4 Survival Tips For Hopeful Entrepreneurs Who Fear The Instability Of Starting A Business

It’s one thing to offer your products and services for sale online; it’s quite another to be able to cons

istently make money. The thing is, with millions of freelancers, solopreneurs and other online businesses out there, it can be hard to stand out and ensure that your great business idea generates a reliable source of revenue.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, though, it’s that generating consistent sales online is far from impossible. You simply have to implement the right steps.

1. Build A Strong Brand Identity

Even freelancers need a brand. Who you are as a brand says a lot about whether someone will buy from you now — and continue to buy from you in the future. A brand without a personality is forgettable. Worse still, a brand with the wrong personality type could drive away its target audience.

Sebastian Buck notes how brands like Newman’s Own, AAA, and Pfizer rank much stronger with Baby Boomers than millennials, in large part because of their messaging. This presents a potential issue for these brands in the future, as millennials are poised to become a much larger spending group.

He explains, “While humility can be laudable, younger people in particular are seeking greater impact and brands of meaning  —  and there’s a powerful role for brands to play in enabling that impact. Engaging more young people in impact sets up a virtuous cycle for the brand of increasing brand resonance, increased commerce, increased positive impact, and increased fulfillment for people.”

Because of this, your online brand not only needs to build an identity based around your core values — you also need to ensure that you are communicating in a way that will connect with your target audience.

Look for unique ways you can differentiate yourself through the way you communicate with customers. Just look at how Wendy’s made headlines with its sassy Twitter account, and then pivoted to a friendly “cult classic” vibe.

Both choices have worked because they had an understanding of who Wendy’s was trying to reach online. The more you come to understand your target market and adapt your communications appropriately, the easier it will be to make a strong appeal that keeps them coming back for more.

Most businesses have a hard time building a strong brand identity, but that’s because they usually aren’t asking the right questions. Answer these 33 questions from our Brandshrink about your business and you’ll be much closer to owning your brand personality.

2. Find A Smaller Sub-Niche

One of the biggest problems digital entrepreneurs face is a failure to fully differentiate themselves from their competition. There are millions of freelance copywriters out there. How do you convince potential clients that you’re the right pick for their next project?

One solution is to dive deeper into making your service offerings unique. For example, the brand ArtFrill took a new approach to online poster selling by selling luxury posters. Choices like using museum-quality paper and opting for a “quality over quantity” approach in offering new poster designs allowed them to fill the needs of a sub-niche not being met by generic retailers.

Going back to the freelance writer example, not everyone is looking for a generalist. Some industries require special technical knowledge. An engineering firm probably isn’t going to want its technical reports written by someone who doesn’t have ample experience in that area.

Your unique background and abilities are where you can make a difference in differentiating your services. Consider what you can offer that is truly unique. Doing so will better communicate your value to prospective clients while also limiting how much competition you have to deal with.

As NicheHacks notes, even seemingly simple tricks like conducting searches on Google or Wikipedia can help you identify potentially profitable sub-niches you can market to for more consistent revenue. 

As just one example, a search for “weight loss for women” generated several related search recommendations, such as “weight loss for women in their 20’s” and “meal plans for weight loss for women.” Each sub-niche can use more specialized messaging to better appeal to a target group and generate repeat business.

3. Grow Trust With Transparency

Cart abandonment is a common issue for e-commerce brands and service providers alike. In fact, an analysis from the Baymard Institute puts the average cart abandonment rate at 69.57%.

While there are many different reasons why someone might abandon their shopping cart, many of them come down to a lack of trust and transparency.

In the same Baymard Institute analysis, the top-cited reason (picked by half of shoppers) for abandoning a cart during checkout was because of extra costs like shipping and taxes being too high. In many cases, this problem is directly related to an inability to calculate the total cost of an order upfront.

In other words, customers don’t want the cost of shipping to come as a last-minute surprise as they are about to check out. And a similar mindset applies to service businesses as well — no one wants to get caught off guard by last-minute fees.

Online businesses need to be upfront regarding all fees. A similar approach should be taken with privacy policies, customer complaints, payment methods and other “trust” issues. Using transparency to prevent unpleasant surprises will help you get the initial sale and repeat customers.

Getting The Results You Need

Online business is full of tough competition …

Changing consumer preferences and economic trends can also present new challenges to your business. But as you follow these important guidelines, you will be better equipped to find a dedicated audience for your brand so you can make a consistent profit.