A lot of businesses face a difficulty which is often overlooked – the better they are at their job, the faster they lose their customers! A customer comes to them with a problem, they solve the problem, and the customer doesn’t need them anymore. That was the situation faced by HowAboutWe, an online dating service. The more successful they were, the faster they lost their customers.

The solution to this anomaly can often be found by asking the following question… “What will the customer need next?” That’s what HowAboutWe did and they realised that people new to a relationship may need help and support in building and developing the relationship over the long haul. That’s a new side to the business they’re now developing.

If you’re in a ‘problem solving’ business – and most of us are – giving some thought to what products or services your customers will need once you’ve solved their initial problem, may well lead you into new and lucrative areas. Someone will make money fulfilling those needs, so why not you? You solved their first problem so you already have a strong relationship to build upon.

If you’re looking for profitable business opportunities, in any market niche, there’s a simple two-question process you can use to unearth them. Simply approach people operating businesses in the niche you’re interested in, and ask them two questions:

1.What is the most important activity in your business?

2.Do you have any pain associated with that activity?

Can you see why this is so powerful? It lays bear the key problems which companies have – the ones they will most likely pay to find a solution for. If you can come up with a way to eliminate or reduce the pain, you have a ready made business opportunity, which is almost guaranteed to be profitable.

Social media is becoming increasingly important to businesses, but many of them simply aren’t up to speed and have no strategy in place. There’s money to be made by providing them with one. You could do it yourself, or you could take a look at something like SocialOwl, a  turnkey social media business.

SocialOwl provides  entrepreneurs with all of the tools necessary to offer small businesses  a comprehensive social media strategy. In essence, they’ve built a platform for creating and implementing these strategies which you can tap into and utlise.

To work with SocialOwl, you pay a  flat monthly fee to use their service, along with a nominal fee for each business that you sign up. The company provide you with a website and the back up and support you need.  If you want to learn more about whether this might work out for you, just visit their website.

www.SocialOwl.com

Here are five great reasons to start an online business…

1. To Capitalise On A Niche Interest Or Passion

There may be insufficient people locally who share your interest or passion, but through the web, you can attract like-minded people from around the globe.

2. To Benefit From Low Overheads

Bricks and mortar businesses often carry high overheads. You can usually run a web business (at least in the early stages) from home using the resources you’re already paying for.

3. To Make A Passive Income

Your websites and other online cash generating facilities will be working for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Once you have the ball rolling, it often just needs minor adjustments to keep the money coming in.

4. For Job Security

Whether the web business is a full time one or a part time venture, it will give you more control and security than you would otherwise have. Nobody cares how things work out for you like you do.

5. For Freedom

With a web based business you can work from everywhere and anywhere that has a reasonably fast connection to the internet. It means you can live and work where you choose.

You probably haven’t heard of America’s fastest growing city. It’s called The Villages and is near Orlando in Florida. What’s interesting is that The Villages is primarily a retirement community with a reputation for attracting  active retirees. Given that the attrition rate is likely to be high (a lot more deaths than births!) it’s growth is all the more impressive.

The success of places like The Villages is additional proof that there’s a great deal of money to be made in satisfying the needs of an ageing population.  They have increasingly specific needs and money to spend – the perfect scenario for finding lucrative market niches. If you’re looking to start a new enterprise, you would be well advised to research the needs of this very important group of consumers