Which Online Business? – Don’t Do What I Did First
If you’re wondering which online business model is best for you I hope you’ll find this useful. I still remember the thrill of my first online sale. It earned me £12.50 but it was a kind of eureka! It works! moment. I’ve since heard big name online “gurus”, like Tony Robbins and Frank Kern say the same thing. Once that initial euphoria faded however other thoughts came in. As the sales continued to crawl in over the next year, peaking at a thrilling £70, I realised that there just had to a better way – this was never going to earn me a living.
My little profit was from the sale of a case of wine that someone, somewhere had paid close to £200 for. You see the problem. I had bought a franchise style comparison web store that sold (obviously) wine. It’s a form of affiliate marketing in that It paid commission on sales from the various merchants the site promoted. When I was trying to decide which online business was right for me this seemed the safest amongst all the obvious rubbish out there..
My questions to myself were these: How can I keep more of the profit, how could I build a website like this myself, where would I source the products from? Perhaps even more importantly, how can I find out who bought the wine and keep in touch with them. Which online business model is going to produce better results in other words? I know all this now.
A Lucky Break
Lucky for me the franchisor was teaching all the wrong traffic driving strategies and after countless complaints and threats of lawsuits they shut down. Why was that lucky for me? 1. Because I was one of the lucky ones that got a refund and 2. Because I learned from the experience. I learned that A. The affiliate model works; B. I needed to learn digital marketing to do it properly. At least I had a better idea of which online business type I didn’t want.
Actually in this case there was a third reason. I got friendly with the Franchise sales team and some of the other franchisees. This led to my refund and later to my getting their customer and prospect database, which has generated quite a few sales for me since. Once I knew what I was doing. As long as you learn from a bad experience it’s worthwhile.
Which Online Business Model Is Most Sustainable?
One thing leads to another. Some time later I became an affiliate with an online advertising business. A number of the people I’d got to know through the franchise venture had come to the same realisation as me and wanted to continue with online business. They joined through my affiliate link and I soon had a good little business built up with that. I was earning £2-3K per month and building – until that too went downhill.
I learned another couple of lessons: 1. If it seems too good to be true it probably is. 2. Internet schemes or programmes – call them what you will – usually don’t have legs. Concentrate on selling real products that people want. There really are no magic bullets. This is the simple answer to which online business is safest and most sustainable.
Which Online Business Model Is The One to Retire With?
Once again though, through networking with this business I was finally introduced to the right people. People who could teach me how to do online marketing properly and who could provide high value, high commission products and services to promote. The SFM. So in an ass backwards way I have ended up where I should have started and have realised which online business suits my aims. I recommend this is where you should start.
Selling online is simply a process that needs to be learned. Once learned it can be applied to anything. Anyone selling a franchise like the one I started with has simply pre-packaged all the components: A website, an affiliate product stream and some half-baked, out of date video training. You can learn to do all this yourself. Better. Where?
For me it was with the SFM and DEA educational programme. This has everything you need and nothing you don’t need to become a professional digital entrepreneur. You can look into what they do by clicking on the image below and getting a free introductory video series – or you can start like I did and waste years…
