Patience is a virtue in all aspects of life, they say good things come to those who wait! But can this be said for those of us running a business online? After all you read about the stories of websites which have built up to a massive scale and are worth millions in only a couple of years - Facebook, Digg, YouTube, MySpace, Flikr, Craigslist, Friendster, the list goes on.

So does this mean if my website doesn’t take off within a few weeks/months it isn’t going to work?

Not at all! The web is a very competitive place, and unless you have something incredibly unique or a really big marketing budget it is very difficult to get floods of customers through your website within weeks of launching your site.

You have to be patient. If you notice all the sites I mentioned at the start of the post are services, they don’t actually sell anything to the consumer. Websites like this can grow dramatically quicker than ecommerce websites. With ecommerce it is a whole different ball game, you have to build trust with visitors so they are comfortable to create an account with you and hand some money over.

As long as you have got a solid business plan, determination, patience, common sense and good people around you then you stand a very good chance of building up a successful business.

When I first started out online I wanted to do everything at once. And I would be annoyed when I had been working my backside off for weeks and weeks and hadn’t generated a penny in revenue. This can soon leave you questioning what your doing and leave you a bit despondent.

Ultimately with everything in place you need to just be patient and get on with it - easier said than done I know but this is business and you should be in it for the long haul.

The longer you are running your online business and active on business forums and blogs like this the more you learn, with your greater knowledge you improve your business and it becomes like a snowball effect. In my experience setting up and getting your business going is the hardest bit, it takes a lot of hard work and patience! Long-term though it is worth it for a variety of reasons; satisfaction, financial and the lifestyle that working for yourself brings.

So remember, good things come to those who wait - keep working!

You may also be interested in reading these posts which Ive written in the past which relate to this post:
You must be involved to take advantage of opportunities
Getting your first ecommerce order
Starting your online business properly