Defining Your Online Business

Defining your new online business is an iterative process. You constantly refine your offerings and business identity until you have defined the essence of the business itself. Answering the following questions will help you clarify your business:

1. Exactly what products or services do you plan to offer?

Let's say you are a masseuse.  It's not enough to say "I'm going to offer massages". You must identify all of the massage types (Swedish, Hot Stone, etc.) and the duration of the session, and location (in your office or on location). Would you like to offer special packages for events or corporations? Will you offer house calls? What are your hours? Make a note of all possible combinations, or variants. Be able to characterize these types of products or services, using industry buzzwords and popular search terms.

2. Who are you planning to sell to?

Define your target audience in terms of age, education, gender, computer sophistication and knowledge of your product or service line. Write a small paragraph about each type of customer you plan to serve. For example, our masseuse might have several potential client types:

1. Women ages 27-66, middle to upper income, most computer savvy, might like Day of Pampering and Bridal Specials
2. Corporate HR Officers computer savvy, might like our quick Chair Massage during breaks at large meetings, or more services at retreats
3. Event Planners computer savvy, might like any or all of our services, but at a special rate. They may also have concerns about insurance and liability.

Just thinking about our disparate client types makes us aware that we will have to design special packages and pricing for each group. We can go back to our services plan and adjust the packages and prices.

3. How are your peers presenting similar items or services for sale? What configurations or variants are offered?

Google your business key words and view your competitors' offerings. Are there any offerings that would appeal to your client types, or is their a potential client type that you may have overlooked? How are they referring to these products or services; are there any industry buzzwords you should incorporate in your descriptions?

4. How are your online peers building trust with their potential customers?

Trust on the Internet is created by being considerate of your visitors' time and attention. Your site's graphic style shows you understand your visitors and want to create a pleasing atmosphere. Placing site elements, such as navigation and menu items, where they are expected to be also creates trust. A professional site is consistent throughout in look and feel. There are no broken links and everything behaves as expected. Site organization is another key area and deserves a great deal of thought. A well-organized site respects the visitors' time and intelligence and demonstrates your intent to make the visit a productive one. Looking at several elements of your competitions' websites will help you identify what you can do to establish trust with your virtual customers:

• Straightforward Privacy, Return and Guarantee policies
• Commonly used color palettes and graphical styles
• Information about products or services
• Business credentials (this can be much more subtle than an "About Us" page - look for all ways a business indicates their value)
• Customer support

5. What is unique or different about your business?

How is your business different from and better than other similar businesses? Is there something special about you or your services that make you stand out and become instantly identifiable? Kathy Cano Murillo, otherwise known as "The Crafty Chica", was simply interested in home-made craft projects. Her art projects were extremely joyous and exuberant, and based in her Latina heritage. She saw her unique character was that she was a Latina crafter, and she styled herself "The Crafty Chica". Her website www.craftychica.com is a colorful and vibrant expression of this difference, and is extremely professional.

Stand and Deliver: the Elevator Speech

Now that you have refined your online business idea, you should be able to give a 15-second pitch, otherwise known as the Elevator Pitch, containing the following essential points:

• Name and contact information
• Who you are
• What you do and why you're the best
• Your call to action

The last item, "Your call to action", may be new to you. A call to action is the conversion point of the pitch, which takes them to the next step. It may be simply "Call me anytime" or maybe "We're having a booth at the Trade Show - we would love to see you there and we're giving away free massages!"

 For a great little online wizard for creating your elevator pitch, go to www.15secondpitch.com.