Building a Long Term, Profitable & Sustainable Business Online Within Your Expertise
Many of us have the tendency to get distracted by the next shinny object that crosses our path. I know I do.
Many entrepreneurs (current and aspiring) share this common challenge, the challenge of being scatter brained at times. Our minds move at warp speed and sometimes there are hundreds and thousands of business ideas that cross it.
But what I want to focus on today is getting back to the basics. This post is focused on building a long term, profitable and sustainable business online within the expertise that we already posses.
This is interesting because many times we chase everything else except what we already have parked right in our backyard the whole time, and when we realize it, we kick ourselves for not having identified it earlier. Paulo Coelho’s Alchemist really drives this point home (highly recommended read).
What Do Your Constituents Truly Want?
For a business to be successful, it has to offer value to its constituents. What do people really want to pay for? They want to pay for quality, they want to pay for subject matter expertise, they want to pay for the best product or service of its kind that they can get.
As it relates to the online space, evolution in search engines is also favoring large, authoritative websites. And if you look deep within and honestly self evaluate, it is likely that you too believe that the best value you can provide the world is value derived from your own experience and subject matter expertise. I know I do.
Whereas in the past we may have chased the money (which is also important), it is time we contemplate how to create value in our area of expertise.
All signs seem to point to one thing: Build a long term and sustainable business around your subject matter expertise.
I really feel strong about this subject, and recently have started to feel even stronger after having some of my sites penalized by search engine algorithm changes. Have a read at my article on ProBlogger where I have openly expressed my thoughts on an expertise driven business.
Is Life Easier or More Difficult With an Authority Website?
The answer really depends on how you look at it. I can argue that it can be easier because you just have one business to focus on and therefore you are likely to be more calm.
On the other hand, it can also be more difficult depending on your niche niche. If your expertise is in a highly competitive niche, it may take a long time, a lot of effort and patience to see any results.
If your single business doesn’t pan out, you have nothing else to fall back on except valuable experience and lessons that you will hopefully apply to your next venture. When you have multiple businesses, you are diversified in some way from a particular business not panning out the way you hoped.
When you have a single business to focus on, all your time, attention and energy is focused only on that business, improving and expediting its chance to succeed. When you have many, you are spread thin.
When you are developing a business around a subject matter you know very well, it takes less effort to produce very targeted and high quality content. When you are pursuing a business purely based on keyword research or the need in the market place, you may have to put in some additional time, effort and resources creating the type of content that your target market would happily pay for and benefit from.
Similarly, there are several other variables that play into this discussion and both sides can certainly be argued very well. But here is how I am looking at it….
Maintain Sanity, Peace of Mind, Focus & Succeed
Most people work for a paycheck. There are more employees than there are entrepreneurs. Most wealth is still made in Corporate America (I will prove this to you factually / statistically in a future post).
With that said, you may already be content in your career. You don’t have to love your work, but as long as you don’t hate it you can enjoy a lucrative career in Corporate America as well. Having been exposed to that side of the fence, I know that many successful professionals just want that extra stream of income for that luxury car payment, that extra vacation home or an expensive hobby.
Some want the option to potentially quit and retire early, while others want the option to scale back and enjoy more autonomy. Then you have those that are looking to start a business to reduce their effective tax rate to get ahead financially.
With a successful career that takes up most of their time, most these individuals simply don’t have the bandwidth to play around with multiple business ideas simultaneously all at the same time. One of the most common questions I get from readers is how I am able to manage so many initiatives. Many readers simply cannot imagine themselves in my shoes because they have full time jobs.
The good news is that you don’t have to. For these individuals who may include you as well, who also happen to be the main readers of this blog, you simply cannot split your limited time across various initiatives and expect to succeed and remain calm at all times, at least when you are first starting out.
Don’t lose sight of your priorities. Why is it that you work so hard to begin with? Each of us has obligations and things we like to do outside of “work” such as spending time with our family and friends. Keep that in mind as you decide whether you want to focus on a single business at a time or pursue multiple projects simultaneously.
Having presented this scenario, it seems apparent that establishing an authority site is a simpler approach to both moonlighting and life. It appears more manageable especially as life gets busy. With just one business to focus on, one that you know very well, you can work on your business one day at a time, one task at a time, fully focusing on the task on hand at any given time and still be able to produce a quality product or service.
With only one business to manage, you will be part of a smaller universe of targeted forum, blogs and networks where you want to be in and not spread yourself too thin. You will have a handful of URLs and email IDs in your marketing spreadsheet instead of a mammoth database. The same goes with other mediums such as social media accounts, article marketing directories, etc.
As you can imagine, this trickle effect carries onto many other aspects of both business and life.
You Can Establish Multiple Businesses Simultaneously
I recognize that the discussion above is much easier said than done for many entrepreneurs. If sticking to one project is not your cup of tea, understand that you can also succeed by dipping your feet in multiple ponds at the same time.
The trajectory and timeline of your success may look a bit different, but it is possible. I only recommend this approach for someone with enough time and experience under their belt. Otherwise, it is easy to feel overwhelmed, impatient and quit as a result.
A better way to approach it in my opinion is by picking a type or model of business that you can grow to a point where it is fairly self sustaining, allowing you to move on to your next venture. This is an approach I eventually adopted as I was building my portfolio of niche websites. This cannot be done for all types of business models and therefore has to be a conscious decision upfront if you know what your long term goals are.
Another consideration to take into account is leveraging the power of outsourcing to get things done in and for your business. Outsourcing is beneficial no matter what approach you take, but it is particularly more beneficial for someone who is trying to manage a full time career and multiple businesses on the side.
Many entrepreneurs shy away from outsourcing because of the added cost of doing business. However, if you look at what your true cost of outsourcing is after taking into account the income tax impact (at least for US Citizens), you will realize that the cost becomes a moot point in many cases.
I plan on dissecting this topic in detail in a future post, but for now this is how it boils down to in a nutshell:
If you are a successful professional and you have any bit of discretionary income (savings), outsourcing will likely benefit your bottom line because in most countries, income taxes are based on a progressive income scale. The more you make, the more you pay in taxes.
When you spend or invest in your business, you are allowed to deduct the expenditure as a business expense, therefore reducing your taxable income. When your taxable income is lower, a lower tax percentage bracket may apply to you. The percentage will also be applied on a smaller number due to your business deductions.
You will hear many entrepreneurs ask naysayers “would you rather invest that money in your business, or pay it in taxes?”
But more on this topic in a future post. This point is better demonstrated via an example equation.
Note that this is not professional legal or tax advice by any means. Always consult your professional.
Multiple Streams of Income Within a Single Income Property
One of the reasons many entrepreneurs pursue multiple businesses is because they want to establish multiple streams of income. I know I did and still do. But this doesn’t mean you cannot establish multiple streams of income within a single business.
In fact, when you already have a foundation, it is easier to feed off of that than to recreate the wheel. For example, when you are already getting hoards of traffic to your website, you can add another product offering and potentially increase your profits instantly.
I agree that it appears that you are less diversified when you have one successful online business as opposed to multiple websites, but you can create multiple streams of income within your business to mitigate the risk of one income stream drying up.
And because you put all your time, effort and resources into this single business, if your business takes off and does really well, then chances are that all your income streams within will become much larger than multiple endeavors may generate combined if you were to go that route. I know this is a hypothetical situation, but the comparison between the two routes you can take is very much realistic.
Another underlying and often underestimated factor is momentum. It is easier to build momentum in your business when you are focused on only one business at a time. When you have momentum, 1+1 starts to feel more than just 2. In other words, a little bit of incremental effort goes far longer than you may think.
Multiple Streams of Income for a Successful Professional
If everything we have discussed makes sense so far, here is potentially how your cash flow portfolio can look like as a successful professional with a side business:
- Income from employment (your career)
Note: You can live a very good life with only this stream of income. Many do.
- Income from your side business (example: one authority site) which may include several income streams within like:
- Your own products and services (i.e. ebook, audio book, review courses, consulting, etc)
- Mobile phone applications
- Affiliate commissions from promoting other relevant products and services
- Advertisements on your website
- Several other variations of the above
- Some other income streams outside of the internet marketing world which may include:
- Real estate investments
- Dividends from investments
- Profit sharing from investments
- Precious metals, fixed deposits, etc.
- Several alternative investment vehicles
I am not oblivious to reality and to the fact that not everyone earns a six figure income. I personally know families earning near the average household income who are able to establish some sort of a cash flow portfolio utilizing many of the same components you see above.
This is a big reason why I feel entrepreneurship and personal finance are very much interrelated. If you are not a student of personal finance, I encourage you to invest in your personal development as well.
But honestly, look at the sample cash flow portfolio above. Do you need more than that? You sure may want more, and that’s perfectly fine too. Just know that there is no hurry to get there, and that you can be fine with just income from your employment as well. This mind set will really help put you at ease and calm you down.
You are not racing against anyone. Your career is your bread and butter. Stop chasing shinny objects. Focus on your expertise and build a business around it slowly and steadily over time. Stick to it long enough and you will likely see some results.
And if you are a full time entrepreneur, the principles of this approach apply to you just as much – just take the job income out of the equation. You likely have a much better and faster chance of succeeding if you focus on one business and one business alone at a single time. Do everything you want and can for it until you can no longer do more or start to see diminishing returns before you move to your next project.
Going Back to the Basics and Building My Business
So how does this all apply to me? After toying around Ebay and an e-commerce business, when I first got started with an information based business model (informational websites), I used a program called SBI. You have likely read about this program in some of my previous posts.
One of the reasons I am a big advocate of this program is because in addition to just providing the website building and marketing tools, it teaches you how to build a solid, long term and sustainable business online based on your PASSION. This is what attracted me to it the most. Several years and websites later, I find myself having traveled full circle and land back to my roots.
If you have been following the blog for some time, you must have seen my post about establishing an authority site in a subject matter that I feel I am truly an “expert” in and where I can deliver maximum value to my readership. You can read more about this initiative on the Authority Site Duel Portal, where several other bloggers have also joined me in the journey as well.
Although I do own multiple other web properties, as I have written before, I don’t spend much time on any one of them. I also have Virtual Assistants who are helping me maintain those websites.
My new authority site is my primary focus at the moment and for the foreseeable future. If you are relatively new to the internet marketing world, I hope that this initiative will demonstrate that you don’t need multiple web properties to enjoy multiple streams of income. You can focus on one and make it the best of its kind and still enjoy similar success all while staying calm.
So no more getting distracted by shinny objects for the time being. Come join us in the duel if you haven’t yet. Don’t worry if you can’t find that passion or expertise. You will find it in the process. And if you don’t, you can always develop one. You will find your niche and there will be people who you resonate with who will gravitate to you.
If there is one thing I’ve learned it is that planned and sustained action taken over a long course does pay off. The key is to make progress and don’t let other factors overwhelm and paralyze you from moving forward. I hope this duel provides the push, encouragement, inspiration and support for those that need it.
And if you just want to follow each blogger’s progress and learn along the way, that’s fine too. I plan on discussing each part of the process in detail on this blog, including putting the website together from scratch.
If you are curious, no I am not using SBI for this project for three reasons.
- Many people feel SBI is expensive when they first look at it. I want readers to have the flexibility of replicating what I am doing by using tools of their choice, whether it is SBI or any another platform. If you want to read a cost study I did of SBI vs. building a site using WordPress or any other HTML program, you can read it here.
- Many readers may also already have tools such as a keyword research tool, hosting provider and an email marketing program, in which case those can be leveraged when building a new site. SBI provides those tools as part of its program.
- One of the biggest reasons of using SBI in my opinion is to learn the methodology of effectively doing business on the internet. If you already understand the concepts of niche or topic research and pre-selling, and that of the correlation between content, traffic, pre-selling and monetization, you may choose to skip those parts and jump straight into building your business.
But if you are new to all of this and don’t have the time or care to learn the technology part of doing business online, I highly encourage you to check out SBI. Either way, I am positive that this duel will give you plenty of take-aways to work with.
So I think we have finally come full circle here. This is a discussion I can keep going on about. I really didn’t think this post would ever end but here we are. If you are a scatter brained entrepreneur like me with lots of irons in the fire, hopefully I have made a compelling case in this post to focus on just one project at a time. I hope I have given you some things to think about.
What are your thoughts on this subject matter? Do you have any questions, concerns or reservations after reading my two cents on this topic? Do you plan to follow along the duel? Why or why not? Are there particular topics you’d like to see discussed in the duel?
I want to read what you have to say – please share your thoughts in the comments section below…
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30 Responses to “Building a Long Term, Profitable & Sustainable Business Online Within Your Expertise”
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Sunil
yeah distraction is a big problem for alot of aspiring internet entrpreneurs, they get so distracted with every new thing.
I use to have this problem but I just made my decision to focus on my affiliate marketing and mastering it focus is key
are you doing anything specific to achieve that Kenny? what has helped the most?
Sunil well george brown’s google sniper course has helped me tremendously and Russell Brunson’s dotcomsecretsx course
Kenny what would you say are the top two take aways from each that have helped you most?
Sunil
well from google sniper I really got learn how to setup a winning seo optimized, automated niche website with very little content to rank first page; this sets me up to create set it and forget it websites where I can earn money while sleeping.
and the dotcomosecretx I got to learn how to build a big solid list of buyers the fastet way ever and thats by doing solo ads. I realize thats why the “guru’s” have such big list because they are always getting leads through solo ads and they get it fast, so solo ads are the best way to build a huge list in a short period of time, or you can do Ad Swaps
I know solo ads require a hefty investment, perhaps it’s for someone who has more time than money, or someone who has made some money looking to reinvest in their business online. intrigued about the first one – will have a look
Hi sunil,
pls give me any survey sites that have liberty reserve as one of their payment processor.
Chidi your honest student plz.
I am not aware of any Chidi
Hey Sunil,
I enjoyed this post a lot. I am a big believer in multiple streams of income, as I have quite a few rental properties that pay most of my bills but now spend a lot of time building my real estate investing blog – as an additional source of income someday. I also am guilty of always wanting to chase the next shiny object, so it’s hard to resist the urge to constantly want to build another business of another great idea.
My wife tells me I need to finish one project (or at least get it stable) before moving on to the next. I think she might be right 🙂
Keep up the good posts Sunil! I’m enjoying your authority site duel!
thanks Brandon. I love rental real estate as well. I think your wife is right, as is mine 😉 I checked out your blog – do you publish/disclose income to your readership? I think it’d be of high value to your readership.
I’ve thought about it, a lot, – but I haven’t worked up the guts yet! Additionally, I’m no Multimillionaire yet, so some people might be turned off by my “lack of guruness”. I mean, sure I do this full time but I don’t make millions from it (yet). Thoughts?
I disagree. I think that is more of a reason to do it. readers are looking for ‘relate-ability’. your voice and experience is unique and you will definitely be able to carve your space within this niche
It is all boils down to discipline and dedication to stay focused on a particular business idea. I like SBI recommendation, but like many people, they feel they can save a lot if they do all the steps on their own way. Either way, I believe, like you mentioned in your “Make an Extra $1,000 per Month in Passive and Residual Income in Less than 180 Days!”, a new business online will take perhaps a year or more for income to become manifest.
many online businesses make money a lot faster than that. I normally say a year so that people don’t start becoming impatient and anxious. this also weeds out the curious from the serious. have a read at this – what you will see is that SBI is actually not more expensive than putting the pieces together for someone new:
This is my first business and believe me, you motivated me startng because of the simplicity, openness and transparency in your book.The biggest challenge Sunil is linking to websites. Getting quality links when my competitors have over 100000 inbound links seems an insurmountable challenge but I am keeping at it. In fact when I do analysis, after making some, some page analysis tools do not ‘see’ them. Thanks for the good job though.
you are right, it can be overwhelming, but the key is to get started. you too will accumulate those links slowly and steadily over time providing your content is “linkable”. don’t forget that your competitors started years earlier and have put in thousands of hours more than you have. you get what you put into it.
Hey Sunil,
I think I’ve also been guilty of what Brandon mentioned above, always getting distracted by the next good deal. How is the Challange going and which level are you guys now? I’m asking for me to know if i can still follow up with you.
Thanks for sharing friend.
most of us are in the preliminary stages as you can see in the portal. the focus currently has been content creation. feel free to join anytime Theodore.
Sunil I agree with you 100% as I feel into the trap of shinny objects.
Every you stated has hit home as the other day I decide to clean up shop and get organised. I decide to focus on one site and make sure it has everything that my target market is looking for and compiled a list of topics and ideas that they would be interested as well as asked them on fb what they want to see.
Once again that for the info and I look forward to joining the challenging and sharing what I know as well. It was a long article but I read it all lol.
Akil
thanks for investing your time in it Akil. all the best to you and looking forward to your site.
Its me again, I checked out your CPArequirementHQ.com site and pretty good. I was actually thinking about going for my CPA when I return back to NYC early next year.
I have been thinking about the same sort of site for the longest but didn’t do anything about it. I love finance, investments, and anything to do with trading securities as well as property investing.
So I think that is where I am with my niche. The only issue is I have yet to invest mainly due to cash flow issues, do you think it would make sense to create a site about that sort of market if I have yet to invest or I can create it from my experience as I know a lot of people are in the same boat as me when it comes to using cash to invest in finance markets.
This is sort of the reason why I created akilbrown.com which is to share my experience in internet marketing and what I have learned whether it works or did not work for me. To be honest, I guess I was kind of holding back because not everything worked out as planned or as these guru make it seem so maybe i can do it from that point of view.
What do you think Sunil?
I think you should go for it and shape it up along the way using feedback from your readership/target audience.
Massive (and awesome) post Sunil! I definitely prefer the method of building multiple businesses that can eventually be made passive so I can keep moving on. That way things stay fresh and interesting and I can kind of give into the entrepreneur’s curse 😉
Thomas
thanks Thomas. do you think you can succeed quicker that way? or is that not as important as the variety you are getting with multiple businesses? either is fine, as long as you know your priorities and the implications of each route which I am sure you do.
This post was near on perfect timing. I’ve been reading and listening to a lot of Dane Maxwell’s stuff recently and I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t made me contemplate giving his software strategy a go, and even given me the slightest inkling that maybe I’m going in the wrong direction how to make money online.
However, if I’m always chasing the very best business idea/strategy and never finish the one I’ve started I’ll find myself going nowhere very quickly.
Priority #1 – make a success of my authority site (or if it’s not a success I want to be able to say I put absolutely everything into it to make it succeed) then move on to the next money making asset. They’ll always be time to explore other business avenues, lets get proficient at one first.
right on Dan. all the best
Sunil,
How are you able to use CPA in your domain name I though that would be copyrighted or trademark for the CPA board. How can one find out as I am thinking along the same line?
good question. although CPA is also in the dictionary as a commonly used noun, unlike a trademarked brand name such as Sony or Toshiba (merriam-webster). that said, brands such as Google have made it in. writing out loud here, I am sure if the bodies wanted to they could pursue action. I’ll let it play out.
Focus…. that is one of the attributes most Internet marketers lack. I think it has to do with working from home – a place where all the distractions happen, and it is so easy to get distracted with the oh so loving kids craving for your attention, meals to be cooked, and chores to be completed. The best way to deal with this problem is to set a specific time for you to work, and remember that your internet business is a business, so treat it as such.
great point Donna – coffee shops nearby work well too. welcome to the blog