By Danny Austin 
When most people think about taking a small business online, they go straight to the sales
model. That’s because it’s fairly straight-forward and your source of income is
obvious. You function as an online merchant, and every time you make a sale, you
earn a profit. The more sales you make, the bigger your profits grow.

But the
really great thing about the sales model is that once you have your main revenue
stream running smoothly, you can add every single other profit stream I
mentioned above in order to diversify your income and explode your profits! For
example, let’s say you run a small business that manufactures garden tools. When
you set up your sales site, you can sell your own product (garden tools),
earning the largest profit margin. This should be your main source of income, so
make sure you focus on this first.

You could
also sell a service that complements your products or that your customers
might need before or after using your product. Your garden tools sales site, for
example, could offer landscaping consultations with professional landscapers.
Next, you could find products available to drop ship that complement your
main product. Maybe your new garden tool owners will need other items for their
garden. Find a drop shipper that offers bird feeders or garden gloves, and
arrange to offer those products for sale on your site.

Why not
recommend affiliate products that your customers will be interested in? You
could set up a “Gardening Resources” page on your site and use it to promote
affiliate products related to gardening, such as books or magazines about
gardening, packets of seeds, flower bulbs, plant pots or just about anything
else gardeners would be interested in. (Remember, though, keep your focus and
avoid turning this page into a general flea market or you’ll end up losing
traffic.)

Try
selling ad space to advertisers who are interested in your target market. A
site that sells rain gear, for example, might be interested in advertising to
gardeners since they spend a lot of time outside. Another option would be to
create a joint venture with other businesses. Maybe you know a great local
landscaper who has never considered offering his service online. You could set
up an arrangement where you earn a portion of the profits on any sales you send
his way. Then, write a quick e-mail promotion about his service and send it to
all of your customers who live in his area.

Finally,
start an affiliate program to promote your site. You could do all your
selling yourself . . . but why would you? Think about it–you boost your
visibility when your affiliates start publicizing your site, you gain
credibility with your affiliates’ customers, and you simply make more sales! And
in a sales model site, that’s your ultimate goal.

About the author:
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Last 5 posts by albena

• Online Sales Model - July 5th, 2007
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