Starting an online home based business is an exciting time that is full of dreams and high-expectations, but without proper guidance, the chances of success can be very low. There really isn’t a formal training program available to those who want to start a home-based business, so many are stuck trying to figure it out on their own. You can go through lots of trial-and-error and waste a lot of money in trying to figure it out on your own, or you can follow the advice of those who have been there and achieved success in their own online home based businesses.Now the first thing to understand is that if you hope to build a business based on selling other people’s products, scams, or schemes, then you are likely going to see no success, simply because 99% of the stuff you see out there is unethical scams designed to attract people who want overnight success. The key is to realize that building a successful business takes time, energy, and determination, and should be built on hard-work and quality products/services, and if you come across a new “strategy” for overnight riches, don’t give-in to the temptations, because there are no such things as overnight riches, unless of course you win the lottery.So with all that said, if you do want to build a real business that sells quality products and/or services, you will need to understand exactly what you must do to build your business system. The following four “pillars” are the aspects of an online business that you should focus on mastering and getting into place in order to build a successful online business, they are:#1 – ProductsProducts and services are what earn you your money, so be sure they are your own that you have complete control over. Whatever your products and/or services may be, be sure they are high-quality, are better than your competition, and are fairly priced.#2 – List buildingAll online businesses from the small home-based business to the largest corporations in the world gather a list of names and email addresses of potential customers and past customers. When you have this set of names, you have people you can email over and over with offers and free information, which is a great tool and essential to your long-term success.#3 – Relationship buildingThis goes hand-in-hand with list building, as you put new leads onto your list, develop friendly habits and give away lots of free information and service. When you do this, you strengthen the customer-business relationship and this leads to greater income.#4 – Lead/traffic generationYou need to find people to sell to, so figure out what works best for your business, what drives the most people to your website, and apply it in a big way. Whether you use paid or free methods of traffic generation, find what bring in the most money and commit to a daily marketing plan.