Why Should I Have An Online Business?
Imagine yourself on the beach in Aruba. You’re sitting there, reading a good book, fruity concoction of choice in hand, waves peacefully lapping on the shore, palm trees swaying, and flamingos prancing past, when all of a sudden you hear your phone ding. You get mildly annoyed because you’re on vacation, and everyone knows it because you’ve been blowing up your Instagram feed. Who in their ever-loving mind would dare to kill your vibe? You slide your sunglasses up your forehead as you squint at your phone—after all, the sun is BRIGHT in Aruba—and as the screen comes into focus, you start to smile. Your husband, or whoever you’re with, tilts his sunglasses down and asks, why the smirk? You glance at him, pause for a brief moment, soak it all in, and say, “I just got my first sale.” THAT, my friend, is passive income.
Reason Number One: Passive, Residual, and Scalable Income
“My favorite way to make money is while I sleep.”
– Tai Lopez
Does the above quote sound too good to be true? It’s not. There are many options to create something once that generates recurring passive and residual income, such as a book, or a course. Think about this: when you go to work for an hourly wage or a salary, you are paid for your time. Time is finite; therefore time is a commodity that is more valuable than money. It isn’t possible to make more time, but you can always make more money.
Time is neither passive nor scalable. Scalable income is something you can create once, and it continues to earn you money over time without additional time being invested. If you work for an hourly wage or salary, there’s only so much money you can make in a year or in your lifetime, and it always requires your physical presence. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to earn an uncapped income? Well, now you can.
So, with this in mind, a good way to decide if something is worth the cost associated with it is to ask yourself how long it would take you to manually do whatever this product or service does for you. Then multiply that amount of time by your hourly rate at your day job or even just how much you feel your time is worth. Is this product or service cheaper than that amount
Or, an alternative question to ask yourself is: how much money could you make in that time frame working on something else on your list that earns money? Just because it’s something you can do yourself, doesn’t mean you should. Sometimes the sheer amount of time and effort something takes is longer than whatever you consider your going hourly rate to be worth. It’s the same reason I pay someone to mow my yard even though I could do it on my own. Not that everyone should hire someone to mow their yard; that’s not what I’m saying. But we all do something similar.
Think of going to a restaurant. Sure, you go there for the food because maybe you aren’t the best cook in the world. But usually it’s more about convenience. Sometimes you just don’t want to spend time prepping,
cooking, and cleaning up afterward, and feel it’s worth the higher price to have someone else do all that work. Or maybe you hire someone to clean your house every two weeks. You could do it yourself, but you’d rather spend those two hours working on your business or something else. There are countless examples, but you get the gist. Everyone decides what it’s worth to them to do something themselves or to hire outside help for.
Reason Number Two: Extra Money For Spending, Saving, or Paying Down Debt
Maybe you already have a full-time job, but you’re only making ends meet or you want extra spending money, or both. Or maybe you want to make more money to build up savings or pay down debt. Sometimes the best or only way to save or pay down debt is to get an online side hustle.
Reason Number Three: Freedom and Flexibility
Maybe you aren’t looking for supplemental income but instead you’re looking for a way to make money online full time so you can quit your day job and stay home with your family, never needing to battle rush hour traffic again. Or maybe you’d like to travel the world or work unconventional, unsteady, or unpredictable hours that a normal job wouldn’t tolerate. Maybe you only want to work 4 hours a week as Tim Ferriss suggests in his book by the same name. Or maybe you want to have a way to continue earning money after retirement.
I know several people working retail or office jobs into their nineties. There’s certainly nothing wrong with this as long as you’re working because you enjoy it. But if you aren’t retired and continuing to wor k
because you HAVE to in order to pay your bills, that’s completely different. Don’t misunderstand me here.
There’s nothing wrong with working past retirement age if you’re choosing to do so to keep you busy, or because you enjoy it, or because you don’t know what else you’d do with your time. But let’s say you’re physically or mentally declining, or both, and really shouldn’t be working, but you have to in order to pay the bills, not because you want to. What then? I want to create a future for you where this isn’t a scenario. Sure, that means saving the extra money you do make now, but it can also mean finding ways to make passive or residual income as well.
So, to recap, 3 of the top reasons to make money online are: (1) to earn residual and passive income, (2) earn extra income, or (3) to gain work independence, freedom, and flexibility.
If you’re like me, all of the above apply. But now you’re probably wondering HOW you can make money online. There are a multitude of ways to make money online, but the ones I’ll give you a brief overview of in this book are:
1. Writing Books
2. Content Creation (Blogs, Podcasts, Courses)
3. Affiliate Marketing
4. Product Creation
5. Drop Shipping
6. Retail Arbitrage
7. White a.k.a. Private Label Reselling
8. Freelancing
9. Offering a Service
10. Direct Sales
“If plan A fails, remember that you have 25 letters left.” – Chris Guillebeau
In other words, I’d recommend trying out a few of these to see what your best fit is. I’ve tried several of these but have discovered I only enjoy about half of them.
