Expand Your Online Business in 2022
If you’re a savvy entrepreneur, chances are you’re not just looking at the daily tasks you need to complete, but at what your future holds. You want something that will serve your family well – a way for you to provide for those you love and contribute to your personal satisfaction, too.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve been an online entrepreneur for 1 month or a decade or longer – your goal is probably to continue experiencing growth along the way. But how should you go about it – and when is the right time to try?
Should You Expand or Switch Gears?
Many online marketers, regardless of whether they are a newbie or an advanced entrepreneur, decide that they want to expand their business so that they can rake and more profits and have better success.
But expansion isn’t right for everyone in every situation. The first thing you need to do is understand the difference between expanding your business and merely suffering from shiny new object syndrome.
Many people claim to be working on expanding their business, but the reality is that they simply want something new to hold their interest, or they fail to follow through on their existing projects to the point where it becomes financially sustainable, so the shame of that causes them to change course.
For those who actually do realize a good deal of success with one business branch, then it makes sense that they would want to add on to their business with more profit opportunities.
Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs get bored and want to chase the next best thing. They read about or hear about some great new opportunity, and instantly want to abandon the current project they’re working on to pursue something that sounds better.
What often happens is both projects will then fail, because this type of entrepreneur never experiences completion. Instead, they’re always chasing something. Sometimes they do this because they’re burdened with self-doubt.
The further you get on a business journey, the more you begin to question whether or not you’ve made the right decision. You may also be trying to forecast the results, even though you haven’t crossed the finish line.
However, if you have completed a particular business branch and are seeing success with it, then you may want to expand your business by adding on different business models or by expanding the current one that you are working on.
This makes good business sense because you never want your business to remain stagnant when it has growth potential. If you’re working on the Internet, it’s also never a good idea to put all of your eggs in one basket.
There are too many things that could go wrong. There are many aspects of an online business that are out of your control. Others are in charge, and you could see your profits come to a grinding halt in an instant.
For example, if you’re driving traffic with a social media account, it could be shut down without explanation. You wake up one day relying on your Facebook ads to bring in revenue, but you’re banned from the platform.
Or you have all of your recurring membership sales running through PayPal but one day you log in and find that your account has been limited. There are other platforms that can make profits difficult, too.
YouTube has shut down accounts of marketers who used it to drive hordes of traffic to their sites. You can try to find out why or what happened, but often, you’re met with a closed door and no way of recovering all of that hard work.
Twitter, Pinterest, and even Amazon have all shut marketers’ accounts down on a whim. Very rarely is there any real recourse to fight back against an unjust accusation. You just have to live with the loss.
Because this is a potential hazard for any online marketer, it’s vital that you diversify your income. You don’t want to just be an Amazon affiliate if you could be in danger losing that revenue stream any day.
You want to use different social platforms, a variety of payment processors, and have many business branches operating that could sustain you if and when one or more business branches goes under.
Once you’ve begun toying with the idea of expanding your online business, you have to decide when the right time for that transition and growth would be. You can’t do it on a whim.
It needs to be a calculated decision that merges smoothly and without incident so that you don’t jeopardize your current income. If you do things quickly, without thinking them through, you could suffer even bigger losses that are more difficult to recover from.
Getting Ready to Take It to the Next Level
Once you know it’s not a matter of shiny new object syndrome and you’re truly ready to expand your online business, you’ll want to ready yourself to level up. It’s not as easy as snapping your fingers and having it come to fruition – it requires planning and thought.
The first thing you need to do is develop the right mindset to handle multiple business branches. If you thought getting one underway was difficult, then it stands to reason that more than one would be doubly stressful.
You need to wear the hat of employer and employee for both businesses each and every day. You’ll have to prioritize both businesses in your mind, taking care not to let one be neglected as the other thrives.
You’ll need to be strategic whenever you’re making decisions about the path your business will take. Will you give each one equal time and effort to grow? Or will one be slowly nurtured to profitability while the other continues on the fast track to success?
One thing that might creep into your thought process is a comparison between the two business branches. You might be tempted to abandon the new branch because it’s not giving you identical results right off the bat.
But be careful not to try to measure two different branches against each other. Some businesses online, such as high ticket coaching, may not result in much monetary success until you’ve had time to develop a training program and build a reputation for quality.
Other business branches, such as affiliate marketing, may give you a return almost immediately. But they’re two very different strategies that will require a unique set of skills and effort.
Each one may deliver very different results in terms of money and personal satisfaction. You may make more initially with affiliate marketing, but find you work fewer hours and enjoy private coaching more.
You’ll have to work hard at managing your stress during times of growth. Whether you’re adding on your second or fifth business branch, any time you’re expanding to the next level, there are bound to be some growing pains.
Make sure you’re not trying to rush the process. If you’re under financial strain, get a job offline to take the pressure off while you work on the growth of your online business. Some people get stress just because they want to see results, regardless of whether or not there’s money involved.
When you’re putting forth great effort to build an empire online, it makes sense that you’d want to see it pay off for you. But being patient and determined to make the right moves will be a bigger benefit for you than just seeing a quick return of what could possibly be short-term money if you don’t approach it right.
Take time to carefully analyze your options and if something goes wrong, don’t throw in the towel. Instead, look over your actions, steps an the results and see what you could tweak or change to get the outcome you desire.
Remember that doubling your business either means many more working hours or cutting back on the first branch so that you can devote more time to the new one. If you burden yourself with too much work and not enough down time, it defeats the purpose of choosing this career, which is to give you the kind of life you deserve.
You have to enjoy your day and night, so make sure you’re choosing business branches, niches and strategies that make you happy. For example, if you choose to pursue the depression niche and you feel weighted down by the interaction of extremely stressed individuals, that may not be the best choice for you.
Don’t forget that this journey of leveling up and expanding your business may require an investment of more money. Depending on which business branch you choose, you might have to pay for more training, different (or better) tools, outsourced services and more.
Yes, you can begin the expansion on a shoestring budget, but you don’t want to get too far into it before you start applying the right measures to your business. It’s not worth it if you have to set it up on a free social platform that puts your new branch at risk of being shut down on a whim.
You want total control of your website, the content and products you’ll be selling or promoting to your niche audience. You won’t want to simply read freebie blogs to learn the ins and outs of the new business.
You’ll want the best training available. That doesn’t always mean the most expensive. Value isn’t determined by a dollar amount, but by what benefits it brings to your business.
You might invest in a cheaper course that provides one rich piece of data that transforms your business. Or, spend a small fortune on a course that makes it difficult for you to find any nuggets from.
Before you make any firm decisions about this process, make sure your head is on straight, your stress level is low and consistent, and your finances are prepared to take on the burden of what another business may require.
What Business Model Would Pair Well with What You Already Have?
If you’ve made the decision to expand your business into another branch, rather than simply expanding the current branch that you’re in, then you want to choose something that you would be able to leverage off each other.
Going in two completely different directions may be personally satisfying for you, but to maximize your success, it’s best if you choose something that fits seamlessly with your current business branch.
There are many different ways you can do this.
For example, let’s say you have a thriving digital affiliate marketing business. You’re making money recommending courses that are delivered in the form of videos or text downloads.
This could be in any niche, not just online marketing. For example, you might be recommending fitness courses for your audience. A great way to expand your business would be to begin offering promotions for tangible items as well—such as dumbbells, yoga mats and so on.
This is a similar business branch, because it’s still affiliate marketing, but it’s just slightly different. You can go one step further and create an entirely different business branch that also pairs well with affiliate marketing.
One good way to do this would be to begin creating your own info products. As a product creator, you would develop your own courses and present them to your customers so that you could keep 100% of the revenue.
You’ll also be able to expand your profits by recruiting people who are in the affiliate marketing business to promote your info products. Another example might be someone who is currently publishing fiction on Kindle.
As a self publisher, you’re aware of the ins and outs of all of the technical tasks as well as the strategic ones that allow an author to publish their work on Amazon or a variety of platforms and make money from it.
So how can you expand on this business model in a new direction?
One way is to begin developing your own info product courses that teach other would-be authors how to do what you’re doing. This is essentially a non-fiction creation. However, instead of only making a few dollars or cents publishing a book about it on Amazon, you would be able to charge much more selling a digital course on your own website.
What about someone who started their online business as an info product creator? Maybe your first endeavor online was to create a course teaching people how to set up a blog.
One thing you can do is expand your business into becoming a service provider, where are you are charging people to handle the task for them. You could make money installing their blog and setting it all up for them.
As someone who is familiar with creating your own info products, you may also want to offer services creating info products for other online marketers. These would be people who don’t know how to brainstorm, research, and write or record their own lessons, but they would like a product of their own to sell.
If you started out as a service provider, you can also pair that business model with something your clients might like. For example, let’s say you started off as a ghostwriter. Your clients may be people who don’t have the time or knowledge on how to set up their own blog with the content you’ve created for them.
That could be an info product that you create and sell to those same clients. You may also want to spend some time creating content that you put on a private label rights store.
While your current ghostwriting clients may be able to afford your services for exclusive content to some degree, they may love to have the opportunity to buy your PLR in bulk to beef up their site, emails, and other needs.
Anytime you’re doing something online and succeeding with it, there is an opportunity for you to sell the information about how you’re doing it. So whether you’re currently an info product creator or not, think of everything you know that a newbie may not.
Use this as an opportunity to develop courses that could help others learn the ropes. Look at your current business model and see if there are affiliate marketing opportunities in your niche.
If you’re creating products or providing services, you may be able to add a business branch where you’re simply promoting others who do the same – your competitors! Of course, you don’t have to start a new branch that pairs well with your existing one.
There’s always the possibility that you would like a complete break from what you currently do so that you have something exciting and new to pursue online. You might be able to do this with a new niche, or a completely different business model that has nothing to do with what you’re currently in.
The only reason you may want to consider pairing things together is because it makes it much easier to use the momentum of your existing successful business branch to get the other one off the ground. For example, as a service provider selling ghostwriting services, it would be very easy for you to get those same clients to purchase your PLR.
Researching Each Business Model for Viability and Personal Satisfaction
Before you leap into a new business venture, you want to make sure that this will be sustainable for you in the beginning and for the long run. You don’t want to get started with something, only to discover there is a missing piece of the puzzle that will prevent you from achieving success with your efforts.
You first need to analyze each business model to see if it’s viable in several different ways. The first thing most internet marketers will want to know is whether or not a particular business model will be lucrative for them.
If it’s not a profitable venture, then you’ll want to focus your efforts elsewhere. For many, it’s not just about the amount of money that they can make, but also the speed in which they can make it.
If you’re only making a few pennies every month, that won’t be enough to sustain your efforts. You have to think in terms of exchanging your time for money. Take a look at what other marketers are earning with that business model.
If you’re adding this branch to another business, then you don’t want to take away your time and effort on a very lucrative business model only to funnel it into one that won’t earn you as much money.
This may or may not be important to you. If you’re adding a second business model on specifically for personal satisfaction reasons, then the financial slant of it may not be as important to you.
But this is rarely the case, because people like to see a return on their efforts. Don’t forget, when you’re determining the profitability of a business model, you’re not just looking at what comes into your bank account.
You’re also looking at the expenses you were required to pay ahead of time to get that business model off the ground and operating functionally. Also, make sure you take a look at any alternate approaches to implementing this particular business model.
For example, let’s say you decided to go into affiliate marketing. If you promoted info products that either had recurring income or a higher ticket cost, you would earn more than someone who was simply recommending books on Amazon, where you would only earn a few cents for every sale.
The second thing you want to do when determining whether or not a business model is viable for you at this time is to think about how easy it will be for you to implement. No one wants to engage in a frustrating activity, but if something is difficult, it can severely impact the amount of time, money, and effort that you have to put forth in making it work.
When you first start thinking about adding a second business model, make a list of all of the skills it requires to implement this particular plan. You might find that you have a number of the skills readily available to you.
However, you may also discover that you are incapable of handling one or more of the tasks. If this happens, you will need to look at one of two options. Your first is to simply delegate the task to someone who does have the knowledge and skill to handle it.
This will undoubtedly add to the financial burden that will be required to get this business off the ground. Another way you can approach it is to simply adopt the realization that you will need to learn the skill in order to implement the business plan.
Some skills are easy to learn and cost-effective for your budget. Others take more time and discipline to understand, and may come at a high cost due to the learning process. Think about all of the tools that you will need in order to pursue a specific business plan.
Sometimes, marketers will teach a method and say no special tools are required. But without them, it makes the process much harder to achieve. You’ll have to decide whether or not you’re capable of handling it without special tools to help you along.
The third way you want to analyze this business model to see if it’s viable for you is to think about how much you will enjoy working in this business branch over time. There are many people who start out pursuing a particular business branch simply because it looks profitable and easy.
Then they get started with it and discover that it doesn’t bring them a great deal of personal satisfaction. They begin to dread having to work on this business branch, and then it withers and dies.
One of the biggest perks in working for yourself online and at home is that you get to choose what you work on. Instead of being forced to handle projects that bring you grief, you’re able to selectively decide which projects, niches, and path you want to take in your business.
The last thing you want to do is abandon that freedom of choice only to suffer because you added a business branch you thought you would enjoy, but don’t. Before you commit to this particular new business branch, think about what it would be like to engage in this topic or concept every single day.
In fact, you might give yourself a test to do something in the niche for an hour or two each day for a few weeks. This trial run will enable you to gather enough information to see if this is a business branch that will keep you enthusiastic over time, or cause you to quickly avoid and abandon it and waste all of the time, effort, and money that you have put into it.
Before You Begin, Start Networking with Those Excelling at It
Whenever you’re considering adding a new business branch to your career online, it’s important that you act strategically with your networking efforts. Networking is both a necessity as well as a potential problem spot, so you must engage in it carefully.
The first thing you want to do is figure out who else is involved in this type of business branch. They may approach the concept in different ways, but that’s okay. It’s important for you to know who customers find ethical and successful in terms of this business model.
It’s also important for you to know who to avoid. You don’t want to accidentally connect yourself to someone who is engaged in unethical behavior or who has repeatedly let their customers down.
This could tarnish your reputation right out of the gate if you’re not careful. Networking is done for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, you can learn from others who are engaged in the same business model that you’re pursuing.
Any time a new development occurs, you can bet those marketers will be discussing it with one another on social media or in private groups. You want to be part of that discussion so that you know of any problems that could develop for you in the future.
Good ideas are often shared in these groups as well. You might pick up on something that you hadn’t known previously and that you can apply to your business for increased success.
Aside from gaining knowledge, networking with people in the same industry, who are pursuing the same type of business branch, can help you with future promotions. In many areas of online marketing, you can approach a business model from two sides: as an affiliate or as the creator or vendor of a product.
You can network for both sides of that equation. As an affiliate, you’ll want to be networking with others who are in this business branch so that you can recommend the right people to your subscribers and earn a commission from it.
When you’re networking with the right individuals, these friendships can flourish where you will receive review copies or other perks such as increased commission and reciprocal promotions.
Speaking of which, if you’re a vendor or creator of your own products, then networking with people who are also pursuing the same business model can result in an instant army of affiliates who are willing to go to bat for you with their own subscribers.
You will be able to communicate about your upcoming lunches with them without it seeming like an impersonal cold call right up front. To begin networking, first make your list of who’s who in regards to whatever business model you are pursuing.
Secondly, begin to connect with those individuals on social media platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn. You’ll also want to get on their list so you can see what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.
As time goes on, begin to engage with their posts and emails so that your name becomes familiar to them. Eventually, you’ll be able to open up the lines of communication and discuss the business branch and mutually beneficial ventures from that point on.
This can’t be a one way street. Whenever you’re networking, you’re doing more than just pushing your ideas onto another person, hoping they get onboard. Instead, you should be developing strong friendships where there’s mutual admiration for a strong work ethic and quality products or services.
You can be personal as well as professional. You’ll want to be sharing a little of your non-work life on these social sites so that people begin to get a well rounded view of who you are.
Make sure you excel at the art of listening, not just talking. You want to ask about their business, take notes and show enthusiasm and excitement for what they have going on. You can support them with their efforts by sharing knowledge, tips, and even news of their efforts with other friends on these sites.
Over time, you’ll begin to see that these acquaintances and friendships serve as a profitable foundation for you in the online business world. You’ll likely be introduced to mutual friends who have a lot to offer you in regards to your new business model.
Don’t be afraid to open up and share your experiences to date – including asking for help when you’re confused or frustrated about something you’re trying to understand. People love to help those who are trying, so showing your journey is nothing to be ashamed of.
And when the time is right, feel confident in asking for support when it comes to having them promote you as an affiliate. Make sure you have a quality product and a strong offer.
If you have certain friends you’ve networked with who have helped more than others, you might do something special for them to show your appreciation, like bump their commission or give them additional promo materials.
All of this goes a long way in assisting you in securing one of the best reputations for online marketers than can be had. So many people sabotage themselves because they are careless with how they network, and even when they’re working hard, their associations (or lack thereof) can be an obstacle to their success.
Discover the Best Courses and Leaders to Guide You to Success
Quality is something many online marketers fail to assess before forking over money for something. They typically only rely on the hype found within a sales page and have a kneejerk reaction to purchase something they may not need – or which falls short of top quality.
The ability to teach a topic is not inherent to everyone. Some people are more adept at it than others. You’ll want to shop for courses that teach you all about your business branch, but those being taught by someone you can learn from.
Sometimes a person’s style, ethics or other problem will interfere with your ability to absorb the information (or the right kind of information). See if there are any free resources from the vendor you can evaluate before you buy – something to show you their teaching style.
You want to consider their ethics, too. It’d be bad if you wanted to maintain moral integrity and learned from someone willing to engage in black hat methods that you didn’t realize were shady until it was too late.
The volume of information contained in a course is important. You might be able to secure a massive soup to nuts course – or you may have to purchase many individual components that zero in on one concept at a time.
The attention to detail in a course is vital to your success. If you’re only given a mere overview, and then left to fend for yourself, you may find yourself frustrated at how long it takes you to scour the ‘net and find the step-by-step information yourself.
The vendor’s ability to keep the information up to date is important with some aspects of an online business model. If it’s something technical, you want to make sure the course has been validated recently and that the information you’re buying isn’t out of date.
It’s important to devour a myriad of courses that teach the topic from a variety of viewpoints and strategies. Don’t just stick to one person and their singular method of doing something.
You want choices! You never know if someone else will be able to present you with an easier, faster or simply more enjoyable method of implementing your new business branch.
When it comes to savings on courses, the first rule of thumb is that you should never buy what you can’t afford. Too many marketers make the mistake of going into serious debt to get their online business off the ground, and it only adds to your stress when you do this.
Launches are always where big savings are presented. Stay attuned to the marketplace and see if anyone is launching a brand new course you can buy at a big discount right when it’s released.
The vendors offer an initial launch because it helps them rake in more profits, thanks to the scarcity of it being a limited time offer combined with it being a new product. It also benefits you because it means the information contained in the course should be fresh.
Sometimes, a vendor is willing to give you a coupon to purchase their course if you ask – or an affiliate may have one that you can use if you buy through their link. It may not be as much as the original launch price, but it can save you money that will add up over time.
The affiliates may also be including big bonuses that provide more products or tools than you would get if you purchased directly from the vendor himself. Do a comparison to see who has the best bonus before you buy.
Look for special times of the year when online marketers put their courses in bundles or individually at steep discounts. For example, they might do it for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, New Year’s Day – or even their birthday.
Check PLR stores to see if anyone has a guide or course on your topic. Sometimes you can get a comprehensive course at a fraction of the price. Plus, if it’s a private label rights course, you can turn around and sell it to others and recoup your money.
Don’t forget you’ll need to invest in tools as well. This might be something like stock photos for your blog, products and other items. You might buy the annual stock photo deal for Deposit Photos where you get 100 images for $49, for example.
This is better than having to pay $1 or more per image. You may want to stock up on things you know you’ll be using a lot of. For example, if you know you use up a lot of images, you might buy two bundles of stock photos to last you longer.
You can find discount coupons periodically for hosting, domains, page creators, and more. Even service providers will often run specials, such as ghostwriting packages or graphics creation bundles.
You also want to make sure that, if you’re on a tight budget, you look for alternatives to pricey tools. For example, you might look at using CamStudio freeware instead of Camtasia software to edit and produce your videos.
Or you might want to use a tool like Canva instead of paying for PhotoShop. Of course, they might be slightly more limited in some ways, but often, their capabilities will give you what you need to move forward with your new business branch and start seeing profits come in.
Find Time to Integrate a New Business Branch Into Your Day
Adding a new branch to your business isn’t as easy as it sounds. You can’t simply make the decision one day and expect everything to fall in place perfectly in an instant. But you can take precautions to ensure that things develop as smoothly as possible.
The first thing you need to do is find the time to begin integrating a new business branch into your career. Sometimes, there may be obstacles to easy implementation. For example, many people have a full-time offline job they’re working as they try to build financial security with an online business.
If you’re working a full-time day job, then you may have to add a new business branch in tiny increments. The best way to do this is to first map out all of the steps you know you’ll have to implement to get things going.
For example, if you were going to begin affiliate marketing, then you might first want to address the task of picking a niche market. Next, you’ll want to find a domain name. Then, install WordPress on your domain so that you can begin blogging.
You don’t have to overwhelm yourself and do all of this in one day. And you don’t have to try to find time while you’re at work to sneak things in. Of course, depending on how much of a go-getter you are, you might want to work on your online business during your lunch hour or on breaks.
However, if you have the steps listed out, it makes it much easier to find time here and there after work or before, and do one or two things at a time. Give yourself plenty of time to do each task.
Don’t rush the process. For example, picking a niche is a big endeavor. You don’t want to rush yourself and say that you have to have a selection made within your half hour lunch break.
That’s not fair to you. Give yourself up to a week to investigate niche markets and have some time to think before you make a final decision. You’ll want to consider your knowledge, the audience needs, and profit potential.
By having bite sized baby steps, it will make it much easier and less overwhelming to add a second or third business branch to your online career, while also juggling a normal 9 to 5 day job.
If you find yourself feeling stressed by the process, step back and divvy up the tasks into even more steps so that you feel like you’re making progress without stalling. For example, instead of simply saying, “set up a blog,” you might have steps like:
- Install WordPress
- Pick a Blog Theme
- Set Up Sidebar Widgets
- Create Header
- Set Up Plugins
- …and so on.
Not everyone will be working a full-time job outside of their work at home career. For many, this is all they do, but that doesn’t mean they have plenty of extra time to add a new business branch.
Often, online entrepreneurs work longer hours than those in an offline job to keep themselves afloat. There’s no guaranteed paycheck at the end of the day when you’re an online entrepreneur, so you have to be extra careful to manage your time wisely and only work on tasks that further your financial growth.
Whenever you’re adding a second business branch, you’re essentially doubling the workload for yourself. You’ll need to make sure that you can adequately handle tasks for both businesses.
Sometimes, you’ll have some crossover work that you can do once that will work for both business branches. For instance, this concept might come in handy if you were adding product creation to your affiliate marketing business.
So let’s say you’re already succeeding with affiliate marketing. Part of your task list would be conducting research to see which keywords consumers were using to find more information about your niche.
If you’re already doing that for your affiliate marketing branch, you can use the same research to determine what your niche needs in the way of info products that you want to create.
For example, as an affiliate marketer, you might find that people are searching for the keyword “how to get rid of belly fat.” You can take that same keyword phrase and apply it to your info product development business branch and create a course all about losing belly fat and toning your abs.
That way, you’re not doing double the work. You might also be able to cut corners in other ways. For example, instead of taking time to create two separate sites on the same topic, you can combine them and promote as an affiliate while you also promote your own info products on the same domain.
Or, maybe you want to add coaching to the mix. You could do that on the same site as well, as long as it’s all on the same topic. There are many time management tips that can help you develop better habits in order to implement a new business branch.
For example, you can wake up half an hour earlier to get some of your tasks done. Or, stay up half an hour later once everyone has gone to sleep and you have some peace and quiet.
You can also manage the way you spend your time throughout the day. You might be the type of person who tends to waste time scrolling Facebook or binge watching shows on Netflix.
Cutting out a fraction of that can free up enough time for you to make significant progress with your new business branch. Don’t stress yourself out about how fast the addition of the new business branch goes.
All that’s important is that you continue to make progress and don’t abandon it midstream. Even if you’re inching your way toward the finish line, it’s better than resting on your laurels and making no progress at all.
The Benefit of Slowly Building Momentum
When you’re adding a new branch to your business, it’s human nature to want to see success as soon as possible. Many people try to jump in and make a splash along with a million dollars on week one.
That’s simply not feasible in most cases. But it’s hard not to have these thoughts when you’re constantly seeing tales of overnight success and launches that bring in six or seven figures in 24 to 72 hours.
The problem is, you’re not seeing everything that led up to this launch process, which undoubtedly took quite awhile to create. It’s better for you to implement your new business branch a little at a time so that you can learn the ins and outs of this career option and perfect it along the way.
Testing and tweaking things will help you enjoy long-term success rather than a quick spike in profits, followed by a failure. For example, let’s say you wanted to get in on the private label rights business model.
You’ve seen people earn $10,000 or more on a quick launch of 30 pages’ worth of articles, along with a little more content for an upsell. At first, you assume you can do the same, so you create the content and expect a big return.
What you’re not seeing in those launches is what actually helped the vendor earn the profits they enjoyed. For example, they may have spent time developing the kind of reputation where they are known for generating top quality content.
This makes both customers and affiliates happy to be involved in the project. Customers like it because they don’t want to edit the content more than they have to. Affiliates love it because they know when they promote, they won’t have to worry about refunds coming back to haunt them.
So it’s a win-win for everyone. But there’s even more that goes into the success of that launch. Although the launch itself may only be a few days, the vendor has likely generated a buzz for the launch in the weeks and months leading up to it.
They’ve begun networking with other people to secure affiliates. They’ve taken time to create a joint venture page with details of the launch as well as swipe copy for affiliates to use.
They’ve spent time writing sales copy for the front end and one time offer upgrades. And they had to make sure their listings were created properly and submitted for approval ahead of time.
All of this time consuming work leads up to the successful launch that you see unfolding as a quick process. So just know ahead of time that whenever you get involved with a new business branch, its true success may take awhile.
There are some people who enter into a business branch expecting a fast return on their efforts. When this happens, they end up sorely disappointed and abandoning the business model.
They regret all of the time they invested, but they never take the extra step to analyze what went wrong and tweak the process for improvement. As a PLR provider, for instance, you might discover that certain niche topics sell better than other ones.
Or, maybe it’s the type of content, such as articles, that sell better than other forms, such as infographics. Unless you slow down and take the time to build momentum with your business branch, you’ll never know why you were unable to secure the kind of profits you were hoping for
This same problem will continue happening to you in every business branch that you pursue unless you learn how to take a step back and see the best way to level up in this business.
Even if your efforts pay off, a true entrepreneur will always be looking for ways to improve. Savor this growth process and begin enjoying the learning curve so that you can look back on where you started and admire the way you maintained your momentum and determination to succeed.
Keep in mind, your initial efforts will usually be slower than your future ones. We often start out slowly because we’re unsure and uninformed about certain things within our business branches.
However, as you complete a task repeatedly, it becomes second nature and you’re able to carry it out without hesitation. This gives you a bigger return on your investment of time and money because the hours you put into a project are substantially cut compared to the profits you received back from it.
Know When to Weed Out What’s Not Working
Before you expand on the business that you have now, it’s important to analyze your existing business and weed out what’s not working for you. It’s just as if you were planting a garden and you wanted to prep the soil and remove weeds before adding anything new to the space.
There are times when online entrepreneurs feel they need to expand their business, but what they really need is to remove other areas of their existing business that aren’t working for them – maybe even preventing further progress.
This process of pruning what’s not working can help your existing business thrive to the point where it’s then functioning perfectly for you. You may not even need to add another business branch when you go about this task.
Or, you may find that you need to completely cut your losses and change business branches rather than expand on the one that you have. Therefore, you won’t be adding on new tasks to your workload, but simply swapping them out for a new business branch.
When you start to analyze what’s working versus what’s not working for you, you want to be looking at the time versus return aspect of your business. How much effort are you putting into your existing business branch compared to what you’re getting out of it?
How much money? The perks may be in the form of either finances or personal satisfaction. Only you can determine whether or not what you’ve been doing is worth the payoff you’re receiving, if you’re receiving any at all.
This same process of analysis must be applied to all of the new business branches that you add on to your current one. For example, let’s say your existing business branch is affiliate marketing.
You’re thriving with it and have tweaked it to optimal performance. So you decide to add on a coaching service for your customers. If it fails, you’ll need to take a look at why it’s not working.
It could be something as simple as changing the price point. Or it could be your copy. It might be the offer itself. Maybe your list simply doesn’t resonate with you on that level. If this is the case, you need to know when to cut your losses and try a different business branch to expand on your original one.
For example, instead of adding coaching, maybe you want to add information product development instead. If it fails to take off, you’ll need to take a look at why it’s not working.
It may be that your list simply doesn’t want one on one hand holding, but would love to devour information in a text or video format at their own pace. Another thing you want to do is keep an eye out on industry changes that could affect your business.
There are certain trends that will rise and fall which could affect how well your new business branch performs. It’s helpful if you stay aware of this without believing all the hype.
For example, you’ll often see marketers emailing that a particular business branch on the Internet is completely dead. This is often not true and is simply a way to generate interest and sales for one of their own products.
You want to stay aware of real changes in the industry and not just speculation or scams. Another thing you want to do when you go through the process of weeding out what’s not working for you is watching for certain things to become outdated.
For example, link farms used to be highly popular. Then, when search engines began punishing people who used them, they fell out of favor with online marketers. Many marketers also used to lean on a variety of article submission sites such as Ezine articles.
Previously, it was common knowledge that if you could publish a good article there, you could easily catapult it to the top of search engine results pages. However, it began to be viewed as a failure over the course of the years and was no longer as effective as it once was.
Staying tuned into industry blogs where experts are watching for these types of trends, such as when Google introduced the Panda update in 2011, can help you avoid a similar fate of putting in a lot of effort only to get nothing in return for it.
You want to be focusing all of your time and money on things that will work best for you. Always be looking for newer and better alternatives whenever you notice a decline with some sort of marketing strategy that’s currently working for you. You’ll want to be a cutting-edge leader with new tools and strategies that will help you in the marketplace.
Planning for More Growth in Your Future
Adding a new business branch (or even replacing a less effective one) is an exciting journey because you’re infusing fresh tasks and potential into your business efforts. It keeps things from feeling stagnant all the time.
As an online solo entrepreneur, you get to make all decisions as to whether you stay on course, divvy things up into multiple branches, or switch gears completely. This is freeing, but it’s also a lot of pressure.
Whether you’re thinking of adding your first additional business branch or a second, third or fourth – you’ll likely continue considering new ways of making money online in the future.
You’ll want to continually look for the right time to make changes of growth. First, ask yourself if you’ve hit a ceiling with your earnings. When you’ve maxed out your earning potential in a particular business branch, it’s a good time to add another layer of financial protection.
An additional income stream can boost your ability to live life in the way you desire and deserve. But if you have more wiggle room to grow an existing business branch, then you may want to focus on those efforts first.
Another question to ask yourself is, “How much more can you handle on your own?” If you’re a solo entrepreneur, there only so many hours in the day for you to get your work done.
There will come a time when you’re unable to add something else without either letting go of something or adding on another person you can delegate tasks to. If you arrange for this kind of situation, you can choose between outsourcing on a per project basis or hiring on another employee to share in the workload and enjoy a set salary you’re your company.
You might also want to partner with someone and share the workload and split the profits equally, depending on how much the other person pitches in to grow the business.
Do your due diligence before partnering with or hiring someone to join you in your efforts to integrate a new business branch. The last thing you want to have happen is for things to get underway and a disaster unfold where you’re left holding the bag of responsibilities with no reliable teammate to assist you with what needs to be done.
Another thing you’ll want to keep in mind is, “What prospects in terms of business branches are on the horizon that interest you?” It’s often not all about financial profits. With an online work at home career, the personal satisfaction element is quite empowering.
It’s one of the reasons people choose this path in the first place. Unfortunately, they often move toward financially profitable branches alone and fail to even consider what it is they enjoy.
There are all kinds of things developing on a regular basis. Years ago people were earning a living making Squidoo lenses. They had fun. It was easy. Then it got sold and shut down, causing people to lose their income stream.
When one business model collapses, others emerge as formidable players. For example, you had dropshipping years ago, but not FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) options. And now you do!
Decades ago, you could publish a book if you found an agent and were picked up by a publisher, but today you can self publish in hours all by yourself on Amazon Kindle and reach a global audience!
Never pigeon-hole yourself into a business branch that you dread having to work on every day. If you’re already in that position, take steps to slowly build up another branch so that you can set yourself free from the one you no longer want.
Keep in mind, too, that you’re fully at liberty to create something new – something no one else has ever done before. Someone out there was the first to offer other people private label rights, for example.
Someone was the first to consider the idea of a craft marketplace like Etsy. Not only could you potentially solve your own niche business branch needs, but you may end up stumbling upon an idea that resonates with thousands (if not millions) of other individuals who would like to do the same.
You could parlay this into an entire line of courses, tools and platforms that serve a larger audience. Be creative and play with your abilities to serve an audience online in a global capacity.
Get the right kinds of people to help you formulate a plan, whether you take it public to the masses or keep it for yourself. You can hire someone to create software or teach you how to piece together a strategy and new business model that works best for you.
Adding another business branch to an already busy schedule can, at times, feel overwhelming and confusing. You might feel like giving up if you don’t take steps to integrate it on a reasonable timeframe.
But in the end, when you have two, then three or four thriving business branches carrying you toward your financial and personal satisfaction goals, you’ll be glad you persevered through the tough times and completed what you set out to do.
