.  You will be your own boss.

3)  Closely tied in to #2) are self-discipline and self-motivation.  These have to come from within, but positive groups of people in forums, Facebook and LinkedIn Groups, as well as a Mentor can contribute to your success in these to areas.

4)  You may be like me when I first started.  I knew it was possible to make money online and I knew I wanted to share my message with more people when I started my online business, but did not know exactly how I should go about it and what the most effective methods were.  I learned those as I continued to grow.

The same may be true of you.  You may have an idea of where you want to focus, but you do not yet know if that will be your main niche or market, or even if you should niche it down even more…be more specific in your target market and your marketing message.

Basic Plan

At the very least you should have a basic plan with a goal of what you want to achieve.  This is why I recommend that before you actually set up your first website, you spend some time doing research to see what others in your intended market are doing , and if there is an area that’s not covered, how can you fill that gap?

In my next post on this topic, I’ll discuss some of the systems and technology you need to get started.  What challenges did you experience in getting started with your online business? Please share in the comments.

0 Comments to “Starting Your Online Business: The Right Mindset and Plan Essential”


  1. claudia says:

    My biggest challenge is the learning curve – pretty steep for a newbie with little computer background. I just take it a day at a time! When I feel overwhelmed I look at how far I’ve come!

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  2. Robin Tramble (@empowermentdiva) says:

    Hello Yvonne, I enjoyed your simplicity in empowering readers about starting an online business. Sometimes things can appear to be overwhelming for the beginner. Having the right mindset is essential to any empowering success endeavor. It’s essential to good health, a great marriage, maintaining a healthy body, etc. and life in general. Can you tell that I can get on a roll talking about the mindset? Having the right mindset and a plan is a powerful force. Employee vs Entrepreneur – The right mindset shift is key here. Another view as I’ve written is a CEO mindset vs Entrepreneur. Great post!

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  3. Yvonne

    You are so right.
    In many ways running an online business is much the same as running an offline business.

    To be successful you need to know who your customer is and you must have goals and a plan of how you are going to achieve those goals.

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  4. That was a challenge for me too, Claudia. I had computer skills, but for years I worked on companys’ proprietary software. I actually learned how to build a website in college but somehow that information went out the door when it was time to build my first website.

    When you get stuck, don’t forget to head over to YouTube. You usually can find a video over there to help you. 🙂 Or, send me a quick email, and if I can help you, I’ll be happy to.

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  5. Thank you, Robin. Since empowerment is something I’m actively interested in, I’ll be visiting your blog regularly to keep up with your posts. Thanks for coming over and sharing your insight. As you’ve expressed, when someone is empowered it gives them a feeling that they can accomplish anything and persons who’re just starting their online business need this assurance that although things are challenging, it will get better as they continue to learn and grow.

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  6. Thank you for leaving your comment, Valerie. I agree with you and know that is so true as I have both types of businesses. 🙂

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