Starting Your Own Digital Business
Starting an online business can be one of the most exciting experiences of your life. It can also be the most confusing if you’re not sure what kind of business you’d like to have. There’s a popular saying that says, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
That means you need to make sure that your online income doesn’t all come from just one source. A way that you can diversify that source is to start selling info products. You can create an information product in as little as a day, depending on what the product is.
One of the best info products to sell is to write and sell your own eBook. You need to write an eBook on a topic that people are searching for information about. The topic can be one that you’re very knowledgeable about or it can be one that you become knowledgeable about by researching the information you need to know. Other than eBooks, you can also create online courses or workshops sharing your expertise.
You can also promote products as an affiliate. You find a product that you believe is good and will sell well and you begin to promote it for a commission. Promoting just means that you’re raising awareness about a product by driving traffic to it.
You can promote products without cost to you and many people find this type of an online business one of the easiest to break into. You can promote products by writing articles about it and submitting them to article directories, or you can blog about it, promote it on your own website or on any of the common social sites such as Twitter or Facebook.
Many budding entrepreneurs create membership sites. A membership site means that you get paid to pass your knowledge onto others. Here’s an example:
Let’s say you’re an expert on how to fix computers. You set up a site where people can log in and get access to answers to their questions, they can participate in a forum there, etc.
Once you’ve gotten the hang of how to set up and profit from your membership site, you can turn around and teach others how to do it by writing a how-to eBook or by setting up a course!
Another way you can launch an online business is by offering freelance services. Freelance just means that you are your own boss – you can take on the gigs you want and turn down the ones that you don’t.
There are so many ways you can branch into having an online service business. You can do graphic design work, build websites, edit what other people wrote or you can write articles from scratch for other people.
What’s great about all of these businesses is that start-up costs are often cheaper than buying a meal out! To get started, you need to set up a website and you need a way to accept payment (PayPal is a great way to do that).
Once you begin to get to work and build your reputation, you’ll be able to take your pick of the kind of jobs you’d like to take on. One word of caution, though – if you don’t take a freelance job through an online service that matches jobs with those seeking them, make sure you define the work you’ll be doing in email or message board documentation so that there are no surprises down the road.
When Will You Find Time to Work an Online Business?
How many times have we all said, “If only I had more time then I could get more done in my online business?” The solution is not getting more time – we all have the same amount. The key is to manage the time we do have and make it work more effectively for us.
Even if you think you don’t have time to take on anything else, you might be surprised to discover how much time you’re actually wasting during the day. You can start an online business whether you hold down a full time job or not.
Sometimes when it comes to starting a business, many people have the mental picture that it’s all or nothing – that in order to be their own boss, they have to take the plunge, quit their day job and put all of their effort into building an online business.
If you have a day job that pays the bills and provides you with health benefits, keep the job while you work on launching and growing your business part time. You can get up an hour earlier in the mornings to work on your business.
You can spend your lunch hour working on the business. Since your job will be online, you’ll be able to access it anywhere. If you commute to work via train or other method where someone else is in charge of driving, you can work on it then, too.
You can also temporarily give up the hours you used to spend sitting in front of the television. You can give up one hour of sleep at night to work on the business and work two weekends a month.
It seems like a lot of time, but if you work it around your day job and stick with it, you can steadily increase your income with the online business until you can comfortably afford to let go of the job you now have.
For some reason, let’s suppose you’re in a position now where you can no longer wait to leave your day job – it’s become unbearable, the stress is going to wreak too much havoc, or there’s something to cause you abandon your current career now.
Suddenly, you find yourself having the same forty plus hours you gave at the office to work on your online business. Always begin right away. If you start out working your online business when you feel like it, you could lose valuable initiative. Let the excitement drive you and propel you forward.
With the benefit of working your online business full time, you’ll be able to devote the steady attention the business needs to continually grow. Rather than squeezing it into the schedule, you’ll have the time you need.
It’s not so much about finding the time as it is taking the time and if you’ve always wanted to start your own online business, there’s no better time than this moment. Today will soon be yesterday and you won’t ever get that opportunity back.