Ways to Make Money Online

[Mav]

A big one right now is providing services for Amazon sellers, such as PPC or listing/account management. Two friends of mine were both making six figures with it before covid. It has died down a bit for now, until things return to normal. And now Walmart/Target are stepping into the 3rd party seller game. I keep debating between doing this or going back to school.

 

[Mav]

A big one right now is providing services for Amazon sellers, such as PPC or listing/account management. Two friends of mine were both making six figures with it before covid. It has died down a bit for now, until things return to normal. And now Walmart/Target are stepping into the 3rd party seller game. I keep debating between doing this or going back to school.

How does one get into this?

Basically create a professional looking website and figure out what service you're going to offer. My friends do strictly PPC... but there are a lot of things one could offer. I'd say start off providing the service at a low rate to gain the experience and increase from there. They found a lot of their customer base from FB groups and Amazon. They even did ppc ads for Dr Axe, if you've ever heard of him. I'd give you their site, but out of respect to them, I can't.

 

[AGF]

The easiest and least risky way to make money online is missing: providing a valuable service to other businesses. This can be SEO, web design, Google ads, Facebook Ads, Amazon PPC, Social Media account management, etc.

+ no upfront investment needed
+ can make 1k online within a few weeks, 5k within a year (= much faster cashflow than blogging, social media influencer, Youtubing, writing e-books, etc.)
+ all you need is one skill + sales skills
+ no office or employees needed. You literally have less than $100 in monthly expenses
+ no dealing with customs, Chinese manufacturers, annoying customers or all the other hassles that come with an e-commerce business
+ not much traffic needed (= don't have to spend money on ads or build up your Google or Amazon ranking for years)
+ immediate cashflow
+ 100% location-independent, so you can use geo-arbitrage to increase your purchasing power even if your income stays the same. That allows you to go full-time as fast as possible (e.g. moving to Southeast Asia allows you to pursue your business full-time even if you're making only 2k/month from it). The sooner you go full-time, the faster you can grow your business.

You just need to make sure that the skill you want to sell is in high demand. This is usually the case if:

* your work has a direct impact on the bottom line of your clients and you can prove that to your clients
* your clients need you every month so you can put them on a retainer (that way you don't have to find new clients every month)
* the skill is so valuable, that you can charge at least $500 per month for it (even better would be $2,000 per month)

In order to start this business, you need to:

1) learn ONE of those high-income skills and become really good at it (this is the hardest part)
2) zoom in on ONE target (your dream client) and solve ONE urgent problem for them with ONE service
3) find out how to get in touch with them
4) sell them on your service
5) deliver on your promise and make them happy
6) create case studies
7) use case studies to get more clients
8) broaden your target group or offer additional services if it makes sense

If you don't have any high-income skill yet, I recommend starting with social media management. That means you basically manage the Facebook and Instagram pages of local businesses. This doesn't require much skill if you use Canva.com for it. Even though it doesn't directly impact the bottom-line of your clients, it is still an easy service to sell because most traditional businesses are complete noobs when it comes to Social Media and $500 or $1,000 per month is not much money for them (even a part-time cleaning lady would cost them more than $1000 per month, just to give you some perspective). Do that for a few months and then ask clients if they also want to try paid advertising. Then you can learn Google Adwords or Facebook Ads with your client's money and slowly transition into that.

 

[AGF]

Here are my comments on the ways KillYourInnerLoser presented:

1. Sell your skills on Fiverr.
Good way to start, but very hard to make serious money. It's basically the business model I suggested but most people on Fiverr don't offer high-income skills but rather commoditized skills. If you do go the Fiverr route, try to sell a service that takes less than 1h for you to do and that can be sold for at least $50. That way, you can scale your Fiverr income to $5,000 per month without working full-time on it. I did Wordpress website optimization for a while and that worked great.

2. Write an ebook or two.
Very hard to make serious money but it's a good way to "taste blood" for the first time. I made my first $ online with an ebook that I sold on Amazon.

3. Do Skype coaching on a topic you’re knowledgeable.
Good way to make some money but it depends a lot on the skill / topic you are teaching. Also difficult to find a steady stream of customers. Since those coachings are usually on the lower end (like $100/h) you'll have to find a lot of customers to make a full-time income from it.

4. Write a blog like mine.
Already mentioned somewhere else that this is the worst business model to make money because it takes forever to make only a few hundred dollars online. That's time that could be better spent on other business models. Unless you are ultra-passionate about the topic you are blogging about and money is not important to you, don't start a blog. Having said that, those that are successful with their blog are making shitloads of money, most of it will even be passive.

5. Set up an online store selling [insert almost any product you could think of here].
This is one of the most complex business models. Huge potential but not recommended for beginners because it has a lot of moving parts and requires serious cash investment upfront. Even if you're dropshipping - which makes you a scammer in my opinion - you'll have to drop a few k's on ads. Don't let all the juicy Shopify screenshot cloud your thinking.

6. Write posts on Medium.
No experience with that and how profitable this can be

7. Stream on Twitch.
No experience with that and how profitable this can be

9. Narrate books on Audible.
No experience with that and how profitable this can be. I imagine it can be quite difficult to get any deals and it probably depends a lot on your voice.

10. Start a website where you do product reviews.
Very similar to blogging. Most niches are saturated (you have to rank high on Google in order for this business model to work) and even if you build up a solid niche site, it's not gonna make you huge money. It is passive income though, which can be nice.

11. Post about your sexual encounters.
Same as niche sites / blogging

12. Write and sell erotic novels on Amazon.
See 2) E-Books

13. Start your own YouTube channel.
Also very similar to blogging. Depends a lot on your niche. Some niches are not yet saturated on Youtube, others are extremely saturated (e.g. Fitness)

14. Be a social media influencer.
Also very similar to blogging. Takes ages to build up your profile and then you won't make much money from it unless you get sponsored or start selling your own physical products (which requires at least $20,000 I would say) or digital products.

 

[terry_crews87]

AGF all your posts are awesome , were luckky to have you here!

 

[AGF]

AGF all your posts are awesome , were luckky to have you here!

Thanks, I appreciate it. If you or others have specific questions about online business (or business in general), I am always happy to help. Just post your questions here or in my thread.

 

[Forticks]

The easiest and least risky way to make money online is missing: providing a valuable service to other businesses. This can be SEO, web design, Google ads, Facebook Ads, Amazon PPC, Social Media account management, etc.

I will have to look into affiliate marketing and managing social media. Right now I'm doing market research for an FBA business and if it doesn't pan out these are solid alternatives.

 

[AGF]

The easiest and least risky way to make money online is missing: providing a valuable service to other businesses. This can be SEO, web design, Google ads, Facebook Ads, Amazon PPC, Social Media account management, etc.

I will have to look into affiliate marketing and managing social media. Right now I'm doing market research for an FBA business and if it doesn't pan out these are solid alternatives.

Oh yeah, I forgot about affiliate marketing. There are two types of affiliate marketing:

1) the way Andy is doing it. So basically building a website / blog / niche site / social media presence and then promoting affiliate products you actually use. You need massive reach to make a full-time income from that. It can take years to get to that point, so it's not something I would recommend if you are looking to make a full-time income fast. It can be used for a nice passive income though.

2) drive paid traffic to lucrative (sometimes even shady) affiliate offers (e.g. those popups and banner ads you see on porn sites). That's what the pros are doing and there is insane money in that. The best affiliate marketers make six figures in profit per month. Check out stmforum.com for more information. The big drawback here is that you need to be willing to burn a few thousand dollars on paid traffic. The way I understand it, it is not easy to learn how to master this business model because the paid traffic sources can vary a lot and you need to test many different affiliate offers until you find a winner. I would only recommend it if you're an analytical person and have the necessary budget to learn it.

For those who don't bother if they make money online or offline, I also highly recommend doing local service-based businesses. Like Gravytrain and BadIdeaBear (from GLL forum) are doing. Service businesses are the best for newbies because:

+ they require very little fixed costs (fixed costs are what kills businesses if you have one or two bad months)
+ are pretty simple (you don't need to come up with an innovative idea)
+ provide a fast cashflow
+ sometimes even don't require difficult skills (e.g. anyone can learn how to use pressure washers and start a pressure washing business)

 

[Wifty]

Great article, thanks for the inspiration.

 

[Mr Available]

snip

This is a really good post. I can't get into details but I'm doing something along the lines of this next year.

I've been selling items in a subject I have deep expertise in for nearly a year. Think sales on Ebay.

What I learned from this project:
The workflow is very easy. Post a listing, have pictures, ship the items, answer customer questions, and give feedback.

It's hard to make sales. I never messed with ads and while I have tried shooting videos for my project I can't get views. I've also posted those videos on forums and still can't get views. My margins are low and fees eat into my profits. I also get a lot of dumb questions that I have to ignore. I'm very lucky I never had any crazy customers pull any return scams on me.

I didn't set any goals for this project, I just wanted to do it. I'm not quitting as I've already spent money on equipment and I'm trying to tie this business with the business I'm starting up next year. Maybe I can get some B2B customers from selling B2C. This business essentially served as a squeeze page for my real business.

I never compared myself to others when I was doing this. I think this is the number 1 mistake people make when learning anything. With this out of the way when you're not hitting 1K per month after nearly a year I should have maybe looked around to see what other businesses are pulling in 1K per month. My metric was <$200 per month.

I like to remind myself that there's a mountain of money out there with my name on it I just have to work for it. Working for yourself is hard, I think most people should start working jobs before they become business owners. I wouldn't have pulled off what I did years ago.

 

[JV12]

1) learn ONE of those high-income skills and become really good at it (this is the hardest part)

Do you think that front-end development would be a good skill to learn?
I'm finishing my degree in Aerospace Engineering but I'm thinking about switching careers and jumping into web development (self taught).
If anyone has experience doing this I would appreciate any comments.

 

[SIGMA_1234]

Do you think that front-end development would be a good skill to learn?

I do this in some form today, just a little less emphasis on the coding aspect but more of the marketing side of things. I will tell you this: there is no shortage of front-end devs in the world, especially with lowballers in Upwork & Fiverr from India, Bangladesh. & similar countries.

So, my advice is to learn something, then get acquainted with selling, too. Because front-end dev is not as lucrative as it is anymore because lots of people can do it. You should be able to convince why you're a good hire over some cheap dev in Fiverr or Upwork.

 

[AGF]

1) learn ONE of those high-income skills and become really good at it (this is the hardest part)

Do you think that front-end development would be a good skill to learn?
I'm finishing my degree in Aerospace Engineering but I'm thinking about switching careers and jumping into web development (self taught).
If anyone has experience doing this I would appreciate any comments.

If you want to start your own business, it is definitely a good skill to learn. However, you want to do it the right way. You need to consider two things:

1) how exactly do you create value?

2) how can you maximize that value while minimizing your work input

Example:

learning real front-end development (different coding languages etc.) requires a lot of work and is quite complex. Your input is very high, it probably takes years until you are really good. If the value you're providing to your clients is simply a better, more efficient, more profitable website, the very high input is in no relation to the value you're creating. Or in other words: you could create the same value / result with a simple Wordpress website which takes much less time to learn how to do it.

If - on the other hand - you are learning front-end-development to build your own project that requires more complex coding and cannot be done with Wordpress, it might be worth it to learn front-end-development. Or if you somehow manage to get into circles where you can easily get clients who have a high demand for front-end-developing, it might also pay off very well. But like SIGMA said, there are many affordable freelancers on Fiverr who can already code relatively well. And from my experience, it is much easier to get clients who simply need a new website than any clients with more complex needs. In any case, you definitely need sales and marketing skills.

 

[JV12]

I do this in some form today, just a little less emphasis on the coding aspect but more of the marketing side of things.

Do you work as a freelancer or for a company?

1) how exactly do you create value?

The problem is that I know nothing about business and I'm not sure that I want to go down that road. Right now I can't think of any skill that someone would pay me for besides from getting hired by a company for doing something related to my degree.

learning real front-end development (different coding languages etc.) requires a lot of work and is quite complex. Your input is very high, it probably takes years until you are really good. If the value you're providing to your clients is simply a better, more efficient, more profitable website, the very high input is in no relation to the value you're creating. Or in other words: you could create the same value / result with a simple Wordpress website which takes much less time to learn how to do it.

I hadn't thought about that. Maybe front-end development is not the best option then.
I will think more about this and see which option is better for both getting hired and freelancing or making a business so I can cover all possibilities.
Thank you for your comments guys!

 

[AGF]

The problem is that I know nothing about business and I'm not sure that I want to go down that road.

You either go down that road and learn about business or you completely focus on getting a job and just stick to that for the rest of your life. There is no freelancing without knowing anything about business, marketing and sales.

 

[SIGMA_1234]

Do you work as a freelancer or for a company?

I freelance. Though that journey is going to greatly slow down because I recently got a very high paying job.

The problem is that I know nothing about business and I'm not sure that I want to go down that road. Right now I can't think of any skill that someone would pay me for besides from getting hired by a company for doing something related to my degree.

Oh yeah, I also wanted to say that like you, I have a background in Engineering. Apart from what AGF said above, I want to add: I am not discouraging you from learning front-end dev. I am just cautioning you that, for almost every skill in the world (except for ones needing a very high level of education like Masters & PhD), you can almost always guarantee that there are lowballers in price.

If you still do not know what value looks like, I'd like you to do an exercise and write a log about this:

Look if there is a job opening you like (for example: front-end dev or aerospace engineering), then take the effort to hit up recruiters & managers in LinkedIn. Say you're interested in the role; and you'd like to have a quick chat about them, the company, and some of the problems they're having in the company. Say you'll buy them lunch/ whatever you can offer to make it look like they're not wasting their time.

^By doing that, you will be able to see what they value. Maybe it's to create a project to automate some processes, saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars/ whatever currency you're using in labor. Maybe it's to build their authority online to improve online presence, to drive more sales. If you like the sound of the problem you're solving, you can double down on it, and go to interviews selling yourself your skills. And, you will also know their problems and speak it to them, which is a plus,

Sales calls as a freelancer & job interviews as a candidate are very similar; I do all this in some form with my prospects. I also do this when I was interviewed & landed a very high paying job. Just doing what I said will put you leagues ahead of everyone because they only care about salaries, while here you are talking about business problems.

 

[Yaxir]

You either go down that road and learn about business

Yo, what would be the best way to learn about Business and shit ?

for perspective, i am a CSE ( Comp Sci & Engineering ) grad student and i have worked for a combined of 2 years at 2 different places

My background is mostly Computers and Tech

I have never ran a business of my own or even thought about it, but i want to get into business or at least something like a light business ( a side hustle ) before the age of 30

can you suggest where i should start to learn about business ?

and where did you start first ?

would appreciate some information

thanks much !

 

[SIGMA_1234]

Yo, what would be the best way to learn about Business and shit ?

can you suggest where i should start to learn about business ?

and where did you start first ?

Easy. Sell shit, then fail. Then sell some other shit, then fail again. Keep selling something until you find a winner at the right price.

Context: I excessively read about (read: mentally masturbated) for 3 years about starting a business, and I only started when I found this log. Let me tell you, all that reading will never prepare you for the butterflies in your stomach when you make your 1st pitch to a potential client.

Once you find a winner, improve it by lowering it's cost or adding value to your offer.

 

[AGF]

You either go down that road and learn about business

Yo, what would be the best way to learn about Business and shit ?

for perspective, i am a CSE ( Comp Sci & Engineering ) grad student and i have worked for a combined of 2 years at 2 different places

My background is mostly Computers and Tech

I have never ran a business of my own or even thought about it, but i want to get into business or at least something like a light business ( a side hustle ) before the age of 30

can you suggest where i should start to learn about business ?

and where did you start first ?

would appreciate some information

thanks much !

Read The Millionaire Fastlane to get a grasp of the basics. I cannot explain all of that with one post on a forum.

Business = you sell something and get money in return.

What you sell needs to solve a problem. The bigger and most urgent the problem is, the higher you can charge for it.

You can sell your own product or service or somebody else's product or service (affiliate marketing).

You can sell to either businesses (B2B) or to consumers (B2C).

Find a product or service you can sell to a specific target group that has a specific problem.

I recommend starting with services because then you will have very low fixed costs and thus very low risk. You also don't need to deal with logistics, shipping, warehouses, unsatisfied customers, etc. Selling a service requires you to have some skill. If you do not currently have a skill, you need to learn one that is valuable.

Find out how you can reach your specific target group and how much it will cost to reach them. The thing you are selling must get in front of their eyes. The way to reach your specific target audience must be profitable (if your business model relies on reaching 10,000+ people for 1 sale, it is most likely not gonna work)

 

[MakingAComeback]

AGF slayed in this thread right here