My partner and I are on a fixed income which is becoming ever more stressed due to continually rising prices of our necessary purchases. I don’t imagine any of you are looking for a way to increase your income, so you’ll just have to use your imagination, I guess. :)
So while not actively searching for a solution yet, it has been much on my mind. While surfing the net recently, I was presented with an advert about a way to earn extra income from anywhere. It pointed out that marketing online (Not selling, which is yuk) other peoples products as an affiliate and getting commissions for referrals is the easiest and quickest way to make serious additional income.
In thinking about it, some major barriers immediately became evident. Because lets face it, for someone unfamiliar about how to go about essentially starting an online marketing business from scratch, there would d explained why I had never necessarily be a pretty demanding learning curve, to say the least. Not only that, but it would mean competing with all the current experienced players already on the field. An additional hurdle would be presented by the issue of a no doubt somewhat limited supply of startup capitol, and also the substantial time demand it would require. Seems pretty daunting, which is no doubt why most either don’t try it or fail in the process, and explains why I myself had never looked into it before.
With all that in mind, I decided to see if I could come up with a way forward that would be reasonably doable for someone like me, a complete newbie with very limited resources. In examining what was subsequently presented to me by the marketing advertiser, it quickly became evident that the proposal, which was said to provide a solution to all these issues, had as a central ingredient what would be clearly necessary if there was to be any chance at success.
The Wonders of LEVERAGE
If one wants to accomplish something Big, and doesn’t have a lot of resources to accomplish it, the only way forward is to find a way to Leverage whatever energy one does have available. So I started looking at how I might go about that.
The Real World (RW) vs The Digital World (DW)
The Real World
I happen to know a bit about starting a business in the real world. The odds are not good, to say the least. Serious capitol is required (well north of six figures a minimum and likely much higher) and it demands a full time commitment, so one needs to quit ones job and have an income while the business gets going (perhaps a year or more). Unless you have a business background there is also the steep learning curve to deal with. Not to mention the competition from already established businesses. Bottom line is that the odds of failure within two years is something like 80–90%, and if that happens you are left with no job and serious debt, no doubt. If you are smart and go the franchise route, your odds improve radically (80–90% success) but what you end up with is debt to pay off, the control of the franchisor, and what it gets you is simply another kind of full time job. Definitely not an appealing route, is it.
The Digital World
In examining the possibilities, the DW is where I found things start to get interesting. Lets take a look. In doing my due diligence research, I found out some very interesting facts relevant to starting an online business in the DW, and they all had one thing in common —serious LEVERAGE! Apparently it has been discovered that there is a general rule of thumb that there is an overall leverage of around 20x when comparing the DW to the RW. So that immediately offers a radical game changer level of potential right from the get go, doesn’t it. And it just keeps getting better as one looks deeper. In every element impacting starting and operating an online business, I discovered significant leverage is readily available. Lets focus here on my business of choice, however as far as I can see, these same factors would be mostly engaged in any business startup endeavour.
Factors Of Leverage
- Education/Digital Skills — as in the RW, a quality education focussed and relevant to the endeavour greatly enhances ones chances of success. The learning curve is steep and the challenges of distraction, confusion and fragmentation provided by the seeming endless profusion of possibilities and information/products simply must be overcome, and quickly.
- Integrated Systems — there are so many factors to deal with, such as differing programs, products, advertising, lead capture, websites, customer support, billing, etc etc, that one simply requires an integrated system setup if one is to have a real chance. Learning to build such a thing from scratch when starting out would simply require too much time, energy, and money to be feasible.
- Automation — one of the big advantages of the DW is the readily available possibilities provided by automating a system to work 24/7 without any necessary input.
- Product Quality/Value — a high quality product at a very competitive price point providing massive value is another necessary element required for success. The higher the quality imbedded within the integrated product suite you are marketing the more leverage is embedded.
- Target Market — the wider and deeper your intended market the more leverage is provided. Another element to this is that the higher the need is, the more motivation, the better.
- Create Massive Value — executing and integrating all these elements together in a smooth and seamless manner provides the vital positive customer experience. It provides and greatly enhances chances of a purchase through building trust. If everything operates at a high quality level the customers’ early doubts and reservations are minimized.
- Early Success — it has been well proved that succeeding at an early stage is a must, as it provides momentum, assures more customer trust, and helps prevent a negative feedback loop developing in the delicate early period, which has been shown to be a major factor in high startup failure rates.