If I Were Starting an Online Business in 2024, I’d Do THIS!

 

The hardest part is starting your online business is starting it.

Zapier did a big study and found that roughly 3 in 5 Americans have had the idea of starting a business, and around a third have had more than one idea. But an overwhelming majority of those people, about 92%, didn't follow through with turning their idea into reality.

You're reading this article because you have an idea to start an online business, or you're fully all in that this is the thing that you want to do, but you're wondering HOW.

Today I'm giving you the roadmap that I wish someone gave me when I first started my online business five years ago.

That way you can shortcut the face plants, time & money wasted, and start building your business the most efficient way possible in 2024.

Let's dive in!

1. Nail Your Business Idea

If you're thinking about building an online business around your knowledge in 2024, first thing you have to do is really nail your business idea.

And if you already have a business idea, you can always just move on to the next step.

But if you don't have a business idea yet, I want you to know something ...

It's better just to get started than to do nothing at all.

I can't tell you how many people I talked to who want to start an online business around their knowledge, but they stay stuck because they're like, I don't know what my business idea is.

The truth is that you can't figure out your perfect idea inside of your head.

It's good to have a general idea, but people think they have to find, or are going to find, the perfect business idea inside their head - it just doesn't work that way.

If you are new to this, I want you to understand that the work will teach you how to do it.

You just have to get a little bit of an idea and get out there.

I was in construction work, started my business as a spiritual life coach, and then eventually I decided that this wasn't what I wanted to do.

So, I changed my niche to productivity coaching. And I did productivity coaching for a couple of years, and that's where I learned about digital products.

I got more savvy with online business and my clients started asking me if I could help them with their online businesses, and that's what over time evolved into Profit Your Knowledge.

Something I wish someone told me early on was that you just have to start and get the ball rolling, and you will figure it out over time.

But people want to get fast results, and the truth is that it doesn't always happen that way - Most of the time it doesn't.

So just get started and you will figure it out along the way.

Finding a great business idea is really simple ...

It comes down to finding the intersection of what you really enjoy and what a lot of people care about, and ideally that a lot of people would be willing to pay for.

Here are some questions to get your brain turning on this ...

• If you had an entire Saturday open, that you could do whatever you wanted, what would you do?
• What do other people struggle with that comes easily to you?
• What skills have you developed over the years?
• Ideally, which ones have you paid for in order to learn?
• What are the biggest challenges you've overcome?
• What problems do your friends ask you for help with?

After you write down all of your ideas for those questions, think would people be willing and able to pay for this?

For example, let's say I love ironing shirts. Would people be willing to pay me to learn how to iron their shirts?

Probably not.

But if I'm helping them start an online business, or even helping them learn how to play the drums, which I could do, that's something that people would be more willing to pay for.

You want to answer yes to both of those questions for your idea.

Once you nail your idea, we want to move on to the next step ...

2. Market Research

The goal here is to find what the people you would love to work with really, truly care about.

When you know who it is you want to help, go where they're hanging out and join the conversation that they are having.

For example, if I had a dream of working with competitive athletes, I would want to talk to competitive athletes!

I'm going to find out what their real desire is, what their frustrations are, etc.

Places you can look:

• Facebook groups
• Online threads like Reddit and Quora
• YouTube comments
• Go to live events or jump on a phone or zoom call with these people.

What to ask:

• What you want to find is where are they at right now?
• What is the challenge or frustration that they're facing?
• Where do they want to be and why do they want to be there?
• Why is that so important to them?
• What's stopping them getting from point A to point B?

And I can't stress this enough ...

If you are in a conversation with someone, dig deep as much as you can.

You really want to find out why they really want this thing.

Nobody wants to just have something.

No one wants to just get into shape ... there's always a reason behind it.

But what people say is, "I want to get into shape" or "I want to start a business".

YOU want to start a business right now because of something ...

Maybe you want more income, which is fine. But why do you want more income?

"Oh, because I want to be able to support my family and friends.". Okay, well, why is that so important to you?

You keep digging deep and peeling back the layers of the onion until you get to the real Why?

That's the gold that you want to build your business around.

Business is simply about solving people's problems.

What a lot of people do is they think that they know what their audience's problem is, but they don't actually know what it is.

That's why we do that market research ahead of time.

That way you know you're building products that people really care about and that they actually want to pay for.

3. Create Your Offer

Now, when you're building a business, sharing your knowledge online, what I recommend is to start with one-on-one coaching.

Building digital products, membership sites, and all this other stuff is great down the road, but when you're just getting the ball rolling, you can start coaching people in the next 30 days or less.

The goal is to work with people privately until you have a system that you know gets people results.

We want a process that you take people through, and they get similar results as they go through it - it's systematic.

When you're looking at your customer research, think, "What are the majority of people struggle with?", "What are the majority of people want to achieve?"

From there, you can map out the steps that takes them from point A to point B, and that becomes your coaching program.

With one-on-one coaching, you get direct live feedback with the person on what's working, what's not working.

Until you know that this process works, then you can start building products.

Once you have your offer, we want to start building out your website.

4. Build Your Website

Your website is where your home is on the internet.

It's where people can find you and learn more about what you have to offer them.

Now I have a whole article where I show you step-by-step how to build a profitable website, but here's the main idea ...

Design your website around capturing an email address.

Social media accounts can disappear, but your email will always be with you.

You get to have a safe space with your audience. That is a direct line of communication to them, where you can make offers to them, build more of a relationship and they're more committed than someone just watching free content.

Now the question is, how do you get people on to your email list?

The way you do it is by building a lead magnet.

All this is something free that you give people in exchange for their email address - But it has to be valuable.

So based on your market research, ask yourself this question ...

"What is a persistent problem that your audience faces, and how can you quickly solve that for them in a short PDF or video?"

You don't need to build crazy quizzes or webinars or anything like that, just a really short PDF or short video that solves that persistent problem they face. You will be fine.

When you have your guide, use this formula all over your website ...

A simple, effective formula for your lead magnet could be:

“[Problem]? Get my [Solution] for [Result].”

If I taught people how to train their dogs online, which is a great business idea by the way, I could say something like this ...

"Struggling to control your dog? Get my bonus training for well-behaved dogs in public."

It's short, sweet to the point, and it's solving your audience's problem.

The sooner you start building your email list, the better.

Once your website's built, we want to start getting traffic to it and marketing your business.

 

5. Market Your Business

There are many ways you can market your business online ...

• Podcasting
• Social media
• YouTube
• Paid ads
• Blogging
• And a ton more.

What I always recommend is to focus on content marketing.

Content marketing is simply just about answering your target audience's questions online in the form of YouTube videos, blogging, social media, podcasting.

I'd recommend that you focus on either YouTube or blogging of some kind.

If you do podcasting, turn that into a video podcast, or turn it into a blog to couple with it.

Because think about what happens ...

What's the first thing you do when you have a question and want to figure something out? You go to Google or you go to YouTube! Therefore you should be there!

Which is why I'd recommend focusing on blog posts or YouTube videos every week.

Focus on making one really good blog post or YouTube video, creating content that's going to help your target audience along their journey, solving their problem and inside of your content.

And at some point in your content, offer your free lead magnet.

Say, "By the way, I got this really cool thing. If you can't control your dog, get my free bonus training on how to get your dog to behave in public."

If you built a good lead magnet, your audience will think, "I need that" and then they'll click the link, join your email list, and then you can start building your list passively.

After you're creating content and building your email list, eventually you're going to start getting customers and clients.

Now we want to really focus on serving your customers once people pay for a product or sign up to be your coaching client, it's up to you to give them an amazing experience.

6. Serve Your Customers

Some of the best business advice I've ever received was this ...

Focus more on your current customers than always chasing the next one.

There have been many studies that show that the probability of selling to an existing customer is about 60 to 70%, while the probability of selling to a new prospect is only 5 to 20%.

It takes a lot more work to get someone to trust you in the beginning, compared to someone who's already worked with you and already knows that you're legit.

It's much easier to resign people than to find new people, especially when you're doing a really good job.

So, when you're offering people your one-on-one services, offer a guarantee that you're going to work with this person until they get the result that you promise them.

Because reputation and results are the key to your business success.

Once you start getting your clients results and building your reputation online, you're going to get to a point where you have to consider scaling. 

7. Scale Your Business

Scaling is about increasing your revenue more than your costs.

Your costs can be through money (if it's with paid ads), but it's also your time and your energy.

Scaling is about building your business in such a way that over time, you can have less and less engagement with it, but it continues to grow.

The goal is to get your business to be working for you, whether you're working or not.

That way, you can always be making money every day, every month on autopilot - You'll have a real business.

You can still be making money and making a big impact on other people's lives while you're sleeping, traveling, or just hanging out with family and friends and your business is always working for you in the background.

Now, if that's something that you really want to do it, highly recommend you check out my FREE Passive Income Masterclass

It's a free hour-long training that's going to walk you through every single piece of this so you can build a scalable online business.

Conclusion

Building your online business is going to require you to learn new high-income skills if you really want to be successful.

That's why you should watch this video next to learn the top ten skills to make money online in 2024.

Building an online business is a journey like no other.

... It's going to challenge you ...

... It's going to push you to grow in ways that you can't even imagine ...

... And it's going to be extremely rewarding when you get the ball rolling.

Take what you learned here, get out there, make something happen, and I will see you in the next one.