Why Offering A Service Is The Best Way To Start An Online Business

It’s easy to get seduced into the online marketing stuff

With all the gurus selling you dreams of passive income and million dollar funnels.

Telling you how easy it is to make a ton of money.

And all you have to do is create a course, build a funnel and send some traffic to it and you’ll be rolling in cash.

Unfortunately it’s not that easy.

And while buying into the guru hype is one way to start an online business, it’s certainly not the best way.

When you’re just starting out, don’t worry about selling courses and ebooks and affiliate offers.

That stuff can come later.

Instead, the best way to get started online is by providing a service.

Yep, working 1-on-1 with clients.

I know it’s heresy to say in most parts of the “internet marketing” world…

But trading hours for dollars is the best way to start an online business.

Why start with a service offer instead of products?

  • It’s the most straightforward path to making money

  • Services are highly profitable from the start

  • Providing a service makes your future products better

It’s The Most Straightforward Path To Making Money

For most people, the hardest part about starting an online business is figuring out how to generate revenue.

What are you going to sell? Ebooks? Affiliate offers? Video courses? Workshops? A membership site?

How are you going to sell it? A sales funnel? Paid ads? Email marketing?

Now how many products do you need? And how do you even make a product!?!?

There’s a million things to consider when you’re trying to figure out your online business model.

Providing a service cuts through all that noise though – it’s the simplest, most straightforward way to make money.

You have a skill that solves a problem.

I have a problem that requires your skill.

You use your skill to help me with my problem in exchange for money.

It’s that simple.

So if you’re an accountant…

People need their taxes done. You do their taxes in exchange for a fee.

Or if you’re a website designer…

People need websites and they don’t know how to build them. You build them sites in exchange for money.

Or if you’re a personal trainer…

People need help losing weight. You help them lose weight in exchange for an hourly session rate.

At the end of the day, it boils down to…

You know how to do something people need help with.

They can’t, or won’t, do it themselves… so you offer to do it for them in exchange for some money.

Providing a service is the simplest, most straightforward path to making money online.

Services Are Highly Profitable From The Start

When most people set out to start an online business, they’re usually looking to leverage the “hands-off” stuff.

They want to sell products, courses and affiliate offers – stuff where they don’t have to “work” all the time to make money.

And that’s fine – those things provide amazing leverage that let you increase your income while working fewer hours.

But when you’re first starting out, it’s hard to generate enough money to live on with those offers.

How many $20 ebooks do you have to sell to pay your rent?

How many $30 affiliate commissions do you need to live the lifestyle you want?

The answer is… a whole lot. And then you need to do it every single month to survive.

Service offers though, are highly profitable right out of the gates.

Because when you provide a service for a client, the price point is much higher.

Which means you make a lot more money.

For example…

For a copywriter to make $6,000 a month, selling a $50 ebook… they have to sell 120 copies every month.

Or they could just get 4 clients to pay them $1,500 a month to write their sales copy – which is a lot easier.

It takes time to build up a business to the point where you can make a full-time living selling ebooks and courses.

But by providing a service, you can generate a lot of revenue, right from the start.

Then you can use some of that revenue to start building out your product offers.

Which brings me to the next point…

Providing A Service Makes Your Future Products Better

If you’re just starting out, I’ll let you in on a little secret…

Whatever idea for a product you have – both the idea, and the product, probably aren’t very good.

What do I mean by that?

I mean, how can your fat loss challenge help people shed body fat if you’ve never worked with fat loss clients before?

How can your ebook on email copywriting help people write better emails if you haven’t written thousands of emails for clients in different industries?

How can your course on building a website help non-technical people build a website if you’ve never worked with non-technical clients?

If you don’t have experience working with clients in real life, you can’t possibly help your customers through an ebook or course.

At least not very well anyway.

Sure, YOU may be in amazing shape…

And you may be able to write amazing email copy to YOUR list…

And YOUR website might be awesome.

But creating great products requires you to get amazing results for your customers, not just yourself.

And the only way to do that is to…

  • Hone your skills working with different clients, with different needs, in different situations.

  • Learn from all the various speed bumps and set backs and problems that come up along the way.

  • And master your craft through trial, error and experience.

Providing a service is exactly how you do that.

It’s how you gain the skills and experience you need to make your future products and courses worth buying.

So What Service Can You Offer?

Whether it’s freelancing, coaching or consulting…

Starting with a service offer is the best way to get your online business up and running.

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