Sometimes You Are The Windshield, and Sometimes You Are The Bug...

People love the Internet, because it allows individuals to start their own online business, minus a lot of the obstacles we find in offline business...

For example, and online business does not require:

• A Storefront;
• Utilities for the Storefront;
• A Business License;
• Standard Hours of Operation;
• On-Site Employees;
• A Phone Number;
• etc.

By running an online business, you get to avoid most of the above-listed overhead, which allows you to streamline your business for maximum profits.

Many people will mistake this "easier business model" as something that should have "none of the obstacles" of an offline business.

The reality is that we are truly exchanging one set of obstacles for another set of obstacles... And we must overcome the obstacles set it in our path or cease to be profitable...

When you throw up a storefront in your hometown, you generally only need to compete with a few other businesses in your neighborhood or town...

But when you throw up a storefront online, you get the special opportunity of competing with all of the others in your niche, across your country and around the world.

When your local township creates new requirements for businesses, you must rise to the challenge they have set before you and overcome it or cease to operate in your locality...

When you are running an online business and a website like Google or EzineArticles changes its requirements, you must rise to the challenge in front of you and overcome it or cease to use the website to drive sales for your business...

The reality of operating an online business is that we frequently allow our businesses to be influenced or controlled by a third-party website.

For example, how many of you:

• Rely on Google for all of your traffic;
• Rely on EzineArticles to market your articles;
• Rely on PayPal to process transactions;
• Rely on your web hosting company to support your websites, without your own backups;
• Rely on your domain registrar to always be there to handle your DNS information (I got bit by this one in 2009, when ICAAN shut down my domain registrar, and I could not update my DNS settings for 6 weeks);

The reality of operating an online business is that when a third-party website makes changes for its own purposes, you will either be the windshield (a benefactor of the changes) or the bug (a victim of the changes).

Do you plan ahead to avoid becoming the bug?

Do you plan for alternative sources of traffic to sustain your business, in case someone makes a change that affects your business negatively?

Do you have alternative plans in place to survive the fallout of any changes made on the Internet that could affect your business in a negative way?

Do you have the strength of determination to overcome all obstacles laid at your feet?

What are you doing in your business to avoid becoming the bug, splattered on the windshield?