WHAT TYPE OF BUSINESS ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
In past blog posts, we have discussed how to successfully sell some of your old things online for quick and easy pocket change. But what if you want to take it further than that? What if, instead of building your side hustle, you want to build an actual online brand? Something of credit that can be your main line of income? Something awesome?!
Let’s say, for instance, that you absolutely hate your day job. Your boss is terrible and micro-managing, your hours are ludicrous, and your pay is mediocre as compared to what you should be paid. To top it all off, you are not due for a promotion for nearly a year’s time, and your coworker chews with their mouth open during lunch. So you’ve said, “Enough of this already! I want to start my own business.”
And nowadays with the technology industry booming and entrepreneurs become more and more romanticized, today is the perfect day to start your business. The only problem is… well, you have no ideas about what your business could ever possibly be. I mean, there are so many choices.
An online business can be literally anything, and you can manage it literally anywhere. Technology today grants you the ability to send out and answer work emails on your phone while you are at the gym, or format presentations with your tablet on the train ride to your mother’s house, or even write memos and scrutinize possible applicants on your laptop before bed while cuddling with your cat.
Not to mention that technology now makes overhead costs of a new business practically nothing. Or, at least, nothing compared to what they used to be. Back in the day, you needed to rent a storefront space, build and supply inventory, pay to maintain the space, pay employees’ salaries, and continue to push out new products every time your supply runs low. Talk about a headache! Now you can operate your own six- or seven-figure business from the comfort of your own couch, and not waste any of your hard-earned cash on paying for utilities. Or even products, for that matter.
BUILDING YOUR AUDIENCE
But where is a business with no one to answer to? Whether your business centers around public speaking, fitness training, fashion design or buying, cosmetics, landscaping and contracting, or something as simple (and wonderful) as baking bread and cookies and other pastries, you need an audience.
Building an audience these days is just about the easiest part of any business. Everyone and their mother utilizes social media outlets, such as:
- Instagram and Instagram Stories
- FaceBook and FaceBook Messenger
- SnapChat
- YouTube
- tv and Discord (both used for the gaming universe)
Not to mention online sales websites and apps or a specific niche market app, which allow you to grow your audience in a different way: through a dedicated sellers-buyers bond. Now, if you are selling through one of these apps you may not need all the tools of building an online business that we will be discussing, but building an audience is by and far the most important aspect of any competitive selling space. Some online selling websites and apps include:
- Etsy
- PoshMark Closet
- Mercari
- Wag Dog Walkers
- eBay
- Craigslist
For the purposes of this discussion, though, let’s focus on the first list of conventional social media outlets. Now, you have your app of choice — let’s say Instagram since Instagram is becoming the most visited platform of them all. It’s even taking on roles that other apps had: Instagram Stories is neck and neck, and some would say bypassing, SnapChat, while Instagram Messenger tackles FaceBook. Talk about a three-in-one!
So you’re on Instagram, and you have about 2K followers. That’s great! But now you are looking to profit off of your small business — for now, let’s say T-Shirt design — by selling to your followers. So you want more, obviously, 
because a bigger audience means more sales. Not to mention, social media are essentially free advertising, which again diminishes overhead costs for your new business. Many companies will now even sponsor social media “celebrities”, or that girl you used to sit next to in French who now has 220K followers on Instagram and half as many on Twitter, to market their product for them. Like a paid endorsement from a football star or Hollywood movie star for a conventional commercial, social media endorsements are normally an exchange between the company and their “star” via free products and a small commission percentage.
But before we can even get to endorsements, we need a bigger audience. There a few key steps to building a bigger audience (on any platform, mind):
- BE AUTHENTIC. People like listening to real people. In this case, the real person is you, and they are looking to you to be as real as it gets. If, however, you are a) copying someone else and what they are doing to build their following, b) being entirely fake and inauthentic (because your viewers can tell), or c) way too down-trodding or depressing, you can kiss that potential audience goodbye.
- BE CONSISTENT. Imagine that you were trying to find new people to follow. Would you want the guy who only posts once in a while and about nothing, or the one who posts every single day with good, quality content? If you are like most, you are going to pick the latter. So be the latter!
- BE INFORMATIVE. Being that guy to post a picture of their lunch and say, “OMG wish you were eating this, too!” with some neat emojis and hashtags to match is good every once in a while, as is Boomeranging your new manicure and sending photos of your new puppy. However, to keep a consistent audience you need to continually provide new and useful information in your chosen field. So if you’re slinging T-Shirts hoping to make a living, explain why you started; what the project means to you; the history behind the design; opinions on new designs; etc.
- BE INTERACTIVE. Did you ever get really bored in art museums because you couldn’t touch anything, but loved the science museums because they were meant to be played with? Me, too. Make your social medias a science museum and not an art museum by asking questions, probing for opinions, and starting conversations! Instagram Stories even has a polling feature now, so you can get your audience interacting with your content without even having to speak. How cool is that?!
And have all three tie in together, again and again, day after day. Watch that audience grow!
BUILDING AN EMAIL LIST
The two most visited social media that help to boost your influence are Instagram and YouTube. However, each of these platforms has the same outlying issue: you do not, nor will you ever, own them. Building an entire business and platform within another app is great, and technology today makes it seem like these apps will never go away. However, if the security break at FaceBook has taught us anything, it is that these platforms are fickle.
That’s why the best of the best build an email list. An email list is a compilation of emails from your most loyal viewers, who are intent on receiving more exclusive content from you away from your main platforms. These people are the ones who are most prone to becoming potential customers; they’re already interested, so reel them in!
Collecting emails is very simple:
- If you are on platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, or FaceBook, add a link to your email list in your profile description. Prompt your viewers to follow the link and sign up!
- If using video platforms, such as YouTube, add a link in the video description. Make sure to talk about your email list a bit and what they can expect from it!
Once you have their emails, make sure to send an email once a week or so to make sure that you stay relevant and fresh in their minds. Don’t let your emails go to spam!
SELLING YOUR PRODUCT
Now you have a large audience and a dedicated email list. All you need now are some sales.
Sales are very simple with a dedicated audience that it fairly desperate to check their phone and purchase products in between meetings and lunchtimes. So if you’re still producing your specialty designed t-shirts, and you constantly send email updates telling them when your product will be sold, there’s no reason why you can’t sell out.
- THE PRESALE. Test the waters first before you fully launch your product and spend time on formatting it, or money in making a small batch of product. After a few test emails to your email list, inquire whether or not they would be interested in products you’d produce. If the reaction is positive, then go to step 2.
- THE LAUNCH. Countdown to your launch in 3… 2… 1… GO! Your product is now on sale, and your email list is the first to know. Your social platforms will be second, of course, but remember that your dedicated followers come first.
- THE REACTIONS. How did the sale go? Did you sell out? Do you have stock left over? You have critical information about your next launch. Learn and do better the next time around.
Over time, this process will become easier, and your simple t-shirt can spring into a full-on clothing line if demands are high enough. As your product matures, so too can your prices — why sell a $25 t-shirt when you can sell a $45 hoodie and make the same, or better, profit margins? Time to think bigger!
THE DIGITAL AGE
Now, I realize that the example we’ve been using thus far will actually generate overhead costs. If your business is specialty t-shirts, then you need to find a vendor, design the prints, send the design and order number out, receive the inventory, double check the inventory before mailing out, covering shipping costs, and send all the orders. Now, if something is wrong, then the cycle continues and the customer becomes more and more frustrated.
However, we live in a digital age. That means that we can create programs, products, and literally anything else with nothing else but a tablet and a dream.
So let’s say that you are an artist, and instead of dealing with the hassle of overhead costs and t-shirt manufacturers you want to create something online that others can use, and use again, and be just as successful as a good t-shirt. Instead of purchasing a t-shirt, you can create an online course on how to draw anything from a human face to a flower. You can create a step-by-step online guide on how to perfectly draw anything. Best of all, there is no outside cost to you: simply make the product once and watch it sell.
Especially since you took the necessary steps of building your audience, making an email list, and testing the waters with your pre-sale emails.
What else is great about the technological age is that you can finish one product, nearly forget about it, and then continue to make money off of it. No going back to the drawing board or making sure that you still have inventory left of that one t-shirt you did that one time that someone just found and absolutely loves. Instead, your online drawing guide can be purchased again and again, and you can continue to make a profit off of something you designed ages ago. So you can continue to produce new content while still making money off of your first product. No inventory required!
This is called “passive income”, and is the key to technological businesses. Passive income is the new, hip way to make a living, and how an online business can become and stay so successful.
THE TAKEAWAY
Building a large audience is the number one way to build a successful online business. And with present-day technology prevailing literally everything else, there’s nothing to stand between you, low inventory costs, and a hefty profit. So what’re you waiting for?!