money man.jpg

Great enterprise. Here are the basics.

1 – Why ?

This is the first question you have to ask yourself. Indeed, why going online to make money as there are so many offline ways to achieve it ? Selling pizzas is an easy and fat margin business for example. So why would you mind struggling with online stuff to make your bucks ?

If you want online just because you want online, well, of course, there’s no discussion.

If you want online just because of the urban legend of others doing it with success, that’s another story.

Check around you, or better, not around you, for success stories online started from nothing to lots of cash. Double check it and you’ll find they’re not as many. I mean, sustainable and solid growths. You’ll find for sure dozens of billions of guys trying to sell you dumb e-books explaining the path to e-glory, mainly devoted to multi-level-marketing shit (check the Google ads around this text to appreciate the phenomenon). And once you get the e-book in your hand, you just realize that your ass is just bleeding a little more. That’s the way it is. Do you think those guys make money by pretending you’ll make it too ? You’ll certainly find one or two that make it, but c’mon, that doesn’t make an industry. Wake up !

The real thing is that you’ll never make a desperate dollar online until your become a business genius. And this special talent really has nothing to do with on or off line. But this means for the rest of us, that without it, you’ll never make a dollar, even online.

Now if you’re not a genius and still insist, well, read the following.

2 – What ?

Ok, you’re decided to jump into the arena.

You plan to sell some goods ? Physical goods ?

Well, forget about it. e-Commerce remains commerce. And all it’s about is dealing with logistics, accounting, customer care and strong regulations. Real business my friend = low margins and huge efforts. But if you insist, consider a 5 to 10 years timeframe until becoming anything sustainable. I mean, that can pay your house and car as a minimum.

All right. So if you don’t sell hardware, you’ll become a content seller. Any content of course can fit.

Here you’ll find another core choice : will you produce your own content or will you buy it ? You can in between consider “designing” it and make it produced by others.

You’re fate will be totally different upon your choice. Producing your own content will make you a creator. Selling third party produced content will make you a reseller. Do you believe that the skills to perform as a creator and a reseller are the same ?

If you chose “creator” : your content will be your product, and your website will be your shop.

If you chose ” reseller” : your content will be your advertising, and your website be your product.

Now check around, and ask yourself about the proportion of creators VS resellers. 50/50 you say ?

Again, wake up. We’re in a world of creators 5 and resellers 95.

So chances are that you’ll try to build your content, but end reselling some others one for a commission. Listen, I wish you could make real dollars with your own content, really. If not already done, try to produce any content that sells. You’ll get, from your own experience, what I’m talking about.

3 – How ?

So now that you’ve decided / accepted to resell content online for a commission, what is the first step ?

Remember the e-book gurus ? Like it or not, that’s more or less the idea behind. And the easiest paying business model for the John Does we are : affiliation. I know. This is just the opposite of what I told you above. All the in between was to show you that at the end of the day, the revenue per effort ratio of affiliation compared to other e-businesses, is quite acceptable. I don’t say sustainable. I say acceptable.

I won’t provide you with a course to run an affiliation business. There are thousands of them and the most reliable ones come from the trusted majors of affiliation (Amazon, eBay, …). You’ll learn enough to start something.

Despite of that you need to keep in mind 3 things to see (some) sales :

1 – People will buy what your recommend (and get a commission from) ONLY if they trust you.

2 – Trust is based on your visible expertise over the topic of what you recommend / sell.

3 – Your expertise can only be shown by facts, no “I believe” or “I think”. Facts.

Deployed with method, these 3 simple steps will convert in cash. Always. And that’s precisely what your content must build and be about.

This is nothing new. Nothing magic. This is simple commerce.

Do you feel ready for it ?

;-)