I guess everyone who tried to run their own online business many times have asked themselves questions: ?Jeez! What am I doing??? Is it really worth my time and my money? Are all these promises a truth? Do ?Mary and John, who earned 3 750$ in their first month? exist??

When I started my first online business I?ve spent about 100$ in first 3 months and earned just 5$ (It was my only sale during the period of 3 months!). And I really wasn?t lazy! I worked about 25 hours per week placing ads, participating in discussions, submitting to search engines and directories, studying various promotion tutorials and so on. Now I?m in online business for 2 years. I?ve tried a huge amount of different programs, and now my income varies from 2 000$ to 5 000$ depending on how many hours I work. In this article I?m going to give you some advise how to start your online business and don?t fail because of common mistakes.

First of all let?s figure out what online business really is. It?s selling. It doesn?t matter what to sell: some service, some product or an opportunity to earn money. Mostly what you need to do is to find customers. And it?s not so easy as it seems. Here I?ve got some tips how to be successful in finding potential customers:

1. BE ORGANIZED Operating a business requires a certain amount of discipline. You may not want to hear that!! It's true though and we all need to accept it. Discipline means building your business schedule into the schedule of your life. Most common tools that you have to have in your arsenal are To Do Lists and the Next Day Plan. Everyone knows what a To Do List is all about but how many plan for the next day at the end of the current day. 2. FIND OUT WHO IS YOUR CUSTOMER Why it is so important to know who are your customers? Because then you can predict where to find them! Close your eyes and try to imagine who might be interested in your product. Is it a man or a woman? How old are they? Where are they working? What are the things that they ate interested in? Write down the portrait of your customer and try to conclude what web sites they might be visiting, what newsgroups are they participating in, what ezines are they reading. So you?ll know where to place your ad in order to get as many responses as possible.

3. WORK HARD If you think that working for yourself means you won?t have to work as hard or as long, think again. Most likely it will mean more of both. It isn?t possible to earn full monthly income working 10-15 hours per week. Home business requires a lot of self-motivation and self-discipline. Your success depends only on your willingness to work. There is no boss to wave a carrot under your nose to get you moving. You must be able to motivate yourself to do what needs to be done and that includes the stuff you don?t particularly enjoy doing.

4. KEEP STUDYNG If you want to be successful, seek more knowledge. This is a rule for every part of life and it is no different in the Internet Marketing world. There are some great sources of knowledge floating around. With a little time and effort, you can get a lot of useful information. The more knowledge you acquire, the more successful you will be.

I hope these tips will help you in your online business!!!

About the author: Arina Nikitina runs the ?Home Business Resources? website, where she offers free information for everyone who wants to make money online: hundred of free e-books, articles, free business consulting, valuable tools and resources. http://homebizinfo.8m.com/?a01_05