What’s Wrong With a $25,000 a Year Online Business?
26. Mar, 2010 
14 Comments
My mentor and friend the great George Fraser recently asked me on a tele-seminar, ” Why don’t more black people build online businesses, particularly in the area of ‘Digital Products’?”
The first answer is that there are still a whole lot of people who aren’t even aware that building a business online publishing digital products to make money is available to them.
The other reason is that those who do get exposed to the opportunity are given the Million Dollar sales pitch. You know the one. The one where you can have an Internet Business that pays you a million dollars without any work or effort on your part.
They say, “Just do this and you can take exotic vacations twice a month, drive the car of your dreams, live in the 10 bedroom, 22 bath home, oh and let’s not forget the 45 foot yacht.”
BULL%^&%!!!
There is no such thing as you having a million dollar business that requires no work or effort.
Go ahead and find someone who owns and runs a million dollar business and ask them is there any work or effort involved in their success.
Talk about an insult.
In fact, there is no such thing as having a hundred thousand dollar business without any work or effort.
That’s why the lottery is so successful, the lure of a big payday and a life of ease…no work just play.
Anyway let’s get back to the point.
$5,000 To $10,000 A Year
The average person that comes in contact with the opportunity to make money online is really only looking to make an extra $5,000 or $10,000 for the year.
And the right online business can do that for them.
But they are blindsided by quick talkers trying to get them to sign up for the next hot fad or trend that promises instant riches.
So to answer George’s question a little more directly, with all of the hype and still having to overcome certain psychological barriers that prevent us from wanting to build our own businesses, we miss a tremendous opportunity.
It is relatively easy to make an extra $5,000 to $10,000 online by simply learning affiliate marketing or learning how to sell reprint right products.
You can take your online business to the next level by learning how to create your own digital/information products such as ebooks, audios, videos, tele-seminars, webinars.
$10 Magic
The key is making that first $10. Once you make the first $10 then you’ll want to make $20, then you’ll get better and you’ll shoot for $50 a day, maybe a $100 a day.
But so many get stuck and never make $10 because they are busy trying to make a million. And if a million dollars were that easy to make we would all be millionaires.
So What’s Wrong With A $25,000 Online Business?
Most people would say, “Nothing!”
If you have any questions about building your online business post them below. I’ll be answering them all weekend.
So go ahead and post your question
In response as well to Mr. Frasers question I would have to say that in my case I was always wery of the person who says that they have a great opportunity with an online business, the reason being is that they never seem to clearly articulate what work needs to be done and or have any sort of fesible timeline for seeing any real profit. I would also like to know what all of the up forint cost would be to starting an online business and finance options (preferably grants) that are available for people interested in that field.
Hello Brother
I am encouraged by your article to begin making small amounts of money and then progress to serious income.
Ann Borden
Excellent point; there is nothing wrong with a $25,000 online business. The problem is, (it use to be that people couldn’t see the forest for the trees)now, people can’t see the trees for the forest. Everybody is on the big grandiose idea of operating a business and missing the small nuggets along the way. Small steps ($25,000)will help you build that big business. Keep feeding us knowledge Bro. Bedford, you are truly appreciated!
Yes, this is great a online business is interesting to understand how the affiliate marketing works. This would be great booster even I do start out small and then average $15,000-25,000 per year.
Phyllis, I love your analysis of the Forest and the Trees. Marketers know how to push buttons.
The term “Millionaire” has become a marketing term that attracts a ton of interest since the show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” was an international success.
Well said Phyllis, Thank You!
Hey Jason,
To answer your last point first, upfront cost can vary depending upon the type of online business you want to build. And I have not heard of anything like grants being available for online businesses.
If you approach the online business space correctly you will see that you don’t need outside financing at least not to get started, maybe to grow and expand.
But it is safe to say that you can literally have up a blog/website up for under $200. It can be less if you use hosting and get your domain name from places like Blogger.com or Wordpress.com.
You can get free payment processing by using PayPal.com
Now of course, you will still have to know what product or service you’re selling and be able to market that.
The bulk of your cost will be on Marketing and Advertising, using things like Pay Per Click A.K.A Google adwords or purchasing adspace on targeted websites or newsletters, or even radio and television.
There are Free sources to drive traffic to your sites or affiliate sites (download your affiliate guide if you’re not familiar with Affiliate Marketing), but this is where you have to be educated and that is where a lot of your cost could come in.
In fact, that is where you should spend the most money, education.
Education like marketing, list building, product development, copy writing, etc…
Back to the traffic, of course certain Social Networking sites are free to attempt to advertise, but that takes time to learn how to do it effectively and profitably.
To sum it up and to tie into the first part of your question. You should hesitate when someone brings you an online opportunity that does not have business at it’s core.
An online business is just like an offline business, there must be a market to sell to, there must be products or services that the market wants to buy.
There must be lead generation, there must be conversion, there must be customer support, and you hope to have repeat customer.
And you want to be able to do all of this where you make more than what you spend, thus giving you your profit.
The big difference with a solid Internet Business and and offline business is that the Marketing, the Distribution, the Delivery of product, the Potential to Reach your market and a host of other things can be done for a fraction, and I mean fraction of the cost.
Think about this, what other business can you start for less than $200 open up shop in Cleveland and be ready to take an order in Brazil or China tomorrow.
And if its a digital product such as an ebook, mp3 file or video or telesiminar or something that is delivered electronically, you have no inventory, no shipping, minimal overhead.
Sweet.
So to close it out Jason, if the online opportunity is not rooted in your passion and strenghts and can’t past the test of your business criteria, I would say pass.
And if they press you, I would really say run.
I hope this helps.
Hey Vernon,
I hope you downloaded the ‘Simple Guide To Affiliate Marketing”. Just go to the last post to download.
If you have any questions after you read that shoot it over.
I have a book called, “I Can Do Anything.” I have also created it in pdf format and is ready to be available as an e-book. In paperback, the book is selling for $25.00. What would be a good price for the book in e-book format and how would I market it to make money in e-book format?
I have a book called, “I Can Do Anything.” I have also created it in pdf format and is ready to be available as an e-book. In paperback, the book is selling for $25.00. What would be a good price for the book in e-book format and how would I market it to make money in e-book format?
Bro. Bedford:
My company does computer training and technical writing and I would sell training modules online; for instance How to set up an MS Excel budget or a MS Word table, etc. What would be the best method for distributing such content?
Barbara
Hi Carolyn,
There really isn’t a way to come up with good price for an ebook. People normally hear the term ebook and they think cheap or free. One of the ways to avoid falling into that category in the mind of potential buyers is to call your ebook a ‘System” or “Training”.
It will help if in fact your book is a system or training or program.
I have purchased ebooks for as little as $5 to as high as $97. Remember, that what we are speaking of is information and if the information is perceived as valuable your potential buyers will not have a problem paying a premium price. You just have to make sure your information delivers on its promise.
Now as it relates to marketing your book, which is the important part of your question, you have to make sure that there is a market the pays for your type of information.
I believe you are in the educational field so you would have to do your research to find out where are the blogs, newsletter, and other websites that have the traffic that would also love to buy your work.
Your job then becomes how do you get those buyers that are already interested in your subject matter to visit your site and buy from you.
You can purchase advertising to drive people to your site through Google adwords (you’ll have to be very careful doing this, you will have to have high converting ads and a sales message to make sure that you make money from your advertising)
This really applies to any advertising you purchase, you have to make sure that your sales message converts well.
There are free methods to drive traffic, but they require work and time, writing articles, or guest post on other blogs, of course there is ‘Social Networking’ but again that takes time.
There are some advanced strategies like ‘Press Releases’, Radio & Television interviews that drive traffic to your sites, again you will have to make sure that your sales message converts well when you drive traffic to your site.
So to sum all of this up I would say that you want to make sure that there is a market for your book online, see if there are similar books selling.
Take a look at your conversion numbers now from your site and see if they would be enhanced by offering the ebook version along with the paperback.
Also see what other bonuses you can add with your ebook to enhance the value.
Take a look at other sites that sell ebooks in your niche and look at their pricing and their sells process and see if you can model after them.
I hopes this helps. This is the short answer to your question.
Seriously, your question is really a question about Internet Marketing and it can’t be fully answered in a blog post, but you can get started on the process.
There are quite a few factors to consider when selling your information online. You may have to test several different prices and several different marketing messages to find what works best for you.
You may also have to decide if the ebook is the best format or would tele-seminars be the better method of delivery or a combination of them both.
As you can see there are many options to consider, but I can honestly tell you it is well worth the consideration once you crack the code.
I hope this helps, or maybe I’ve confused you, I hope not…let me know.
Hi Barbara,
I sounds like your information would be ideal to distribute your training modules through ‘video tutorials’. You probably are aware of the screen capture software that is available to make videos from your computer.
The top of the line is Camtasia, pretty expensive, but excellent tool. There is another great tool that is free, it is called screentoaster. You can go to screentoaster.com and start recording almost immediately.
Take a look and let me know what you think.
I seem to have trouble finding the right opportunity or mentor. Someone told me to find a “Why” for doing what I do. With so much hard work, investment that goes to my mentors, and nothing to show for it, I wonder, “Why should I continue in that business?” My heart was not in it. I love ministry, I have many studies that I would like to distribute for donation. What would be the best way to do that?