Start Your Own Online Business . . . WITH NO MONEY!
So, you have a program or a course that you want to sell online, but you're bootstrapping it and cash is tight because you're just getting started.
Do you need funnels, software, an ad budget, or a place to upload your course before you can even start?
In this YouTube video, I give you four steps you can take action on TODAY to start your online business. And none of these steps requires money up front. Read to the end where I give you the BONUS tip: a little known secret about how to leverage social media to grow your business even faster.
First of all, you'll need one of these two things that almost everyone has, either a smartphone or a laptop, or both. In the video, check out how I give you some resourceful (and FREE) ideas on how to come up with one or both of these if equipment is what’s holding you back.
Step 1--DELIVERING CONTENT AND COMMUNICATING WITH CLIENTS
The first thing that you'll need is a way to deliver content and communicate with your clients and do this for free. You can communicate with your clients through free email.
There's one of two options here. You can either communicate with your clients, delivering them the content in PDFs and videos or links to videos in a free Gmail account.
The other recommendation that I would make is to use a company called ConvertKit. ConvertKit is a way to send out emails to an entire list in a really super efficient way. And they have a free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers on your list. In ConvertKit, you can send emails. You can also send those PDFs and attachments, but ConvertKit also gives you the ability to build simple landing pages within its system, all on the free plan.
Step 2--TEACHING LIVE OR PRE-RECORDED MATERIAL
You're also going to need a way to teach live or pre-recorded video or course material to your students . . . but be able to do this for free. These could be things like workshops, group coaching, demonstrations, prerecorded how-to content, and more. I'm going to give you a couple options for this step as well.
Your first option is to set up a private Facebook group. Now, Facebook groups are free and you can set the privacy settings on your group so that only people who are paying members of your community--your paying students--can come into the group. In that space, you can deliver LIVE and pre-recorded material, content, PDFs, documents, and more.
Your second option is Zoom. You can have a free account here and serve up to 100 people at a time and going up to 40 minutes at a time on your training sessions to a group of people. Or, for one-to-one coaching or one-to-one delivery of your content, your time is unlimited.
If you have a small budget, and you're willing to spend about $12.50/month (2021), then you can upgrade to the Pro plan on Zoom. This will enable you to be able to deliver your content to more people, larger groups, for longer periods of time, and with more flexibility.
Step 3--DELIVERING LARGER FILES, EBOOKS, OR ENTIRE COURSE PROGRAMS
You can now share links to this material with your community by sharing the links in a Google Drive. If you have a Gmail account, you can go online and have access to a limited amount of space to drop files in Google Drive. And then from Google Drive, you can make the links to those files shareable with anyone who has the link.
You can share videos, learning guides, eBooks, and more, just by sharing that link with your community. The links can be shared in emails, but if you're doing some coaching or some teaching that goes with the workbook or the PDF file, here’s another option. You can deliver the LIVE coaching in a Zoom call, and then put the links to your training materials in the Chat roll inside Zoom as you're delivering the content. Then people can pull the document up on the screen while they're watching you on the screen and follow both at the same time.
If you’re needing more storage space than is offered on the free Google plan, you can sign up for a Google Workspace account here and get a 14 day free trial.
Step 4--COLLECTING MONEY EASILY ONLINE
You're going to need a way to collect money easily and online. This will help you keep track of your revenue and make your bookkeeping and accounting much easier.
You can get a free Business account on PayPal. They'll take a small percentage of your charges as they're collected, whether that's credit card or debit card, but this is pretty typical for online payment processing services. Make sure and sign up for a Business PayPal account--not a personal one. (You would do this even if you have already established a personal PayPal account in the past.) Be sure to do this so that you can keep your personal and business funds separate.
THE BONUS TIP: HOW TO SCALE YOUR BUSINESS WITHOUT PAID ADVERTISING
Commit to going LIVE inside one of your social media accounts at least once per week. Make sure that you show up at the same time, on the same day . . . every week.
Tell your audience on social media that you will be committing to delivering one really great piece of content per week LIVE to them so they know when to expect you and to show up. Then just teach, share content, coach, and interact with your audience.
Do this for at least 15-30 minutes, consistently, every week. During the LIVE, make sure you have a link ready to share with them that leads them to your best freebie (your lead magnet).
You'll be serving your audience, growing your list of raving fans, and figuring out what works and doesn't work . . . all for free in the beginning, without spending any money at all. And the best part of all of this? You can do this with just a few spare hours each week, even if you have a nine to five or a full-time job somewhere else.
Let me know in the comments below what you’re going to get started on TODAY.
I can’t wait to see what you build!
