How to Start an Online Business & Make Money Online in 2021
hi everyone i'm attorney aidan durham with 180 law co in colorado and you're watching all up in your business on this episode of all up in your business we're going to talk about how to start an online business in just a few easy and more importantly inexpensive ways but before we get into it don't forget to like subscribe and share and check the description for links to additional information and resources so first why would we even want to start an online business why would we want to start a business go into business for ourselves oh boy let me count the reasons i can't tell you how much i enjoy being in business for myself not having a boss not having to be somewhere if i don't want to be somewhere not having to do work that i don't want to do not having to deal with someone telling me what to do not only of course do you have the freedom of not having a traditional job but really the opportunities are endless you don't have a cap of your salary that you might get paid or your hourly rate you can really be free to earn as much as you want and do whatever you want with your life so if this sounds like something you want to do how do you go about starting an online business the first step of course is deciding what kind of business do you want to start maybe you've got a few ideas that you're tossing around playing with or maybe you have just absolutely no idea that's okay it's not quite as important what you do the important thing is doing it if you're completely lost unsure what kind of business you should be starting i like to think about what are you really good at or what do you know a lot about what are you really interested in of course businesses we can be service based or product based whether it be an actual tangible physical product or maybe a digital product but in either case i think it's a good idea to start with the things that you care about or the things that you know a lot about or are really good at where does your expertise lie what can you teach other people what can you train other people in what can you help people with even if it's one tiny little thing not necessarily a whole industry maybe you're not a business coach but there's one aspect of doing business that you know a lot about or maybe there's one program or software that you are just an expert in run with that you don't have to do all of the things you can do literally one thing and if you're really really good at that one thing then people are gonna want to work with you don't spend too much time figuring out what it is you're gonna do because it can always change let's be honest being in business things are always going to change it is always a work in progress you can launch your business six months into it find out it you hate it or everybody else hates it so what you can start again try something new so if you've got an idea of what you want to do what kind of business you want to start start it and see how it goes if it doesn't work out change it and see how that goes all right so now that we know what kind of business we want to start it's time to start planning it out and this means a business plan business plans don't have to be some crazy long and complex document it can really be just kind of a simple plan of what are you going to offer what are you going to be selling how are you going to sell it what's kind of your price range going to be how's that price structure going to look what does the market look like who are your competitors how are you going to get it out there and market your business there are a lot of free templates and examples of business plans online so if you're at a complete loss jump online and start looking at some of these templates or examples to get an idea of what your business plan should include once we've gotten the business plan out of the way it's time to start doing some market research talk to people who might be your prospective customers if you're not sure who your prospective customers might be go back to your business plan because that should be a part of it who is your product or service going to be offered to who is this thing perfect for find those people and start talking to them get their feedback on is this something that they would want to buy just start talking to the people around you people in your circle or people that you think might be potential customers of yours and get feedback let them know what you're going to be selling the product or service that you're going to offer and hear what they say about it now if you truly can't find anybody that might be interested in buying your thing then that might be a good sign that nobody is going to want to buy your thing and this business idea may not be viable or it might mean you need to tweak your ideal audience or your target customer or your demographic that you're going after just because one demographic doesn't resonate well with your product or service doesn't mean it won't work for anybody but if you can't find anybody who seems interested in it then something needs to be tweaked so once we've gotten that all figured out we know what we're going to be selling what our business is going to be we've got an idea of who our target customers are going to be i think this is a great point to start building your audience start building a following start generating interest before you've even started creating the thing start your social media accounts start posting about what it is you're going to be offering start collecting email addresses so once you've actually launched your business you already have a base of potential customers that you know are at least a little bit interested in what it's going to be and then of course now that we've got an audience we've got people interested in what we're going to be selling now we need to actually start developing what it is we're going to be selling so if it's some kind of a service based business start developing what those actual services are going to be the packages of your services your pricing structure if you're doing a digital product start developing that digital product if you're selling an actual physical product start getting to work on getting that product ready you might need to you know do prototypes test products there might be a lot of trial and error trying to get the thing right exactly how you want it again things don't have to be perfect right off the bat 99 of the time they're not going to be perfect no matter how hard we try but of course before we can launch the business we need the thing that we're going to be offering to our customers and clients while you're doing this is also a good opportunity to talk again with potential customers get their feedback maybe do some beta testing you can start putting your thing out there and see how it goes get the ball rolling get feedback see how people are reacting to it and again if we need to go back and change some things then we go back and change some things next up maybe is to form a business entity something like an llc or a corporation now i say maybe because these things aren't necessary of course having your service or product and customers those things are necessary to start a business but forming an llc or corporation it's a good idea but it's not necessary if you want to learn more about that check this video to learn why you know it may not be always a good idea to start an llc right off the bat if you're starting an online business if you have decided that you want to form an llc or a corporation for your business i've partnered with a great company called legal inc to provide an online platform where you can form an llc or a corporation in any state online practically instantly of course it depends on the state but you can check the description for a link to that platform where you can form your business entity for your online business now's a good time for me to mention i've got a new business checklist that you can download for free down in the description i go into a lot of detail about all of the legal steps that you want to take before launching a business if we are forming an entity like an llc or a corporation then immediately after that's done we want to open a separate business bank account now i think even if you haven't formed an llc or a corporation if you're just operating as a sole proprietorship a separate account for your business is still a good idea it's necessary if you're operating as an llc or a corporation but even if you're not just having your business money in a separate account i think is a good way to really keep a close track of your profit loss how much money you're making and spending just being able to better monitor your business's financials when it comes to business banking i am a huge fan of novo they are an online bank that is pretty much 100 100 completely free and you can open a business banking account super easy all online you don't even need to leave the house and again it's totally free all right so now we've got our business idea figured out we've got our business plan put together we've done our market research talked to customers potential customers gotten their feedback maybe we formed an llc next up maybe is starting a website for your business again i say maybe because i don't think all online businesses need a website of course it depends on what your business is going to be if you're going to be selling something or offering a service that really requires a website platform to be offered then you'll probably need one but there are a lot of other options for having an online presence without fully investing in an actual website of course if you're doing some kind of online courses then programs like kajabi or teachable these platforms allow you to create landing pages or essentially websites that you can use to sell your product or your digital service you can also just start out by creating a simple landing page you definitely don't need to invest in a really expensive website developer right off the bat create a few simple landing pages where people can learn about what you're selling and sign up and purchase it you can also do this with a lot of email marketing systems i'm a big fan of mailerlite i use them for my own email marketing and their platform provides landing pages and website pages that you can use so all in one platform not only are you collecting email addresses to communicate with your customer base but you can also create these landing pages and create that web presence for your business if you are going to create a website then now's the time to get on your website's legal documents website terms of use or terms of service terms of sale your refund policy and your website's privacy policy these are things you definitely want to have in place before you fully launched your business because these are the agreements that you're going to have with your website visitors this is also a great opportunity to do a trademark clearance search now notice i said trademark clearance search and not trademark application or register a trademark again just like the llc you don't need a registered trademark to start an online business certainly it's a good idea but it's not necessary however it is a really good idea to at least do a clearance search beforehand it's always best to work with an experienced trademark attorney if you want a clearance search done so check the description for links to my information if you need more help with that now is also the time to start getting your accounting and bookkeeping stuff in order get your accounting software whether it's quickbooks i like freshbooks it's pretty inexpensive and pretty easy to use if you've got a little bit more money to invest and of course hiring a bookkeeper or a cpa someone a professional who can actually help you with all this stuff is a great idea but if you're on a tighter budget than a program like freshbooks or quickbooks is going to be a major help if you get that set up in the beginning to keep track of all of your finances your bookkeeping all of that next up start developing your systems or processes for handling your customers how are you going to keep track of your customers how are you going to keep track of potential customers how are you going to actually provide your service if you're offering a service or a digital product how are you going to actually do the thing i love dubsado for pretty much all of that it's kind of like a crm together with maybe a project management software it's perfect for creating forms that you can use on your website to collect information or questionnaires that you might need clients to fill out awesome for sending proposals invoicing billing clients you can set up workflows so you can have these automated processes in place for every new potential client who comes in and you can also send out contracts and get those signed all through dubsado speaking of contracts now's your time to get those done as well talk to an attorney who is licensed in your state to find out what kinds of contracts you might need for your business if you're a service provider you're going to want some kind of service agreement with your clients if you're offering an online course or some kind of digital product you're going to want an agreement with people who buy your course or buy your digital products so they know what they can and can't do with it what happens if they're unhappy and they want a refund before you really start working with anybody you want to make sure you have contracts in place that describe the terms of your relationship with that person next up we want to look into any kind of licenses or permits that we might need for our business if you're selling a tangible physical product then you'll most likely need some kind of a sales tax permit or a retailer license the language the terminology is going to be different everywhere there also might be requirements for some kind of a business license or a business permit again these requirements are going to vary based on where you're located some cities some counties states might have a specific type of license or permit that might be required for your business so look into those requirements and if you need help with it then definitely contact an attorney who is licensed in your state all right so now we're pretty much ready we've got our plan together we've got our systems together we've got our contracts prepared we know our trademark is available now it's time to start putting it out there start marketing your product or your service and start generating customers clients and more importantly money if you don't have a whole lot of money to put into advertising there are a lot of ways that you can advertise and market for free or for very inexpensive networking whether it be in person or online networking social media of course is pretty much free and a great way to connect with people all over the place who might be interested in buying your product or service content marketing of course is great start a youtube channel start putting out videos start putting out free materials that can get people interested in what you're selling if you do have a little bit of money to throw into this then maybe you can do some paid online advertising or other paid advertising or you can just full-on outsource it to somebody else who can handle all of your marketing whatever the case may be do whatever is available to you and within your budget to just start selling and again let's go back to that audience that we started generating before we even developed our product or service hopefully by now you've already got a base of people who are interested in what you're selling reach out to them start emailing them get back in touch with all those people who you know are already interested the most important thing to remember with all of this is that nothing is set in stone if you try something and you fail which let's be honest that's probably going to happen it happens pretty frequently that's okay you're gonna fail you just gotta go back try something new try again business is always a work in progress you're always going to be changing tweaking things updating things try something and it's not going to work the way you thought it will you're going to have to go back try something new this is always going to happen no matter how great of a business person you think you are in the end what really matters is that you're doing something you're not just sitting scared that it might fail because again it probably will or some aspect of it might fail but if you never try if you never put it out there if you never take that step to do it then you won't fail sure but you're also not going to succeed with it that's all for this episode folks drop a comment below let me know what you think and again don't forget to check the description i linked to all the different products and all the programs that i talked about in this video i've got links to all those down there so check for those and check for the link to download my free new business checklist as well thank you all so much for watching i'm aiden durham and i'll see you next time [Music] oh
2021-05-03 19:04
