Hi All,
This speech had been delivered by myself July, 21, at Cairo ToastMasters club.It was my 4th speech at the competent communicator track where my objective was “How To Say It” so while preparing this speech my main emphasis was picking the right words and forming the right phases and getting away from using jargon or difficult words. This speech is supposed to be from five to seven minutes.
By the way, I’ll rewrite the content in more details and publish it and make Vlogs about it in the future, really delivering these speeches inspired me with some business ideas that I’ll be executing in the coming few months. here, on DeveloperMan and Al-Adham Web Solutions.
Introduction
Last time we stated general points in reaching out to people on the internet and gave basic steps you had to follow in order to be successful in your online communication using different social networks. Let’s remember, it was “Be there, participate, engage and then personalize” Last Speech
This time, we’ll explore a new model of what’s called online businesses, where there is no physical office and business is totally being ran online by a freelancer or a team of freelancers. The same ideas apply to a company trying to expand its client-base through the internet.
This business model is found to be convenient by designers, programmers, IT professionals, writers and consultants.
There is 4 major steps that you should follow to run a successful online business.
Present
The first obvious step in running a successful online business is to have a strong online presence, that’s a website; the idea about your business is being reflected through your website, putting a small investment on getting your website done professionally will save a lot of troubles on the long run.
Having your own domain name is essential; it’s strange seeing some people still seeking to run online businesses using a freely hosted blogs or websites, investing $10 and getting your own domain name and email, is an essential step to run a successful online business. So, present yourself professionally, chose the right domains and create the right email addresses.
I remember when I was having a “computer networks” course with participants who were elder than me, I was eighteen at this time and most of them were at their mid or late twenties. We exchanged our contact information, and I gave them my fancy email at this time which was abdo37_sk3, the next session I accidentally heard a discussion where someone was asking have you added them, not all, look at that email, what an idiot! Why should I add him!
After that, I got my emails sorted out professionally, so having your own domain and emails will not only give your audience the smell of professionalism, but will save you from being labeled as an idiot too.
Seek
It’s not hard to get a professional online presence, it’s usually very quick and affordable, the difference is made by the marketing plan this online business will utilize to reach out to people.
Having a few pages about your business, won’t be more than getting some other pages stuck on the already dense internet, if it’s not backed by a strong marketing plan. The ultimate goal from marketing an online business should be putting your website in front of interested prospects’ eyes. The most famous techniques are:
The regular PR work: building relations with other already popular sites, adding the site to business directories
Paid advertising: where you can seek to show your website to a specific group of people filtered by age, gender or location interested in something specific.
SEO or search engines optimization: is helping your website being found by prospects searching for a certain keyword that you chose to optimize the website for.
Involve
The next step would be getting the visitors involved with the site the moment they see it to ensure it won’t be just a onetime visit. The repetition of the marketing message is what will convince those visitors to become interested and finally use your services. Some tools that are being used to involve visitors with the site are:
Newsletter: Is collecting visitors’ emails and sending them regular Email updates about your business, which is being considerably replaced by the next point.
Business blogs: Where articles and updates are being posted regularly on a part of the website and the audiences get involved with that content, by commenting and interacting.
Widgets: Involving people would be by finding where they frequently are, for example if they’re using Facebook regularly why not to make a Facebook page to your business and interact with them on it, you’ll find these widget things that will help you connect your site or blog with other famous networks where it’ll be much more easier for people to involve with you.
Manage
Congratulations, you’re now winning projects, and people are asking you to get their projects done. There is a lot of online communication and project management tools that will help you manage your projects effectively, starting from an IM and VoIP service like Skype, through which you can chat and talk with your clients to full project management tools and client management applications, where the client can check all the information about his project on a certain part of your website.
Conclusion
Through these four steps professional presentation, seeking the right audience, involving and engaging visitors and getting them interested in your service and finally managing the projects and the client communication the right way.
We could now, congratulate you on joining the league of successful online entrepreneurs.
Thanks
- Abdo
Sharing Link: http://abdo.me/dzv9gb
