5 Essential Steps to Starting or Transitioning to Online Business in Trinidad & Tobago
READ TIME: 9 minutes
In light of the current Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic sweeping the world right now, many people are being forced to look at working remotely. There are also many non-business owners as well as business owners needing to get creative and are turning to online business methods or simply having an interest in getting into online business at this time.
While COVID-19 is very serious, we can also look to see the silver lining and the opportunities to get very innovative in our business or maybe new businesses can be born because we now have a period of isolation which may move you to notice unique opportunities you may have never noticed before.
As an online business owner working remotely, running an online business, that is my online brand agency, House of Branding, and being in online business since 2011, I decided to offer up a quick crash course/ tips for small business owners in Trinidad and Tobago on how to get into online business.
Online business in Trinidad and Tobago may seem mysterious to many nationals and you just don’t know where to begin, you may even think its not possible. But it’s actually very feasiable and we have MANY tools available to do online business.
So I am going to cover an over-simplified version of the steps you need to consider to get into online business or take your current business to incorporate online business methods.
I will be covering some of the pre-work steps as well as:
Social Media
Website
Email List
Payments
Fulfillment
The PreWork
If you’re new to business and don’t have a business already, you will want to decide on a name, ensure the name is available in domain format as well as social media handles. You can use this time to brainstorm names and research to see if these names are plausible and great names to build a brand on. You can use this site here to search domains and social media handle availability all in one place.
Once you have settled on a name be sure to register your business and set up a business bank account. Your business bank account does not have to be the same name as your brand name, but be sure to get your brand name trademarked at some point. More on that at another time. For now you want to be sure you have a business bank account because you will need this for certain payment platforms not all but it’s necessary in some cases. Those are the basics let’s move on to the main 5 steps to building your brand online.
Social Media
For most people social media is the most common and intuitive step to online business. But you aren’t truly an online business without your own platform which is your website which I will be getting into next. I wanted to start with what’s you’re most familiar with and most people are familiar with Social Media; Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc
It’s important to have a social media presence as a business period because people will look you up on social media first naturally. As an online business, social media does not replace your website but rather supports it. Social media is where you get social.
You meet new people, network and nurture the business to customer relationship, here is basically where you network with people and once a connection is made people go to your website to “close the deal”, which is sign up to your email list, buy or sign up for your service.
But before we get there you need to build out your social media profiles and start creating content. Post content even before you launch the business, build relationships on social media by engaging in the conversation and engage in other people’s posts. But at the very least secure those social media handles by simply creating your social media accounts around your brand name.
2. Website
You need to create your website. Just as you created your social media accounts you can create your own website using Squarespace. This website you are on, reading this blog post, is created on Squarespace and you can more than create your own website with so much ease and no need to worry about code when building your website on Squarespace. Trust me building your website yourself is really EASY.
If you’re curious on learning more about creating or DIY-ing your website, definitely get in touch. You can find me on Instagram and ask me anything. @_houseofbranding
You can build a simple one page website for starters and start building your email list. Which brings me to the importance of having an email list.
3. Email List
Every online business and businesses period need to develop an email list. You need to build your list, your database of contacts, which comprises most times people interested in your product or service or past clients and customers to keep in touch and keep them updated and convert them into business in the future.
It’s the most affordable and even free way to land sales by building relationships and giving value to this list. The same thing you would share on social media you can and should share to your email list, you should even give them more than those on social media.
The downside of social media is always having to always compete with the ever changing algorithm, always competing to stay in her good graces. With email, there is a higher chance of someone knowing that you have something special/ important happening where as on social I cannot tell you how many times people say they did not see or did not know.
We also have to keep in mind sometimes people are just not on social media daily but chances are they are checking their email, even if for work or school purposes. If you want to learn more about email marketing you can read this blog post.
4. Payments
Of course we have to get into payments. The most important step of ANY business is the sales transaction. How are you going to get paid virtually? This one stumps most people as in Trinidad it’s still very much a cash based society. I want to outline a few options.
PayPal
The most international option is PayPal, yes PayPal works in Trinidad but it’s a little tricky. I’ve linked to the PayPal weblink for Trinidad. The problem is most people sign up on the USA site, and get stumped when they ask for a tax ID number. Where you want to go is here: http://paypal.com/tt/
What you will need for PayPal to work for you to withdraw your payments is any card that has VISA on it, except your Scotiabank card, this card was blocked for use with PayPal since it’s inception unfortunately.
However you will need to create a JMMB bank account, as their bank accounts come with a VISA card but you only get this for sole trader or personal accounts. I would advise you to use it and think of it as receiving cash on behalf of your business and then deposit the cash to your business bank account for proper accounting and business practices.
If you have a credit card that is a VISA card it will work but I don’t really advise using your credit card unless you plan on using that cash for online purchases and subscriptions. I won’t get more into that so as to keep this blog post as simple as possible.
WiPay
The next option is to sign up for WiPay, Wipay is the Caribbean version of PayPal in a nutshell. You can create a business account right now on their website but you will need to become verified before you can start accepting payments, one of their requirements is to have a business account hence why I mentioned needing to have a business account in the pre-work section.
To create your WiPay account for business and accepting online payments such as credit cards and more click here. If you have any issues using the site it’s best to visit the website on a desktop as last I checked it wasn’t the most mobile responsive website.
Online bank transfer
Many local banks in Trinidad and Tobago have online banking that allows you to transfer funds to another person's bank account. Many online business owners currently utilize this option as most people are familiar with and trust their bank.
5. Fulfillment
If you are a product based business you need to think about how to get your product into the hands of your customer if you operate solely online and you do not have a retail location. You will need to use a courier company to fulfill your order. Most widely used option is TTPOST courier but you will definitely need to have your payment system option in place to receive payment before shipping using one of the previously mentioned payment options all connected and processed through your website is ideal for true online business automation.
There are also tons of other courier options that even accept cash payment on delivery on your behalf and then deposit the money to your business bank account for you. See there is a clear rise in online business because there have been many courier based businesses that have developed due to the demand and need for this type of service which only signals the growth of online business in Trinidad. So support your local online businesses that currently exist.
If you’re a service based business offering consulting services and other digital services, you can use Zoom to host meetings and additionally you can check out this resource: 9 Tools That I Use to Run my Online Business for more options that you will need to consider to run your online business.
I hope these 5 tips really helped pull all the moving parts of an online business together for you in a way that removed any previous overwhelm around the topic.
I even attached a pdf checklist that you can download and take action on in getting yourself set up with online business in Trinidad and Tobago.
Ready to start your online business!
If you would like to book a quick 15 minute call to discuss how you can start/ transition to online business or incorporate an online business component to your current business then shoot me an email cassia@brandingqueen.me or simply message me via Instagram @_houseofbranding and let’s get your online business kicked into motion!