[Transcript starts at 1:21]
Hello friends, Maestro here and welcome back to another episode of my favorite podcast. As was always endlessly appreciative for every single one of you who chooses to listen, you tune in on the, uh, the YouTubes. I am grateful. So, today we're talking about whether or not you should start an online business.
Uh, this past weekend I had the incredibly fortunate honor and privilege of speaking at the Raise the Bar Conference. Folks, they do this conference right. I am very fortunate in that people do like to give me a mic. I like to talk, people like to give me a mic. And I get to be on a lot of stages and I've spoken at a lot of events and Raise the Bar, it's put on by Nick Lamb and Derek Mendoza. Um, we'll link their accounts and we'll link the Raise the Bar account actually in the show notes. Thank you, Courtney. Um, they just do it upright. They take care of their speakers, they take care of the attendees. They really want to build something, build a community.
And it's just, I'm still riding the high. I'm also very tired, uh, but still riding the hi from that. And at the event there's a mix of people that are online and in person, and so the speakers they bring in, some are really talking about online business. Um, I was one of them. Jill was one of them. Uh, they're also talking about in-person business, different aspects of coaching.
It is a fitness conference. There were some PTs there though. Uh, personal- physical therapists. Wow. I'm like forgetting my own, you know, career name here. Um, but it is primarily a fitness conference. But it is something that if you're thinking about, you know, you want an in-person event, you wanna get back to in-person events, you wanna mingle with people and just network with people and hang out with people and experience being in the ma, you know, the magic of being in the room.
it's definitely a conference that I would, would suggest checking out. Um, and they gave me, they gave all the speakers a cowboy hat. If you followed my Stories this weekend, you seen 'em. I will probably wear that hat for the rest of the week. I thought about wearing it for this episode, but it didn't, it like might be outta context if it's your first time watching this on YouTube.
So I didn't. But I'm in love with that hat. But, Anyway, the, uh, ongoings, the happenings of that, um, conference made me think about this question. I was thinking about it before and I was like, you know what? Let's do an episode about this. So I wanna chat today about whether or not you should start an online business.
I'm gonna talk about three questions here. I'm gonna ask you three questions and then you get to answer them. The main question regarding whether or not you start an online, online business is, What is your goal? Aka what is your why? What are you looking to get out of this? So I think that that question can be broken down into two parts and for me it's always been easier to identify, and I think for most humans, it's been always been easier for me to personally though, to identify what I don't want, what I don't like with what is currently going on. So the first tactical question that I would encourage you to ask yourself is, what do I not like about my current situation? If you are someone that has no income, right, for whatever reason, starting an online business isn't necessarily the next logical move. Right? But what is it that you currently don't like? Is it that you're an in-person, job in-person, job in-person employee, you're working at a corporate job, whether that's kind of physical therapy or something else.
What is it that you don't like? If you're like, I don't have money, I don't have income, and I'm looking for a way to make fast income, your best bet is to get an in-person job. It's not to move online because online is not fast money. People tend to think that online has the, brings with it this promise of passive revenue.
And we're gonna do an episode about that. That might be next, the next episode I do, I haven't decided yet. Um, but passive revenue is not, typically not passive. And online business in no way, shape, or form guarantees that. So if you're like, I need money, I need to go make money, then go pound the pavement and get a job locally.
Probably one that doesn't particularly drain your energy. Cause if you're like, I need money, I need income, but I'm not looking to like start a career in this thing. All right, cool. So then get something that's gonna pay your bills. Not gonna just, you know, and it's not gonna drain all of your energy, all your mental energy, your emotional energy, and then that allows you to do other things or think about other things that you'd want to be doing in your quote unquote downtime or your off time.
Online business is a whole ass job. It's not this great, rich, quick scheme. And I said this a zillion times, but once is never, a zillion is never. So I'm saying it again. So we're asking ourselves, what do I not like about my current situation? And I'm gonna encourage you to list this out. This is actually one of the things that I did, uh, way back in like 2014 when I was looking to make a change within my, my life, and I didn't necessarily know the direction I wanted to go in, and that's why I didn't just jump into online business. I was just like, I don't like these things. Part of it was waking up early. Part of it was walking to work in the snow. That was like horrendous.
That doesn't mean that you go online. For me, that was like, maybe I'm gonna move and change my physical location because I already had things that I was doing that I was successful with. It wasn't like, I gotta throw all of this in the trash. It was, what do I not like? Okay, let me address those things. Let me attack those things.
Create some space for things that I actually want to fill in. So list out the things that you don't like about your current situation. Maybe it's an early start time. It's a commute. It's the hours that you're working. It's how much money that you're making. It's your boss. These are- none of these are reasons to go online.
These are all reasons to address that specific problem. You don't like starting so early. See if you can start later and change your hours. That was one of the things that I looked at doing. I actually switched to a 10 hour, um, day instead of four of the eight hour days. And having this like back and forth schedule. Back when I was a, a practicing physical therapist.
You don't like to commute. Maybe you can find a job that's closer or maybe you have to move. You don't like the hours that you're working. Again, that speaks back to, you know, me switching my, my hours so that I could just have the 10 hour days.
Maybe you don't like your boss. This is a big one. I see people not like their boss and they're like, I'm just gonna work for myself, and then they just replace a shitty with a shitty boss. Cause they themselves are not a good boss cuz they either they haven't learned or suddenly they realize like, oh, there's like a lot that goes into this and I have just replaced one bad thing with another.
So, having a shitty boss, not liking your boss is not a reason to start an online business. It's a reason as it's wow having a shitty boss. We're leaving that in. Having a shitty boss not liking your boss is not a reason to start an online business. It is a reason to go and find a new boss, or perhaps first speak with your boss.
See if you can, you know, manage things or change things, improve things. But if that's not an option, then it's time for a new job. If it's, you don't like working with those coworkers, you don't, you don't like the people that you're with, again, that's not a reason to go online. That's a reason to go and find new people to work with.
Look to address the problems at hand directly, as opposed to, I'm gonna go and start something new. If you're unhappy with your situation, look to change the situation.
The second tactical question I want you to think about is the opposite of this, right? We started off with what we don't like, and from there it can oftentimes be easier to say, okay, and establish what do I actually like and what do I want to be doing?
The big one here that I see is folks really like coaching or like they like delivering the service. If that's the case, you're like I like doing this thing, I like being the end, you know, the end product. Go and work for someone else. It doesn't mean that you should start your own business because typically when you start your own business, one of the things you do the least is the thing that you wanna be doing the most, right?
I see this especially in the fitness space where people like working out and they like coaching, and so they start a CrossFit box. They used to start a CrossFit box. And it's like suddenly they realize that they're not coaching anymore and they don't have time to do CrossFit because they're actually running the business.
Cause they've started a whole ass business. So if you just wanna be coaching, you just wanna be delivering your service, you would just wanna be, you know, the being a practicing physical therapist. And when I say just it's not in a pejorative way. It's literally this is the only thing that you wanna be doing.
Cool. Then go and do that thing. And think about the parameters that you want, whether it's, you know, the schedule that you want or the kind of boss, the kind of environment, the kind of autonomy that you want. And then look to create that. Look, to ask for that. Look to set up a situation where you're bringing value to the table such that your employer is willing to grant that, right?
These dynamics do exist within the workplace, and I think that they exist for a reason. You know? Yes, corporate America and the traditional approach to business, there's many bad things about it. But when you flip that and you start becoming, and you are the boss, you start to see why things, certain things are the way that they are, and there's certain structures and things put in place.
And, you know, maybe you have like an employee, I'm thinking right now, you're the boss of something. You're the, the owner of, the founder of, the CEO of an, of an online business or a business, and you have this really creative, um, employee. This person, part of the reason that they may have the, um, the courage, uh, maybe that's the word I'm gonna use.
They'll have the courage to think of all these ideas and be like, oh, we should do this, we should do this, we should do this. Is because they don't understand the risk on the other side of it, they're not taking on the risk. Especially if you have a personal brand, right? If you have a personal brand, and you have a lot of strategy, you have, um, set systems in place, like you have your launch schedule in place and things like that. If you have someone on your team that's like, oh, let's do this other thing. Let's do this other thing, they're not understanding the reason that we have these in place is because this is where all the attention goes.
This is where we get the best ROI, and this is coming on the back of a lot of work. Especially if it's a personal brand that you've built coming on the back of a lot of personal branding and personal work that you have done. So some of these structures and such are in place because that's how the business actually sustains and is profitable.
Um, and so you don't wanna necessarily like shut that person down completely, but it's understanding that the systems and the structures, they're not all just inherently bad. But circling back, if you are thinking you want some more autonomy and, and things like that, bring something to the table and show how it benefits the business as a whole, not just how it benefits you.
So that first point, what do you, what do you like doing? What do you wanna be doing? If you're like, I wanna be coaching, I wanna be delivering your service, consider working for somebody else, not starting your own business. If you want some flexibility in your schedule, some time flexibility, this could be a good reason to look to go into the online space.
Um, but understand that there's a difference between time flexibility and time freedom. You don't have just time to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and you don't have to work. This again, online business is a whole ass job. It's a whole ass business. So to that end, yes there is flexibility in that sometimes I'll work later at night.
I'll work in the morning, I will, you know, be able to go to volleyball first and move things around and I, I very much like that, but I'm still working in the other times. Um, I'm thinking about a client that I have right now who has kids and she's like, you know, I have this small chunk of time during the day when they're, you know, not home, but it's very short.
And then sometimes I'll have to, you know, she'll have to turn her computer back on at night after they go to bed. And that is the flexibility that, um, is afforded by working in the online space. So if you're looking for some time flexibility, this could be, going into the online space could be a good idea for you.
If you wanna connect with people around the world, you wanna work with people outside of your, you know, physical location, your geographical location, then yeah, going onto the online space could be a really good idea. I speak about this with brick and mortar practices when they come into the, the Intensive or, you know, just working them, um, discussing with things with them online in the old DMs.
People will, will wonder if they need to have an online presence. And I'm like, it's nice to have something because it's 2023. But if you're not trying to actually have remote clients, then you don't need to put a ton of effort into this social media side of things because you can't geotarget your, your post, unless you're going with paid traffic. So, you know, if you're like, I, we only do brick and mortar, excuse me, we only do in-person services and you're putting out stuff on Instagram and you're getting people from like around the, around the world, it's not necessarily so helpful because you can't actually help them.
So if you actually want to be working with people in all different places, you wanna be working with people outside of your current physical location, your current geographic, geographical, geographic location, then yes, it's a good idea. It could be a good idea to start the online business and move into the online space.
The best reason, in my opinion, to start an online business is because you want to be online. You wanna be on social media, you wanna be at your computer, you want to be using technology, you wanna be working with people remotely. People come into the online space and then they're like, ah, I don't really like technology.
And I'm like, this is your job, ma'am. This is literally what you do. They wanna be online, but they don't want to show their face or create content or use their voice. And I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. I think that there's a lot of coaches out there and there's a lot of stuff on social media that kind of looks to make things easier cuz people wanna help people and they're like, oh yeah, you can still do it.
I don't think you can. It'd be like someone saying they sign up for a marathon and they're like, ah, I think I'm gonna do a marathon. And then they're like, but I actually hate running and I don't wanna run. And you're like, wait, what? That. What?! Go sign up for a bike race then. Like that didn't make any sense.
And you know, I think it's foolish of me and irresponsible of me to be like, oh yeah, you wanna be online, but you don't actually wanna be online. You could totally do it. You could totally do it. No, you can't. The best reason to start an online business is because you want to be online, you wanna be at the computer, you wanna be using technology in some way, shape, or form.
You wanna be working with people remotely. You like the tech side of things to some capacity, or you're willing to learn those things cuz you're gonna have to use that in order to provide the service.
Um, if you're unsure and you're like, you know what, I, I just wanna keep my options open. I don't know a hundred percent if I wanna go online. I'm not opposed to it. Um, you have some familiarity, some, you know, sense of agree agreeableness to using technology, then by all means, start with just creating content, right? Cuz there's two ways that you're going to grow on social media, that you're gonna grow in your online business. It's either gonna be organic traffic or it's gonna be paid traffic.
Organic traffic, it's gonna come from wherever the eyes are. And that's gonna be something like social media, um, or whether you're creating content. You have a, you have a podcast, you have a blog, something like that. You're a writer. You have to be able to create something, you have to put something out there, provide value for people in exchange for their attention. Or you're just gonna run ads and try to get eyes that way and sell things online.
That is possible. That's a completely different model, and that's 100% not what I do. Um, I'm thinking like if I could bring someone on the podcast that does that. Obviously, I don't know people like that directly, mainly because that's not my business model and we attract what we are. We're kind of talking to those kinds of people and so everyone I know is, is a content creator, uses content marketing. But I know Jill is in a mastermind that she has people that they literally just, their whole business is done through ads.
And so maybe I will, uh, bring someone on with that. Um, Claire Pelletreau is largely that paid traffic route. That's her whole podcast is about that, you know. Love that woman. Definitely check that podcast out. Courtney, if you wanna link that, that'd be amazing. Um, I've been on her podcast meeting once or twice.
Um, she's, she's great. Um, so yeah, if you could link Claire's podcast, um, and if you could link the episode or episodes that we've done with her on this podcast then that would be amazing. Thank you, Courtney. Uh, so back to what I was saying, if you were like, yeah, maybe I'm not super opposed to it, then I think that your best bet is to just create some content, kind of create it as it makes sense for you.
Understand that you're not gonna like blow up and just like, build a business by accident if you're posting once every and ever and super, you know, sporadically. I did build a business, um, unintentionally, but I was posting very consistently. So I showed up in social media and I wasn't trying to build a business, but I was very much trying to connect with people and have a presence.
That was very intentional. And from that, the business came about cuz I was providing value and then people started saying, Hey, can you provide some more value in exchange for my monies? And I was like, I guess so I guess I can do that. So if you're thinking maybe it's not off the table, it's not, you know, it's, it's not out of the realm of possibility, then go ahead, create some stuff as you can.
I think there's value in getting the reps, kind of finding your voice, just getting some spirit, some experience in content creation of any kind. Um, you like, again, you probably will not explode and just start some massive business by accident, but I think that intermittently flexing the creativity muscle is never a bad thing.
So the two questions I want you to ask yourself, if you're wondering, should I start an online business is: number one, what do I not like about my current situation? And then number two, what do I like? What do I want to be doing?
Two resources that I got for you and then we're gonna wrap this up. Um, first resource is episode 452 from this podcast. Um, that went out like, I dunno, last week, two weeks ago.
And the title, that is Four Unexpected Issues that You Will Encounter as an Entrepreneur. Um, I really look to kind of pull back the curtain on entrepreneurialism and, or is it, is there, is there an eism in there? Is entrepreneurialism? Either way we're going with it. Um, enterpreneurism? I dunno. Either way, uh, look to pull back the curtain on being an entrepreneur and the things that you're actually gonna face and the time management and working for yourself and working by yourself.
Um, so something to consider if you're thinking about starting your starting a business. And then second one is my FT3 workbook. I've pitched it in other podcast episodes. Um, it is a workbook that I created to help people niche down. You want better answers, ask better questions, and oftentimes more questions.
Uh, and it is a workbook full of questions designed to help you identify what you're currently doing, what you're currently good at, the current skills that you have, the clients that you're currently getting, and then also, the direction that you might wanna take things, and if you can marry those two and what we should look to start out with in terms of a niche.
Because the space is crowded and the way that you're gonna cut through the noise is by being specific and repetitive. All that will be in the show notes, uh, that's gonna be below on YouTube, it's gonna be below on whatever podcast player, but if you wanna head to the actual show notes page, where the transcript is, and all those goodies cuz we put so much work into these episodes, that's gonna be, uh, located at themovementmaestro.com/455, the number 455
Uh, and that's it. I'm looking at a time, this is a good one.
Uh, as always, I am never here to tell you what to do. I'm here to provide soft suggestions and present some questions that you can answer and that may be able to hopefully point you in the right direction. That's it. That's all I got for you. As always, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you.
You don't have to listen and you do, and it's really fucking cool to me, like I'm not gonna lie. It is really cool and I meet people. I was in person, I told you this past weekend and people were like, I listen to the podcast, and they know things about me because of the podcast. And that's awesome. I, I really, truly, truly appreciate your time and your attention.
Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
Watch this episode on YouTube!
Check out Raise the Bar: @raisethebarevent
Follow Nick Lambe: @theonlinesleepcoach
Follow Derek Mendoza: @findyourprime
Listen to the Get Paid Podcast with Claire Pelletreau
MOTM #106: Everything You Need To Know About Facebook And Instagram Ads With Claire Pelletreau
MOTM #452: 4 Unexpected Issues You Will Encounter as an Entrepreneur
The FT3 Workbook
Catch me on the socials: Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | TikTok | Facebook