The Business Model (CS 1)

My goal in 2012 is to start an online business that I can work on in my spare time, and eventually I want this project to make me money on auto-pilot, and also allow me to one day quit my day-job (when I am ready and financially secure enough to do so). To take this first step towards achieving this goal, I am going to begin by thinking deeply about the business model I am going to use. I am going to share with you in this post the exact business model I am going to be using, why I am using it, and why I am starting by thinking about the business model (and not the niche).

Why I am Looking at The Business Model First

A lot of people I know and have worked with in the past usually start their businesses and projects by considering what niche they are going to go into. Typically, they will pick a niche, and then look at ways they can make money in that niche. They spend a great deal of time researching competitors strategies, websites, and they spend an even greater amount of time researching business models and traffic strategies through purchasing “make money products” from places like the Warrior Forum and Clickbank to help them decide how they are going to create and grow their business.

This pattern of behavior (in my experience) tends to lead to these same people constantly shifting their focus and strategy which leads to poor results and performance. They quickly (and frequently) lose faith in what they are doing. They start multiple projects and never finish them, and on occassion they even find themselves questioning their belief in their chosen niche.

I know this because I have done it several times before in the past and have seen armies of ambitious entrepreneurs fall into the same trap of “paralysis by analysis”.

To avoid making this mistake again, I am going to decide on a core business model, that I will not deviate from. Whilst I may make adjustments to my strategy and marketing plan, I don’t really intend to alter the business plan I have settled on too dramatically. After settling on a workable and profitable business model, I will then integrate this with the niche that I choose down the line.

(I’ll be doing a totally separate article on choosing a niche).

The Business Model I Will Be Using

In a nutshell, my business model will be an information business. I will be running an online newsletter in a niche market and initially, I will be using it to sell affiliate products. Very soon after this, I will then be developing my own premium newsletter or micro-continuity course (a membership site with a fixed duration) a long with several stand-alone products.

The free newsletter will be the core of my business model, and will be the channel through which I will sell my own products and affiliate products. Although I will eventually attach a blog, social media profiles etc, initially, the project will begin with one squeeze page and a few follow-up emails. This will allow me to start the venture quickly, keep things simple, and test my sales funnel quickly and efficiently.

As I generate more traffic and interest, I will then begin scaling the business up by adding my own products and adding more features to the project (i.e. a fully-functioning blog and website and a social media presence).

Why I Chose This Business Model

There are three core benefits to the system I am going to be using and implementing:

1. It has been done before, many times, by many successful online entrepreneurs. Its a system that works, and its a system I have worked on through my work for clients and during my employment in an Internet Marketing firm.

2. It is a very scalable system. This business model can be very easily and rapidly grown once an effective sales funnel is in place that is converting visitors into buyers.

3. This business model has solid foundations. While this may take more time to setup and get going than a CPA campaign, it has far more longevity and long-term potential than an “email-submit CPA promotion”.

Ultimately, this is a model I understand, and its a model that allows me the flexibility to adapt and work with big changes on the Internet. For example, if I had chosen to rank 20-30 affiliate mini-websites in the search engines using SEO, then the second Google decided to make a huge sweeping change/update (farmer/panda) my entire business model could be wiped out over night.

Because the core of the business model never changes, and is only ever improved and tweaked, then it gives me the freedom to diversify how I generate traffic to my website and how I win new customers.

I have seen it happen so many times, when a tactic, strategy or system isn’t working for some one, they abandon their whole project and business model, and fly off to buy the next WSO or big Clickbank release. I have been guilty of this myself as well in years gone by. This sporadic approach yields very little except a string of half-baked and half-finished website projects.

This what I absolutely need to avoid.

You don’t always need the most recent, most daring, most advanced or most exciting system, some times, it is much better to keep it simple!

I hope this article has given you an insight on how I am going to try and achieve my goals, and I hope it also gives you an idea or two for your own approach as well. As always, if you have any thoughts, comments or questions, then feel free to leave them in the comment box below.