If you are interested in starting an online business
then you're probably well aware
that there are so many different online businesses
you can start with.
Well in today's video I'm going to be sharing with you
the top 10 worst online business ideas
that I recommend not starting if you are a beginner.
Hi everyone, I hope you're having a great day?
If you're new here my name is Greg,
and I like to talk about online entrepreneurship,
so if you're interested in making money online
feel free to look around the channel
and you might find some stuff that you like.
In today's video I'm going to be sharing with you guys
the top 10 worst online businesses
that I recommend not starting if you are a beginner.
Now with that being said a quick disclaimer
I know many people who are doing very well
in some of these online businesses
but if you are a beginner, I don't see these being good fits
and I'll explain why for each one.
Now all 10 of these are strictly my opinion
and I'm just trying to protect you guys
if you are new to making money online
or starting an online business.
I don't want you to fall into some of these traps
that could lie ahead for some of these online businesses.
Now these top 10 are not going to be in any specific order
but all of them are pretty substantial
so I recommend watching all 10 of them.
Now this isn't going to be any fluff, so as I go through these
I'm going to name what the business is
and why I don't recommend it for a beginner.
With that being said, let's get right into this video.
Now the very first one is likely going to catch a lot of people off-guard
but that is Dropshipping.
Now again I definitely know people who are doing extremely well in dropshipping
but if you are a beginner there's three reasons why I don't recommend it for you.
The very first reason is most of this business revolves around facebook advertising,
so if you don't have an extensive past in facebook advertising
and you're not willing to test a bunch of ads and spend a lot of money
to optimize them then it's probably not the right fit for you.
Number two is it's actually pretty hands-on.
You have to deal with customer service,
you have to deal with returns,
and a lot of the times people who start to scale up dropshipping
have to bring on an employee or two, just to handle customer service alone.
So as you start to scale up with dropshipping you have to bring other people in
and that's more to manage
it's not really passive at that point.
And the third reason is that the margins are generally low,
so you have to move a lot of volume in order to make substantial money.
And a lot of the times you'll see people showing big numbers on their phone
like $50,000 in the last month but keep in mind that that's their revenue,
that's the total sales on their store.
They still have to subtract all the costs,
so this is your product cost, your software cost,
your employee cost that you have to pay them
plus the biggest one which is your advertising cost.
So generally this number comes down to only about twenty to thirty percent as actual profit.
So if they're showing you on their phone fifty thousand dollars in the last month,
when everything's said and done that's probably only ten to fifteen thousand dollars before tax
that they get to take home.
So that's the first one, drop shipping and again take that with a grain of salt
but those are the reasons that I don't recommend it for beginners.
Now number two and this is a very straightforward one
and that is surveys.
You'll see a bunch of different websites where you can answer surveys
and make fifty cents, a dollar, two dollars for answering that survey.
Now if you have nothing else going for you, yes you can make some money doing this
but it's not going to be anything that you can realistically live on.
At the end of an entire day answering surveys you may make ten or fifteen dollars
It's really not worth it and it's definitely not passive,
so you have to be actively answering these surveys to make money.
That is definitely not the strategy that you want to approach online business with
The reason that people make so much money in online business is because
you can set it up to be passive and scalable
so you can scale it up and keep it passive.
So you may be doing nothing else on the back end
but as it gets bigger with the power of the internet,
you're making more money and scale.
This is something that you simply can't do with surveys or anything else
that's active style because you have to physically be doing it
to make the money.
So that's number two and that is surveys.
Okay moving into number three and I keep seeing this one on social media
I don't know why it keeps coming up a lot of the times I see it in facebook groups
but what this is, is some kind of advertising and then you get paid through PayPal.
Now what I mean by this is, someone will post in a Facebook group
or somewhere and say if you're looking for work message me info
or message me to get started
and I will send you more information on this
and essentially they add a photo to the post with something
that's either PayPal deposits going into your account,
you make $2.00 every minute
or you post this on your thing and we'll pay you in Paypal.
All of those are just scams so stay away from that.
If I can find a version of that I'll throw it in this video so you can see what I'm talking about.
but if someone makes an ambiguous post like this
showing a screenshot of their PayPal account
and saying all you have to do is post these things and we'll pay you this much
just know that that's a scam and stay far away from those.
Okay, this is my favorite one from the batch this
and again I see people succeeding in this
but if you're a beginner I highly recommend staying away from this
this is anything in the shape of a pyramid.
Now you will commonly see this referred to as multi-level marketing or network marketing
Essentially what this is is a pyramid structure
so those who refer someone,
that person then has to pay monthly to be a part of it
and the idea is that they can refer people under them.
And the way that these people make money is because every time they refer someone,
they get a commission on it.
And then if that person that they referred refers another person,
they both get commission on it.
The original person who referred that person
will get a commission on every referral that that person makes,
and then each of their referrals,
the commission keeps going up the ladder.
So this is the pyramid structure.
Now I don't want this to be confused with referrals for affiliate marketing,
very different things.
In affiliate marketing it's only one level.
You refer someone to a product, they make a purchase, it's a commission
If that person ever goes and joins the affiliate program and refer someone else,
you don't get Commission on their things.
It's one level, it's not a pyramid structure.
I see so many people who are new to business or online business fall for this
because it sounds so good.
You pay monthly and they give you everything for your business.
Now tomorrow when you wake up you're a business owner,
that's the sell that they go with
but trust me when I say you're really not a business owner.
You have to pay every single month or every single year
to be a part of this
and you are making the person who signed you up a commission.
Now this is typically presented with some kind of front,
some kind of product or service that you pay to get inventory
or you pay to get access
but really the money's made on their referrals.
So if you have any questions about this,
if you're not sure if something is pyramid structured
or if this is what's going on behind the scenes,
feel free to let me know in the comments
and I can look into it briefly and let you know.
However, as a general rule of thumb if something is pyramid structured
and it involves you paying to become a part of it,
stay far away.
Alright moving right into number five
and again I see this one happen so often
and that is doing affiliate marketing with ClickBank or JVZoo.
Now I am a huge fan of affiliate marketing
so allow me to explain this a little bit.
When you're doing affiliate marketing, you can essentially become an affiliate
or a marketer for any product or service that has an affiliate program.
Now there are these websites that you can join
that have a bunch of different products that you can offer
and you only have to join the affiliate program of this website
then you can promote any of these products within it and then get paid through the website
instead of going out and finding individual products and joining their affiliate program.
This you just do in one place and you have a bunch of different offers.
Two big examples of websites like this are called ClickBank and JVZoo.
The reason that I do not recommend getting involved with these
is because a lot of the products on these sites are very scammy,
very high ticket products with big commission's to try to attract affiliates
but the actual product on the other side of it is complete trash.
So what happens is new affiliates join these affiliate networks because it's an easy one place to join,
they scroll through and they see all these huge potential commissions
and they start promoting these products which are generally expensive
and the products are just really bad.
So if you are going to get started with affiliate marketing,
make sure you recommend products that you know, you trust, you've used,
and you would recommend to a family member.
Don't just go on ClickBank or JVZoo and look for the ones with the biggest commissions
and start promoting those.
That's why I recommend staying far away from ClickBank or JVZoo.
Number six and again take this one with a grain of salt
because I know people doing extremely well in it
but I don't think it's right for beginners.
And this is what's called SMMA.
Social Media Marketing Agency
Now what this is is essentially you become a marketing agency
and you approach restaurants, businesses
and you bring on clients to handle their social media for them.
Now like I said, I know people doing extremely well with this,
they're bringing on clients between two and ten thousand dollars per month
and they're managing their social media.
However, it is very hard to start this as a beginner
because you need to have years of experience with Facebook advertising,
Instagram advertising and Google AdWords.
If you don't have experience with this and you bring on a client
and now you're using their funds and spending it,
if you don't get a return on their investment
they are not going to be happy.
So if you are a beginner without experience in paid social media advertising
I don't recommend starting a social media marketing agency .
Now this is heavily promoted and a lot of people are saying
I'll teach you every step you need to know to start bringing on clients
and yes some of those programs may be good
and teach you what you need to know
but that's an upfront investment
and there are definitely other online businesses
that you can start that would be better for beginners.
Now as a side note on this one
someone that I know that runs a social media marketing agency
has a Facebook Ads person,
so it's him and another person who runs the actual paid advertising
so he gets the customers and his partner runs the advertising
and that's a good combo so if you know someone who is really good at
paid social media advertising, maybe you guys can partner up
but again you're dealing with real people and real money and real businesses
so if you aren't confident that you can get return on their money,
I wouldn't recommend starting here.
Okay here is number seven,
and this is more of a pitfall that I see people falling into
when they're starting out on online business.
And this is going straight for $1,000 or more course.
If you want to start an online business, go to Youtube first.
a lot of people call this YouTube university
because you can learn so much completely for free
I personally don't think it's necessary to go straight for $1,000 or more course
if you're just getting started with an online business
as a general rule and the best recommendation I can give to you is
to go to YouTube and absorb as much as possible
and try to get started,
see if you can start getting sales just from the information on YouTube.
And if you find yourself really getting stuck and you need that next level,
then you can start looking at courses
but a really big issue that's going on in affecting people starting out an online business
is they have these fake gurus they're calling them who are coming out with $1000 courses
and they don't have anything to back it.
And people that don't know any better see the marketing and it looks really good,
and they end up enrolling in these courses
and all of that information could have been learned on YouTube in the first place
now there are definitely courses out there that are $1,000 or more
that deliver so much value that's worth tens of thousands of dollars
but mixed in with those are some people selling courses that really don't
live up to what they promised,
so just be aware of that and try to start out on YouTube consuming all free content
and putting that to work first.
Alright let's get right into number eight
and this is stock trading whether this is forex
or day trading stocks
you really need some experience for this.
A lot of people who are new to online business fall into these because
it looks like it's an all-in-one package that's guaranteed to make money
will send you exactly what to trade and when
I really don't recommend that if it were that easy everyone would be so rich.
So if you don't have experience with stock trading or forex trading,
whatever kind of trading it is, I recommend staying away from it
maybe trying to learn as much as you can on YouTube about it
and then opening up a trading account that doesn't use real funds
and you can practice and see if you would have profited
or lost a lot of money.
I personally know someone who was heavily involved in stock trading
and he focused on penny stocks,
and he was so good at it.
However he got on the plane to fly home
and by the time he got off the plane
he lost seventy thousand dollars from one stock.
So make sure you know what you're doing
if you're going to get involved with this
and don't invest any more money than you're completely willing to lose with this
Number nine, this is Amazon FBA or Fulfilled By Amazon.
As a beginner in online business I don't think this is the right move for you
because it comes with quite a bit of risk.
You have upfront investment
you have overhead costs
and a lot of hands-on moving parts.
This again can sound really good coming for people who are doing it
but just know that this is a lot more hands-on than you imagine
and it's really not as passive as you'd think
as you start to scale it up.
Alright number 10, this is the last one on the list
and this is a social-media influencer.
Now again I've seen a lot of people really succeed with this
but I don't think it's the right approach if you're starting out with online business.
It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to build up a loyal following
on any social media platform.
So if you are playing the long-term game
and you're willing to spend a year, two years, three years
just building up an account and a loyal fanbase
then this can work for you
but if you are starting out an online business,
I don't think this is where you should focus your effort to start.
There are so many other different ways that are low risk as well
and you can start making money within the first year,
you don't have to long term play this two, three years out.
Now if you have built up a really big following and by really big
I just mean a hundred thousand or more followers.
and if they are engaged in loyal followers then this can be very profitable
for you but I wouldn't recommend this to someone starting out
because it's going to be a ton of upfront work
and you're not going to see much results for a long time.
So just like that
those are the top 10 business models that I recommend staying away from
if you're new to online business.
I hope this video has been helpful and I hope you guys enjoyed it.
If you have any questions at all
or if you want me to look at any of the potential businesses
that you're thinking about joining,
let me know down in the comments and I'll see you guys in the next video