How to start an online business in Malaysia in the midst of this pandemic? If you’re reading this article, it’s probably because you’re thinking about starting your own business. Or maybe you’re not thinking about it; perhaps you know you want to start your own business, and you’re just not sure exactly what you need to do.
So, in today’s article, we will walk you through the eight steps that you need to follow to start your own business in this brand new year. Now, before we even get to the first step, here’s what we want you to know: you should start your business even if you’re not 100% confident that it’s the best idea or that’s it’s going to work out.
You’re probably interested in this article: Write a Great About Us Page for Online Stores
It’s better to start for a few reasons. First of all, the experience you get from starting your own business is going to be invaluable.
How to Start an Online Buisness: The WHAT IF
Whether the business succeeds or even if the company fails, you’re going to learn so much. And then second, because if you don’t start it, you’re always going to be asking yourself what if.
- What if you have started that business?
- What sort of opportunities would it have opened up for you?
- What will the experience have been like?
So, don’t have any regrets. Start your successful online businesses this year by following these eight easy steps.
Step 1: Decide on Your Business Idea
To start your own business, the very first thing you need to do is decide what business you’re going to start. Maybe you’ve already done this, in which case you can skip ahead to the next step.
But if you haven’t done it, you might be in one of the two different situations. Maybe you’re just having trouble deciding among a few ideas that you have. You’re not sure which one would be the best.
If that’s the case, check out this article right here for some advice on deciding what business to start. On the other hand, if your problem is that you don’t have a good idea, then check out this article right here for some inspiration.
As you’re trying to decide what business to start, the main thing that you need to keep in mind is that it’s better to get started even if you don’t choose the perfect idea. A few months from now, you will be a few months into the process of building your business.
And you’ll be able to determine much better whether or not it is the right idea.
At that point, you can always decide to stop building that business and pursue a different idea instead. Or you might have found the perfect business idea and be well on your way to turning it into a success. But either way, by getting started sooner, you’ll start making a lot more progress than if you wait until you maybe someday find the perfect idea.
Step 2: Come up with a Business Plan for Successful Online Businesses
Once you’ve decided what type of business you want to start, the next thing you need to do is creating a business plan. Many people start businesses without any plan whatsoever, but your business is much more likely to succeed if you start with a plan.
Writing a business plan doesn’t take a lot of time if you have the right professional help. Having a business plan can have a significant impact on your new undertaking. If you’re not quite sure what your business plan should include, then here are a couple of tips.
First of all, speak to a professional business plan writer in Malaysia and see how they can help you get started. Your business plan doesn’t have to be a long one and can be short and sweet. Any plan is better than no plan at all. And a business plan with an adequate length that is not too long may be more budget-friendly for your new business.
Step 3: Research the Market
The third step is doing your market research. It may sound a little bit complex, but it’s straightforward. You need to find some prospective customers and talk to them about the product or service that you’re considering offering. We also know that this might seem a bit overwhelming, challenging, and uncomfortable, so you may be tempted to skip this step.
Please don’t do that because you need to find people to buy your product or service. You can either find them now or after you create the product and start the business. But if you find them now, then you’ll be able to start your business with a lot more confidence. Then, it will be much more likely that your business will succeed.
If you can’t find people who will buy your product, your business will not make any money. So you need to find these people at some point. And if you do it now, you’ll be able to talk to them ahead of time – to learn what they like about your product, what they don’t like about it. With that, you can make your product as good as possible; your business can be as successful as possible later on.
Step 4: Develop Your Product
Once you’ve done your market research and gotten some clear feedback from your prospective customers, you can proceed to develop your product. Depending on what type of product you’re creating, this process will be very different.
If you are creating some physical product, you need to design it. Then, you’ll need to have a prototype built. And probably a series of subsequent prototypes before you finally have the finished product. You will later produce them in mass.
If you’re creating a digital product, like an online course, you need to plan out the course. After that, you have to film the lessons for the course, write materials, create worksheets, and so on.
Finally, if you are starting a service-based business – meaning you’re going to be providing a service to your customers – you need to plan how your service will work. You need to develop service packages and figure out how to provide this service to your customers.
Step 5: Set Up a Well-Optimized Website
Step number five is to create a website for your business. We are sure that you’ve seen plenty of companies have a website with great copywriting and company profiles.
While we are not the only website copywriting in Malaysia, partnering with us to design and write your website is as easy as we claim. While creating and writing a website for your business, WordPress and Squarespace are great options. There are other choices you can consider as well, such as Wix or Weebly.
Most of them make the entire process of managing up your website easy. If you have no knowledge or experience creating or writing a website, always seek help from Word Philocaly. Otherwise, be prepared to invest more time into the process if you decide to do it yourself.
It is because you must put in plenty of time and effort into the process of learning how WordPress works if you opt for the DIY route. Plus, your website may turn out to be ineffective without the right design, attractive copywriting, and good SEO.
Step 6: Market Your Product
Once your website is up and running, it’s time to start marketing your product. You are now ready to start making sales. Marketing is an essential part of the process. Because unlike it’s commonly said, if you build a better mousetrap, the world will not beat a path to your door.
You have to get out there; you have to tell people about your business and your product. Else, your potential customers won’t know your product exists. And if they don’t know the product exists, they can’t buy it.
So, how do you market your business?
Well, if you have plenty of time but not very much money, then you might consider using networking or some content marketing. Content marketing is just where you make videos or write articles. Informative content can be helpful to your customers. Also, content marketing can attract people who will be interested in your product.
Read this too: 20 Content Marketing Quotes That will Transform Your Business
However, if you have some budget but are short on time, then you’ll want to look into paid advertising. But you still need a qualified copywriter to write for your paid advertisement to make it effective. You can also consider outsourcing the content writing and marketing of your business.
Step 7: Do What a Boss Has to Do
Once your marketing starts working, you’ll start making sales and have customers you need to serve. It is the seventh part of the process of building your business. It is also where things start running.
You have to move into your business role, that is, the CEO of the business, and run your company. You’re not just building a company from the ground up anymore. You have to show up for those customers week after week and deliver to them that product or service that they’ve purchased.
Depending on what your business sells, the process is going to be pretty different. If you are selling a physical product, you will need to continue to manufacture that product. Then, you will have to ship the product to your customers. You may also need to do some tech work or to fix problems with the product.
If you’re selling a digital product such as a course like we mentioned before, the process will be more straightforward. Your work of serving your customers may all build down to just answering their questions about the digital product.
Finally, if you start a service business, you’re going to have to show up for your customers week after week to provide the service to them.
Step 8: Hire or Outsource to Scale
The last step is crucial to consider even though now you are at the beginning stages of starting your business. Since you’re reading this article, we assume that you decide what business to start or get it off the ground.
However, you can be prepared first and think about what kind of work you want to do later. Do you want to be working with customers day after day? Do you want to be able to sit behind your computer, answer customers’ questions and help them out? Or do you want to be shipping products every single week?
That’s something you need to think about now. Because in the future, that’s what running your business is going to look like. At this point in the process, your business will be up and running. The final piece of the puzzle is growing your team so that you can scale your company.
To serve more customers, you’re going to need more help. So, you’re going to need to hire some people to serve those customers and run your business for you. Maybe you’ll hire customer service specialists; perhaps you’ll hire more people to create the product for you, or you’ll possibly outsource your administrative parts or content marketing to a professional to get more customers.
Of course, you may choose not to hire anyone at all and solely depend on professional outsourcing, virtual assistants, or freelancers such as freelance copywriters and freelance designers.
You may want to keep things simple, keep your company small, and remain a solopreneur forever. That’s fine too. It’s a decision you’ll have to make at some point, though.
All Results Require Hard Work, Time, and Patience
All right, that’s pretty much all there is to it. Follow these eight simple steps, and you’ll be well on your way to building a successful, profitable business.
Of course, even though these steps are pretty simple, they all require a fair amount of work. You can expect to invest at least several weeks, if not several months, into the process of getting your business up and running and making money.
So, our biggest piece of advice for you as you’re getting this new venture off the ground is to commit to being in it for the long haul from the very beginning. If you don’t anticipate how long this entire process will take and you are impatient – you would probably throw in the towel before you make your first ringgit.
You need to understand that this process takes time, patience, and hard work. You must prepare yourself mentally, emotionally, and even physically from the get-go. If you aren’t ready, all the things that you need to do and overcome along the way will throw you off track. Then, your business might fail before it even gets off the ground.
BUT we know you can do it.
How to Start an Online Business in Malaysia? The Conclusion
If you want to start your own business, know that it’s not all that complicated. Anyone can do it if they put their mind to it and are willing to do the work. If you’re really serious about starting your own business, then we’d love to tell you a bit of Word Philocaly.
Word Philocaly is a copywriting, content writing, and translation services provider to help entrepreneurs like you in your content marketing. We offer support to you when starting a business in Malaysia, enabling you to turn your business into a success.
We have a team of experts who can tell you precisely what you need to do to create a website with SEO copywriting. Word Philocaly can also help you with the following:
- Write a company profile, a business plan, or an annual report.
- Power up your content marketing by writing your Facebook posts and Instagram posts
- Translate your content and business documents to get you known in the global market.
Besides, we will give you step-by-step action items to keep you on track in your content marketing, ensuring that you’re never overwhelmed by the process.
Also, we have a fantastic community of online entrepreneurs who are all working together, supporting each other, and cheering each other on. It is how business owners stay motivated and stay on track.
Work with Word Philocaly for Succesful Online Businesses
Word Philocaly would love to work with you to turn your online business idea and content marketing into a success.
Thanks so much for joining us today. We are honestly so excited for you to be starting your own business and content marketing. Because starting our own business with the implementation of content marketing was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.
It completely changed our lives in so many ways and all for the better. So we can’t wait to see how starting your business changes your life as well.
If you want to read more articles like this in the future and learn more about how content writing and content marketing can help your business – make sure you follow our blog or follow us on the other social media platforms.
We publish articles here every week (we will try to do it every other day!), and we’d love to have you join us for the next one.
Thanks so much for reading. That’s all for now. We will see you next time!
