Thomas Green here with Ethical Marketing Service.
Today, I am answering the internet, so I’m going to jump right into it. These are a list of Quora questions. I typed in “business” and got some of the most frequently asked questions about business.
What are some ways to start a business?
There are lots of different ways that you could interpret this particular question. Some people refer to starting a business as just doing an activity or service. Or, you know, starting selling a product and therefore you’re in business. Now, you need to declare that income. So, you’re being a sole trader. So, if you’re in employment, or perhaps even if you’re not in employment. If you’re unemployed, and you start selling a product, let’s say it’s eBay. Or you start providing a service for someone, an online service, you need to declare that income. But you haven’t legally created a business and so you need to declare it as a sole trader. And you are technically doing business activity but you’re not a legal entity which is a limited company.
That can be the gateway into starting your business. So much in the way that when I started in digital marketing. I first started doing digital marketing myself selling my own products and also as a sole trader. So, in the same way that I just explained it. I started out as a sole trader individual. And then once I got some experience that was when I started a company.
So, that might be the answer to that question. Start off with doing something that you know solves a problem for people. Or that you can get your hands on a product which is desirable to the market, and start selling it. Make sure you keep a track of everything. Because bookkeeping can be a little bit messy in the beginning if you don’t keep a track of it. And then once you get to a certain level where you think either it could replace your job or it’s worthwhile creating a legal entity which is a limited company, then that’s when you can create it.
There are some costs associated with having a business. When you’re a sole trader you can keep those costs down quite a bit. But when you’re a limited company, especially if you’ve got VAT returns. That sort of thing, then it does get a bit more expensive. So, just weigh up the costs of whether it would be cheaper or more expensive to do a limited company. And also how serious you are about the longevity of it. If it’s just a “side hustle” for you, then it might be better staying as a sole trader. But if you’ve got aspirations, if you’ve got a long-term goal. Then it might be better to do a limited company, but there’s a lot of variables in that. So, if you have specific questions, put them in the comments and I will answer the specific examples.
What dirty tactics, or what dirty business tactics, do you know?
Just because I know of them doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to implement them. Nor should you, but there are some things which I can share which might be considered dirty tactics. Let’s say you’re trying to hire a bookkeeper. You might line up a list of all the best bookkeepers. Let’s say ten companies, that you can find which would do bookkeeping and have consultations with all of them. And let’s say you get as much information on a consultation call as you possibly can. You ask them lots of questions and you extract that knowledge. But you never intended on hiring a bookkeeper in the first place.
So, really all you’re doing is being taught for free. And you’re presenting the appearance of someone who wants to actually hire a person to do their bookkeeping. But all you’re doing really is you’re just taking their best possible ideas and then using them yourself at some stage. So, I’m not sure that would be referred to as dirty business tactics. But that’s an example of someone who might be disingenuous. Who, they’re trying not to pay and they’re presenting a false appearance of what they actually want.
There’s some stuff around contracts which, if you send out a particular contract and let’s say that person who’s doing the service. In this instance, it might be a bookkeeper. Let’s say you wanted to make changes to the contrac. And it was very much in your favour versus the other person’s favour. The bookkeeper’s favour. If you were able to get something in that contract which was undesirable then. You can enforce legal contracts even though they might not be fair.
So, that’s another thing to watch out for. If you’ve got someone who wants to constantly make amendments to the contract which are very much in their favour. Again, not sure it qualifies as dirty business tactics but if you’re considering a win-win in business. It’s certainly more of a win-lose than it is a win-win. So, there’s a couple of examples which spring to mind.
How do I grow my business?
The immediate answer that comes to my mind in this one is – revenue is the thing which grows business. Now, the question isn’t, how do I make my business more profitable? It’s, how do I grow my business? So, you could have a business which was turning over ten thousand a year. Or you could have a business which is turning over a hundred thousand or a million a year. And they could both make the same amount of profit. But one has grown significantly more than the other one. And that would be the million or the hundred thousand one relative to the ten thousand one. So, the only thing which grows a business is sales or revenue. And so the most common way that business will grow is improving its sales.
Now, there are some exceptions because people think of sales as getting new customers. And that’s where typically business will spend all of their time. But if you have existing customers already then you can do it a couple of other ways. You can attempt to get those existing customers to pay more frequently, so if they’re already paying. Let’s say, twice a year, you can attempt to increase that to once a quarter. And if you can take your existing customers and get them to pay more frequently. That means that you’re growing your business. Even though you haven’t got any more customers.
The other thing that you can get them to do is increase their transaction size. So, you can either get existing clients to do that or you can get your new clients to do that. It doesn’t mean that you have to grow the number of clients relative to what you were previously getting. But if you increase your transaction size, that means that you’re growing your business relative or more than you previously were. Mostly businesses just focus on new customers, rightly or wrongly, that’s just the way it is, but if you do one of those three things that I mentioned, you are growing your business.
But if I was just going to give a one-word answer to that question, it’s sales. How do I grow my business? You make more sales, and you can do that through the typical sales method which is talking to people one-to-one, or you can do it through your marketing. And marketing is often referred to as salesmanship multiplied, so you take all of the things that you would be doing in your sales, your one-to-one, but you would do it via any media where you can do it at scale. So, marketing and sales is the thing which grows your business.
What are some great business ideas that you wouldn’t mind giving away for free?
Something I do all the time, give business ideas away for free. Ideas, I would say most people are happy to give away ideas. In that question, what the person is saying is, if I have a business idea then that will be the thing which gives me a successful business. But I would argue that it’s not the business idea that has the value, it’s the implementation of the business idea. So, we all come across businesses in our daily lives, dozens of different types of businesses every single day, but the reason why we don’t implement all of them is because it’s difficult.
So, there are some instances, let’s say, if you were to go on Dragon’s Den or something and you had this amazing business idea, it’s possible that you might have someone who says well okay, I’ll chuck fifty thousand at you, or whatever it might be if you have the right legal protection. But mostly in what I would encourage you to focus on, is a proven business model. There are people who have already shown you that there’s a demand for that product or service, and the rest is just doing simple things every single day and being disciplined about it.
So, I would focus more on the implementation than I would on the business idea. And the other thing I would argue is a principle which is more important in business is often referred to as solving problems for people. So, your business, product or service, is it solving a problem for people? The worse the problem the more likely it is that you’re going to have a successful business.
Unless of course, your customer is affluent, in which case it may not have to be that much of a problem for you. Then it’s all just about getting the client – how good are you at getting the client? And that’s another thing. It, sort of, ties into the last question about how do I grow my business? If you are able to find the client, if you’re able to make a sale, really, it doesn’t really matter how good your business idea is, it just matters that you are able to sell it.
I’ve written a book previously, as you’re probably aware. It’s smart to have a quality book, really what it’s down to in terms of how successful that book is, it’s down to your ability to sell it, not how good the book is. So, the metaphor here would be, what book should I write? Well, you know, it’s really not about what book you should write, it’s about whether or not you can sell it. And that’s the difference between a successful book and an unsuccessful book and a successful business and an unsuccessful business, is how well you can sell it or the revenue you can produce.
Which is better, a job or a business?
It’s subjective. So, it depends on what’s important to you. Now, I have done both and I can tell you that depending on what it is that you want, depends on which will be better for you. And people often make the presumption that – and this is normally people who have a job – being an owner of a business or having a business, is better than having a job, and I don’t think it’s true. I think it can be true for individuals who have certain priorities or have certain preferences. But if you would much prefer, let’s say, less responsibility, which is, I would argue, the majority of people – the majority of people don’t want to take on a lot of responsibility – then I think a job would be better for you.
When you create a business or when you start a business, you start being responsible for many different things that you don’t think that you’ll be responsible for. And if you want an idea about what I mean by this, there’s a good book called the E-Myth, and the E-Myth makes a distinction between the engineer, meaning the person, the skilled person, and the business owner, and lots of people go into business, it says because they are able to do a particular skill.
So, in my instance, I was a person who is good at search engine marketing and so I created a business which solved the problem of search engine marketing for businesses. But in the E-Myth, it basically says that your new job is not to be the search engine marketer. Your new job is to run the business and as a business owner you’re responsible for payroll, you’re responsible for the accounts, for the bookkeeping, you’re responsible for the sales, for the marketing of that business. And the list of jobs really does go on. You’re the manager, you’re wearing lots and lots of different hats. If that doesn’t sound appealing to you, a job would probably be better.
Also, there’s a presumption, I think, with a lot of people who create a business that you’re going to be better off than your employee. It’s not always the case. People always think about profit in business but they don’t think about loss. It’s very possible for a business to make a loss and a business owner gets paid from the profits. So, you can work, you know, eighty or hundred-hour weeks and not get paid at all in a particular month because the business hasn’t made any profit.
And it’s subjective. I’ve spoken a lot about the disadvantages of being a business owner, only because most people are not aware of them. The benefits of being a business owner is that you’re not paid for your time, you’re paid for the profit that the company creates, and so it gives you an element of freedom. But there’s very much a narrative on the internet about a business. As soon as you have a business you can sit on the beach, etc The narrative is the word I’d go with, but I would argue it’s a lie, it’s a misconception.
There is a possibility for you to do that, but you need to understand that the whole time you’re sitting on the beach, you’re basically putting your trust in someone else to run your business. If you have someone amazing, maybe that works out just fine for you, but, as I said, there are lots and lots of different hats you need to wear as a business owner.
And I think how fashionable it is to be a business owner at the moment is just based on a misconception. It’s hard work if you want to do it properly, and if you value the freedom. And also, there’s an element of having a problem with authority, which is what I have. I wouldn’t go back to being in a job for the sake of security just because I have a bit of a problem with authority. And so, I’m much better as a business owner as I would be than a worker.
But all the examples that I’ve given you should highlight the summary of the answer which is, it’s down to you and what your preferences are. So, you have to know what you want and then you can make a decision about whether you want to have a job or whether you want to have a business.
What are some potential low-cost businesses that can be started and operated by a teenager? Interesting question. I have one thousand dollars to work with and speak proficiently in Spanish. Some ideas are vending machines, gumball machines or lawn care service, mowing lawns.
Well, in the first part of the question you are asking what are some low-cost businesses, and the second part you are saying what your ideas are. I mean, vending machines and gumball machines, which I’m presuming is games – sorry if I haven’t got that right. Gumball – I think this is a question from the US. Lawn care service or mowing lawns is, I think, going to be the easiest one to implement because you can literally just walk down a road and you can see that someone needs their lawn mowing.
You can knock on the door and just ask them if they want it done and that’s a fairly easy sale.
And you can do that – perhaps there are some complications that I don’t know about – but as far as I’m aware the work is fairly easy to do. It’s a generalisation, but my perception is that when you’re a teenager you have less experience. You have less know-how, and therefore you need to either make up for that through your hard work, in this instance mowing lawns, or you would do quantity.
So, in order to have a successful business, you would do as many lawns as you possibly can in the day and therefore that would give you the increase in revenue that you’re looking for. When you’re a teenager is one of the best times – I think maybe the best time – for you to learn a skill which is desirable to the market. Now, if you don’t want to go into education, if you don’t want to get a qualification, then you’re looking at a business which is easy for people to do but you’re willing to do lots of. That comes back to what I said about it’s not necessarily about the idea, it’s the implementation, doing difficult things on a daily basis over time.
And what you would do regarding mowing lawns is, you would perhaps get a list of your customers over time, so people who do want it done regularly, and you would put in the hard graft to start with.
Then eventually you would find someone who’s willing to do that for you. You would make sure that they’re skilled and they can do the job properly. And you would get them to do your regular clients whilst you’re looking for more new ones, and so it starts to grow beyond what you can do yourself. So, that’s what I’d do there, but you need to make sure that the people that you do hire, they’re trained properly, and you need to ensure they’re accountable and that you keep an eye on them to make sure that your standard of work is carried out on your regular clients. And that’s how you’d grow that business.
How is digital marketing important for business?
Now, I’m going to try and be as objective as I can be in this instance because we have a digital marketing agency, so obviously, I think it’s important. It doesn’t have to be digital marketing. Marketing, in general, is important for business because it allows you to get customers at scale, and, as I said previously, marketing is salesmanship multiplied. Now, if you had a load of, let’s say, salesman or saleswoman going out to either knock on doors – yes, let’s just say it’s knocking on doors, for example – and you had dozens of people doing that, then, that would be a way of ensuring that you didn’t have to do any marketing.
But, as I’ve said before, and this is a phrase from Dan Kennedy, the worst number in business is one. So, if that was your way of getting clients, knocking on doors, if the government made it illegal tomorrow, your business which is dependent on that activity is no longer functioning. You can’t get any revenue anymore because the way that you get your clients is no longer available to you. So, I would say digital marketing is important for business because it’s another way for you to get more clients.
It doesn’t have to be the only way that you get clients, but if you can get a client for a profitable amount, let’s say it meets your target cost per conversion or it’s profitable for you to get them at that cost, then you should do that regardless of where it comes from. So, digital marketing is important because there’s plenty of clients you can get from digital marketing, but it doesn’t have to be the only place that you get clients but it’s very powerful.
Google is a hugely successful business based on the fact that it can generate so many clients for businesses. And then social media, Facebook PPC, has come on leaps and bounds, and the reach of social means that if you put the work into generating interest or a following on those platforms, it means that – again, I’ve used the term a couple of times – at scale, you can reach people that might be interested in what you do. And so that’s why digital marketing is important for business.
How do I start an online business?
It would be a bit easier if I had a specific example, but you’d start an online business, from a legal perspective, the same as you’d start an offline business. But if you had an online business then you’d need some way – a website is an example – for people to know you exist. Now, some businesses don’t bother with a website. They have, a Facebook page or something because you need to understand that just because you have a website doesn’t necessarily mean that people are going to be able to find it. So, to summarise what I just said, you need a place on the web where your customers can find you.
Now, if you are serious about your business then, of course, you would have a website. If it’s more of a person-to-person business and you just have an online presence, then a Facebook page might be okay for you. But the types of businesses that we would deal with, they’d have an online website. And then in order to start your online business, you’d need to generate traffic or sales from your website, and then as soon as you incorporate your business legally and you’d have a website and then you get a client from it, whether or not it’s a successful or unsuccessful business, you have an online business if you make a sale.
Now, legally, as soon as you incorporate, as soon as you register your business, then you have a business. Whether you make any sales from it or not, it’s irrelevant. But I would argue that you do need to start making revenue in order to call it a business. That’s how you do it. You’d incorporate, you get a website, it makes sales, you have a business, and then it’s about improving your business from that point on.
What business should I start?
This is one of those subjective things. If you were to tell me that I had to start a haircutting business – don’t know why that came to mind – then I probably wouldn’t want to start that business. Now, as a business owner, providing I didn’t have to get involved in the business, which I think that you should – see, there are different perspectives on this.
Some people say that you actually don’t need to know anything about the business itself, you just need to hire people who are skilled at it, and some people say you should know a certain amount of it because if you don’t there’s going to be some blind spots and that might hurt you. So, most of the people that would answer this question would say you should start a business that you have expertise in.
You should operate in your circle of competence, especially if you’re putting money into it, which quite a lot of people would do. The other way of answering the question is, you should start a business which is something that you love to do. So, social media makes it possible now to get a following, and it’s a following that previously wouldn’t have been able to generate any revenue.
So, there are lots of people who are, for example, creating YouTube channels on fitness and they’re making a living from essentially working out, which would have been incredibly difficult to do before the internet. To summarise on that question, what business should I start? Another variable in that is that some experts would also say that you should start a business which the market has proven there’s a serious need for. So, whilst I went with the initial one, which is you can start a business on pretty much anything because social media has given that possibility, the flip side of that is that some people say that you should really start a business which has a need. The market has a need to solve that problem.
So, it depends on what your drivers are and what you’re good at. Again, this is subjective to the person, so if you’re considering starting a business and you’re not sure which one you should be in, then put a comment in there telling me about yourself and what business you’re considering and I’ll see whether I can answer it.
How does one create a business plan?
Nicely phrased question. There is a link that I can put in the comments. It’s a template that you can follow and there is a PDF of basically how you answer the questions and why you should answer certain questions. We did a business plan and I also have a video on a business plan. It’s called – I think it’s Extraordinary Opportunity, and it’s basically a video trying to sell you on the concept of the fact that you should create a business plan and the reason being that it gets you to answer the question of, what am I building and what’s my exit strategy? How am I going to get there, basically.
So, you’re, sort of, working back from the end goal. Some people refer to that as reverse engineering. So, you’re starting with the endgame in mind and then you’re saying how am I going to get there?
There are also some interesting questions that a business plan makes you answer and those questions are something like, what makes me different from my competition? I’ve spoken a lot about differentiation and if you’re just creating a business and there’s no reason for you to be any different – I mean it is possible to do good business like that – but it just means that you have to be super sales orientated because you’re not doing anything different from anyone else. So, there are a lot of questions in a business plan which are beneficial and if you want to know a way of filling one out, there’s a PDF guide and also a template for you to fill out, so I’ll put that in the comments. That’s an easy one.
I want to start a business but I don’t have any money. What do I do?
This depends on which business you’re referring to. So, if you wanted to start a bank or something then yes, you’re going to have to have some money on it, but often people think that it requires money in order to be in business and there’s no way around that and that’s the way that you’re successful.
But often, entrepreneurs refer to the fact that when they didn’t have money and they put in hard work and hours instead, that was more successful for them then when they had money because they thought that because they had money that it would work. But actually, it’s not the case because all of that hard work and hours and just determination is the thing which made that business successful, not the money.
So, I mean, to answer the question directly, I don’t have any money and I want to start a business, it doesn’t matter. Your hard work makes up for it but you need to understand that it’s going to be all you.
It’s up to you, basically. You can’t hire anyone to do those tasks that you don’t want to do. It’s all down to you and there are certain things that you’re going to have to learn which maybe you don’t want to learn. Maybe you don’t want to do your bookkeeping, etc, but that’s what you have to do if you don’t have any money. It’s the position I was in and there’s no substitute when you have that for just hard graft, so that’s what you have to do. You have to work as hard as you possibly can on things that you may not want to do.
Can social media marketing really help my business?
And the answer is, yes it can but it depends on how you do it. So, the analogy might be – let’s just take a sales example, maybe that will work – if I say can being a salesperson really help my business? It depends on how good you are at sales. So, if you are amazing at sales speaking one-to-one with people then it would be great. It would really help your business. If you sucked at sales and you couldn’t sell anyone, then that doesn’t mean that sales doesn’t work, it just means that you haven’t done it right. And that’s the same with social media marketing. I think there’s an implied doubt in the question.
So, if I was asking that question and I didn’t know what the answer was, I’d say, can social media marketing help my business? But the question is phrased as can social media marketing really help my business? So, there’s doubt there. And what you need to know is the sort of numbers that are coming from social media in terms of what I mean by that is revenue numbers. The amount of clients that are being found on social media is astronomical. There is more opportunity on social media than I think we could ever make the most of, so it’s how good are you, or if you decide not to do it yourself, how good is your agency at getting those clients for you?
How do I start a business from scratch with no money, no credit and no expert friends to help?
Sort of a variation of the last one asked. So, there is going to be no substitute for hard work. So, the only thing that’s going to be a substitute for those things is your hard graft and your know-how. It’s all up to you. Those things aren’t going to help you. It actually may even be beneficial for you to not start it on credit, and you need to understand that if you have a business which is dependent on your friends, you don’t really have a business. You need to make it on your own.
What is the best business to start with the lowest overhead if I don’t have a lot of money and no real skills?
The best business to start with the lowest overhead – meaning lowest costs – if I don’t have a lot of money – no money is just the same thing as I just already answered – and no skills? It’s a tough one. I mean, I would say that within the question, you’re presuming that you don’t have any skills, which is not true. There are plenty of people who don’t have basic skills, but you have skills that can support them. And so even if we’re talking about, you know, you’re an English speaker, you have a skill of being able to speak in the English language. You can type because you typed this question which means that potentially you could be a person who transcribes, taking voice in the way that I am right now and you’re transcribing. I would pay for that service based on this podcast.
I need someone to transcribe this so I can put it into an article, for example. So, Jay Abraham created a product called Hidden Assets. And he would say that lots of people say that they don’t have skills but there are hidden assets which people have. And an asset obviously is something that you can make money from or existing value that you have. So, based on your question, I would make a list of all the things that you can do and that would give you an idea about the types of businesses that you can create from that. I don’t have a lot of money is just the same place that most people are in when they start businesses.
And you’re saying that you don’t have any real skills, but I don’t think that’s true. I think you have some skills and I think you can solve problems for people. You just need to determine of all the skills that you do have, which one is best for the market, and also which one you would want to do as a business. The other consideration is if you don’t have any skills if you want to be in business you need to go get them. So, if there’s a business which you would like to be in and you don’t have that skill, there’s enough information on the internet right now to be able to develop that skill if you really want to be in that business. So, it’s about how serious you are.
What should all first-time entrepreneurs know before starting their very first business?
Good question. I think that it’s one of those questions, like, what’s the one thing that I should do or what’s the one thing that I should know? I suppose what I’d say is you’re not going to have all the answers. There’s a question that I learnt in business coaching and the question is, who do you know who? So, I would say you need to use that phrase. So, if you come across something that you don’t know which is going to be regular being an entrepreneur – because entrepreneurial habits are that you need to solve problems for people.
And, if people knew how to solve their problems themselves, then they wouldn’t need you and so you need to continually solve problems and you’re not always going to know how to do that. So, you ask the question in all of those instances, who do you know who might be able to help you with this problem? And you list a load of those people down and then you work your way through that list. So, let’s say you start your business as an entrepreneur and there’s something you don’t know how to do, let’s say it’s do your tax return, for example. Who do you know who might be able to help you with that?
Now, one of them might be Google, one of them might be YouTube, maybe you’ve got a friend who knows a little bit about it, maybe you’ve got a friend who’s in business, maybe you can post on an online forum. Facebook’s got some good groups for supporting businesses. Basically, you don’t have to know everything, but you are responsible for finding the answer. And so, the way I would answer that question is, you need to know that question which is who do I know who would be able to help me with this? Then you go and find the answer.
What’s the shrewdest, smartest manoeuvre you’ve ever seen in business?
I think I’m probably going to pass on that. There’s no one thing. There’s no magic button. It’s all about hard work, education and application, and finding answers to problems for people. So, you know, there’s no one thing I’m going to be able to tell you that’s going to give you business success.
So, I’m going to pass on that one because the implication is that if I were able to tell you what the shrewdest, smartest manoeuvre is, that would somehow be beneficial for your business career, your entrepreneurial career, and really there is no one thing.
Which is the best business to start nowadays?
You can work backwards from the most successful businesses, but – this comes back to what business is going to be right for you – if I were to tell you the best business to start right now is an oil company, then it’s irrelevant for you because, you know, you don’t know anything about that. So, it’s really about which business is best for you to start and only you can answer that. And I alluded to how you might go about choosing in the previous question.
What are some of the best business books?
Now, that’s a good question. You can find my book at ethicalmarketingservice.com/book. I’m not going to say it’s one of the best business books because that would be extremely egotistical, but it does have a guarantee. So, if you find that it’s not a very good book then you can always just get your money back. The E-Myth, I’ve already mentioned, is a great business book. I think that when you’re learning about business – because what the question implies is, if I read some of the books that you tell me to read, I’m then going to be successful in business. That’s not the case. So, if you’re talking about skills then you need to learn the skill and there’s not going to be a book which is going to tell you everything that you have to learn, it’s a continual process.
If we use my example for a second – so search engine, marketing, Google Ads, digital marketing, social media – if I read a load of books on those topics and I didn’t read anymore, I’d be pretty out of touch moderately quickly because everything’s changing, everything’s improving. So, rather than look for the best one, look for the best ones that you can find currently, but make it an ongoing process to continually learn.
Regarding business books, I would say I like some of the personal improvement books, some of the old classics. So, I like As a Man Thinketh. I like Richest Man in Babylon for the parables. It’s not as such a business book, but it’s still well worth reading. And Think and Grow Rich is the famous one. I particularly like the chapter on perseverance and also, there’s lots of good stuff in there. So, if you haven’t read the basic ones then I would definitely read them, but at the same time don’t think that if you read those then that’s going to be the thing which makes you successful. It’s about continually making yourself better, as a person, and then also in your skills that you’re providing for your client. So, that’s how I’d answer that one.
Is it possible to start a business with little or no money and if so, how?
A variation of a question I’ve already answered. You can start a business for I think it’s about twelve pounds legally, and so yes, you don’t have to have money.
Let’s do product and service. If you don’t have any money and you’re selling a product, you need to sell that product for a commission, and you need to find a business where you can sell it for a commission but you don’t have to buy it first.
And so, when you get your sale, you can let the provider of that product know that you’ve made a sale and then send it out. That’s one way to do it. So, sometimes that’s referred to as an affiliate but there’s plenty of local ways that you can have an affiliate business.
If you look for affiliate marketing online there’s going to be very little value for you there, so you need to find someone who’s selling products and say can I sell your products and will you give me a commission? If it’s a service-based business then you need to get the client and provide the service in exchange for the fee. And so, it’s about what skills do you have to provide that service?
What are some tips to starting up your own small business?
I think that’s a replica, I’ve already done that one.
What is the best money-making business?
Every business, theoretically, should be making money or earning money. Earl Nightingale would say, “The only people who make money work in a mint”. Businesses or individuals earn money. And in terms of what is the best, I mean, most people are not going to start a business which is the best. Let’s say Google for a second. I don’t know if Google is the highest producing. I think it’s probably Apple who has the most money at the moment. They make computers and they have a humongous brand, so it’s not going to be very helpful for you, I don’t think. And it comes back to just because if I were to say that if you were in computers, doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the right business for you.
What is the cheapest business to start?
It would be one where you provide your labour or your time in exchange for a fee. Cheapest because everyone has time and you don’t have to put any money into it.
How do I find a business idea?
I think some of these are repeating. Not because there aren’t business ideas out there but because people don’t know what to do as a business. It’s a similar question to what should I do with my life? How do I know what job to do, etc? And the best answer I’ve heard to this is, you just need to do lots of things. If you’re in the position where I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do with my life. The only way you’re going to find out is by trying lots of things. If you just ask questions on the internet then you’re not going to get very far. Go do things.
How do I start a dropshipping business?
There’s a company – I forget what it’s called now. I’ll put it in the comments. You need to pay a fee in order to have the business but it’s basically a network where you buy a website and you’re signing up to get access to lots of different products.
And then it’s just about what kind of website you’re going to create and what kind of products you’re going to put on your site. So, this is a lot easier than it would have been previously, in previous years, it’s come on a long way. And this comes back to some of the affiliate stuff that I was talking about. So, I’ll put it in the comments.
And basically, your website sells a product and the notification goes to the buyer or the seller of that product and then they ship out to your client. So, let’s see if I can find it quickly, one moment. Sorry, I’ll put it in the comments. There’s one which is really good which I’ll recommend.
What are some good businesses that can be started with very small capital?
You providing a service in exchange for you giving your time in exchange for a fee?
What kind of business can I start with zero investment? That’s the same answer.
What are some scale business ideas?
People like the concept of scaling. All it is is using leverage, so you can use leverage by using other people, by employing people, and that’s one thing which I would argue is the most meaningful.
So, if you decide to start a business and you’re one person, which is what some people do, in terms of your contribution to society, if you were to just stick at one person or you were to create a hundred jobs, your contribution to society and the meaning that will give you is much, much more if you create a load of jobs, and people make a living from something you created and that it’s important to them.
If you’re in business unless you’re contributing a load of money to charity or something, I don’t think there’s a lot of more meaningful things that you can do, or at least most people could do for that.
So, I think I’m going to wrap it up there. There were some good questions. If you’ve got some questions for me that I haven’t answered or you think are valuable that I could answer, then I’ll probably do a few more of these. And again, I haven’t done one of these before, so let me know if you think it’s been good or if you want to know anything else. You can visit us at ethicalmarketingservice.com if you want to set up a time with myself or one of the team.
I’ll speak to you soon.