1. High Level Business Experience--

For a coaching relationship to work, coach and executive or entrepreneur must be peers. To be able to provide appropriate guidance, coach should have not only worked in corporate world but also have had senior level positions.

2. Interpersonal Skills--

The coach must be able to handle all sorts of complex and touchy interpersonal dynamics and be capable of sizing up and dealing with situations quickly. Good coaches have great listening skills also.

3. Integrity--

Honesty and ability to keep confident are essential. Most coaches are dealing with not only sensitive personal issues, but also confidential company information. Integrity becomes most important factor in a coaching relationship.

4. Political Savvy--

If you even slightest thought of selling anything online, you must be able to answer one question before you do anything...

Who wants to buy your product or service?

If you're going to sell, there has to be a market that will buy, it's an irrefutable law of business and it applies to online businesses as well.

"Catering to a niche" or "specializing" or "targeting a market," whatever you call it, it's key to a small business succeeding on Internet.

Let Amazon or Ebay sell everything to everyone. Small online businesses target a few select markets and give those markets special attention that only small businesses can give.

Find Your Markets

First, you should just ask yourself question I posed earlier, "Who wants to buy my product or service?"

Most small businesses know their market well; they just have to think about it for a second.

For example, let's take web design. We start by making of list of anyone that might need web design:

* Individuals * Churches * Schools * Small Businesses * Large Businesses * Etc.

Target Your Markets

When you look at that small list, you start to realize that each market has it's own needs, budget, and reason for needing web design.