The world is changing, so people are. The business growth in all the sectors is on the verge of a declining graph.
Some businesses who took the risk have already transformed into digital business and some are still waiting for a tsunami. A tsunami when every trade or transaction would be digital and very few offline businesses would be able to sustain.
Internet business is easy and you can start your online business with almost no investment. With my 7+ years of experience, I created an ultimate offline to online business model which has solved 50+ Indian as well as foreign clients.
To build a profitable online business or eCommerce, you need to think like a digital marketer, as an internet entrepreneur.
The Internet was invented for business and money but 99% people are using it as a new entertainment platform but the rest 1% are smart and took it as an opportunity to earn more and sell to these 99% internet users.
You are a businessman, tell me the importance of a salesman or customer relationship executive in your business. Can your business survive without a salesman? To sell anything, there is a requirement of a guy who sells.
Things don’t sell itself
It’s simple, no science, no maths.
Now, what if I say the Internet can work for you as a salesman who works 24x7.
It will never feel tired and will never take off and keep on generating business for you.
Yes, that’s the power of the Internet. You just need to teach your salesperson i.e. Internet - what your products or services are and whom you are selling.
It’s simple, once you teach it everything about your business and problem your product or service solve, it will automatically give you more ideas and help you to grow your business. Before introducing you with my proven offline to online business model, I want to solve some common Q&As mostly asked by offline business owners. It may help you to understand the power of the Internet or being a digital business in 2020.
- Q1. Why does your business need to go online now?
- Q2. How can you make profits online?
- Q3. Which business is best for digital?
- Q4. How much investment is required to start an online business having an offline presence?
- Q5. what's the biggest challenge for most businesses when going online
Let me try to explain each and every answer in detail for you.
Q1. Why focus on offline to online business model?
You may have been earning a good or low income. Running a business is a roller coaster ride and sometimes it works well or sometimes not. But one thing that doesn’t vary throughout the year is your discipline and passion to work daily.
The Internet actually gives wings to your business. As of now, 4.5 billion people are using the internet which is almost 60% of the overall world population. It’s not just a fact, it’s a number for business owners. Smart businessmen are investing money on internet businesses.
Soon, your industry will also have dot-com entrepreneurs and will take all your business and you will be forced to leave the industry due to declining sales. The Internet is flooding so the digital businesses as well. It’s better you think today and take the decision to start and transform your business digitally.
There are a lot of free tools that you can use to start and get your business online with no investment. I wrote this blog just to cover all those tools and I am adding more tools in it every month to keep you updated with the latest tools and online platforms.
Q2 How to put your business online?
The Internet gives you the power to use a bundle of business tools that make it easy for you to do business.
For example, if you have a shop having a number of products, then you can use the Facebook shop for free to list your products and show to anyone over WhatsApp, call or any other place.
Google my business and Facebook shop are free features for all to list their business and products or services for free. Let the world know what's in your store today. You can also integrate a payment service with Facebook for free. People can easily pay online and by giving you an address to deliver.
You can list any service or product but yes getting payment online for everything may need your presence of mind using the platform.
Q3. What's the biggest challenge for most businesses when going online?
The biggest challenge is to believe that your business can grow using digital marketing. While going online most businesses decide to focus on only a website and social media account setup. This belief is becoming a reason for declining sales every month.
There can be a number of technical reasons to fail but ultimately the problem is inside your head, in the subconscious mind.
If you know who buys your product or service offline, your business can definitely make a huge success online. Although being online for business is must due to the growing use of the internet.
I am worried if we start ordering match sticks online. All the businesses should be on the internet. No matters what you offer or sell offline.
Q4. How much investment is required to start an online business having an offline presence?
No investment of money. Only time and smartness. The Internet is free so doing the business online is also free. You just need to be present on all the platforms where actually business happens.
For example, “My business” by google and Facebook page, Facebook shop etc. are free platforms built for business owners. And these platforms are so easy to understand and use. There are a number of free tools available in the market such as Google My Business, Facebook catalogue feature to start an online product selling page with Facebook, and a lot more. Here below, I have added the best free tools in my proven offline to online business model that you must use for your business if going digital.
List of Free Business tools to get your offline business online
(with the freemium model as of now)
- Google My Business listing
- Google free website
- Facebook Page
- Facebook Shop
- Facebook Chatbot for business
- Whatsapp Business account
- Local directories like Just Dial, TradeIndia, Sulekha etc.
- Social handles - Instagram, Pinterest, Linkedin, twitter etc.
- Canva - a free graphic designing tool
- Hubspot or any other free CRM
- Google Drive and Google forms
I seriously love all of these and when you will call a digital marketing agency out there, the first thing they will do will be creating your online properties on all these platforms.
All of these are good and you can easily learn to use them with just a small youtube video.
You can either use any 1 of them or all of them. It all depends on the bandwidth of time you have. But each and every platform shared above will help you to grow online.
Go digital, start using these free tools for your offline to online business model and get proof of concept first. Then Invest more and talk about investment as well.
We would love to solve your all queries. Do ask in comments.
