It’s much easier to start a business in 2018 than ever
I would like to talk to you about how it’s actually a lot easier now than ever to start a business online. If you go back even 2 or 3 years ago, it would have been quite difficult to start an online business. There’s a lot of things you need to know and they are really complicated. But now, things are simplified. There’s really just a few things that you need to set up a business online. It’s as simple as a website, a system for creating your opt-in and sales pages, and a way to actually make payments. These are the tools that are available and they are at a much higher and better level than they used to be. What actually brought up the topic of this conversation was that I saw one of the people who I learnt a lot of stuff from years ago. I actually just happened to go. I saw they were doing some crypto stuff, and I think that the cryptocurrency stuff is highly speculative. I think it’s a bit too gambly for me and I don’t like the way all these programs get set up around it and they’re sort of based on a scheme set up.
Personally, I didn’t want to go into the cryptocurrency as a business. I wouldn’t be against getting cryptocurrency but I wouldn’t want to be in one of those types of businesses. I believe there are lots of real businesses online, real products and services that you can offer people and you can actually make money without having to take part in schemes like that. So really, after one of the cryptocurrency companies seemed to go down, I saw that one of my mentors who had been into that company in a big way started advertising his traditional company. This was because the cryptocurrency company has gone down the tube. I learnt a lot of very valuable information from him, with regards to working and marketing online. When I went to do a payment to join his company for $7 for a seven-day trial, when I looked I realised he was using Samcart for that. I have used Samcart and I think it’s great, I think it’s really good, but one downside is that over a very long period of time it costs a lot of money. So if you’re on this Livestream and you want to see, I actually did a breakdown of how much extra money it would cost you and all of the benefits.
The thing about these shopping cart systems is they’re really good, they’ll make you a lot of money, you’re much better to have one because you’re gonna lose money on upsells, reoccurring stuff and not being able to track whats going on if you use an ordinary payment system such as stripe or PayPal or something. Plus it doesn’t look as professional. When you put a good payment system together, you put a proper optin system for building up your subscribers and you connect that to an autoresponder and you have a ready-made business. Instead of paying the likes of Samcart $199 a month to run your affiliate program, you can buy a one-off licence to a shopping cart that’s much better. It’s $599 for life, I thought it would actually be gone by now, but it’s still there, so that’s great. It means you pay that once and you have the shopping cart and all the upgrades forever.
My last shopping cart, which I paid for 10 years, cost me nearly $1500. Buying a shopping cart for $595 for life which does about fifty times what my former shopping cart did, is really just common sense. When you have the optin subscriber system which is about $200 and you have your autoresponder which is $19 a month and you have your website, once you have those things you really have your own online business completely set up. You can sell whatever you want to sell, it doesn’t matter what business you’re in, doesn’t matter what niche you’re in, you could be a dentist, you could be a doctor, you could be an online digital marketer, you could be selling writing, art. You could be selling any number of things. You can sell services, like some clients that I have made websites for. They sell appliance repairs services and appliances. You could be selling energy certificates. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, you could have an online business for a really, really low cost.
Some people say “oh well I thought I could get started on the internet for free” The truth is you can’t get started on the internet for free with a proper business. If you try and do it for free you’re gonna be hosted on Google, you’re gonna be using free tools which are crap, and you’ll be using all these free tools that are useless and make your business look bad. You do need to invest. If you’re starting a business and you have your shopping cart, optin software, you’re talking another £20-100 a month for your autoresponder depending on how big your list is. You’ll need a few hundred dollars a month and a couple of grand to get the things that you need to have your business up and running online properly. The alternative of that is, of course, is the dreaded job security which isn’t very secure and it depends on someone else. It depends on a company, it depends on where their blinkers are going, where they’re looking for the future, whether they’re still going to be open in a year, whether they’re gonna sell it to someone else and gonna close it down, whether your boss is still gonna be healthy enough to run the business in 5 years. Is your job still gonna be there? These are all things you have to look at, and when you’re going down the job security route, the other thing you have to remember is you’re getting taxed at source. So if you’re depending on a job, and you’re getting taxed at source, you immediately lose 20-45% before you get to spend it on your business or lifestyle. You don’t even have a choice to spend that money because it’s been taken straight off you. By having your own online business, you can spend your money and you’re taxed on what your profits are.
All these softwares that will take you thousands of dollars over the years are tax-deductible, so it comes off your tax bill. The optin software is tax deductible. The hosting you’ll need is tax deductible. Your autoresponder is tax deductible. All those things are tax deductible. If you have a website like I have, and I write an article on the place I went on holiday, that is a tax-deductible expense because I went to a country to do a review to be able to create content for my website. I have a friend who has a wine review web site, and every time he goes out and buys wine, he goes and reviews it. Any wine that he buys is also tax deductible. You can do the same with technology if you’re doing reviews of technology, you might need to be some of the latest technology to do reviews. That’s the cost of you doing business. I’m not a lawyer, and I’m sure everybody has different rules, but if you look at it from a common sense point of view it just makes a lot more sense to have an online business than it does to be dependant on a job. You’re also saving yourself all the other heartaches that you’re gonna have in a normal business, you’re gonna have loads of staff, you’re gonna pay a big shop. If you go into most towns in the UK, or Ireland, or in these different countries, you’re gonna see that the main streets in the towns are empty. A lot of people will say to you “oh the main streets in the towns are empty because everybody’s buying stuff online” and in a small degree that’s true, a lot of people are buying stuff online, they are going to Amazon or other reputable companies and they’re buying their stuff on the internet and they don’t have to go to all of the stores that they used to. The reason why a lot of these shops or business are completely empty is because they’re paying extortionate taxes.
A massive B & Q in Belfast closed down, and god knows how many thousands of employees lost their job from that store. The rates bill for that B & Q store was 6 million pounds a year. If you’re in a traditional business, a lot of you will get put out of business by the taxes that you’re gonna pay on these huge premises or just premises in huge ratable locations. This is another reason why you want to take your business online because if you take your business online, you won’t be liable to pay these types of expenses that you’ll have elsewhere. The other thing about online businesses is, you get an opportunity to get a residual income. You can get a residual income, you can sell products, you can sell services that pay you monthly. For example, one business that I saw charges $125 and teaches you stuff about internet marketing and how to build your business, stuff like that. You become an affiliate, and for each person you bring in the business, you get $100 commission for each person and they keep $25. So you get a residual for each person who comes in that business of $100 a month. That person basically learns how to market online, and that’s residual. So you’re getting that every month.
Right now, I have a couple of things that I, in the planning phase here, for setting up some online coaching services and businesses. I’m actually looking for a good name for it, I’ve actually gotten a good few names for my businesses. It was called digital marketing academy, but it wasn’t available on GoDaddy. I also have domains already, I have a domain called WorldInternetSchool.com, a domain called ProBloggingSchool.com, and I’ve some other domains like that. I’m actually looking a domain, what I’m gonna do is, using this piece of software that takes payments, it also runs your affiliate programs. So it’s very easy for you to set up an affiliate program and sell your own products. These could be low price products, or it could be high price products. It allows people to pay you via ApplePay, PayPal, or credit and debit card. But, the thing about it is is, I am going to set up an affiliate program. I’m going to set up a high priced affiliate program where people get paid a very large commission. It will be a course where there’s loads of information and lots of stuff. It’s gonna be high priced and you’re gonna be able to resell it and get a thousand dollar commission. The other thing that I’m in the process of setting up, is another residual training system. Like I said if you have any ideas for good names for me, I would really appreciate it. I looked up Digitalmarketingacademy.com but I couldn’t get it. I’m normally really good at domain names, but for some reason, the last day or two I’m not in the mood for thinking them up. I haven’t thought up a really good name yet for this.
The thing is, with the software, the payment system, I have decided to set up another system where you get paid. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to set up something like that yourself if you want. Message me and I can talk to you more about it. But, the thing is, that if you set up a system like this, and it’s then your system, you will get commissions and you can also decide on a good affiliate commission for affiliates. Some of the businesses that I was in before were brilliant, they paid out really good affiliate commissions, they gave me the ability to make over $50,000 commissions from that one business and loads of other people made tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. When you’re able to have an affiliate system that pays out good commissions, some residual and maybe some high ticket commissions, it’s a way for you to make a lot of money. By joining other people’s ones, when they change the rules or change the plans, it messes you up. It makes you look bad in front of your clients and customers. You introduced them to it, so you’re at fault if something bad happens. If you’re running your own system, and you’re running your own online business, then nobody can mess that up for you. The only person that can mess up your online business is yourself.
It’s much easier to start a business in 2018 than ever
