Welcome to Online Business Q&A with Stefan and Tatiana!
My girlfriend and I wanted to take some time to answer questions that you have with regards to starting an online business.
Tatiana is living proof that you can start an online business and achieve massive success. Follow her on YouTube. She has products that women will love.
Are you ready to build a 7-figure online business? If I did it, so can you.
My course, Affiliate Marketing Mastery, is a step-by-step, video training program that teaches you proven methods for how you can build a brand and make money online with affiliate marketing.
Watch the video below:
(Click here to watch on YouTube)
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Are you ready to learn how to build a 7-figure online brand? CLICK HERE to get started with my Affiliate Marketing Mastery course!
Below are our answers to some of your burning questions:
What is the first step to setting up a successful ecommerce business?
There are two different approaches with these business models. Anybody can launch a product on Amazon. That is the easy part.
The hard part is being able to market and sell that product.
The approach that I took before I even sold anything online was building my brand, ProjectLifeMastery.
You need to identify what niche or market that you want to build your business in, and then set up the branding for that business.
Once you’ve attracted an audience and you are getting traffic, then you can start to monetize with ecommerce.
The better path to take is building a brand first. Once you do so, you can figure out what your audience wants, and then selling your product will be easy.
By building a brand, you can sell your products on different platforms. People resonate with a brand, and they end up buying products from people that they like.
The great thing about social media is that you can interact with people all over the world.
Building trust and relationships with people amplifies the success that you can obtain in a short period of time.
Can you define Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting someone else’s product or service.
You can join an affiliate program with any product.
For example, Amazon has an affiliate program called, Amazon Associates, where Amazon will pay you a commission for promoting their products.
Amazon will give you an affiliate link, and when people click on that link and buy a product from them, you will receive a commission.
There are so many affiliate networks. Most products have affiliate programs that you can join.
It’s a great way to make money because you don’t have to create the product and everything that is associated with selling the product online.
You simply send traffic to a certain product through your affiliate link.
Affiliate Marketing is a win for everybody.
The company gets a customer, you get to share a quality product that is going to help people, and the customer benefits from a great product that helps them in some way.
What is your experience as a new affiliate marketer?
Affiliate marketing is low-cost, whereas setting up an Amazon business is not. A lot of people find Amazon FBA challenging if they are looking to make money right away.
It takes about a year to profit from the business. It requires commitment. You’ve got to build it to an asset, so that you can then take a cash flow from it in order to pay yourself.
With affiliate marketing, there is no cost involved, except for setting up your blog, website and email list.
Everything is pure profit in terms of commissions.
With any physical product there will be costs. Keep in mind that you don’t have to sell your own physical product on Amazon; you can be an affiliate for someone else’s product on Amazon.
If I don’t have a strong social media following, what is the best way to approach affiliate marketing?
Nobody starts with a strong social media presence. You need to build it up over time.
Create content, build a following, get traffic, optimize, and then start doing affiliate marketing.
There are certain strategies that can help you accelerate your online brand and social media presence.
Social media platforms like, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram are free.
There is always some investment of time and money that you need to make in any business. Invest in your business and grow it so that you can eventually make money.
Do you have to do YouTube to be a successful affiliate marketer?
You don’t have to do YouTube. It is one platform amongst many. The most important thing is that you are getting traffic; it doesn’t matter where you get it.
YouTube is great because it’s live. There is more engagement because people can see you. However, writing articles is great too. You could also do a podcast on iTunes.
In my AMM course, I teach about all the different social media platforms. Why not utilize all of them?
Don’t build a business that only depends on one platform. Ultimately, you want to build your own website, blog, and email list.
This will allow you to remain on top, regardless of changes that occur online.
Which is better, Shopify or Amazon FBA?
You can sell ecommerce on both sites, but on Shopify, you have to drive your own traffic.
With Amazon, you can tap into millions of fans and subscribers. Amazon is the #1 retailer in the world. I think that Amazon is a better way to start if you have a new product.
It is more challenging to get sales using Shopify. However, make sure that you diversify over time, and use multiple selling platforms.
How would you market an online business that sells courses?
Using the different platforms that are available – blogging, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Periscope, etc.
They all have different strategies that you can utilize in order to attract people, via Facebook ads, creating content and publishing it on Instagram, SEO-optimizing a blog, etc.
What are the benefits of having a virtual assistant versus a face-to-face personal assistant? Which do you prefer?
I have both, but the benefits of virtual assistants are that you can hire people inexpensively.
One of the great things about running an online business is that you can automate things inexpensively.
There may be limited talent in the city that you live in. Whereas, when you hire virtually, there may be more options available to you.
Virtual assistants have changed my business. They have allowed me to scale and automate it. My business would not be where it is today without them.
You need to work smarter, get help, and move away from repetitive tasks because your time is worth more.
You need to work on your business, not in it.
Would you suggest that I focus on one business or build multiple businesses and spend less time on each one?
Focus on one business. Building multiple businesses is hard. A lot of people think that Kindle, Amazon, blogging and YouTube are all separate businesses, but they are not.
They all complement each other. Go at it from different angels and grow one business so that it becomes profitable over the long-term.
How do you approach selling on Facebook?
Facebook rewards people for frequency and consistency. The more frequent you are, the more that they will give you reach and rank you a lot better.
Keep in mind that, with Facebook, you have limited reach because they want you to buy Facebook ads.
Should I focus my blog on one topic, or should I use multiple topics?
If you are selling a product, find your niche, and stick with that. Don’t talk about different things that don’t focus on your niche.
Add value to your customers related to the category that you are selling. When you have different products, it can get confusing for people.
What would you say to someone that has struggled to make progress and feels down about it?
You need to realize that you aren’t down about the progress, but rather, you are down about not meeting a certain expectation that you set for yourself.
So many people are attached to the result, instead of focusing on the process. There is a learning curve to anything.
The initial stages are going to be challenging. This is where a lot of people give up.
You need to realise that you are making progress, but maybe you aren’t acknowledging your progress. If you master the process, you will get the result.
It’s important to make sure that you master your emotions; your reaction is so important.
Nothing has a meaning except the meaning that you give it. Oftentimes failures are blessings in disguise.
How many e-books should I create to make $10,000/month of passive income?
It’s not about how many books you write. Rather, what matters is how you are marketing the product.
One book can make you $10,000/month. Always try to find a way to increase the amount of money that you make from a minimum amount of investment.
Increase the value of one book. Create a paperback, an audiobook, build an email list, etc. Make one product that will stand the test of time.
Why should I promote my website on Facebook if I don’t have followers?
Get traffic first. Focus on attraction before promotion. Once you add value to people, then you can promote your website or blog.
I hope our online business Q&A has helped shed some light on how to get started building an online business.
Financial freedom is yours for the taking! Work hard, commit, be consistent, and never give up on your passion.
If it's both terrifying and amazing, than you should definitely pursue it.