Every day there is someone that decides the 9-5 world is not for them anymore. Entrepreneurs are born from the ashes of frustration from corporate environments. Although negative experiences from a job may not necessarily spark this enthusiasm to go your own way, but it certainly can fuel it.
The ones that survive are the ones that always wanted it. In other words, you really had to be born with entrepreneurial spirit in order to really make it. Not saying that someone who just wants to “try something new” won’t make something of themselves, but you need the motivation to carry on through the obstacles – of which there will be many.
Pick Your Niche
So where does someone start? The best possible platform is the internet. You could raise capital and try to open your own brick and mortar store but these businesses are really starting to decline and even harder to open. If we look at the online sales last year, they accounted for more sales than from physical stores. That should tell you something.
Affiliate Marketing and E-Commerce
As a beginner, there are two avenues that you can take. One is Affiliate marketing and the other is e-commerce. The one you decide to choose would be dependant on your personality. If you want to “brand” something and call it your own, then perhaps ecom is the way to go for you. Keep in mind with ecommerce it’s a continuous dedication to keep your store going.
With an affiliate management company, you could literally just set it and forget it, as many websites make money on their own once they are ranking highly in the search engines. To get there though, can take a lot of time and a lot of money.
In ecommerce, you could set up a store with Shopify and be up and running the same day by placing ads in Facebook. For affiliate marketing you could do the same, but it’s a different model and works much better through search engine optimization.
Course Reviews and Why They’re Important
One thing you will need is a good course in either of these two. You don’t need to spend thousands on a good ecom course as long as it has good content and has been produced by a successful marketer that has made a name for himself/herself. For affiliate marketing, it’s the same thing but since affiliate marketing works best with SEO, you’ll also need to understand SEO too and not all affiliate marketing courses will include how to do SEO too. So, you might need a separate course to learn that skill.
The best place to find an ecom or affiliate marketing course is to get yourself a review. If you check out Drew’s Review, you can find courses that have been reviewed and determined to be worthy or not. Having this information is vital before you bust open your wallet and get your credit card out. There have been many shady courses out there that are simply not worth it and in some cases can be quite damaging to your success. So, it makes perfect case to get yourself a review by an experienced marketer. You’ll even get an inside look into the course as well in most cases.
After you have decided which avenue to take, you found a good course, read up on the reviews, it’s time to invest in your future. Make sure the course has a guarantee and if not, write to the vendor and ask why.
Putting in the Work & Final Thoughts
What happens next is entirely up to you. True entrepreneurs never quit, so if failure after failure scares you, perhaps it’s time to just stick to a job. However is financial freedom and the ability to work from your laptop anywhere in the world excites you and you are willing to put up with the pitfalls that come with it, then strap on for the crazy ride.
