There is a perception out there that the way to do business on the Web is different from that in the real world.

Virtual world as opposed to bricks-and-mortar.

Well, I believe that in some ways it is very different but the fundamentals are just about the same. Those darn fun-damentals.

Let me give seven areas where this may be just about the same.

(1)You need financing to have a business online that generates any kind of return. Your investment may be a lot smaller but you still need to have some kind of personal credit or business credit to be able to maintain your business.

(2)Your legal requirements are just about the same. You need some kind of business entity to be recognized as a business, whether you use your own name or a business alias, you still need to distinguish your web presence from all those others out there.

(3)You need a product or service to be able to generate revenue. It can be a virtual product, or an online service, or even an introduction to a live activity, product, or service.

(4)You need a marketing campaign in place fr your buyers to find you online. This is a little more complex online than it is in the bricks-and-mortar world. However, it may be a lot less costly and much more flexible online than offline.

(5)It helps to joint venture or anchor your organization with some other popular organization already out there. Much as a smaller store benefits from anchoring itself to a larger organization such as a WalMart, JC Penneys, or Target, so does anchoring yourself to sites such as Amazon, MSN, even Google.

(6)You must continually refresh your online presence, refreshing it on search engines, networking sites, and so on. This is very similar to a bricks-and-mortar business needing to continually advertise to stay in business.

finally,

(7)Cash flow is king. In the real world, if you don’t have enough money to pay for your expenses, you are out of business. If you can’t buy product to stock your shelves with, you aren’t going to be making any sales. Without sales you aren’t going to get any cash. Much the same happens online. But your outflow is a lot smaller. Your expenses are a lot less online than in the real world. Most of the time you can get by with less than $500 and create a multi-million dollar business. However, that would often be an exception to the rule.

IF you are thinking that the Web behaves differently and you want to make millions online by following some course of action you read about, or heard about online, and there are plenty out there, just remember, the principles are the same. They may resolve themselves a lot faster, in some instances, but often enough, the process is just as grinding and boring as it is in the real world. It takes one customer/buyer at a time, one sale at a time.

Here are five ways where the online business differ from real world ones.

(1)You can advertise and get results within a very short time without spending a lot of money. In the real world that may not be possible as advertising campaigns take a while to develop.

(2)You can quickly determine if a business idea is a winner or not. There are a number of ways to find out whether a business niche will generate a lot of buying responses or not.

(3)Your market research is immediate and inexpensive and you have lots of resources to help you decide which is the best way to expose your business to the Web.

(4)Your business niche doesn’t have to be in one single industry. You can adapt the concept to other industries, as cross marketing across different industries doesn’t require you to move to a different location but simply create a new domain.

(5)You can hire many salespeople without having to worrry about what benefits to provide, what pay range to give, and don’t have to worry about them showing up or not. These salespeople will often pay you for the priviledge of selling your product, at least the serious ones will.

So, there you have it.

It’s not really all that different to start a business online as it is to start one in the real world. The most important thing, irrespective of which way you go is that you do start a business.

Wishing you all the best in your business venture.