How to build an online business without doing much work
How to Build an Online Business without Doing Much Work
When youíre learning how to start a business, the majority of information youíre going to find is aimed at people who have very little, if any money to invest in it ñ or who donít mind rolling up their sleeves and investing a lot of time.
But thereís a whole host of people who have careers already supporting them, or who are retired with some funds to invest who donít want to devote a lot of time taking a hands-on approach.
It doesnít take extremely deep pockets or a full-time work schedule to start and grow your online empire. You have likely seen many mentions of automation and technology or strategies designed to free someone from a burdensome schedule.
There are three specific ways you can become an online entrepreneur without taking on the task of doing all of the work on your own. If you have some money to put towards the growth of your business, you can grow it even faster.
This doesnít mean youíre absent from your brand ñ just overseeing, delegating and managing tasks rather than having to put yourself in a position of overwhelm. Most marketers donít start with this concept ñ but as time goes on and they begin suffering from a lack of down time, they seek it out desperately.
Below, youíre going to find a plan that helps you start off on the right foot. But if youíre already immersed in your business, you can still set aside time to implement this approach and gain back those lost precious hours in your day.
Take Advantage of the Option to Outsource
Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to have thousands of dollars in order to get your business off the ground using a system of outsourcing or delegating to other individuals.
You can outsource certain tasks to others on an as needed basis, and you can often find freelance service providers who have discounted prices in the beginning as they try to grow their reputation and ratings, even though their quality should demand much more.
If you find people who have a really good portfolio and profile, and they are charging less than a fair cost for a project, keep in mind that that may be a starter price point, and that you should expect to pay more as your work with that individual continues.
There are different things you can outsource so that you can take a hands off approach to the growing of your online business. It not only allows you to reduce your own workload, but it also lets you move forward in your business with content, branding, and other elements that are more professional than what you may be skilled at doing on your own.
Many online marketers don't want to be involved in the drudge work, such as the mundane tasks of writing content or responding to emails. Instead, they want to focus on the decision making, or executive level aspects of being an online entrepreneur.
There are many people out there who would love to take on those tasks for you. They may have more experience and skills than you do, and you don't have to hire someone full time in order to get access to these talented individuals.
When you are considering outsourcing so that you don't have to do as much work, you can also consider it an investment in your business because you would take longer to do a task that you didn't enjoy or were not good at, and that means your momentum for earning profits would grow stagnant.
Usually, if a freelancer specializes in something like ghostwriting or graphic design, they are faster than you would be. And you have the ability to work with multiple freelance individuals as you scale your business and reinvest your profits.
If your goal is to eliminate as much of the work possible, then you want to look at the most burdensome tasks that are on your to do list. These are the ones that eat away most of your time or that you struggle with.
It might be some sort of repetitive administrative tasks, such as responding to dozens of emails. It might be batch work like queuing up emails and blog posts to be published, or using a social media management tool to schedule your social marketing content.
Once you have a list of what you need to clear off your plate and onto someone elseís, you can begin looking for freelance individuals who would be a good fit for your brand. You never want to choose price alone as your qualification for whether or not you hire someone.
It will do you no good to hire someone at a cheaper price point if the deliverables are subpar. That will only mean you have to throw away what they gave you, which will be a waste of money or hire someone to do it over again, which means you are out double the money.
There are different platforms you can go to in order to outsource your projects and tasks. For example, you might want to sort through the listings on Fiverr or look on Upwork to find suitable freelance service providers to handle your job.
As you begin developing connections with others in the industry, you can also ask for recommendations for freelance service providers. Sometimes there are high-quality individuals who only get clients in this way.
Be sure and look at the feedback and ratings that other clients and customers have left for them, and take a look at their portfolio and listings to make sure you understand exactly what is included when you are working with them.
For example, if you hired someone to write a blog post, you want to know the length of the post, according to word count not pages (because some may use a large font), whether or not they allow any revisions, and what the turnaround time is.
You'll also want to see what they expect in terms of payment period oftentimes, if the project is large enough, you can put the money in escrow and have project milestones along the way until completion.
You donít want to outsource a large project in the very beginning. When you are new to working with someone, you want to make sure that they are going to do the job as you instructed, with the right amount of turnaround time.
So start with something small and test their abilities so that you aren't risking a lot of investment with that individual. Scale your use of their services slowly until you feel fully comfortable that they are ethical and capable of working well with you.
By working consistently with freelancers, and treating them well (remember, they can leave feedback for you, too), youíll be able to save a spot on their calendar to ensure all of your outsourcing needs are met.
To ensure a smooth process of handing your work over to others, you want to be clear about what you expect, when you need it done by, and any other specifications that will prevent a miscommunication.
Check in with the freelancer from time to time, but donít micro manage them. If they stop responding, you may need to get your money refunded and find someone with a better work ethic.
You can hire freelancers to do your content creation. The ghostwriter can write blog posts, email autoresponders, lead magnets, bonuses, info products and sales copy for you so that you donít have to lift a finger.
You can find people to outsource to who handle all of your graphic design. Whether you need branding elements for your website and social media channels or you need someone to create the product image (like an eCover) and sales copy graphics, hand it over to them and lessen your work load.
You can also hire a virtual assistant to take care of the day-to-day administrative work for you. They can respond to the backlog of email inquiries, take care of your social media content publishing and engagement, queue up blog posts and email autoresponders and more.
For this type of position, you will usually be giving them work on a per project or hourly basis. If you have daily tasks that need to be handled, you can work with someone to have them complete a certain project each day or to work for a specific number of hours.
Embrace Tools and Technology That Can Work on Your Behalf
For someone who has a goal of being as hands off as possible in their business, you want to leverage the many tools and technology available to you to shortcut your workload.
This can automate certain processes that you would typically have to get involved with yourself, which would eat away at your time. The only thing you have to do in order to take advantage of this option is to take time to learn how to use the tools and technology so that you can automate many of your tasks.
There are software tools, sites with templates, readymade content options and more that you can use to build and grow your business. These can be used to help you with content creation for your blog, emails, opt in offers, info products, social marketing and more.
Templates are one form of tool thatís going to eliminate a lot of the work youíd have to do. Using sites like Canva, you can simply choose a template and add your own text and be done with a task rather than having to brainstorm a design from scratch.
Other platforms have templates, too ñ such as autoresponders that give you readymade opt in forms or landing page designs. You can find private label rights packages that deliver your graphics, content and sometimes video in a done-for-your format.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is another tool you can use to eliminate your share of the work in your business. Instead of having to conduct endless research, strategize the optimization of your content and profits, and write or develop multimedia pieces for your audience to consume, AI can take over as much or as little as you need it to.
The great thing about these tools is that theyíre usually free or very low cost. You can find AI tools for free, PLR that costs $0.50 per content piece during a launch, and so on. It doesnít have to break the bank for you to get around your work responsibilities in a creative manner.
You can also use some of the tools in your business to automate processes. For example, queue up your blog posts and emails to go live and get sent out to your subscribers and readers so that you donít have to be anywhere near a computer at that time.
If your business requires any sort of interaction with customers, use a different kind of AI. Instead of the kind that can create written, audio, image and video content ñ use a chatbot!
These can be used on your website as well as certain social media platforms to answer common questions for you. This will easily whittle down your customer service emails, freeing up your time to do other things.
There are tools like Hootsuite that you can use to automate your social media marketing efforts. Just as you can queue up emails and blog posts, you can also use these tools to schedule your social content across multiple platforms.
This overall strategy of leveraging tools and technology to automate things is perfect if you want to free up your own time, or scale your business by doubling production in some areas.
Take a little time to learn how to use the tools and technology that will help you. By understanding how to use all of the features and functions, or knowing who to buy readymade content from, youíll have a faster path to profits with less work on your part.
Thereís just one caveat to using automation tools and readymade content. If you donít personalize it, it could create content thatís sterile and lacking any kind of voice for your brand.
Form Powerful Partnerships Where Your Contribution Is Minimal
One very overlooked strategy by marketers who have not yet made their business a huge success is strategic partnerships. This is where you bring something to the table and so does the other person ñ a mutually beneficial arrangement.
The only people typically taking advantage of this are six and seven figure marketers who know thereís a long line of desperate newbies wanting to ride their coattails and latch onto their brand to fuel their own branding.
Youíll often see some of these people ìallowingî newcomers to add their name as a co-vendor for a launch, only to make the newbie do all of the work. Itís like renting out their reputation.
Thereís a more ethical way to engage in this type of partnership. When you find someone who has a skill or capabilities you donít (or donít want to do), you can have them do those tasks while you agree to handle everything else.
For example, you might be a fantastic copywriter with a reputation for good conversions. You can have someone else handle the research and product creation and another person take care of all the technical tasks, while you simply bring the copy to the project.
This is usually why youíll see major launches being done with three people or more. Everyone does a little bit of work, rather than doing it all on their own, and they split the profits.
When you want to leverage partnerships as a way to get out of working too much, make sure you align yourself with the right people. Spend time identifying who would be a good fit as a co-vendor and begin building that relationship.
They need to have skills or capabilities that you donít, and they must be diligent workers who are able to complete projects and meet deadlines in a timely manner. You have to trust the people you partner with.
When you bring up the idea of a shared product launch, make sure you emphasize the work youíll be handling (even though you might be using other shortcut methods to deliver).
Itís smart to map out an official agreement. Sometimes, these launches rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars, and itís not good to assume everything will work out perfectly.
Have everything in writing ñ who is a partner in the launch, what their responsibilities are, how the profits are split, etc. Youíll need to know ahead of time how you plan to handle any disagreements.
Implement a Multi-Pronged Approach for More Free Time
You have learned three very effective ways to lessen your workload and maximize your ability to build your business quickly. You can use one or more of these methods, and you can also combine them for even more free time in your schedule.
For your part in the equation with a partnership situation, for example, you can use some of the other methods of taking a hands-off role. You might outsource your copy task or use AI to help shortcut the process for you significantly.
You can use an outsourcing situation where you hire a ghostwriter and then use a tool to queue up blog posts that you then schedule using an automation social media management tool like Hootsuite.
Or, you can use a virtual assistant as your freelancer and have them use AI to create content, queue it up and so on. This frees you from almost all of the work, but you have to be working with a VA that you can trust.
If you buy a tool like PLR to use in your business, you can then use AI to personalize it for you so that you can then use in your business. This requires nothing more than sourcing great content and prompting AI to make the improvements.
Outsourcing, technology and partnerships should be used whether or not you have a goal of eliminating most of the work in your business. Thereís no sense in forcing yourself to do more work than is necessary, and there are plenty of tasks that will require your direct input, such as decision-making.
Your systemization of this concept should start by pinpointing the tasks that use up too much of your time. Then you find a service, strategy or tool to cut it drastically. This may be dependent on your budget in some cases.
Learn the best way to use or pursue things like outsourcing, technology and partnerships. Over time, new tools and strategies will emerge (just as AI has recently), so pay attention to anything that can free you up from having to work a lot in your business.
You might find updates for tools, new PLR providers, a freelancer who has open availability and a fair pricing strategy, and more. Look for these things because you might be able to level with quality, save money or save time by making a simple switch.
A desire to have more free time is just one of many reasons why these methods are attractive options for marketers at any stage of development in their business. By knowing how to use these techniques, you can improve your physical and mental well-being.
Many solo entrepreneurs work themselves into a state of burnout, even feeling sick and frazzled from their workload. By eliminating some of the work, youíll be free to do things you enjoy, and personal satisfaction is important.
Youíll also be able to increase profits because your productivity and production will soar to new heights. You can have AI create dozens of blog posts, info products or emails in mere minutes, for example.
Youíll also find that when you start handing over the burdensome tasks to another person or gadget, your mind begins to thrive with more creativity and innovative ideas because itís not stuck in a state of working on boring tasks 24/7.
The one thing youíre going to find is that your content is more thorough and comprehensive, your tasks are being done without fail or excuses, and your business begins to gain a competitive edge in the marketplace.
Too Your Success
Billy
Recent Comments
2
Thanks Billy!
Mel
you are welcome :)