0:00
The 14 steps to starting a successful business with $0 in 2023 as a side hustle. So no need to
0:06
quit your day job and no need to have a bunch of money saved up to start a business like we're
0:11
going to talk about in today's video. Step number one to creating your business is choosing a niche
0:16
coming up with an idea or coming up with a problem you're going to solve. So in broad strokes
0:21
what I would think about is people in a lot of cases are looking to improve their health
0:25
improve their wealth, improve their relationships, or to be entertained. So something I would think
0:30
about here is something you're good at, something you're passionate about, and other people need. So
0:36
passion isn't everything. The need from the consumer isn't everything. The thing is
0:40
there's this book that I really, really like from Cal Newport called Be So Good They Can't Ignore
0:45
You. So I like the concept of it. If you can be a world class expert, or a very high level expert
0:52
in some small area, chances are you'll find ways to make money from that. And also, this isn't going
0:57
to be something where you're going to get rich quick, you're going to need to put time into this
1:01
So choosing an idea of something that you can put the work into day in and day out for days, weeks
1:08
months, years, and even decades. Once you have the idea selected, it's time to move on to step
1:13
number two, which is to choose a name. So this could be your personal name, build a personal
1:17
brand and build a business around it or come up with whatever name you would like. A lot of times
1:21
we choose something that's related to the outcome that our audience is looking for. But honestly
1:26
there's a bunch of options here, you could use some of the business generators that I'll put
1:30
down below, you can ask chat GBT. The thing is here, don't get hung up here. One quick side note
1:35
I'm going to go through all these steps fairly quickly. But no down below in the description, you'll find full videos on a lot of the steps that we already have on our channel as well as
1:43
a bunch of other resources to help you get your business off the ground. Step number three
1:48
buy your domain and create your social media accounts. So let's first talk about social media
1:52
In general, I would say to create content when you're getting started on one or two channels
1:57
not a bunch of them, but I would go through in the very beginning and create accounts with all
2:01
the different social media channels that you think you may use in the future. So YouTube
2:05
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest, and whichever ones that I'm forgetting to mention
2:10
I would go and reserve your username and have the accounts ready. And then it comes to the domain
2:15
So I know I said to create your business with $0, but I think the $10 or less per year for having a
2:21
domain is worth it if you want to be taken seriously. So if you were to build a free
2:24
website with Wix, your URL is going to look something like this. To me, it does not look
2:28
professional. So to invest the money to have a URL that looks like this, I think is totally worth it
2:33
With the sponsor of today's video, Horkman.com, you can get a .com domain for less than $10 a year
2:39
And on top of the domain, you're getting privacy protection, a free SSL certificate
2:43
free trial for email hosting, and a website builder. And for sponsoring today's video
2:49
they were gracious enough to give viewers of this video a dollar off their domain for the first year
2:54
if you use the link down below in the description. Now moving on to step number four, choosing your
2:58
first revenue stream. I know there's this talk of millionaires have seven streams of income
3:02
but the thing is they probably didn't get rich on all seven of those. They got rich and then
3:06
diversified. So what I want you to think about is what is the one way that you want to start making
3:11
money initially with your business, you can change and add other things later on. But think
3:16
through what is the easiest way for you to make money from the very beginning. One of our favorites
3:21
affiliate and referral marketing. So this we have several videos about on the channel where
3:25
essentially if there is a product or service that you recommend, someone uses your link and clicks
3:30
to go to another website and makes a purchase, you earn a commission on it, you could create a
3:35
physical product. So physical product I think of in kind of two different forms. So you have
3:38
merchandise. So there's companies like Printful, where essentially you design a logo design
3:43
something like that, you can put it on mugs, t shirts, backpacks, all sorts of things
3:48
they essentially create it, they ship it, they deal with the returns, they accept the money
3:52
everything is done by them. The only thing you need to do is to create the products. That's a
3:55
simple way to sell physical products. The other way is the more complicated way where you have to
4:00
design something. So in general, you're gonna have to design it, you're gonna probably have to have
4:04
inventory, you're gonna pay for shipping have returns, that is something where for a beginner
4:09
with no money creating a physical product that has all those complexities, probably something I would
4:14
steer away from the next option could be a digital product such as an online course, some type of
4:18
membership, there's a huge opportunity here. But the thing is, with online courses, memberships
4:23
and things like that, you probably want to have an audience built out first. But what I would recommend if that's an interest of yours is the first start out offering a service. So do something
4:31
one on one or on small groups. So for example, if you're into yoga, you could do one on one yoga
4:36
classes, you could do group classes, and then later have some type of membership or course when
4:41
you have a larger audience. Step number five, create some type of freebie or lead magnet. So
4:45
you want to give something away for free in exchange for someone's email, this is what you're
4:49
going to be giving away. So some type of one hour video training, a checklist, a guide, an email
4:55
course is delivered over seven days, there's a bunch of options here. But think through something
4:59
you can give away that someone be willing to give their email address up for. So we're going to talk
5:04
about creating content and getting in front of people in just a second. But I want you to be able
5:08
to get people off of social media off of your website and onto your email list where you can
5:13
stay in touch with them and sell to them. One tool we really love for designing lead magnets would be
5:18
canvas, you can get started and use the free version of Canva or get a free trial for Canva
5:22
Pro. There's links to both down below in the description. Step number six, create a landing
5:27
page. So a landing page is a one page website that essentially is going to talk about your lead
5:31
magnet. So whatever it is that you're giving away for free, this page talks about that and convinces
5:35
somebody to give you their name and their email address. So you can stay in touch with them. We
5:40
end up using ConvertKit for this, we've been using it for all of our email marketing software and for
5:44
landing pages for several years now, you can get started for free and use it for up to 1000
5:49
subscribers and create unlimited free landing pages. Step number seven, set up a business email
5:54
you don't want to be sending emails to potential clients to clients from your Gmail, Hotmail or
6:00
Yahoo account, you want to have something at your domain.com as opposed to your business at
6:06
gmail.com. This may be something that costs you a couple dollars a month. But as far as sending
6:10
marketing emails, you want it to be at your domain. And if you're having emails back and
6:15
forth with potential clients, also having a professional business email address will help you
6:20
look like an actual business. Step number eight is all about growing your audience getting in front
6:25
of people that didn't know you yesterday. So what I would recommend doing is choosing one or two
6:29
different traffic sources. For us, our favorite hands down is YouTube because you can create
6:34
something today about a topic that's evergreen today, tomorrow, next month, and next year
6:39
you may be getting hundreds of views for a video you created a very long time ago. And those videos
6:45
are good for reaching people that didn't know you before. Another type of popular video content right
6:50
now are the vertical videos for Instagram reels, TikTok, YouTube shorts, and I guess there's even
6:55
Facebook reels. Now, if you create a video for one of them, you can easily publish on all four and
7:01
you have four times the chance of having a video go viral. If you're not into video as much, you
7:07
can create articles for your blog, and show up in search results in Google, Bing, etc, as well as
7:12
great pins for Pinterest driving traffic to your blog as well. So if you'd rather write, you could
7:17
do that you'd also create a podcast, there's a lot of options here, I would choose one or two where
7:21
you think your audience is anything you'd be good at as far as creating that content. Step number
7:26
nine, coming up with a content plan. So if you want to get in front of new people consistently
7:30
you want to come up with a plan for consistently creating content. This doesn't mean you need to
7:35
publish every single day on a bunch of different social media channels. But if you think through
7:39
what are the types of content you want to create? How can you most efficiently create content
7:44
there's a lot of options here. But it's better to plan this out ahead of time if you think and do
7:50
stuff in batches. So if it's for YouTube, you write a couple of scripts, maybe on Saturday
7:54
you record a couple videos, and then you can spend a few hours here and there editing these videos
7:59
the next week. But it's important to come up with a plan of what type of content you want to create
8:04
and how you're actually going to get it done. Otherwise, your social channels could just be
8:08
completely empty. Step number 10, create the product or service you're going to offer. So
8:12
if you're into affiliate marketing, it's not really creating a product, it's applying for
8:16
the different affiliate programs. So you can use those links and earn commissions. If you're
8:20
creating a physical product that requires some prototyping or samples or anything like that
8:24
you're going to get that ordered and actually see the product, it may take some time to have
8:29
a final product that you're ready to sell if you want to create a service to come up with an idea
8:35
of exactly what the offering is going to be if you're doing some type of classes for exercise
8:41
so yoga or something like that. Do you want to just sell one class at a time? Do you want to
8:44
give one class away for free? Do you want to do group classes, but coming up with an idea of what
8:49
is the exact product and offer. Step number 11, create a page or document that summarizes your
8:55
offer. You don't want to have to say this verbally each and every time that someone is interested in
8:59
purchasing from you. You want to be able to send people to a page where they can learn about the
9:03
offer and make a purchase. So you could make a sales page with System.io. You get started for
9:07
free, create your sales page, connect it to Stripe and PayPal. Someone could read about the offer on
9:12
the page and make a purchase from there. You could create a Google Doc or a PDF document with a link
9:18
to pay via PayPal, for example. Or if you had sales calls and we're talking to someone, you could send
9:22
them an email with a summary and then have a link to say PayPal or give them the details to make
9:28
a bank transfer. This doesn't have to be something super complicated or expensive to create. But if
9:32
you have this summary and a way for people to pay, you can drive traffic to your offer, get people
9:38
to purchase, and it requires no effort on your part to have additional sales except for just
9:43
setting all this up in the very beginning. Step number 12, set up a legal entity for your business
9:47
I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice, but I think it is important for me at least to keep
9:52
my business and my personal life separate. This does come with a cost of several hundred dollars
9:57
and probably a few hundred dollars per year to maintain. If I had the money, I would form an LLC
10:02
from the very beginning. Otherwise, it could be set up once you start to generate an income. With an
10:08
LLC, you could protect your personal assets from your business's financial and legal liabilities
10:12
and in some states, your business from your personal liabilities. It also makes it easier to
10:16
bring on partners for your business. There are other benefits and things to consider and that's
10:21
why I'll be creating a few videos on the topic of forming an LLC. And as soon as those videos are
10:26
published, I'll add them down below. There's also a few articles explaining the differences between
10:31
sole proprietors and LLC. If you're also interested in creating an LLC for your business, you'll find
10:36
a link to Northwest Registered Agent, the service we use to set up our LLC. They can help you form
10:42
an LLC in all 50 states. Step 13, keep at it. This isn't something that's going to make you a
10:47
millionaire overnight. That's why it's important to stay motivated. Create content, make your product
10:51
better, make your customers happy, launch new products and keep going. Before you know it
10:56
you'll be at step 14, quit your job to work full time on your business because you're now earning
11:00
just as much from your business as you are from your day job. Again, if you want a dollar off the
11:05
already low price for your domain, visit porkbutton.com using the link in the description below
11:10
If you're looking to build a business around YouTube, you'll find our YouTube courses for
11:14
beginners down below as well. And right here, you'll find out why we recommend creating a YouTube
11:18
channel in 2023. Hope to see you in another video. Bye