Posts

Choosing the Right Business Idea for Your Future Success

/by

Last week we came up with a way to make a list of decent ideas for a business. However, these are all ideas and while they might be good ideas, they might not be worth our time in pursuing. So how do we really find out if they’re ideas that we want to pursue and actually pilot? We have to dive a little deeper.

1. Is it Something You’re REALLY Passionate About?

Again, I can’t reiterate enough how important this really is. You must have passion about what it is you’re doing. Recently, the Fizzle crew talked about how doing a business you’re passionate in will be what carries you through the tough times.

See, here’s the thing, if you’re not passionate about what you’re doing (meaning you don’t naturally think or do it), even if you do the following 2 steps, it really doesn’t matter in the end because as soon as a problem comes up, then you’re going to have some issues going forward. The simple truth is if you’re passionate about your idea and you really believe that it will work, then your chances of succeeding increase drastically. You’ll put in the extra effort and extra time to make it all work for you if you have the passion behind it. Plus, you’re more likely to create a better product, which will make your customers happy and more likely to buy from you again in the future.

Think of passion as a necessary part of successful long term business.

2. Is it Something that People are REALLY Actively Looking for or Need?

Just like passion needs to be mentioned again, so does this part. Hopefully you’ve done some market research before just to make sure that your idea is worth keeping. Is there an interest in it? Are people going to use it? Even if you have the best intentions, the worst thing that could happen is that you spend a ton of time and resources building something or things that people aren’t going to utilize.

I’ve seen this way too many times in the tech field. A lot of folks will think “Oh, Idea A is good. So is Idea B. If I put them together to Idea C, I’m sure to win!” This isn’t necessary true. Sometimes it’s possible to make something a little more complex than it needs to be… and that little extra complexity can be a problem for folks.

So how do you test that people want something?

  • Ask! – As I mentioned, in the Foundation and via Ryan Levesque, we find that the best way to figure out if a product is going to be utilized is to simply ask. You can ask 10 to 20 people and get an impression of whether or not something is worth pursuing. Remember that if you know a pain so well, that the people you’re asking will think you already have a solution. That’s the point where you make the presale!
  • Are the similar sites and businesses already out there? – If you can’t tell, this is the method I used in deciding to pursue New Inceptions. While Pat is focused on passive income, and Fizzle is focused strictly on online businesses, New Inceptions is focused primarily on those of us who have stumbled into this world of business as a second career path. A resource for those who feel that their inner needs and desires were not being met in the work that they were previously doing.
  • Do some Keyword research – Similar to the one above, you can check the internet to find out if a given topic is already being used. This is achievable by doing some keyword research. There are tools that are available for this. Google has a free one called the Keyword Planner. One that I’ve been using for years is called Market Samurai.
  • Survey Your Already Existing Audience – Perhaps you already have a platform and you’re wanting to offer something new. Instead of asking random people, ask those who have already bought from you once. In fact, those that have already bought from you might realize that your quality is to their standard, so

Remember that when you’re doing this research, it’s not you that’s on trial – it’s the idea. We’d love to believe that all our ideas can make us money, but in reality, it’s up to other people – the market. The best way to see if an idea will sink or not is to find if people will buy in before we ever do the work to do it.

3. Determine Your Scalability

In the passive income world, this is the big question. You don’t want to start a business that the more success you have with it, the more your position consumes you. (However, if you’re a work-a-holic like Gary V, you might actually enjoy that kind of thing.)

Ideally, if you’re in a real passive income setting, the more sales you have, doesn’t necessarily mean you work more. If a million sales suddenly happened one day, would that be a good thing or a bad thing? If you’re pure passive, it’d be an AWESOME thing. It would mean that you wouldn’t have to do ship anything else (as either they get electronic copies or you have another company sending things out) and/or you don’t have to handle accounts payable and receivable – it’s dealt with electronically.

Even if you’re not focused entirely in generating passive income (which, let’s be honest, who isn’t?), you’ll want to think about scalability too. Just in a different perspective. Once you run your idea past a few folks and you know you’d love doing it, think about whether or not you’ll be able to have other people to do it for you. I’m not talking about paying them. Let’s say that’s taken care of. I’m saying, actually have them doing the part you’re doing. Can you train them to do what you do?

If not, then maybe you’re planning on being an artist or musician that makes it so big you that you have orders coming all the time? If so, you’ll want to hire someone to take care of your marketing, office work, and other things you shouldn’t be dealing with. If you’re giving lessons of some sort (say like Roger Love), you might also want to learn how to take care of all the paperwork and marketing that goes into making something like he does successful at his level.

Conclusion:

So, last week, we were collecting ideas that might be part of your overarching theme. This week, we’re inspecting them a little more thoroughly and sorting out the ideas that don’t quite fit. If you follow the above 3 steps, you’re planting some good seeds for a successful business. If you want further help with this subject of choosing a successful business, feel free to take a look at the course in Fizzle called Choosing a Topic by Corbett Barr. Get your first two weeks here free so you can get in without paying a cent.

AoL 027: The Process of Reinventing Yourself and Your Business with Theresa French

/by

Sometimes, things just don’t work out, in life or in our businesses, the way we expect them to. Whether or not we really wanted to succeed simply does not compute at times. And it’s those times that we find ourselves having to quit the path we were on. Sometimes this can be really hard. Especially since most of us are taught from an early age that we’re not allowed to quit something. (Which, I talked about how to quit without regret in a recent blog post.)

When you do finally quit something, though, whether planned or not, you’ll be starting something again soon. Whether it’s a new job, a new career, or a new business, there’s a process of reinvention.

For me, 2015 was all about reinvention. I had to figure out what I was good at and then I had to choose a business that fit my interests, what I liked to do, and even more importantly, how I wanted to make income.

This session’s guest knows more about reinvention than she probably guessed she would during her college years. While she always had the makings of an entrepreneur, it was only recently that she felt that what she did was truly an extension of her inner self. Sure, she was good at other things, but that didn’t necessarily mean that it was her passion.

Today, Theresa French finds herself loving to work with people in training environments. Helping them be more successful in their work as well as their lives.

In the chat, we specifically talk about where her perseverance comes from, how she got into photography, how she eventually transitioned into speaking and training, and one important thing you need to do before you transition from one job or career to another.

If you have ever felt like you’re lost when building that new business or are simply tired with what you’re doing now, then you can learn a thing or two from what she’s gone through. Reinvention is definitely a process that we all have to go through from time to time.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • Where her business ownership inspiration came from.
  • Why she still went to college.
  • How she got into her first business after school.
  • How she was able to take advantage of multiples niches in that business.
  • Why many of us don’t like to see ourselves in pictures and/or videos.
  • What she learned when she had to hang up the keys on her first business.
  • How she eventually started her marketing firm and where FocusWorks Consulting came from.
  • The ONE thing that Theresa wants everyone to take away from this talk.
  • The path to how she got into graphic design.
  • The one important thing you need to do before you transition from one job (or career) to another.
  • How she plans on doing more speaking and training in 2016.
  • …and MUCH more.

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Reinvent Yourself (Motivational Video) – a new favorite of mine?

Wesley Goo (Founder of Reinvention International) on Reinvention:

Robert Green shares the key of transforming ourselves and also talks on his own personal transformation.

Dr. Mario Alonso Puig talks about Reinvention

Steve Harvey talks about Chapter 13 of his book Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success (Amazon Link)

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, and/or Podbean. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

business idea

Getting Your Business Idea Ready for Flight: A Short Checklist

/by

As I’m continuing to catch up on some of my reading, one of the books that I find myself liking more and more is Pat Flynn’s Will It Fly?

I talked a little bit about this book in this post.  However, I must admit, I only skimmed over the book at the time because I was going over a couple of others.

I now find myself able to go over it in detail – including all the little activities he’s planned out for us as readers.

It has been a really enjoyable journey refining some of the thoughts I have about New Inceptions and what it’s potential is. (Which, as Donald Trump would say, is ‘UUGE! :))

If you’re just starting your online venture and you’re in the idea generation/clarity phase, I want to give you a few tips that I thought were really useful from the book… and even some that I’ve learned along the way as I’ve refined NI.

1. Write All Your Ideas Down – Yours and Others.

For the longest time, I would keep all my ideas in my head. If I had time, I would attempt to execute some of them, however over time, even the good ones would die.

When I went through The Foundation in 2012, one of the major things they taught was what I call niche product development. (I talk about this briefly in the podcast with Sharlotte Bouniol from last week.) Basically it means that you learn how to find the products you should be making from your audience. (Ryan Levesque also talks about this in his book, Ask).

If you dig so deep that you know a client’s problem more than they know it themselves. They’ll assume that you have the solution already.

In this process, if you tried to remember it all, I don’t believe you’d fully be able to. There’s simply way too much information collected during these interviews to remember all the issues

So I learned to write them down. Ever since, I’ve written ideas down that I’ve gotten from other people as well as those that I’ve thought up on my own.

If, for whatever reason, you feel like you shouldn’t write an idea down, do it anyway. For one, no one is going to see your list. Also, if you don’t know how to achieve everything right away with the idea, you can pack it away until you have a better idea of how to accomplish it. There’s a much more unlikely chance that it will disappear if written down than it would if you were to simply keep it in your head.

2. Don’t Cross Out an Idea Because It Already Exists

In the segment that I’m currently reading in Pat’s book, he talks about how most folks are looking for an idea that other people haven’t found yet. However, from this post, we should remember that this is nearly impossible. In fact, it’s good that it already exists. It will save you the time and resources to recreate the niche!

An example of this is with fast food restaurants and the nearby chain retail stores. Have you ever noticed that these chains all seem to be right on top of each other?

As far as the restaurants go, you’ll always see a Burger King near a McDonald’s, true. But have you ever seen a Burger King without a McDonald’s nearby? Personally, I can’t think of many instances. And there’s a reason for this. For the most part, early on, Burger King let McDonald’s determine all the good spots to set up shop.

Later, if there was good traffic to that particular area, you started to see other restaurants building on top of established chain locations AND even retail spots – such as Target and, later, Walmart. That’s the basis behind suburbs blowing up the way they have – and all of their “strips” looking very similar to the one in the nearby town.

You can read more about this phenomenon here.

Really, you should think of your niche in the same manner. Unless it’s a small niche, the more traffic in your niche the better.

However, that said, if there isn’t much substance to what you’re bringing, you won’t last long. So don’t expect to just succeed overnight. If there is already established traffic, you’ll have to spend some time learning how to tap into it – just like startup restaurants and stores have to in an established shopping area.

3. Do Something You Have Passion (or at least an Interest) In

If you’re going to be chasing money, you can only do that for so long before you burn out. Eventually, if you plan to stay self-employed for the foreseeable future, you’ll want to do something you feel is natural to you.

For me, I’m a catalyst of people – helping them explore what could be.

I’m a teacher.

I like tech, business strategy, leadership, and am a huge fan of self awareness and self improvement. Combine those all together and that’s what I want New Inceptions to reflect.

Ask yourself, what am I naturally interested in? What do I want to study or think about when no one is looking? Can I make that into a business that will support the things I want to do in life?

In the long run, your business has to reflect you, otherwise you’re going to grow tired of it. (Hell, you might even see it as a job that owns you!) However, your products (especially early on) should help people with very niche issues. Eventually you can add on to them and create suites. But start simple at first. Solve one pain at a time.

4. Fine Tune Your Idea

Another exercise that Pat shares in his book is all about starting out focused. In fact, he helps us do this by having us write a page about our business. Then, he has us break that down into a paragraph. Finally having us write a sentence that defines our business.

The sentence I ended up with from this exercise was this:

New Inceptions is a fiercely loyal online virtual resource hub that connects creative entrepreneurs (Renegades) with the insight, tools, motivation, and community to build a successful online business.

I’d highly recommend doing this exercise. I think it’s definitely going to help me get more focused in what I’m doing.

Action Steps

Here we are, already in March of 2016. It’s essentially been a year since I started on this new path. Personally, I’m starting to see some of my seeds from last year start to grow. For one, I’m helping Mark Nathan launch his book on a larger scale. On another, I’m starting the process of building my first product. And, I’m having some good thoughts on what I want to make my Opt-In in the future be. (Cause let’s face it… it’s so VAGUE right now!)

These are all things that I could not have imagined last year. Why? Because I really had no idea what I wanted to do last year. I couldn’t figure out exactly what I wanted to do. But I was attacking the problem incorrectly. At least for me.

The thing is, you don’t have to do one thing. You can totally do a theme for your site and business.

However, your products or services need to solve specific pains that your customers have.

In this next week, I want you to start thinking of your theme. What kinds of things do you like to do now and in the past? What do you see your ideal future looking like in 5 years?

Next week, we’ll start asking ourselves questions on whether or not the idea that we have is going to get us to where we want to be in the future.

girlboss

AoL 026: Crushing Graphic Design like a GirlBoss with Sharlotte Bouniol

/by


Many entrepreneurs start out as freelancers. They might call themselves consultants, but they’re really freelancers.

The difference, we learned in session 17 with Frank Forte, was that consultants are contracted for a much longer time. Maybe a year plus. Whereas a freelancer works per the project.

Either way, your services are for sale, and you live and die by each individual project.

Needless to say, you better have a natural gift or passion for what you’re going to be helping with. Otherwise you’re going to grow tired of the hustle to do jobs you don’t like doing really quick.

For me, the time that I spent at AMS you could have considered me a consultant. The IRS labeled me a contractor, but I definitely helped build the business… and continue to do so in different ways. Just today I was asked to take a look at something on the back end of the website and see if I could do something about it!

If you’re a freelancer, I’m sure you understand that feeling.

Today’s guest is someone that has a huge passion in what she does. In her past life, she’s been in various marketing positions including a Chief Marketing Officer. Eventually, though, she realized she liked helping Beach Body coaches with their branding. Word got out about her work, enough so that eventually she left the executive position to pursue her interest in branding and marketing.

In this session’s chat with Sharlotte Bouniol, we talk about a number of things including: how she became an intern for the Nielsen company, how she got a job at the #1 State Farm Agency in the US, why she started GirlBoss Graphix, and what inspires her creatively.

If you’re serious about becoming a freelancer, I think you’ll get a lot of inspiration from this chat. In reality it’s all about leveraging who you know so you can get referrals to do more work. Start in a niche, like Sharlotte, then work your way out!

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • How Sharlotte got into marketing.
  • How she became an intern for the Nielsen Company.
  • Why she sees the world differently after the experience there.
  • How she got a job at the #1 State Farm Agency in the US.
  • The difference between niche marketing and niche product design.
  • Why she finally started GirlBoss Graphix.
  • How she actually gets paid for the work she does.
  • How she was able to say goodbye to her last job and boss.
  • Why she chose to build an online business vs being a “brick and mortar” agency.
  • What inspires her creativity.
  • Why she believes that personal development is important.
  • Where her passion for helping special needs kids came from.
  • …and MUCH more.

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

How to be a Freelance Artist (Dos and Dont’s)
In the video, Jazza talks about some of the hard learned lessons he’s had over the years

What Successful Freelancers Wish They’d Known from the the Start
(Just because it’s from the UK doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply EVERYWHERE!)

Is web design more your thing? Here’s John Morris on finding your first client on Upwork, Elance, and oDesk.

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, and/or Podbean. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

AoL 025: Exploring the Hidden Truth of Vibrant Health with David Sandstrom

/by

When it comes to our health, Americans are a fickle bunch. Some of us are very into it, and others, like I was, simply don’t even know where to start.

For me personally, health was never a big focus of mine growing up. I only went to a doctor when I was on death’s door. However, my mom, would go all the time. The more she went, however, the more they’d give her meds to deal with whatever issue she was dealing with at the time. I swear, by the time she passed suddenly in 2010, she probably was downing 8 pills daily? I’m sure you know someone like that.

Today, I still don’t go to the doctor regularly. Opting instead to treat myself for any ailments and hoping that I’m eating correctly. For one, I simply don’t want the possibility of them just covering up symptoms of underlying issue. For my mom, they could have simply said, “stop eating sugar” and/or “here are some alternate ideas”. Instead they decided that giving her (and many other Baby Boomers) a pill concoction will be much more welcome.

Secondly, most of the nutrition advice that I see others taking today still says that carbs are ok to eat, sugar is ok in moderation, and that fat is bad. Personally, I don’t subscribe to that info.

Today’s guest is someone that can shine a ton of light on this issue. During the day, David is flying for a major airlines. However, when it’s time to put on his other hat as a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner, you can see him making a major push to get out the knowledge he has in preventing ailments. In this session’s interview with David, we talk about his passion in holistic health,  how he got into it, what his thought are some of the more popular diets out there, and how someone can embrace holistic health into their lifestyle.

If you’re serious about improving your health and not going through the same treatment that many of our parents and grandparents have gone through, then this chat with David should really benefit you. If you get a lot out of it, be sure to share it with others you care about!

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • How a pilot with an MBA got into Holistic Health.
  • Why he has a huge passion for holistic health and teaching others about it.
  • How holistic health differs and compliments traditional western medicine.
  • How cholesterol actually helps in the healing process.
  • What actually causes heart disease.
  • Why people get addicted to carbs.
  • His thoughts on the paleo diet, ketosis, and the book The China Study.
  • How someone can embrace holistic health into their lifestyle.
  • What 3 questions you should ask yourself when seeking to improve your health.
  • What your choice of words on social media says about your future health.
  • …and MUCH more.

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Dr. Robert H. Lustig called Sugar: The Bitter Truth. Totally opened up my eyes. He talks about how bad sugar really is for you and how it’s basically in everything. Find it here:

Dr. Mark Hyman on Sugar and the Only Rules you Need to Eat Healthy:

Most of what David and Dr. Hayman say are similar. However they differ on Milk. David said that it’s good, Mark said it’s bad. Here are two videos talking about milk processing and why you might consider Raw Milk:

A farmer’s perspective on Raw Milk:

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, and/or Podbean. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

Understanding Passive Income as Organic Earnings

/by

In my last podcast session with Matt Bernstein, one of the nuggets of information he dropped (among MANY) was that he first heard of passive income from the same book I did, Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. The main difference was that he read it when he was young and I read it when I was starting college.

I was already heading towards getting my first degree when I read the book in 2002. My workload as an engineering student was pretty massive, but I’ve been in the search of ways for it to work ever since then. Why wouldn’t I be? To me, it’s the answer of old adage ‘What? Do you think that money grows on trees?’.

Actually…

Passive income should really be called “organic earnings”. Not because they’re earnings picked from a tree, mind you, but because they are earnings that are based on how well we set ourselves up to sell something automatically. We simply have to let either word of mouth and/or online business nature take it’s course. It doesn’t matter if we personally do an additional hour of work, we’re not going to be paid any more for that one hour directly. Indirectly, however, we might get paid over and over again.

What I’ve found through 13 years of investigation and research, are a few things I really want to share with you guys today.

Passive Income Creates Options

Working on developing passive income opens up the potential for a whole new lifestyle that most would only dream of living. As they say in LTD, eventually you can have 6 Saturdays and a Sunday every week if you work on your business like a business and not a hobby.

If you want to travel somewhere – you could, with no reservations (no pun intended). Get up, buy a ticket, and go without packing. Get some clothes when you get there!

If you have some work to do, you can simply do it from the internet. All you would need is your laptop (or just an internet cafe), and your online business could still be up and running. This is exactly what Cam (from session 8) and Ginger (from session 20) do on their travels.

If travel to travel isn’t your thing, then you have other options. Perhaps you simply want to be at the gym or out on the golf range at any time you want. Or maybe, you just want the opportunity to go to any sports games you’d want. If you’re big into entertainment, you can potentially create a man cave for a king!

Or, if you’re like my wife, Maria, you could work somewhere you love that maybe doesn’t pay you a supporting wage (or you could even volunteer), and your passive income could pick up the slack.

It really depends on you and your ambitions!

If you can Share it Online, it can be a Source of Passive Income.

Any business that you do online can help you create passive income. At AMS, one of the things I struggled to do was figure out how to create passive income for the company. While we were mainly online, our events were TOTALLY not. All registrations were online, true, but our registrants had to actually come to our events. So, just like a brick and mortar store, our ability to provide value to people was based on our geographical location.

In 2016, however, we have started implementing Virtual Races. In the first race we had being virtual as an option, we had 93 registrants from all over the US. While many might wonder, “What’s the point of doing a race if you’re not at the actual location of the event?” in 2016, we should realize that many people run for the gear they get from the event. It’s their proof that they did the event. Virtual Races are considered passive income sources because all you have to do is make the event and you can theoretically sell as many entries as possible.

Likewise, one of our upcoming guests, David Picciuto, is what many of us would consider a Maker. When we think of a Maker, we typically think physical products that are limited and typically sold in a geographical region. Typically, you’d be right. However, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case either. In fact, in our upcoming chat, we’ll explore how his site, makesomething.tv, where he shares with others how they can build things he’s built… and other topics related to doing what he’s done.

Another example of something that isn’t typically thought of being a passive income business, is being an artist. However, if you’re an artist and want to generate passive income, then one idea might be to do teach while they’re creating their work similar to how Bob Ross taught on his show for so many years. (And, in fact, whoever owns his brand now, has made a passive income site based on his teaching.)

Passive Income Doesn’t Come Cheap

However, let’s be clear that true passive income isn’t for free. In fact, earning a passive income simply isn’t a “get rich quick” idea. It takes some time, a bit of research and probably a little bit of luck too (although I like to say you can create your own luck), in order to get to a point where you’re comfortable saying you have a successful passive income creating business.

It’s about putting in the hard work now, so you can reap the benefits later. – Pat Flynn

Action Steps

Are you really serious about getting started on your path to developing passive income for yourself? If so, then you ought to think about what type of business you want and get on starting to make it. Not only that, but why?

Do you want it to…

  • Be side income on the side of your day job?
  • Be able to quit a job that you dislike?
  • Work On a project that you’re passionate about?
  • Be financially free?

This is part of what you should consider.

There are multiple resources around the web that I spoke of in this post. However, stay tuned for our very own resource that will combine the best thoughts of all these resources (and others) coming soon!

Comments are welcome below and check out Bob Ross’ site if you haven’t yet or not sure who he was. He was a great inspiration to my creativity as a kid!

udemy

AoL 024: Unlocking the Secrets of Success to Drop Shipping and uDemy with Matt Bernstein

/by

Online business comes in many forms. In fact, I’ve mentioned that there are 10 archetypes that people can utilize to do online business.

One of the types that I’ve had an interest in, and one that I think has a relatively low entry cost, is the Retail archetype. In session 13, our guests, Dennis and Claudia Haddix, talked about the lifestyle that their eCommerce business provided for them.

But we didn’t really get into how they do things. Heck, I didn’t even know until a few weeks ago when Dennis mentioned that he drop ships in our eCommerce meeting here in Indy.

Interestingly enough, I soon became a member of the Smart Passive Income Community on Facebook and bumped into today’s guest who has taught over 50,000 students on uDemy in various subjects, including drop shipping!

Nice!!

So, we got to talking and eventually, I learned that he was starting his own course platform called Skillhance.

Today’s guest, Matt Bernstein, is a wealth of information when it comes to building various types of businesses. Like Gary Vee, he started with baseball cards, and has worked his way up to where he is today.

In our today’s chat, we talk about how he became an entrepreneur at a young age, how the book 4 Hour Work Week changed his perspective on what and how he sold online, and how he transitioned to uDemy and how he’s managed his success on that platform.

Make sure you listen to today’s session ready to take notes as a lot of tactics will be dropped.

Also, stay tuned to the New Inceptions’ Resource Page in the future as I’ll be linking any of Matt’s courses that I think would add value to you guys.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • How he started his first business.
  • Some of the first items he sold on eBay.
  • One the key things he got out of the 4 Hour Work Week.
  • How he got into drop shipping and how it works.
  • Some of the things to avoid when you’re working with sourcing from manufacturers.
  • Why Matt did drop shipping vs using Amazon and, particularly, FBA.
  • How he got banned from eBay.
  • Why he started doing course on uDemy.
  • How to use uDemy as a funnel to your main platform.
  • Types of courses he has on uDemy.
  • A brief overview of he makes a course.
  • How he uses social media platforms, including YouTube, Blab, and Instagram.
  • How to create content for each of those platforms. .
  • …and MUCH more.

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Matt’s Course called “How I Made $50,000+ in Profits on Udemy”
Save half off and get it for $9 here!

Matt’s Interview with Dennis Smith:

Shopify Article: How I Imported Gaming Glasses With Alibaba and Made $2,416.51 in 5 Weeks

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, and/or Podbean. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!