(continued from part 1)
Online Business Idea Nr. 4: E-Books
In the times of Amazon and the Internet, Ebooks have become very common these days and are a massive market.
Actually it is just a book in a digital format, which now offers a lot of benefits compared to the old model of printed books:
You don't need to have a publisher anymore to become a writer.
And that just removes the biggest entry barrier for the book market, all that is left for you to do is writing.
Ideally writing should be a passion of yours so you can write the books yourself, but even if that should not be the case you can hire a freelancer to write the E-book for you.
Bear in mind however, that merely writing a book will not be enough in most cases. You will need to promote the book, distribute it as much as possible or even find ways to connect with the target audience in order to make sales.
Thus E-books or books in general should be treated like a real online business to make it a success.
If you write yourself, all you then have to do is to come up with a script of ideally at least 30.000 words or more, and then to have an editor and someone to create a cover for it unless you know how to do that professionally for yourself.
Again you can find these people as freelancers for cheap rates that offer you good service.
Even if you have the option to have a ghostwriter write the E-book for you, to become successful you should also obey the golden rule here: provide value for people with your product.
Be aware that online reviews can make or break your sales today and a book that has no real content and instead is just stretched out text to maximize the number of pages is more stealing people's time instead of giving them some insight.
Such cases will receive negative results fast and are no long-term gain for anyone involved.
Time is the new currency in today's over-crowded advertising world, so make sure that whoever gives your content the demanded time also gets something in return!
You can choose to write fiction or a non-fiction e-book.
It should be mentioned here that non-fiction vastly outsells fiction, although there will also be a lot more competition.
To write fiction you should be creative and have an open mind, if you look at the international best-sellers it is often a very detailed story in a fantasy world like Harry Potter or The Hunger Games.
But of course the possibilities are only limited by your own imagination - it can literally be anything you write about.
To write non-fiction on the other hand you should have some expertise in the area you write your book in.
The best non-fiction books are often based on someone's experience and expertise about solving a certain problem, like e.g. starting a business and then offer a way to learn the most important aspects in a book that can be read in a short time.
Think about it:
If it tooks someone 10 years to find out about a special tactic or strategy in life, and you can read that book in a week, you save yourself a decade of experience!
And you can also avoid making mistakes yourself by modeling people who have the results you long for.
That's what got me personally into reading books (I hated books at first), you can drastically leverage your learning and life experiences by reading what other successful people share in their books.
In particular for writing an E-Book it is advisable to look for a certain niche that you could provide an answer to that is not too competitive yet.
The topic does not have to be about business - it can be about gardening tips, fitness activities, something spiritual or anything that might capture people's attention and ideally could help them.
You can even go a step further:
Today there are many on-demand book printing services. That means your book only gets printed and shipped if someone orders the print version.
This saves you all inventory costs of physical book sales!
And you can sell in 2 ways: you can have the same book provided as an E-Book or as a print version.
Even though it is the same product, there are very different types of clients for reading E-Books or reading in-print books, so you can get both groups with only one product you offer in your online business.
To sell your E-Book, Amazon is the common way as it has the biggest source of traffic and established itself as a market leader in books, although there are also other distributors available too.
You can select the price for yourself - my suggestion is to price competitively unless you really have a USP for your content that no one else can provide.
In this case for real niche solutions there are books and E-Book on Amazon that sell for 100 dollars or more!
Having a book published on your name is not only a product to sell - it is an enhancement for you as a personal brand.
Even among those who have not read it, it will boost your credibility and position you as an expert.
In the long run, having an online business publishing books will not only make you money from selling books - it will also establish you as an expert. And from there on you can monetize your personal brand in many ways.
Online Business Idea Nr. 5: Re-Selling Freelancers
The internet is packed with freelancers who are offering all kinds of services.
Thanks to marketplaces like upwork.com, it is easy, fast and convenient today to hire virtual help for almost any topic.
Many of them come from low-wage countries like India but are real experts at what they do and offer great work for a good price.
The price is especially cheap for Western countries while for the freelancer in his country it is often a very good salary. This is what ultimately makes freelancing so attractive for both sides.
To re-sell them can mean to act like a broker for freelancers. And the way to do this i real simple:
Let's say you find a good and qualified freelancer who offers to create a website for 100$.
In a Western country such services are often sold for 1.000$ or more from local companies. Does that ring a bell?
In case it does not, you could hire that freelancer and pay 100$ to create websites for customers who want to have their own website in a Western country which you could easily sell for 1.000$.
That is a 10x mark-up only for finding a client! Talking about a nice commission in sales!
Many freelancers know their profession in and out but are not experts at marketing themselves. Some are also not interested in marketing their services because they are more into their craft and simply are thankful for any additional orders coming in.
If you have skills in sales and marketing, it can result in a profitable business for both of you.
The service the freelancer offers can vary, what is important is that you find other people who pay higher prices than the price you are paying for the freelancer.
This is essential to make sure you have enough markup to start a real business from it.
It does not matter what service it is - from graphic design to SEO services, almost anything can be found provided by a freelancer that is sold for a much higher price in a Western country every day.
Here's what you will have to keep an eye on if you want to do this kind of business:
- Preferably you should have registered your business in a Western country with a legit address and phone number to gain credibility - people are suspicious to the unknown, exceptionally if it is some business on the Internet.
- Make sure you know how to market the service that you plan to offer.
This is the only thing you have to focus on - find high paying clients that the freelancer would not find by himself. That means stepping out of the usual marketplaces like upwork.com and often be active at selling and marketing the service directly to possible clients. In many cases, the markup will allow for decent marketing costs such as Google Ads.
1. Check and double-check the work that “your” freelancer provides first.
It should really be a great service and flexible enough to have everything arranged according to the customer´s vision. Pay attention to every detail as in the eyes of the customer it will ultimately be your work that the freelancers produces!
2. If you know you can trust the freelancer, you can also start online advertising.
If you have a markup of e.g. 300$ and pay 100$ for a paid advertising to find a client this leaves you with a 200$ profit.
3. Make sure you provide top-notch customer service.
High paying clients are also expecting great work and service, they are not dumb and know they might get similar results elsewhere for sometimes a fraction of the costs. Therefore make sure you are always on-time and only deliver quality results. The best tactic is to under-promise and over-deliver on what is expected from you.
4. Be aware of any legal issues!
In most countries you are ultimately responsible for the work you handle to a subcontractor! If you live in the West yourself and your freelancer in Bangladesh, guess who will be held responsible in case something goes wrong?
Make sure that you are legally protected with what you offer, the best option would be to consult with a lawyer who is specialized in international trade or in the service you are offering.
Done right, this strategy can result in a win-win-win situation where you can start an online business for almost no cost, the freelancer gets clients to work as much as he can and your clients receive a top service for what they are looking for.
What you have to keep in mind is that your main job will be finding and servicing customers. And of course, your freelancers have to provide top-quality work.
Online Business Idea Nr. 6: Consulting
Even though it might sound like an overcrowded place to be, I also want to include consulting here in this guide.
Actually consulting is the easiest way of making money and starting a business: You just talk and get paid for it.
But here's the catch: first and foremost you have to find someone who pays you for talking to them, and that is the actual tough part.
Consulting can in this case not have to be about business, instead it could also be life-coaching or any form of therapy that you offer, given that you have the necessary skills for it.
The basic aspect it should entail is that you provide an expertise that others don't have, it is not important what type of expertise as long as there is a market for it. The most common markets are: Wealth, Health and Relationships.
As a consultant many people are afraid that they have to be an expert on something with tremendous knowledge, when in reality it is enough to know just more than the client you are consulting.
As long as your client can receive valuable information from you that he or she did not have before, you can become a successful consultant.
Focus here on valuable and new to the client - that is all that your information has to be. Nobody cares if you don't have a PHD as long as you can provide them with helpful tips for their life or business. As long as you can genuinely help people in your area of expertise your qualifications will be of less importance.
Please try not to fake this process!
If you have no current expertise, read some books first, gather some knowledge and then try to charge money for it.
You don't need to study for years, often it is enough to read 3-5 non-fiction books on a certain topic and you will know more than 99% of the people out there about it.
If you then summarize what you learned in your own words, you can actually share an expertise based on real facts that can help some people. This is really easy as most people simply don't read non-fiction books.
By reading only a few of them you can become an expert in the eye of your customer with actual knowledge really fast. And if you are also personally interested in the topic, it should not be too hard to dive a little into it.
The difficult part is to find exactly these people who are right now needing what you know, who can afford you, and who are willing to pay you.
To make selling easy you should be at the right spot at the right time, for instance if you want to consult people about marketing you should find those who are just about to launch a new product or make sure that these people will find you.
Again the Internet can help you with that.
Find out where your target audience congregates, meaning where these people hang out or what kind of content they consume.
It is advisable to also plan a small budget for PPC advertising to find your first clients and get started. By finding the right keywords or platforms to advertise, you can appear just in front of them at the right time.
By truly and honestly helping your clients you can start building a solid business over the years ahead that can provide you with a proper income while working on something you are passionate about.
Online Business Idea Nr. 7: Combine them
To finish this massive blogpost let me give you the ultimate online business trick if you are really dedicated to start a business:
Combine some of the tactics we introduced here!
For example: start a blog about the topic you like, at the same time start writing a Book/E-Book about it and then offer consulting for your expertise!
Or start a Youtube Channel, gain a following, and combine the videos with products you sell on your Amazon FBA!
By following this approach you create an entire ecosystem of your products where one enhances the other:
Each one of these appeals to a different type of customer, for instance:
The book in print will attract different readers than your blog online, while other people will not bother to read anything and want a solution to their situation instead and become consulting clients!
The blog and book published under your name will give you credibility as a consultant and at the same time you triple the awareness for your business with each step:
customers who read the blog, might also be interested in your book or vice versa.
Or someone who read your book and liked it might be looking for someone with your experiences as a consultant.
And you could also offer additional services that you provide through re-selling freelancers!
Or you could turn your blog posts into Youtube videos to attract again more customers!
And those Youtube Videos can display products you sell on Amazon.
And so forth.
As you see, the real money comes when several customer touchpoints on multiple online platforms are established, each one tailored to your individual audience. Each one should work also as a standalone channel, but combined with others it can create a massive cumulative effect of attention and thereby sales for your online business.
Phew!
That was a load of information!
If you have read until this point, congratulations on my part.
Feel free to bookmark this guide so you can get back and re-read anything that did not stick with you as normally to get new input in your brain it often requires repetition.
If you had no previous idea on how and where to start, I really hope you had some inspiration from this post.
Do you already have some experience with any of the above mentioned tactics? Is there anything you would like to add?
Feel free to share it with us in the comments!
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