Oh, how the times have changed. We started out searching through endless amounts of books to obtain information… now we just do a quick search on the internet to find the information we need.
Billions of people search the internet each day, and that number will only increase as time flies and technology advances. On the internet, you can learn how to do just about anything by way of blogs, podcasts, and videos. Whether you need to learn how to change a tire or learn how to train a dog, the internet has those answers for you.
You would think that with all this access to information and various products and services, it would be a great opportunity for you to monetize on people’s use of the internet with your online business. Makes sense… but despite the avenues of opportunity, online businesses aren’t making the revenue they projected.
Having your online business is not easy by any means. Sometimes you get so caught up in the excitement of fulfilling your passion that the fact that your business isn’t generating enough profit doesn’t hit you until it’s too late… as an entrepreneur, that is the most devastating situations you can put yourself in, but it can also be your source of motivation to get things right.
In order to get your failing business back on the right track, you first need to find out what you did wrong. Depending on the issues you’re having, you may need to completely start fresh with certain things. You might need to obtain a completely new domain name and establish a new brand for yourself to make your business flourish… you never know, and you won’t know until you do a thorough observation of your website.
If you have taken strenuous efforts in creating a successful website, but haven’t seen successful results, take a look at these mistakes that online business owners make… you could be making some of those same mistakes with your website.
You’re Not Pricing for Profit
Let me ask you this… when you were putting your website together, how did you come up with the prices for your products or services? A lot of online business owners will come up with their pricing by looking at what their competition is charging.
This common, yet flawed approach is bad because, in order for your business to be successful, you have to consider what is necessary to make your business profitable. The necessary profit requirements for one business might not be the same for your business.
To configure a pricing strategy, you need to figure out what your business expenses consist of, what you’re responsible for in taxes, any debts your business has, and what you want to bring home (salary wise).
Your Product or Service Isn’t Viable
This aspect of your product or service can be due to either (or both) of these reasons. Your product is too expensive, or it’s not tangible.
Price and tangibility are big problems that can wreak havoc on your business if you don’t plan properly. For example, if one of your services is self-development, it can hard to sell that if you don’t have anything else to offer with that service. A lot of people with these types of businesses offer books and workbooks, but if all you’re offering customers is to pay to watch a video of you talking about a self-development topic, they more than likely won’t spend the money for that.
Now, if you have a product, that’s overpriced, people won’t buy that either, especially if they can get the same product from another website for much less. This is when you either need to promote the higher quality of your product over your competitors or revisit what materials are used to make your product so that it won’t be so expensive to customers, but will still bring in profit.
Not Establishing a Target Audience
Pitching to the right audience is crucial to the success of your business. Some signs that you’re pitching to the wrong audience are that you have a great product but not producing any sales, you have prospects but can’t turn them into clients, or the clients that you do have are either difficult or dissatisfied… this is when you need to as yourself three questions
1. Who are you trying to help?
2. What are you trying to help them do?
3. How old are they?
4. What’s their income level?
5. How will your business/products help them or solve a problem they have?
Answering those questions will help you figure out who your ideal customer is. In finding out who your ideal customer is, you can conduct your own little experiment. Take a look at the customers or clients who love your product. Check out their social media pages and see what they’ve said about your products.
You can conduct customer interviews too. This will not only help you learn about the customer, but it will also help learn why people chose your business, exactly what was it about your product that they liked, and what you can do to improve your products and services.
You’re Not Keeping Track of Your Revenue
They say what gets measured, gets managed, but if you have no clue what your cash flow is looking like, then there’s no way of keeping track of your business’s true profits. Now, it’s important that you know and realize that there’s a difference between cash flow and profit.
Cash flow is the monies coming in and going out of your business each month. Profit is the revenue you earned. Now, with businesses, there is such a thing as positive income with negative cash flow, and vice versa, but as a business owner, you should recognize this immediately.
Essentially, it’s important to know this information because you need to know if this business will allow you to pay your bills, and in turn, that will let you know if your business is sustainable for you in the grand scheme of things.
