Grit, hustle, passion.
These are the things that are going to define your success as
an e-commerce business owner.
And they're more important than having deep pockets.
Why?
Because it's not the money in your bank, that's going to wake
you up out of bed every day.
It's your hustle that will.
So if you're looking to start a business, but maybe you're
short on coin, then this video is going to be for you.
Today
we're going to talk about five tips on starting an online business,
even if you're short on cash.
Okay, so tip number one: look into grants.
So here's a little secret: there is free money
floating around out there.
And the nice thing about grants is that unlike loans, grants don't
actually have to be paid back.
So how can one actually get their hands on some free money?
So you're going to want to start by doing a Google search.
So super easy, just type in grants for small businesses
and then type in your location.
How to get started with grants.
Okay, so first you're going to want to look for grants
that align with your mission.
So key tip, you don't want to be changing up your brand mission just
because you're following the money.
So what you can do is you can start by doing some research on
grants that are available within your city, region and country.
Then once you have a few shortlisted, you're going to
do a very thorough read-through in the requirements, and
then you're going to find out what you're eligible for.
Also, don't be afraid to actually pick up the phone and
get to know the people behind the grant kind of as if you
were like dating or courting.
Because you want to remember that the people that are behind the
grants, they're still people too.
So sometimes creating relationships can help you stand out from
the crowd and it can also help you both decide whether
it would be a right fit.
You might also hear that some foundations don't actually
take unsolicited proposals.
And if that's the case, that's fine too.
But anyways, some grants that are available during the time of
filming this video include Seed Funding to Solve Ocean Challenges,
Funding for Exporter Marketing, Boots to Business and Ifundwomen.
So these are just some examples off the top of my head.
I will leave links for you guys in the description box.
But if you're needing more outside of those recommendations,
this is a hot little tip here.
So some federal governments, they actually have online
directories and you can basically just scroll through a ton of
different options all in one page.
Okay.
So the next tip is to start crowdfunding.
So if you're not familiar, crowdfunding is a way of raising
capital through the support of your friends, your family,
your customers, sometimes even complete strangers who are just,
you know, in love with your idea.
So these supporters are also known as pledgers.
And pledgers donate money to help your vision come to life.
Or maybe they're really excited about a perk or
a gift that you offer in exchange for their donation.
Now, any type of business can use crowdfunding.
So you can be in art design, technology, music, whatever it is.
But the point is is that with the help of pledgers, you could
potentially raise thousands of dollars to make an idea
come to life, or maybe use it to fund your first round
of production, for example.
Okay.
So how can you get started with crowdfunding?
So first you're going to want to check out platforms like
Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
These are crowdfunding websites that allow you to
set up a personalized page for your startup so that you
can start soliciting money.
So take a look at this company.
You can see how much they've raised so far, right over here,
and over here on the right, you can see that pledgers will
receive a gift for donating money.
This is how you incentivize people to participate.
And over here, we can see that they do a really great job with videos,
photos, and texts, and this is all explaining, you know, what their
brand is about and the benefits of the product that they are selling.
If you are interested in getting started with crowdfunding, the
first thing that you're gonna want to think about is what
kinds of perks and gifts you'll be giving to your pledgers.
And then you're going to want to start planning your
explainer videos as well.
You're going to want to think about your text, your photos,
all of these things that will convince potential pledgers to
invest in your product or idea.
Consider selling digital products.
So digital products are one of my favorite ways of starting
a business because you could literally have $0 and be
very successful at this.
So when we think of digital products, we're thinking about
eBooks, we're thinking about PDF guides, Photoshop brushes,
and these are amazing because they only have to be made
once and then they can be sold an infinite amount of time.
So you could see how this could be very lucrative and it can be a
great way to make passive income.
So for example, EnvatoElements, they are a company that
sells digital products.
They sell music, they sell fonts.
And I actually just signed up for a membership with them recently,
and I was able to download all the Premiere templates that I needed.
It was super helpful and it was super useful.
So say this is the route that you want to take.
How do you actually get started with visual products?
Well, you're going to want to start by focusing on creating
your library of digital products.
As long as you know, what people are actually needing and what's
missing from the market, you're going to be successful in this.
And then once you have your library, you're going to
want to actually focus on marketing that library.
So if you have little or no funds, consider starting
a dropshipping business.
So with dropshipping, starting a business is one of the
most affordable routes.
If you're not familiar with what that is, it's basically when a
seller accepts a customer's order, but they don't keep any inventory.
It's actually the manufacturer or the wholesaler that gets
notified when an order is placed on your website.
And then they're the ones that ship the goods
directly to the customers.
So you, as the business owner, you're really only responsible
for the marketing and the selling of that product.
And you actually have very little, if not, no control
over the products, quality, storage, inventory management,
shipping, all that kind of stuff.
So that's a bit of a refresher on what dropshipping is, but
this could be really nice because if you have limited funds, this
avenue could be perfect since you won't have the cost of maintaining
a warehouse or a storefront.
And of course you won't be purchasing any inventory.
So, how can you get started?
Well, you can start with a free trial on Shopify.
If you're not familiar at Shopify is a subscription based
software that allows anyone anywhere to sell products.
So I will leave a link for you guys in the description
box to get started on that.
But it's really nice because you can basically get your online
stores set up in a matter of hours.
And then once you're done that, you're going to want to head
over to the Shopify app store.
And then you're going to download an app called Oberlo.
Oberlo is a platform that makes it really easy to find
a dropshipping products from suppliers all over the world.
And it's super easy to add them to your own online store.
So with Oberlo, you can access a variety of different products.
You can find electronics, toys, cosmetics, and then all
you have to do is find, you know, what you want to sell.
You import it into your store.
It's literally a single click.
And then that product will then be available to your customers.
So if you are thinking about starting a dropshipping business,
we have a 45 minute workshop, and that's going to walk you
through how to start and launch your dropshipping business.
You're going to learn how to source top selling products from
thousands of suppliers without paying for products upfront,
without worrying about inventory or shipping a single package yourself.
So in this course, you're going to learn how to get
your first sale and beyond.
So what you can do is you can register using the link in the
description box, and that's going to gain you access to
this free on-demand webinar.
And that's already helped over a hundred thousand entrepreneurs.
So make sure you are clicking the link in the description
box to get started with that.
Don't be afraid to get resourceful.
So if you're starting with $0 or you're starting with
very little money, it's important to be resourceful.
Why?
Well, I think sometimes we get in our own way because we want to do
things the right way, or we want to do it the way that we think
things are traditionally done.
But let me put it to you this way, the customer doesn't really care
how you got to the final product.
They care about the quality of the product.
They care about that end quality product.
They're not going to know whether the models in your photos are
your childhood friends, or whether you actually pay professional
models to model for you.
Or for example, they're not going to care whether you use a
commercial oven to launch your bakery shop, they care that
their brownies are delicious.
So doing things the conventional way can sometimes be costly.
So getting resourceful, finding workarounds, that can really help
you and save you a pretty penny as you get your business started.
So for me, for example, I run a makeup brand and one of the
products I sell are blushes.
And I really loved these blush colors from one supplier,
but I didn't like the packaging that they came in.
So what I did was I ordered the blushes without the
packaging and then I sourced the packaging from another company.
Now this added some extra work because I had to actually like
manually glue in the blushes into this new packaging was very
annoying, but my resourcefulness saved me money and it also made
me happier with the end product I got exactly what I wanted.
So basically main takeaway is don't feel bound to how things
should be done, but start thinking about how things could be done.
So if you're starting a business and you're going to start
marketing start thinking about using organic marketing tactics.
Now, I think the thing is, is that we hear a lot about e-commerce
startups finding, you know, huge success with Facebook ads or
huge success with Google ads.
And that's all fine and great, but not all of us have five
grand to drop every month on ads.
Right.
And that's why organic marketing tactics are
really great for startups.
And it's not going to cost you a dime.
So if you're not familiar, organic marketing refers to
marketing activities that don't cost you anything.
So think about like posting to Instagram or starting a blog
or using Reddit, for example.
So how do you get started with organic marketing?
This is a bit of a tough question because each business
is going to have platforms that they should be, you know,
completely focusing on and other platforms that they should
probably just completely ignore.
So if you have a certain audience, this is rule of thumb.
If you have a certain audience that you want to target, you're
going to want to follow them to the platform that they are
already spending their time on.
So some off the top of my head.
If you are in fashion, you're probably going to want to
spend your time marketing on tick-tock Instagram, Pinterest,
and YouTube, but because those platforms are highly visual.
If you're in tech, think about blogging, Reddit, YouTube,
especially because long-form content will give you the
opportunity to go through features and full explanations.
If you're in home goods, think about Pinterest, think about
digital publications, think about all the places where
design lovers spend their time.
I probably could go on and on with all the different industries,
but hopefully you get the point.
Basically.
You just want to think about where your audience are
spending their time and what would be the appropriate type
of content for you to create.
And then just go from there.
Now the key with organic marketing is to be consistent.
Now, if you're not seeing traction at the beginning,
that's totally normal.
Just keep pushing and you will find that your hard work
will pay off in the long run.
If you want to start an online business.
But maybe you're not sure what to sell and you need
help finding a product, make sure that you're checking out
our free 40 minute webinar.
That's going to teach you how to find a winning product
idea, how to validate your idea and how to get started.
So just click the link in the description box to get started
with the free training now.
Okay.
It's comment time.
So I'm actually going to take a look at some of the
viewer comments, and I'm just going to answer a few
of you guys on the spot.
Ashley Klein, she commented: thank you for such insightful tips.
Can't wait to start testing these tips over the next month.
We just launched our sustainable fashion line at akalaclothing.com.
Hopefully I'm pronouncing that right.
And she launched her sustainable fashion line and she, I guess she
wants us to take a peek at it.
So we're going to do that right now.
Let's head over.
Okay.
Amazing.
So for any of you guys that are looking to launch a Shopify
store, makes sure that you're heading over to the site because
says, this is how to do it.
She has exceptional branding.
She has professional looking photos.
She does have a super smooth user experience,
and a lot of that is attributed to the fact that she is
using Shopify, of course.
She has very detailed product information on the product pages.
This is literally perfect.
I just want to say good job, Ashley.
You are killing it.
All right.
Let's move on to the next comment.
Okay.
Sonic Broom says thanks Katie Holmes.
You're welcome Sonic Broom and lastly, David
Klenk says great video.
I sent this to my wife.
Thank you, Michelle.
Honestly, thank you, Mr.
Klenk for tuning in and thank you so much for sharing it
with your friends and family.
Guys if you do have friends that are looking to start a business
and you know, that this video will be helpful to them and
make sure that you are sending this video along, but yeah.
Pull a David Klenk: share this video with them.
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