Have you ever considered starting any kind of business and are wondering if an online business is the right choice for you?

I get asked all the time why I chose to start an online business and got on this path to harnessing the power of the Internet to build an income and start growing my wealth.

Well today I decided I would share with you 4 reasons why I decided to take on this challenge in my life and hopefully it gives you a bit more clarity in your decision-making process.

REASON #1:

I Wouldn’t Have To Do Any Face-To-Face Selling Or Hire Any Employees

I have always been a very introverted and shy person.

People find this hard to believe, especially since I’m often asked to speak on stage in front of 100s of aspiring entrepreneurs and investors to share the business and marketing strategies that are working for me…

But it’s true! I still get very anxious when I’m in front of a big crowd and I especially don’t like dealing with or managing people.

When I was deciding to start a business my introverted self was very nervous about having to deal with selling to people face-to-face.

This is why I never entertained becoming a network marketer or doing Multi-Level Marketing stuff. These marketers always come across as “sales pests” to their friends and family, trying to convince them to buy stuff that often doesn’t even truly better their lives.

This just didn’t fit who I wanted to be or the lifestyle I was after.

I was also terrified of having to manage staff and employees. The

thought of being viewed as the greedy boss or having to fire someone was terrifying to me. I value you what people think of me and I wasn’t ready to take on that role.

But if I decided to start building an online business that sold digital products while leveraging automation tools, I could build a business that would be run by me and me alone without ever speaking to people face-to-face. 

Most of my sales right now come from helping people solve their

problems through digital offers they purchase online and are delivered to them instantly in a digital format (e.g. PDF or video lessons).

I also wouldn’t have to hire staff because these automation tools do most of the heavy lifting and I could easily run and manage these tools on my own. I therefore did not need in-store sales clerks like a storefront requires.

This is the magic of “low-touch” selling and is all part of the life of an ONLINE SOLOPRENEUR…the life I was truly after.

“As an online solopreneur you are an entrepreneur who works alone, running your Internet business single-handedly. You might have outsourced freelancer or contractors for hire, yet have full responsibility for the running of your Internet business.”

Is this what you are striving for in your business and life?

So I want you to realize that to get started on your path to your first $1 online, first $1,000 and ultimately earning 6-figures online, you do not need to spend money on hiring anyone, start reaching out to family and friends or even call people on the phone to try to convince them to buy products for or through you.

Instead you can get started from the comfort of your home and as you start to earn and grow your online business income THEN you can consider spending more money on outsourcing some of the tasks you may not enjoy doing or be the best at to take your income to the next level.

For example, I now leverage an outsourced phone sales team to help sell more advanced, more expensive offers for me. These offers range from $2,000 to $30,000, so email isn’t the most effective selling medium. This requires a more personal 1-on-1 touch with existing customers to close sales later on in the sales cycle.

This is called “high-touch” selling.

I hate the idea of getting on the phone and selling to people so I happily pay to outsource this but understand that I do not manage this team of sales staff myself. The company I use manages the team for me and they only get paid a small percentage of the sale price when they make a sale for me.

REASON #2:

Getting People Through My Online Doors Would Be Easier Than An Offline Business

Now imagine for a moment having just dropped $15,000 in renovation costs getting your new retail store ready for its grand opening…

You have secured a great spot on Main Street, a well-established shopping strip in the downtown core of your major city. This required you to sign on to a 12-month lease for this space at $3,000/month…a total commitment of $36,000 over the year.

To add to this, you have paid over $4,000 to product suppliers to pre-buy your inventory to fill up your store shelves with your first stock of merchandise.

You excitedly open your doors on a sunny, Saturday morning at 9:00 am.

But guess what?

Only 10-15 people walk through your doors, take a look at a few items and walk out. You end the day with zero sales.

You see with a new brick-and-mortar retail business it is not easy to get people through your doors and into your store. This is called FOOT TRAFFIC.

No one knows you or your store yet. You don’t have an established name in your market place or city. You haven’t established a presence in your community.

This was another major fear of mine when I evaluated what it would take to open a retail business.

However with a new online business getting traffic knocking on your virtual door is really easy. Marketing online has revolutionized the way new start-up businesses can get instant exposure.

This is called ONLINE TRAFFIC and the way you do this is with online paid advertising.

Posting paid ads online, like Facebook ads, is a very effective way to reach people that are interested in what you have to offer…and a way to reach them instantly.

Offline Advertising Sucks…Because You Have Very Little Control

Now you may be thinking you could do the same with your local storefront by just paying for print or radio ads. But there are hugely significant differences.

Let’s say your store sells high-end golf equipment.

But you really have very little control over who actually sees or hears and then engages with these offline ads.

You might also be thinking about doing mail-drops of flyers into people’s mailboxes in the local area, but I personally can’t think of anything more annoying than opening my mailbox to see promotional

material I didn’t ask for. Wouldn’t you agree?

This was all unappealing to me when I was deciding on what type of business to start.

Online Ads Rock…Because They Are So Darn Powerful!

On the other hand with online ads, like Facebook ads, you can target people based on a wide range of demographic and psychographic data as

well as their geography and behavior:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Language Spoke
• Education
• Relationship Status
• Education
• Workplace
• Employer
• Job titles
• Net Income level
• Generation
• Hobbies & Activities
• Interests
• And much more!

Think about that for a second?

You could laser target affluent men, aged 35-65, who work at insurance firms and like golf, the pro golfer Bubba Watson and the Callaway Golf Company on Facebook. You would then only pay for the segment of these men who choose to engage with (click on) your golf equipment ad.

You also have full control over where they are sent once they click on your ad. Your ad could direct them to your online business’ Callaway golf equipment page.

This level of targeting and control over your advertising drastically increases your conversion rate and the efficiency of your advertising dollars. This ultimately increases your return on investment and take-home profit.

You can’t do this with any other type of business.

REASON #3:

I Could Access The World

The Internet has seen immense growth the last decade with over 3 billion people, almost half the world’s population, now having Internet access. Of these 3 billion, 81% are from the developed world!

Facebook is one of the world’s largest social media platforms. As of the 4^th quarter of 2017, Facebook had 2.2 billion monthly active users from around the world.

Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social media platform operated by Facebook and as of September 2017 has 800 million registered users from around the world.

The video-sharing website YouTube is owned and operated by Google and, as of December 2016, is the 2^nd most visited website in the world with more than 15 billion visitors per month from around the world.

So what does this mean?

By leveraging the advertising features offered by these online social platforms, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads and YouTube Ads, your new online business can get in front of millions of people from all over the world in a matter of minutes.

Compare this to a brick-and-mortar retail store on a popular Downtown city street. With a storefront you can only get people who physically come to your store to buy.

With the Internet and the use of some automation tools, you can have people from all over the world engaging with your online business each and every day.

These people can enter your online sales system and buy from you no matter where you are physically located.

• They can visit your website or blog from the comfort of their own home.
• They can receive and read your emails even while on-the-go from their smart phone.
• And they can buy through your online payment processor with their credit cards no matter where they are in the world.

You can reach a much wider audience because now only the globe is your limit. Your business has no borders!

Even though I spend most of my time living in Toronto, Canada, my online business sells to people in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States.

REASON #4:

I Could Begin To Automate My Income

This is one of my favourite things about the Internet and the second most important reason I decided to start an online business…the ability to have it run without my constant input through the use of automation.

This allows me to carry out multiple business activities at the same time while I focus on the areas of my business that actually bring in money. High-value tasks such as posting more online ads to attract more people into my sales system.

Automating Your Business Exposure and Reach

Pay-per-click advertising or PPC ads are ads that you post online that direct people to your online business. You are only charged “per click” when a potential customer clicks on one of your ads and checks out what your business has to offer.

The ad platform will go out and find people that fit your criteria and place your ads in front of them.

This all happens without your further input. You can set your ads to run for 1 week or even 1 month.

This automates the process of driving new people to your online business.

Automating The Customer Relationship

It is getting harder and harder to make a sale these days with how much information there is out there. On average it is taking up to 8 touch points before someone makes the decision to buy from you.

This makes it difficult for offline and retail start-up businesses who receive foot traffic off the street to thrive because people are walking into these stores for the first time and do not know, like or trust the store brand yet.

They then have no way to communicate with these potential customers again after they walk out the store.

However, with an online business you can automate the way you communicate with potential and existing customers.

To date, email follow up is still the best way to do this and is where the power of an email autoresponder comes in.

With an email autoresponder you can capture the email addresses of potential customers and then have a series of prewritten emails sent out to them in a pre-defined order. Therefore email #1 would be sent out, followed by email #2, followed by email #3 and so on.

This series of emails could be as many emails as you wish…My email follow up spans over a year long!

This allows you to write a series of unlimited emails once and have them automatically sent out over and over again to each new person that you introduce to your online business via an online ad.

The beauty of this is that you can have the same emails being sent to 100, 1,000 or even 10,000 people at the exact same time without your involvement.

Automating Your Sales

You can then use an online shopping cart and payment processor to accept credit card payments online.

The customer can then be provided with access to the digital offer automatically.

By linking and directing people to these pages from your automated emails, an online business allows you to sell on autopilot.

Automating The Entire Sales Process

So with the right online tools you can…

1. capture new potential prospects contact information on your website,
2. build a relationship with these people via an automated series of email follow-up,
3. present the opportunity for them to buy from you and
4. accept and process their payments online

…all while you are sleeping!

This also let’s you enjoy doing things you love, like spending time with your family or going on vacation, while your business continues to run without you!

When you wake up or return from vacay, you can then analyze a variety of metrics and data that will help you optimize and improve your entire sale process.