Throw away the ‘make money online’ mentality… right now.
(I know, that sounds pretty strange on a site called Make Money Online 4 Idiots!)
I hate to break it to you, but ‘make money online’ is the mantra of the 99% and what it usually means is ‘muck around online’!
Trying to ‘make money online’ will rarely get you into the top 1%. Retaining this mentality is highly anti-productive and ineffective in the higher stakes rooms and won’t serve you or help at all at the top of this industry.
To achieve a really significant income online you need to start thinking focus, systems and profit. This means you are going to have to commit to spending your time and money to create something of lasting value that works in a well managed way; something that creates more revenue than it costs to run day-in and day-out, even without you.
Call it a business, an enterprise, an empire, or whatever you want. If commitment and discipline are the barriers that separate the 90% from the 9%, then focus, systems and profit are the barrier that separates the 9% from the top 1%.
The good news is that they are not as hard to crash through as you might think.
I credit the paradigm shift in my own thinking about how to ‘make money online’ for being responsible for propelling me from part-time mediocrity and failure into full-time success.
For me it all started with a plan.
I had been doing a lot of business consulting offline for years before I started to investigate how to ‘make money online’. In fact I’m a qualified lawyer, accountant and MBA. At first I thought it would be a great way to supplement my salary, but I didn’t actually make any money for years and was on the verge of being disillusioned about the whole industry. I had made my commitment and had discipline, but not enough focus to generate the income that I knew could be made and I really wanted.
Finally I realized that although I consulted with offline business owners and encouraged them to write a business plan, set goals and create management systems – I wasn’t doing any of those things myself. I expect that if I was able to trace back and find the exact trigger that transformed my online fortunes, I would find it was the business plan that I decided to write one morning for my ‘how to make money online’ activities.
Writing a business plan doesn’t have to be a complex process for an online business because you are not limited to a small geographical area and faced with the same start-up and operational costs that a store or a restaurant in the bricks-and-mortar world would need to consider.
In the beginning something very simple will suffice. In fact I think my first business plan fit on about half a sheet of paper.
An example online business plan
Description
Summary: My business is going to sell weight loss videos online
Structure: Sole trader
Business type: retail (online store with one product)
Product/Service
Summary: Exercise videos for very fast weight loss.
Benefits: fast results, weight loss, proven methods
Demand: growing every day (unfortunately)
Unique selling proposition: maximum weight loss/minimum time
Location: www.myweightlossvideos.com
Marketing plan
Customers: males age 18-30 with between 10-20 kg excess weight.
Market growth: fast (unfortunately)
How I’ll attract market share: subscriber list and joint ventures
Pricing strategy: Above competition – $197 (bonus personal consultation)
Competition
Direct competitors: www.weightlossfast.com, www.weightlossquick.com
Indirect competitors: www.weightlosssecrets.com, www.weightlossfacts.com
Competitor’s growth: steady/hard to determine
Competitor’s weaknesses: not very actively marketing (eg. no newsletter)
Competitor’s strengths: good website design, lots of good content
Product differentiation points: no video content
Advertising and promotion: joint ventures, blog (seo), ezines
Financial management
Start up budget: $1600 – domain, hosting, autoresponder, website, solo ads
Ongoing monthly costs: $60 – hosting, autoresponder, solo ads
Affiliate commissions: 75%
Accounting system: excel spreadsheet
Target profit: $10,000 per month before tax.
Business management plan
Staff: me, some outsourcing later on
Duties: writing emails, seeking joint ventures, personal consultations
The thing about having a written business plan is that it enables you to create a powerful focus for the application of your time and money. Having decided what you are going to do, you can get to it and confidently reject every other opportunity that comes along. Until you achieve your current goals and ambitions you can know that you have already worked out that being successful in these alone can make you a good profit and a lot of success.
Note: If other ideas or opportunities come along note them down for something to do later. There will always be opportunities. They will still be there when you’ve achieved your goals in the current opportunity, of if not, new ones will come along to fill the void. This is the aspect of discipline that you must have to ‘make a profit online’. Without it you are essentially going into a storm of unlimited opportunities surrounded by tough competition and you are going to get pummeled.
Again, this is a very simple ‘starter’ plan to get you going. As you progress I would STRONGLY advise you to make sure you update your plan on a regular basis so that it grows with your business. You might even consider doing a basic business community college course or search online for some resources to help you take it up from level to level as you progress.
My SWOT
Here’s another example of a powerful, yet simple planning and analysis process that can help you to focus clearly on your goals…
For any of you unfamiliar with corporate business terminology a SWOT analysis is an exercise in which you look at your goals as opportunities and analyze them in reference to the strengths, weaknesses and threats that can either support or hinder the achievement of those goals.
If you’re an MBA then you might look on this quick version of a SWOT as being somewhat oversimplified, but I’ve found that in building a new business it is better to stay away from the complexities to begin with because these can stifle creativity and momentum.
I’ve deliberately included this simple exercise and the preceding basic business plan in an effort to show you that it can be easy to create a massive boost to your initial business getting out of the blocks without getting caught up in the detail.
To help you see how this works, I’ve included the goals and analysis that I wrote when I started my first venture with a view to going full-time.
GOALS
- Goals for the next 2 years: start a well planned, structured and systemized full-time online business and build it up to $10,000 per month profit. Re-invest my surplus income in the business.
- Goals for the next 5 years: build my online business up to $80K per month profit and invest surplus income in a range of investments.
SWOT
Strengths: 2 years of learning and experimenting in internet marketing leading to a mentorship and a solid understanding of the methodology. An empowered mindset. $50,000 available credit.
Weaknesses: personal – impatience with the building process; businesses – not currently earning much income; time – working full-time limits the time available to work on the business.
Opportunities: build a $1million dollar online business and invest surplus income to become financially free.
Threats: possible changes in global financial conditions and resultant uncertainty; doubters among family and friends.
That was it. Now I am still working towards achieving these goals but I have already gone full-time and now I’m devoting the income I earn from the business and the new time I have available to building on those goals I set.
I have found that these goals acted as if they were a stick of dynamite for me and my business when I wrote them. They gave me a powerful catalyst for firing up my motivation and desire and they clearly showed me that I had opportunities that were highly worthwhile pursuing and strengths sufficient to propel me towards them.
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