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Online Business: by Michal Wurm
Online Business: by Michal Wurm
Online Business: by Michal Wurm
by Michal Wurm
www.onlinebusinesslaunchpad.com
Read this book if you want to survive.
Well, this may be a bit over the top, but I mean it in the most caring way possible.
(You’ll see my point on the next page.)
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The storm on the horizon
Here is the deal. There is an economic storm brewing. You can In 2020 the unemployment numbers went way above the great
probably see the signs here and there already. Many businesses recession of 2008. At the time, the International Monetary Fund
are in dire straits and were forced to lay off workers due to the concluded that it was the most severe economic and financial
unfavorable economic situation. meltdown since the Great Depression.
If you look at the US 4-week average jobless claims, the amount It should scare the living daylights out of everyone who’s not in
of people who lost their job has reached unprecedented levels. the top 10%. Unfortunately, many people are blinded by the
Hundreds of thousands of people out of work has to affect the media and ignorance when it comes to economics.
economy in one way or another. (in thousands =
March 2020
COVID-19 6 000 000 unemployed
Below is a chart from the US Department of Labour. You can see Lockdown spike people)
that things are not by any means pretty.
Early 1980s
1973 oil crisis recession 2008 great recession
1979 energy crisis We are here
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This doesn’t concern me, right?
So what, you may say. I don’t live in the USA, so why should this The aftermath of the 2008 US housing bubble finally rippled
concern me anyway? across the Pacific ocean to the pristine, remote country where I
lived. And everything stopped almost overnight. The economic
Well, the economies worldwide are so interlinked that if a major crisis, which began 12 000 km (8 000 miles) away, wreaked
player like the USA, China, or the EU gets in trouble, the whole havoc everywhere.
world is up the creek without a paddle.
In the next three months, I had 16 clients who declared
I’ve seen it happen before. bankruptcy. At our average rate of $2500 for a website, this
amounted to approximately $40 000 of lost revenue. Things
I lived in a lovely seaside town in New Zealand at the time. became ugly, really quick. Some of my staff panicked and left
I started my own web design business a couple of years for less-paid but more secure jobs, even though they hated
earlier. After an initial struggle, we finally seemed to be doing them. Suddenly we were down to a skeleton crew of three
amazingly well. My company became one of the top brands in people.
the region. I had eight people working for me, and I just closed
the biggest partnership deal in my career, which meant I’d need I couldn’t believe how quickly things turned sour.
to hire another five people to keep up with the demand. Things
were going great. After we closed the deal me and my team I learned from this experience that there is no such thing as
went for steaks and wine to celebrate. I remember I ordered an enough security. You can never protect your income enough.
inch thick beef steak with pepper sauce and roasted vegetables.
Little did I know it would be the last steak I’ll have for a very You need to diversify your income and don’t rely just on a job to
long time. It was in December 2008. provide for your family, for God’s sake.
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Back to today and back to you
We can see the writing on the wall. We know the wheels are
going to fall off the economic bandwagon we’re riding. And
it would be best if you weren’t caught in the middle when it The best way to generate
happens.
wealth, become independent,
So how do you protect your income?
and secure your income is to
I found that the best way to generate wealth, become
independent, and generate income is to build your own build your own business.
business.
The good news is that it’s not that hard anymore. There are
plenty of freely available or cheap tools that you can use to start
your own online business.
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The 5 steps to start an online business
Here are the steps we need to go through to start an online
business:
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Step 1: Why start an online business?
There are many reasons why you need an online business. The
1.8 billion people shopped
main ones that I see are these:
online last year.
It is an additional income stream.
Even if you have a job right now, it never hurts to make a little Someone out there is looking
extra money on the side, does it? for what you have to offer.
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Step 2: What are you going to sell?
Figuring out what you are going to sell is sometimes the most Alright, so you want to start your own business, but maybe you
challenging part. have been struggling to figure out what you can actually sell to
people.
There are so many options and variations to consider.
You can sell these three types of products: Let me give you a few examples, and hopefully, these ideas will
point you in the right direction.
• Physical products
• Digital products
• Coaching & consulting
There are pros and cons to each type. I like digital products
the most because you can easily scale them. They can run on
The ideal way is to take
autopilot and don’t require large startup capital.
something you are
passionate about and turn it
What you want is to create something once and sell it many into a stable income.
times.
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Business ideas to get you started Step 2:
What are you going to sell?
So what can you sell online? If you’re handy with DIY projects:
Chances are, you already possess the knowledge you can share. • Teach people home improvement.
• Publish series of guides on fixing things.
For example:
If you are a stay-at-home mum, you could: If you are passionate about woodworking
• Write a cookbook with healthy recipes children love. • Record a woodworking course.
• Write an ebook with fun games parents and children can. • Design furniture plans people can use to build their own
play to spend some quality time together. furniture.
• Compile handy tips to help with house chores.
If you are an artist:
If you know how to bake: • Create online art classes.
• Create a book with baking recipes.
If you’re into health and nutrition:
If you know how to sew: • Create a weight loss program.
• Design sewing patterns and sell sewing pattern kits • Record a healthy eating course.
• Decord a video course on how to sew • Publish a book about proper nutrition.
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Business ideas to get you started Step 2:
What are you going to sell?
If you know how to fix cars: If you like to work on model trains or planes:
• Do a set of courses on fixing cars. • Teach people how to do specific modeling techniques.
• Teach people how to do car body repairs.
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Business ideas to get you started Step 2:
What are you going to sell?
If you know a lot about camping and survival: If you are a software developer
• Tech people how to prep. • Create a software as a service (SAAS)
• Compile bug out kits. • Teach people how to program mobile apps
• Teach survival skills.
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Research your competition Step 2:
What are you going to sell?
Before you commit your time, energy, and hard-earned cash Tools to help you with your research:
into starting your own business, do thorough research first. • Google search
• Facebook pages
Start with a simple Google search to see what other people are • Facebook Ads library
already selling and if there is enough demand for a particular • E-learning platforms (Skillshare, Udemy...)
product. • Amazon bestsellers
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Step 3: How will your product look?
Once you have figured out what you will be selling, it’s time to Following is a list of incredibly useful tools to help you create
actually create your product. your product. I have personally tried all of them to make sure
they are helpful.
Even though it’s usually the most time-consuming part of the
process, it can be a lot of fun. There is something rewarding I actually demonstrate how many of these programs work
about creating something new all by yourself. and give a quick 101 introduction to them inside my Online
Business Launchpad course.
The tools you’ll use depend largely on what kind of product or
service you want to use.
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Tools for starting your business Step 3:
How will your product look?
Logo design
99 Designs
Fiverr
BrandCrowd
Smashing Logo
Education
Skillshare.com
Udemy.com
OnlineBusinessLaunchpad.com
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Tools for creating your product Step 3:
How will your product look?
Text editing and page layout Free graphics Book cover mockup generators
Google Docs Freepik Placeit.net
Microsoft Office Agencymockup
Apple Pages Other resources
Adobe InDesign Royalty-free photos & videos Fiverr - outsource anything
Unsplash.com Envato Digital Marketplace
Graphics editors Pixabay.com
Canva - free online editor Pexels.com
Adobe Creative Cloud Vimevo.com
Affinity Photo
Royalty-free music
PDF editing Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech)
Adobe Acrobat
Royalty-free sound effects
Sound editors Freesound.org
Audacity
Canva: Free online graphic editor anyone can use
Adobe Audition
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Step 4: Where will you sell your product?
When you have your product ready, you need a website or
some space on the internet to sell it.
There are so many options you can use to build your own
website it’s not possible to cover them all.
ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels is one of the best solutions on the market.
It is a platform where you can easily create your sales page
by dragging and dropping pre-designed elements to a page.
With a few clicks, you can add an order form and connect it to a
payment gateway to accept credit card payments.
The whole system is designed primarily to help you sell more.
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Step 4:
Where will you sell your product?
If you need to build a sales page for your business quickly and
easily, give ClickFunnels a try. It comes with a free trial, so you
have plenty of time to test it out, build your sales page, and
start selling.
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Step 4:
Where will you sell your product?
WordPress
Did you know one-third of all the websites on the internet
runs on WordPress? What started as a system for bloggers
has quickly grown into one of the most versatile content
management systems freely available.
You can install the base system and extend it with many of the
thousands of plugins available. If you want a fully-featured
e-shop, then WooCommerce is probably the best way to go.
The pros of WordPress are that you can adapt it to suit your
needs.
WordPress homepage
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Step 4:
Where will you sell your product?
Online marketplaces
You can also make use of existing online marketplaces. These Regardless of which system you decide to use, the best advice
are great when you are selling physical products. I can give you is to start tinkering around with it and adjust and
improve on the go.
Some of the most known marketplaces are
• Etsy
• Shopify
• Amazon Handmade
The pros are that the infrastructure is already created. All you
need to do is sign up, setup your products, and you can start
selling.
The cons are that the platform takes a cut of your profits. Also,
any follow up actions such as upsells or email newsletters
become challenging to perform because you cannot adjust the
Etsy is a popular marketplace for selling anything handmade.
way the platform works.
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Step 5: Who will buy it from me?
It doesn’t matter if you have a fantastic with a beautiful sales
The more specific you get
page unless you can get people to see it.
with your dream customer’s
Many people fail at this point because they simply don’t know
definition, the better you can
how to market themselves.
target them with your ads.
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Step 5:
Who will buy it from me?
If your audience definition is too broad, you’ll be wasting your Paid advertising
valuable budget on your ads. That is not something you can When it comes to getting quickly in front of a vast group of
afford when you are just starting out. Suppose you do narrow people, the best way is to pay for advertising.
your audience as much as possible. In that case, you’ll be able
to create more engaging ads, use your budget efficiently, and There are two platforms where it makes sense to invest in paid
you’ll have a much better return on your ad spend. ads for a startup entrepreneur with a home-based business
right now. Facebook, and Pinterest.
Once you know who your dream customers are, you can do
a search on Facebook groups, Facebook pages, discussion Facebook is, by far, the most used ad platform. It offers a
forums, blog sites and all the other places where they gather great way of targeting your potential customers by interests
online. and demographics. With over 2.7 billion active monthly users,
Facebook can reach an incredible amount of people. Signing
Write everything on a list, so you know who to target and where up for a business account is free and setting up ads is relatively
to show your ads. You can reach out to the owners of blog straightforward.
sites or groups where your dream customers interact with each
other. You can start commenting on these platforms, build a
reputation, and gradually promote yourself.
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Step 5:
Who will buy it from me?
Facebook also offers a free course on Facebook marketing Setting up advertising is free and simple enough. You simply
called Facebook Blueprint. I highly recommend you going create your pins, then go and promote them based on the
through it to know how the ads work and what the advertising interests your audience has. The added benefit is that when
policies are. people like your promoted pin, they save it to their collection,
which supports your pin’s organic reach in the long run.
If you target your audience correctly, Facebook can be an
incredible way to get new customers rolling in. Over 70% of Pinterest users are female, making it a great
advertising channel if your product is aimed towards women.
Pinterest has a much smaller reach than Facebook. However,
with over 400 million active users, it’s still not a bad option to
consider.
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The big question
You now know the importance of having your own business.
Will you do it?
You generally know what to do.
Why? If you are serious about starting your own online business, I
have created an extensive course that shows you:
Because like most other people, you will reach too many
obstacles, and you won’t know how to conquer them. You’ll get • How to build an online business that’s easy to manage.
distracted by other things, it’ll become too complicated, and • Finding the right product to sell
you’ll get stuck somewhere along the way. • Which are the recession-proof niches.
• Different software and online tools and how can you use
them to start your business.
• How to succeed even if people don’t buy at first
• Practical demonstration of the entire process.
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The big question
I’m giving you all the tools and knowledge I’ve used to build Michal Wurm
successful businesses in the past 20 years of my career. michalwurm.com
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Build your own dreams,
or someone else will hire you
to build theirs.
– Farrah Gray
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www.onlinebusinesslaunchpad.com