12 Questions To Ask Before You Start A Business

Getting Started

Do you have business challenges? Are you trying to grow your business or want to be your own boss, but haven’t yet found practical information?

It is my goal through this article to help you to overcome your obstacles and reach your dreams.

One of the first things you need to remember before we get started is that there is no magic pill out there for you to swallow and become an instant millionaire.

No matter what you do in life or what methods you choose in accomplishing your goals and visions it is going to take some serious work on your part.

It is going to require you to take action!

Let’s Begin to Make Things Clear

There is No Magic Pill!

Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting Your Internet Business

1. Why do I want my own Internet Marketing Business?

Before deciding to start a business, think about the qualities you possess, what makes you tick, and how that might help you be a more successful business owner.

2. What interests, talents, skills and strengths do I have that will assist me in running my new business?

Inventory the abilities you already possess.

Then think about all the ways you can use them to grow your business and help others grow their business, and also working with partners that lack your abilities.

3. What are my strengths and weaknesses?

The ability to recognize your own strengths and weaknesses is invaluable for the business owner.

Recognizing what you’re good at and what you’re not will help you decide how to use your time and when to outsource to the experts or outside professionals for help.

4. What skills do I need to learn or brush up on to run my business effectively?

Recognize which skills you need to develop in order to run your business most effectively.

Identify the ones that are worth investing time into learning, and which ones you might be better off finding outside sources to perform.

5. Do I enjoy challenges?

Businesses provide constant challenges. If you enjoy a good challenge, it will energize you.

If you don’t, you may end up feeling as though you’re engaged in a constant uphill battle.

6. Will I be doing work that is meaningful and really interests and excites me?

When you’re engaged in doing something rewarding it helps to motivate you to keep going even when things get tough.

Start by getting back in touch with your values and see if there is a synergy between them and the things you will be doing in your business. If not, see how you can spin things so that there is.

7. Do I really have a money-making idea?

Not all great ideas make money. A good business idea addresses a problem, need or pain that a particular group of people or companies face.

The problem must be significant enough to warrant spending money to solve or alleviate.

Before bringing a new product or service to market, test your ideas and make sure they’re profitable.

8. Who are my ideal target customers?

Every business needs customers. Successful businesses know exactly how to describe who their best customers are, what “pain” they’re feeling and what they need, want, desire and are willing to pay for.

9. Who is my competition?

Learn everything you can about the others in your field who provide similar products or services to the same ideal customer – direct and indirect competition.

10. What do I offer that the competition doesn’t?

What makes my services or product unique above my competitors?

This is your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) – what you’ll use to make to your prospective customers buy your product or service instead of buying from your competition.

Why should your customer make you their Marketer of Choice?

11. Have I established business goals?

Setting goals is an important part of any business plan. But setting a goal is only part of the picture. Achieving goals is even more important.

Learn how to identify which goals are important enough to commit to, and systematically work towards them by breaking them down into steps, establishing timelines, identifying resources needed, and benchmarks for success.

12. Am I a self-starter?

When you have your own business, there’s no boss or manager to tell you what to do and when to do it. To get your business off and running you’ll have to motivate yourself to get things started

Things To Consider Before Choosing A Domain Name

A question I am frequently asked is “How do you choose a good web domain name for a blog or project you’re working on? What factors do you take into consideration? What’s a deal-breaker for you?”

Here’s my answer.

My unbreakable rules for choosing a domain are:

1. No hyphens. Been there. Done that. Regret it to this day.

2. No numbers. Do I spell it out “five” or is it the number “5??

3. Nothing difficult to spell. Although I once was really excited about using a domain with the word “catalyst” in it — I found that no one could spell the darned thing.

4. Domain must end in .com. I don’t bother with other endings.

5. Domain must NOT have any copyright names in it. I would not recommend using “Google”, “Disney”, or any other company name in your URL or prepare to be “ceased and desisted”.

If I’m looking to sell the site down the road, it must be generic enough.

For instance, I wouldn’t buy “NicoleKnowsFootball.com” to talk about my favorite football team if I planned to sell the site ever, because I’d have to find someone named Nicole – or who wanted to call themselves that — to buy it.

And my big, bad unbreakable rule.

It must pass the Oprah test.

What exactly is the Oprah test? Well, I picture Oprah saying it out loud. “Today I have with me, Nicole Dean, author of Blah blah blah and owner of NicoleontheNet.com”. Is it memorable? Easy to spell?

It’s not just the Oprah test, though. It’s the Willie Crawford test, too. If I’m in an interview with Willie Crawford and he introduces me

– I want people typing or writing down my URL easily – and remembering it long after the fact.

You can’t do that with MyNumber1-BestHome-Remedy-Treatments4New-Mothers.net.

Why is this Important?

A difficult domain is actually wasted opportunity and wasted traffic slipping through your fingers.

If you’re promoting via audio or video (in webinars, iTunes interviews, on BlogTalkRadio, live radio, TV, or even your own podcast) – you need a domain that is EASY to remember.

It has to make it into the person’s ears and to his brain and stick.

Plus, honestly, it’s a credibility issue. Would you really buy something from MyNumber1-BestHome-Remedy-Treatments4New-Mothers.net?

I hope you wouldn’t even think of getting out your credit card for a site like that.

SCARY.

And would you feel comfortable referring it to your friends? Not a chance.

What impression is your domain giving of you?

How to Avoid the REALLY Bad “Oh My GOSH I CAN’T BELIEVE I DID THAT” Web Domain Names?

I’ll also touch on avoiding really bad ones.

Oftentimes when you search for domains you read what you want to see. I recommend you type the domain in all capital letters and show it to a friend before buying. For instance, ending a word with “s” before the word “expert” can all of a sudden be misinterpreted.

So, I’ll give you the same advice as I give my friends who are expecting a baby. Run the name by your most juvenile, dirty-minded friends – before signing on the dotted line. You’d be amazed at how something totally innocent can go bad in a big hurry.

I hope this has been helpful. I look forward to seeing YOU on Oprah!

Nicole Dean is a FUN online business coach and the owner of Easy PLR, a high quality Private Label Rights product online store, business coach and an expert in outsourcing.

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View the original article here

5 Things To Consider Before Choosing A Web Host

A website host is the organization that will store, manage, and often times provide tools to make owning and operating an online business easy.
There are many web hosts available and within each company there are a number of hosting plans.
Here are a few things to look for when evaluating a web hosting company and plan.
1. How much disk space is available to you? 
Depending on the size of your website, the graphics and features.
25-50 MB is likely enough, however, make sure you have the option to upgrade should your site grow beyond this capacity.
Bandwidth is also a measurable statistic and the more visitors you have, the more you’ll need.
Starting small is fine, again just make sure you can upgrade when you need to.
2. Is customer support available 24/7?
Internet businesses operate all day and all night long, it never stops.
You need a service that is available to you whenever issues arise.
3. How reliable is the hosting service? 
It is important to evaluate the up-time of each host you’re considering.
It is understandable that downtime occurs because systems need to be maintained and upgraded; however, too much downtime can affect your business.
4. What software features does your business site need?
Examples include email accounts, message boards, FrontPage Extensions, shopping cart, web design service or templates, and mailing lists.
5. Do they track your website statistics?
This is important because you’ll want to evaluate the success rate of various advertising and marketing campaigns and you’ll want to see how many visitors you have on any given day and where they’re coming from. 
As an affiliate marketer, it’s unlikely that you will collect credit cards or personal information from your visitors, but if you are planning to do so in the future then you will want a server that supports encryption.
things to consider before operating a website
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Pakistan Made To Work Hard Before Routing Bangladesh

Pakistan Made To Work Hard Before Routing BangladeshPakistan beat Bangladesh by five wickets with Shahid Afridi playing a starring performances

Pakistan 93-5 (Shahid Afridi 24no) beat
Bangladesh 91 (Shahid Afridi 5-23) by 5 wickets
First One-Day International, Dhaka
Scorecard

Pakistan were made to work hard but eventually another dominant performance from Shahid Afridi carried them to a 20th consecutive One-Day International victory over Bangladesh in Dhaka.

Afridi took five for 23 and then top scored with 24 not out as Pakistan closed on 93 for five in 25.4 overs after Bangladesh had managed to hit just 91 before being dismissed for their second lowest score against Pakistan on their way to a five-wicket defeat.

Pakistan then slumped to 63 for five to briefly raise hopes of an unlikely home win but they were extinguished by a brisk unbroken 30-run partnership between Afridi and captain Misbah-ul-Haq, who was unbeaten on 16 in 46 balls.

Bangladesh won the toss and chose to bat but were quickly in big trouble, losing Tamim Iqbal to Mohammad Hafeez before a run had been scored and quickly collapsing to 31 for five as Naeem Islam (5), Mushfiqur Rahim (11), Shahriar Nafees (7) and Mahmudullah (1) were also dismissed.

Shakib Al Hasan and Nasir Hossain tried to rebuild the innings, scoring 15 and 21 respectively before both were guilty of playing loose shots to give their wickets away and expose the tail.

Afridi made short work of the lower order and but for Rubel Hossain's unbeaten 15 in ten balls, Bangladesh would have set an unwanted new low score against the disciplined Pakistan side.

Afridi's haul saw him become only the second player after Sanath Jayasuriya to have scored 6,000 runs and taken 300 ODI wickets.

The tourists then progressed seamlessly to 36 before Imran Farhat was bowled by Nasir as he chopped on to his stumps for 15 and they then lost three wickets for two runs when Hafeez (22), Younus Khan (2) and Sarfraz Ahmed (2) departed in quick succession to almost throw the game open.

Misbah then dug in to prevent Bangladesh's advance and despite Shakib producing a belting delivery to clean bowl Umar Akmal for seven, his defiance allied with some controlled aggressive hitting from Afridi steered Pakistan into a deserved 1-0 lead in the three-match series.

A spirited performance with the ball saw Shakib return two for 42 and Rubel, who removed Hafeez and Sarfaz, two for 23.

The next game is in 3rd December at the same venue.