Top 3 ways to make money during COVID-19…

What’s up NewGen family! Man I don’t even know where to start, this whole entire year has just been crazy beyond comprehension. In my personal opinion biblical. Rumors of wars, the passing of Kobe Bryant (Rest in peace), COVID-19, and now a damn race war… Man I think it’s safe to say we need the remote from Adam Sandler and click to 2021! Never the less, today we’re here to talk about the top 3 ways to create income right now during this pandemic. Since millions on millions of people have lost their jobs and now collecting unemployment, making money right now is definitely more challenging now more than ever. With that being said let’s go ahead and dive right into today’s blog topic.

 

E-commerce/Dropshipping:

Now I’m starting off with this one is because we are in a time now where the shift is happening. Two years ago along my journey of learning dropshipping and going through the phases of creating, failing and doing over again, one thing that kept me going is that I knew that major department stores are going out of business and its due to people are shopping online. Stores like Toys R us, JC Penny, Sears, etc… are seeing their revelation of their companies, that was two years ago. Now, 2020 with the pandemic has pretty much headshot all of these businesses and many more. With majority of the world still under quarantine, everyone is on the internet now more than ever. More people on the internet means more online shopping.

Between 2020 to 2025, E-com/Dropshipping will dominate because, department stores are dying (or at least on life support). So what are the steps of building my first E-com/dropshipping store? Well it’s simple:

• Find a product
• Create an online store around the product
•  Create/run ads to your store
•  Start generating sales

Now of course there’s WAY more that goes into it, but this is just the basis of it. I personally recommend using Shopify when you’re creating your store, because it’s beginner friendly and they give you different tips and tricks to create and achieve your first successful E-commerce website. Right now they’re having a 14-day free so I highly recommend hoping on this opportunity especially at it’s beginning stages. Click here to get started! For more info on E-commerce/dropshipping check out my post, “Key tips you need to know when starting a Shopify store…” for more in-depth explanation.

 

Social Media Marketing Agency:

Now this is for the people who don’t necessarily want to deal with the responsibilities of running an E-commerce brand/dropshipping branded store. A lot of these physical businesses such as restaurants, dental offices, etc… the owners of those businesses for the most part are leaving a huge chunk of money on the table simply because they don’t know how to take advantage of the internet (Or in all honesty are just too f***king lazy to learn) that’s where you come in!

So what exactly do you do to get started? Well first learn how to market. My personal advice, take 2-3 weeks aside and actually learn Facebook ads/Google AdWords because that is the most crucial part of being able to do this. What exactly will you be doing? As a social media marketer, you’ll be creating/taking over the client’s social medias for their business and you will be running ads and you’ll be bringing traffic (potential customers) towards their business which will put more money in their pockets.

The more clients you take on and provide good results, the more money you’ll make. Now how do you get paid from doing this and do you have to use your own money? In the beginning you want to provide value ( a test run) to your client and show them that you’re worth the extra investment. You know when you’re in the mall and you walk past the food court and you got the people handing out free samples of their food. Well it’s the same concept. Give them a taste and if they like, you can write up a contract and they’ll give you a budget to utilize to grow their business. You can easily make an extra $1,500-$3,000 a month per client. Imagine having 4-5 clients paying you $1,500 a month, you do the math. For more info about SMMA check out this video by Kevin David for a more in-depth overview.

 

Print on Demand:

Now this is a unique take on making money online because, this isn’t talked about too much.  For all of my creatives out there this opportunity and the time we’re in right now is GOLDEN! Especially with COVID-19 most shipping times for online businesses are extremely pushed back and may be a good minute before they go back to normal. So what exactly is P.O.D ? It’s pretty much similar to dropshipping, but instead of already made products, you’re creating the designs. That’s right, YOU!

Clothing, accessories, phone cases, necklaces, etc… you’ll be creating the designs via photoshop. Afterwards, the fulfillment center manufactures it and sends it to your customers. Fun fact, my clothing line (01 Vision) started off as an P.O.D but will very soon become an actual clothing retailer. So what’s a good P.O.D company to go through? Me personally I use Printful. Very reliable, tons of different items to customize, fast shipping, great customer service, been using them now for 2+ years now.

Now how would you market this? I actually recommend using Instagram influencers, but of course do a lot of research on Instagram influencers before reaching out to them and utilizing their platform. They’re essentially cheaper then using Facebook ads if done right. $100 on the right IG influencer can bring in mad weight and build data so when you start using Facebook ads, you already have a head start.

 

In conclusion…

We are only 6 months into 2020 and as you can see a lot can happen in a mere 6 months. This pandemic will either do two things to you and that’s either make you more lazier than you already were or bring out that inner hustler in you. With all the bars, malls, clubs, etc… closed, you literally have nothing but time to invest in yourself and be a better version of yourself by the time this pandemic passes. Getcha ass up and get at it, no excuses! Y’all stay safe out here, especially if you’re protesting in the streets. Much love! New blogs coming this week.

Pros and cons of being your own boss…

Hey Newgen family! I know it’s been a while since I’ve last been on here. About two weeks to be exact. I’ve been taking care of a lot of business in terms of getting additional income streams together (which I’ll be discussing here soon), I’ve created my first free course for beginner affiliate marketers and I’ve been planning future moves for this blog. With that being said I want to come back with a bang and give you some highlights of being your own boss and of course the down sides as well. So without further adue lets get this started.

So if you’re reading this, you’re probably either already financially independent or getting ready to be in that spot. Some of you might relate to this, for others this will be a simple warning and overview of what’s to come when you’ve reached this level. The great level of finally leaving your 9 to 5 and being your own boss, taking control of your own life.

 

Pros 

Now of course being your own boss is its own pro already, but here’s a couple of pros that we can list off that you’ll experience…

• You no longer need government support
• You no longer trade time for money
• You have more free time
• You can set your own hours
• You can travel a lot more
• You’ll be more available for friends and family
• You have streams of income generating no matter what you’re doing
• You can work anywhere in the world
• You have your power

Now these are just a few pros, but truth be told there’s really a lot more pros that you’ll experience besides the ones listed. When you become your own boss you take the power out of a supervisor’s hands and you control how your money is being made, where you can make your money at and whenever you’d like to make it. Starting your own business (specifically anything online) can give you the freedom that truth be told most of society desperately wants.

Most Americans only have one active source of income and one thing about active income is that you trade time for money. You work a set amount of hours a week and you get paid. Once you clock out, your money stops. With that being said, 97% of Americans aren’t satisfied or even happy with their jobs/what they’re doing.  Being your own boss frees you from any chains that the corporate world made put on you. One thing I was always told when I was younger is that, “do something you don’t have to take a vacation from”. Being your own boss and starting a business around the things you love to do can give you that opportunity to do that. Imagine, you’re out spending time with your family at a beach resort while your bank account keeps on getting deposits over and over and over again. That’s true freedom in my opinion.

 

Cons 

Now with great power comes great responsibility. They’re definitely more pros than cons when becoming your own boss. However, the cons can’t be ignored because truth be told a lot of people can’t handle the responsibility of taking control of their own life and boss up by themselves. So here are a few cons you will either face or more than likely face if you’re not careful…

• Everybody will have their handout
• Your business could go under
• Somebody could hack you and take your money
• You could get sued
• You could get too comfortable
• You could lose it all
• The 9-5 hustle will end so you’ll need to fill that activeness void
• You’re responsible for anything that goes wrong in your business (even if it’s not your fault)

Now most of these cons can be managed truth be told, but I’m a go over a few that you should really keep in mind and try to avoid. There’s a saying and it says, “A smart man learns from his mistakes, but a wise man learns from other people’s mistakes”. As you enter financial freedom you definitely don’t want to be the handout guy who gives money to all your friends and family who keep putting their hand out. You should be teaching people how to fish, not throwing the damn fishes to these people. If they’re not willing to learn & put in the work to get where they at, cut them off and move on.

During your journey you’re going to have to understand that life is 90% of what you can control and 10% of what you can’t control. That being said, expect some out the blue bullshit to happen to you. Your payment processor could hold your funds, a family member may have a medical emergency only you can pay for, somebody could hack your merchant account, a lot of shit you can’t control could happen to you. However, the reason why in a way, this is a pro because it teaches you how to think outside the box and have bounce back skills so when some whooptiy scoop happens to you, you can have some humor towards it.

Another reason why people won’t ever start their own business and get to a level you’re at now or about to be, is because they don’t want the pressure of… RESOPNSIBILITY! Dun dun dun… Seriously though, you must understand, if your VA doesn’t get orders out or totally f*cks up everything at the end of the day, you’re the face of your business/brand. It doesn’t matter if you weren’t even in the office, you’ll be taking the heat so you must understand that you have to be able to take this con and have thick skin to the madness and move on.

 

In conclusion… 

At the end of the day you should be pushing to become a free individual. A job means “Just Over Broke”. A job was only meant to get you through temporarily until you get to the next higher level of life. The problem is that most people get stuck at these jobs because they can’t see past a higher future for themselves and all that does is just keeps you down and poor. So, if you’re apart of 3% who said f*ck the bullshit and actually took control of their own life and has either won the battle or about to win, just know the biggest pro was taking that risk when no ones else would…

The Pros and Cons to shopify… Is it worth it?

Hey everyone! Today I’m stepping inside the e-com realm and giving you the pros and cons of utilizing the platform Shopify and is it worth it for you to start now. If you’re reading this is because, you’re heavliy thinking about joining the platform to create your own online business. You’re wanting to tap into the world of E-commerce and believe it’s a big ass world. Growing by the billions in terms of sales. Without further adue, let’s begin.

 

Pros

Shopify is trusted by over 325,000 entreprenuers (myself included) and is growing by the day. Here are some of the pros that you’ll enjoy when utilizing shopify:

• Cheap to get started ($30/monthly subscription)
• Beginner friendly
• The amount of control you have
• Thousands of apps that’ll help you run your business more effectively
• Staff accounts (when your business gets bigger and you need VAs)
• Small trainings the platform provides

Shopify gives you a chance to utiize the internet and gives you a platform to sell any product and recieve payment from it. Some of the most successful brands on shopify would be Kyliecosmetics, Fashionnova, MVMNT watches, and that’s just a few. These shops bring in millions of dollars a month. Now I know what you’re about to say, “Yeah but they have strong social presence.” Although that’s true, there’s thousands of other shopify brand stores bringing 6-7 figures a month. Besides, everyone starts at zero so don’t let that scare you.

Now these pros are important because, anybody just starting out in the online business world, you want to be able to set up everything without going through unecessary hills and hoops. Its as simple as setting up your store, importing your products and market traffic to your store. You also have massive control over your data information. Everything with who visited your store, people who added to their cart, abandoned carts, sales, and other key information you’ll need to keep track of your business results.

Best part about this, it’s only $29/month to get started. Now depending on the apps you download to your store (some of the apps aren’t free to use or have inside-app purchases) will determine your actual monthly price. Other than that, it’s super cheap to get started. To think all it takes now a days to start a 5-7 figure business, starts with less than $30. Man times have changed truth be told.

 

Cons

Now one thing we know about this world and everything in general, nothing is perfect. So with that being said here are some cons that’ll make you think about using this platform so you can double check to see if you really want to do this. So let’s go ahead and name some of these cons already:

• Low price = High saturation
• Limited theme customization
• You can’t actually use the store until you’ve payed for the monthly plan
• You’ll be spending hundreds/thousands on getting traffic
• Low profit margins

So two of these cons aren’t really a big deal. If you have a creative taste to you, having limited theme customization isn’t a problem. Also since the store is only $29 to get started, applying for the plan isn’t a deal bigger. You can still cancel however before your 14 free trial is up and you WON’T be charged. Now lets get into the other three cons that will probably 97% of people who won’t go for this.

High saturation is definitely a big problem when using this platform (specfically if you’re doing drop-shipping) because, people think all you need to do is pay for the subscription, set up everything & just wait for the customers to start coming in. Also some of these Shopify “gurus” on youtube give a false hope to most of these people wanting to make some extra money. Promising you, you’ll be making 6 figures your first month. Not saying it’s impossible because some have done it, but those people that find success in the first month 99% of them already had the marketing experience or had the resources already or both.

You’ll be also spending a lot of cheese on promoting your products on these social media platforms such as Facebook ads, Instagram ads/influencers, Youtube, Google ads, and many more. Now my best advice for people starting this platform is for one get good at using one social media platform at a time so you’re just not throwing money in the black hole. You’re also going to fail a few times as well so if you’re not okay with losing money in the beginning to learn I highly recommend STRONGLY do NOT do this.

Now with low profit margins, this will only be a issue when you’re scailing your store into higher numbers a day. For example you might have a product that cost about .29 cents to buy but selling it for $15-$20 dollars. You might be profiting big time right now, but when you start scailing your product, your ad cost will go up which will decrease the amount of profit you’ll be making. On top of hiring a few VAs to help you run your business, you’ll be paying them as well. You’ll also be spending money on creating content for your marketing. At the end of all of that you’ll probably be profiting 20-35% maybe 40%  of your actual sales. But I mean when you’re making $100,000+ a month you wouldn’t care about those margins to be honest.

 

So is starting Shopify worth it?

In my opinion, yes. Shopify gives you a very flexible platform to bring your dream business online and gives you a chance to start multiple streams of income and expand your variety when comes to monetizing your ideas. If you can deal with a slow start to a long lasting path then I highly recommend you start and take that chance. However, if you’re not willing to take the cons about this platform Irecommend your try a different business model, because truth be told you won’t last long in the world E-commerce. You could try affilate marketing, social media marketing, amything else, but Shopify wouldn’t be your best bet. Just being honest.

The method to use when you’re scaling your online business through Facebook ads…

So one of the fun parts of building your online business is to get to the part of scaling your business. What does scaling means? Well in short terms it just means to grow. Once you’ve started to get steady sales and you’re making great progress you’ll start investing more money to 5-10x your sales and your business. So today I’m going over how to scale your business utilizing Facebook ads for your business. Whether it be a E-com business/drop-shipping, affiliate marketing, etc… This will be very important to building longevity in your business.

 

Different scaling methods…

So I’m sure most of you that use Facebook ads are most likely taught how to scale vertically when it comes to increasing your sales and for a while that’s how I was taught, but as of recent I’ve learned why that’s not really an effective method of scaling your business. Now vertically scaling is when you increase the budget of your ad in order to get a bigger reach in the one audience you’re using. Now for people who have a big budget upfront and don’t mind loosing money and not gaining much of anything at the end, this can be for you and for some it has worked, but let me explain why it doesn’t work as effectively anymore.

So for example let’s say you’re spending $100 dollars a day and in return lets say you’re making $400-$500 a day from which will leave you $300-$400 profit left over off 1 adset. Now you want to scale because you have a winning adset and you’re making a lot of money, so you increase the budget to $1,000 dollars a day. What would normally happen is that you would either break even or make a little bit under $1,000 dollars in sales and now you’ve tired your audience out. If you just increase the budget in one adset you’ll just end up hitting a wall in your scaling and you’ll go from making money to either breaking even or losing money.

Now there’s another method of scaling called the horizontal method. What is the horizontal scaling method? Well instead of just increasing the budget on your winning adset, you’d just be duplicating the winning adset 10 or more times WITHOUT increasing the budget. So for example, instead of spending $1,000 dollars on one adset and hoping for the best, you would duplicate the adset 10 or more times. So you would be spending $100 each on every adset you duplicate off the winner. Each adset your spending $100 you’re getting back $500 back so that leaves you with $400 profit. $400 times 10 equals $4,000 dollars. So instead of spending $1,000 dollars on one adset and only breaking even or not even making the money back at all, you’d still be spending $1,000 but spread out with 10 duplicate adsets and make back $4,000, which leaves you with a $3,000 profit a day.

Warning, this method although produces faster results and gives your more bang for your buck, this method can become complicating and out of hand very VERY quickly. In fact, Facebook doesn’t even recommend that you use this method as this isn’t Facebook friendly with their algorithm. What makes this complicated is that you’re spreading out instead of going up. So in order to have 10-12 winning adsets, you’d have to create 40-50 adsets just to find the ones that work and don’t. Also this method isn’t really beginner friendly just because you’re losing money in the beginning to do this method and most people aren’t willing to lose a few hundred or even thousand upfront. However, the return can be massive if you execute this method correctly. You could spend $2,500-$3,000 upfront but can make back $40,000-$60,000 off 1 winning adset. Now imagine making that same amount for 10-20 different winning adsets, crazy as shit, but very possible.

Now there’s a lot more that goes into this method scaling, but today I’m just giving you an overall view of horizontal scaling and why you should be utilizing this method when you’ve reached this point of your business, but only use this method when you’ve got to that point. This method won’t work if your product or service is shit. If the product is shit already, it’ll be shit when it’s being scaled so make sure that you’ve already found and established product or service that can be scaled to a higher level. This blog post will be a little shorter today, but I’ll be going over more detail about horizontal scale in future blog post so stay tuned!

 

 

Top 4 reasons why starting a online business beats starting a brick and mortar business…

So recently I seen a statistic about the fail rate of small online businesses and the stat was compaired to the fail rate of starting a brick and mortar business and even though both the numbers are high, the argument was that you’d be better off going to a business school and learning how to start a corperation or brick and mortar business than to utilize the internet and starting a online business. Although I disagree with the statistic I’d like to point out why I don’t agree and give 4 plausable reasons why starting a online business would be a safer bet than starting a business the traditional route. Check out the statisitc by Forbes before reading if you’d like to! Let’s begin.

 

 1. The internet is the new wave

As social media and the power of the internet continues to grow and become more mature, we have the power to guide people’s attention to stores, offers, products, etc… All from the comfort of our home. With the internet and the endless amount of possiblities that it provides us, we cut out most of the tradtional ways of learning and can learn straight from the horses mouth about any skill we want to learn about. No degree is required to start an online business, so you’re not wasting four years of time learning information that hasn’t updated from a professor that hasn’t practiced what they’ve taught.

Now yes, 80% of new businesses(brick and mortar) fail within the first 5 years so when you compare the stats together you would think that brick and mortar businesses would be a better and safer bet to go into, but you have to think about some outside factors that most businesses classes or colleges won’t teach you. How would you start a brick and mortar business? Well first you would have to take some business classes in order to know the ends and outs of why they’re created. When I took some I realized a few things, there’s way too many factors of starting one like for instance:

• Are you starting it by yourself or partnering with people
• What’s the business plan/blueprint you’re going to be using
• Business loans
• Picking buildings
• Hiring employees
• Legal list(contracts, lawyers, etc)

There’s a shit load of factors you have to consider before even starting a business the traditional way, can it be done? Absolutely, but it will take longer while for it to actually come to life and that’s why not many people will do it.

 

2. Smaller risk

Now to go ahead a debunk that statisitc a bit further, the reason why small online businesses are being created at a higher rate and why traditional businesses aren’t being created as much is pretty much one thing… Risk. The average cost to start a business back in the day was around $150,000-$300,000 and thats before even turning a profit. In this day and age with platfroms such as Shopify, Woocommerce, and Amazon you can literally start a online business for less than $30 dollars. So obviously more people are going to start online businesses even if most people who start one don’t even take it seriously( just for shits and giggles).

Now let me ask you a question. Which loss would you rather take? Losing a few hundred to thousand dollars on a small online business or losing 4 years of time, hundreds of thousands that’ll you’ll have to pay the bank back, risk messing up your credit and putting yourself in debt? Me personally I wouldn’t mind losing a few hundred compare to what you could lose if your business fails on that scale. Remember, it’s not the smartest people who make it in this world, it’s the people who can adapt to change. So when these businesses schools and classes aren’t updating their methods on how to create a business for this day and age you’ll literally be setting yourself up for failure and on a greater scale.

 

3. Location neutral

Now one thing that puts online businesses on top of the hill is that where ever there is internet connection you can work. So that means at home, traveling, hotels, beaches, etc… Where ever you go your business goes. In this day and age we are always on the move and there’s nothing more restricting than having a source of income that you can’t take with you. You would have to prioritize your trips and outings accordingly so when you do leave you can have an idea on how your business is doing. Now you could just hire someone to look over your stuff, but me personally it would be more setteling to have full control of my business anywhere I go wether I’m on a vacation or not. I believe having a online business gives you the freedom to set your own hours and set a schedule that can work with your lifestyle and with a brick and mortar business you’d actually be putting 40 more hours than normal employees that work normal 40 hours a week.

 

4. You can create muliple businesses in a short amount of time

Now this is a factor that actaully brings my point home. One thing about starting online businesses is that once 1 business goes up and starts generating you great amounts of money, you now have the skill to start another 1 and another 1. Remember the average millionaire has 7 streams of income. With brick and mortar businesses, more people rely on that 1 business to take off and rely on that one source of income. Nothing too bad about that, but as we look at dying brick and mortar businesses/department stores such as Sears, Toys-R-Us, etc… Yeah they made millions, but it’s not about how much you make it’s about how much you can keep. They’ve lost millions and closed hundreds of stores all because times have changed and E-com giants such as Amazon and Shopify have blown the competition out the water.

So even if you had 7 online businesses and 4 failed, you’d still have 3 to fall back on and you have the knowledge, skills, and capital to create more streams and that’ll put you ahead of most business grads who went to school that learned a whole dated way of doing something instead of adapting to the change which is the internet. So in conclusion with these points, don’t let that statisitc scare you because at first glance with those numbers it would seem to be safer to start a business the traditional way, but when you factor in all of the risk, cost, restrictions, and the drawbacks of starting a business that way, you see that starting a business with the internet in this new age will cut 85-90% of that headache and have a quicker return on investment, creating your financial freedom.