There are so many ways to make money in the digital age that we could write an e-Book about it instead of merely writing an article.
What’s first?
One of the first things you can do is to make up your mind, to focus on an online business or a physical business. The marketing skills you will use may be similar, but there is a substantial difference in the requirements of your entrepreneurial skills to embrace the digital age.
Let’s say you decide you have all the skills of the “Dog Whisperer” of figure you have the skills of Jaspm Galaxy from “My cat from hell?” Great if you have the skill and love it. Get a domain name, build your website using WordPress, pass out a few thousand business cards, get references from satisfied customers and you are all set.
The problem is that you can only be at one place at the same time. You can’t train multiple cats or dogs at the same time, and you’ll be tied into coming to their homes when they are home, not whenever you wish.
So, while we wouldn’t discourage people from starting a physical business, just be aware that you don’t make any money if you decide to take a 4-day trip to Cancun or Puerto Vallarta.
However, if you have a business online, you can sleep till noon if you like, and be making money from anyplace in the world that has a computer.
What’s next?
Narrow your business down to a niche. Unless you have a lot of money to invest, you are not going to compete with 2 dozen or so sellers of patio cover kits on Amazon in the digital age.
Narrow your focus way down. Instead of selling computers, “sell the fastest gaming computers on the internet.” The narrower your focus is, the more likely you will find a niche market that you can crack and make a decent living at.
Associated with the step what next is to create a truly unique product. So many business products are similar that they don’t tap into any one niche. Let’s say you want to sell computer software, which by the way is one of the best selling business niches of all time.
Your computer software should help people do one thing really well, and you must be able to describe it in 25 words or less. This is critically important to your marketing. Even if you are selling to computer nerds, try to avoid using technical terms.
In order to answer the question, “how do entrepreneurs make money” the key is to find a niche which you can exploit, be able to describe it really well, and then market the heck out of it. Entrepreneurs should be somewhat like authors of books who create a title and a general 30-word logline before they write a single page.
In a similar fashion, you should be able to identify what needs your product fills and be able to describe it succinctly if you expect to sell it.
Online courses
One of the most popular ways to make money in the digital age is creating an online course. Have the skill of being an expert at photoshop? Create a course on how to use this popular but complex product and you can generate quite a bit of side income.
There are literally thousands of “how-to” courses on the internet, and most of them do quite well. From cooking to braiding hair to photography, there are how-to courses offering to advise.
Do you need a large investment to make money on the internet?
No. Most people already have a computer and an internet connection. Besides creating a website and paying for a domain name, your digital investment is minimal, although most people find that if they don’t already have a large social media outreach, they will need to come up with a decent investment in paid advertising.
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