3 Audio w effects Make Money Online

The episode discusses how to make money online by doing what you already know and love. It emphasizes that while anyone can make money online, there is no set blueprint for success. The speaker encourages listeners to brainstorm their interests and skills to find a profitable niche. They also suggest using ChatGPT to generate niche ideas and prioritize the top three with the most income potential. The goal is to build a sustainable online business and attract a loyal customer base. Hey, hey, hey! Welcome back to another episode of Total K.O. Today we are going to be talking about how you can make money online doing what you already know and love. And this is one of those things where the overall idea of it is actually very simple, but the execution of it is the challenge. On one hand, literally anyone can make money online, and you can do just about anything, really, to make that money. I mean, there's this one guy who earns his living, and a good one at that, teaching people how to jump. He has a course, or I don't know what it's called, but he teaches people how to jump. You can Google him, the jumping guy. I don't know if that's what he goes by. There's another girl. You might have seen her on TikTok or Facebook or something. Her name is Sue Dillon, and she prank calls people, okay? And she gets paid to prank call people. So when I say that you can make money online doing just about anything, I mean it. On the other hand, there is no blueprint for this, okay? Your options are endless, which is wonderful and also confusing. So not only are your options endless in what you do, what you offer, but in how you present yourself, where you promote yourself, where you promote your products, your brand, your branding. So there's just so many different platforms, so many different options, and really the world is wide open. You can make it anything you want, but that's also what makes it difficult because you have to figure out exactly what's going to work for you. See, when you're in school or you're at your job or something, there is a set path for you to follow. There's instructions. There's a pathway. There's something laid out in front of you to follow. At some point, someone held your hand and told you what to do, where to go, what step to take. And you may have had a few options along the way, but basically your path was set for you. Then when it comes to building your online business, you're on your own. You literally have to Google how to make money online and then filter through the scans, filter through the people who don't know what they're talking about. You have to figure out what you're doing, how you're going to do it on your own, and honestly, you don't have anyone to really ask. You don't have, just generally speaking, most people when they enter into this journey, they don't have one person to ask questions to or to bounce ideas off of, not without pain on an arm and a leg. So this can really bring feelings of frustration, of defeat, that you're never going to get there. There's actually a psychological journey that you go through when you're experiencing change like this. I've talked about it in a previous episode, and I'm sure I'll talk about it again. But I'm here to encourage you and tell you that this is completely normal. Those feelings mean that you're answering a calling that is higher than yourself. You're on the right track. You just have to keep going. And that's the difference between the people who make it and the people who don't. It's not that the people who come out successful are smarter or better or have any quality that the other people don't, except their persistence. Their willingness to stay in the arena no matter what it takes is what took them to the top. So this is going to take some trial and error. You're not going to just choose a niche, choose a platform, and boom, build an audience and start selling products right off the bat. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that's not how it works. And we should be glad that that's not how it works, because if it were that easy, everyone would do it, right? So I'm going to share with you a framework that you can follow, and you can decide what feels best for you, because we are all different. And I do believe in authentic sales, being authentic online, being genuine, being who you truly are and staying true to that. So let's get into how you can start making money online so that in 2025 you can become financially free, quit your job, whatever your dream is. Let's make that happen. The first thing you want to do is figure out the topic that you're going to base your content around or what you might know as your niche. What topic are you going to base your content and your products around? What are you going to talk to your audience about? What are you going to help them with? So let's take about five minutes and brainstorm. You can pause this recording here and brainstorm on this information, on these questions here. So just write down your hobbies, your interests, your strengths, your skills. Think about everything. Even if you don't see it as a business opportunity, brainstorming helps stretch your brain so that even though you probably won't go as far as your wildest ideas from this session, you will have more options to choose from because you'll have pushed your creativity by brainstorming and expanding your brain, kind of brushing out those cobwebs there. So there is no right or wrong answers, no good or bad when it comes to brainstorming. Just write it all down. When others come to you for help, what are they usually asking you about? Do you have any special training or education or experience in a certain area? Have you been through any life-changing experiences that you can help others overcome? What passions, interests, or hobbies did you have as a child? When you're in a group of people, what role do you normally take? If you had no tangible resources, how could you help people? And what advice or knowledge do you have that can help others? So pause the recording and brainstorm on those questions there, and then we are going to make this very simple. You're going to type this prompt into ChatGPT. So online, you're going to go to chat.openai.com and type this in. Hi, ChatGPT. I guess you don't really have to read it, right? But anyway, hi, ChatGPT. My name is your name, and here's a little about me. And this is where you share your background, your interests, your hobbies, your unique experiences, just kind of give a summary of what you've already written down. I want to start an online business and create digital products that help people in some way. Based on what you know about me, please provide me with 10 profitable niche ideas that align with my experiences and interests and can generate consistent income. If you want to make it easier, I do have this prompt here and, of course, more information checked out for you in the episode guide. So you can always subscribe using the link in the description, and I will send you an episode guide with every new episode that comes out. So for this prompt here, I created an example, and I literally just made this person up. I started typing out a person and some details about her, and I want to read it to you. I want to read you the person, the person's description, and the response that ChatGPT gave me. So I said, hi, ChatGPT. My name is Sandy, and I grew up on a farm in a rural area. We had goats, chickens, dogs, cats, and at one point we had a horse. When I was a child, I didn't have any passions and interests other than helping my parents on the farm with my little brother. We ran around barefoot a lot, and we had a free childhood. It was a lot of fun, and sometimes I missed that time of my life. Now I live in the city and don't identify with that life at all. I live alone, and I work as a receptionist at a dentist's office. I'm pretty quiet, but I enjoy being around my friends and going out to parties and being out and about. I went to college for two years, but that wasn't for me. I enjoy taking care of my plants, but I'm not very good at it yet. I have started cooking more at home because it's cheaper and healthier. I'm starting my online business, and I want to help people in some way with digital products. Given what you know about me, please provide me with 10 profitable niche ideas for me to make consistent income online. Okay, so that person, I literally just made her up off the top of my head because I was trying to do details about someone that might be a little contradicting or, you know, that's not really like a, oh, boom, this is what you should do. You know, something that's a little bit more like, oh, man, I have kind of a lot of different things going on in my life. What can I help people with actually, you know? So Kathy B.T. gave me 10 awesome niche ideas, so I'm just going to kind of browse through these with you. The first one is urban plant care for beginners. I'll just read them to you. It gave me like some suggestions with each, but for the sake of time, I'm just going to read you the main list here. So we have urban plant care for beginners. Number two, simple and budget-friendly cooking for busy professionals. Number three, transitioning from rural to city life. Number four, digital decluttering and organization. Number five, self-care for quiet professionals. Number six, rustic-inspired home decor ideas for city dwellers. Number seven, socializing tips for introverts. Number eight, guides to simplify party planning on a budget. Number nine, digital tools for budgeting and savings. And number 10, workplace wellness for receptionists. So instead of just choosing one of these that sounds like the most fun, of course, you do want it to be fun. But first and foremost, you want it to be profitable. You want it to be something that people actually need, what they're looking for, what people are already needing out in the world. And so the next prompt to Chat GBT says this. Of these ideas, please list the top three in order of most income potential. I want to build a sustainable business and attract a loyal customer base. This needs to be a profitable business and long-lasting so that I can quit my job in 12 months. Okay, so the three it gave me in this order are one, simple and budget-friendly cooking for busy professionals. Number two, urban plant care for beginners. And number three is digital decluttering and organization. We know that health, wealth, and relationships are the top three evergreen niches that are always in demand. So which of these three options falls under one or more of those three categories, the health, wealth, and relationships? So, again, we have simple and budget-friendly cooking for busy professionals, urban plant care for beginners, and digital decluttering and organization. So while I'm sure that urban plant care for beginners and digital decluttering and organization is helpful for a lot of people, I have to consider which of these three is going to be more sustainable. Which of these three is going to last through hard times for people? Which of these three is going to last through the trends and, you know, the different things that come with life? I think it's going to be the simple and budget-friendly cooking for business professionals, busy professionals, because this option here, it falls under both health and wealth. So you're getting into a major green zone here. So now that you know what you're going to be talking about and an idea of how you're going to help your audience, step number two is to figure out how to reach your audience. So think about your demographic. You know, their age range and where they spend time online. That's where you want to be. And here's my advice on platforms. So most people you see online who are already established business owners and they're already on, like, basically all of the major platforms, right? You see them on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Podcasts, TikTok, da-da-da-da. They're everywhere. They're sending you emails. They have ads going. They are everywhere. And at first, it seems like that would be easy, right? So, like, you just, oh, I'll create all of these different accounts and I'll just repurpose my content. Well, that's easier said than done, my friend. Take it from me, someone who tried to make that work for over a year. I was trying to convince myself it was easy. You need to go deep, not wide. Okay? Choose two platforms to start. And my advice is to choose a long-form platform, like YouTube or a podcast, and then a shorter-form platform, like Instagram or even Pinterest. If you keep it at two platforms, you can focus on the quality of your content and building and nurturing your audience on those two platforms. Later, you can expand. You can go to other platforms. And it's going to be easier to grow on them because you'll already be taking some of your existing audience with you. So that's going to help down the road. But right now, focus is the name of your game. Get really good at these two platforms, at least to start, you know, maybe your first six months or so. Just stick to this plan. And I recommend a schedule like once a week, put out a long-form piece of content, and then throughout the week, you can break that up into shorter-form content. You can take clips from it. You can take facts from it, carousels, reels, stagnant posts, stories. And that way, it gives you some structure. It keeps your content consistent. And it makes creating content so much easier and so much quicker. You're not having to think of new things all the time. You can just repurpose what you've already talked about. But the reason I said don't go to repurposing so many different platforms is because all the platforms aren't the same. They have different requirements, different sizing, different trends, different audiences. So it will end up taking up more of your time than it's actually worth at this stage in your business. So now that you've decided your platform, start creating content. And let's go back to the solutions that ChatGBT gave us. And, again, let's say our girl Sandy is going with the first option, simple and budget-friendly cooking for busy professionals. And I'm going to read you the little blip that ChatGBT gave with this as well. It says why it ranks number one. First bullet point, the demand for practical and affordable meal solutions is evergreen. Digital products like e-cookbooks, meal cleaning tools, and cooking courses can be easily scaled. A strong customer base can be built through relatable content and consistency, making this niche a great long-term investment. You can also expand into affiliate marketing for kitchen tools or offer subscriptions for weekly meal plans. Okay, so there are a ton of, ton of, ton of people out there who are already in the affordable cooking space online. So this is a good thing, though. We know it's possible to gain a large following and be successful in this niche because we've seen them do that. We've already seen it happen. So that's a positive. Now, we also know this means we are a small fish entering a big pond. So Sandy needs to figure out a way to differentiate herself from others online who are already doing what she's doing. She needs some secret weapons, if you will. Of course, Sandy's personality, her look, her style, the way she talks, everything about her as a person is her first secret weapon. People are attracted to people. Sandy is the face of her brand, and she just being herself will attract people to watch her content. It doesn't matter if she has a big, bubbly personality or if she talks softly or if she whispers or if she doesn't even talk at all. It doesn't matter if her kitchen is messy or if the lighting is off. As long as Sandy creates content that is relatable to others, that people find useful, and that they can implement in their lives, she's on the right track. She will get better and better as she goes. But Sandy just being present online is automatically going to kickstart her online business. Okay? So we will worry with those other details later. And, again, your content will improve naturally as you go in your business. But right now, just start creating that content. Okay? So we have Sandy who creates content about budget-friendly cooking for busy professionals. What else can we add to this to make Sandy stand out to a very specific crowd? Remember, this is one of my favorite things to say, and it's a true rhythm truth. If you are talking to everyone, then you are talking to no one. Okay? So, in other words, if your audience does not feel like you made that piece of content, like you are speaking directly to them, then they don't hear you at all. Okay? So we do want to get very specific with who we're talking to and who Sandy is online. What is her brand all about? Sandy lives in the city. That means she probably doesn't have a lot of space for food, and it's likely a pain to get groceries up to her apartment anyway. So Sandy, her city life, you know, that's one attraction point. That's one element of her as her brand. Sandy enjoys taking care of her plants and learning more about that. So she could pair this hobby with her content by taking her audience on the journey of learning about growing herbs inside a city apartment to use in her budget-friendly recipes. She also grew up on a farm, and although she doesn't live that life anymore, she probably has a lot of stories to tell from her farm days and some recipes her family used to make that are more farm-style than city. So she could share that as well. She can also provide tips and lifestyle advice for people who are transitioning from the country to the city. That can be sprinkled in with her cooking content. Like I was saying before, the grocery dilemma, you know, getting the groceries from the grocery store up the stair, up the elevator into her apartment, you know, that's a struggle. That's something that she would have had to adapt to and she can give tips on. So do you see how we took that from someone creating content around budget-friendly cooking and gave them their own little corner of the Internet that is still relevant to millions of people? And people who watch Sandy's content don't have to meet the exact profile of a busy professional who is transitioning from country to city, who wants to learn more about budget-friendly cooking using homegrown herbs and listen to Sandy's lessons from the farm. They don't have to meet every single tick on that checklist. But if someone meets any characteristic of that profile, maybe it's someone who recently transitioned from the country to the city and they're not necessarily interested in learning budget-friendly cooking, but Sandy reels them in with her plant care journey tips and tricks. Or maybe they don't care about the farm aspect of Sandy's story and they just want to learn more about cooking budget-friendly meals and they love the city life and seeing the scenery in Sandy's content. So as Sandy creates content that is true to her and actually helps other people, her audience is going to start asking questions. You probably see it all the time. Creators will say things like, you asked me to make a video about this, so here it is, you know. They're taking feedback from their audience and giving them what they want. So as you get questions and feedback, you can gear your content and then your products towards that. This is your research. You're literally analyzing your audience's behavior and making your business decisions according to that. What questions are they asking? What problems do they have that need to be solved? What is still frustrating them with this topic? What transformation can you provide? And browse your competitors. See what their audience is saying, too. See what they're offering from gaps in their marketplace. So compare their offerings to the feedback in their comments or about their products. What's missing and where can you fill that need? So find your audience online. See what they're saying. You can browse Reddit and Quora and Facebook groups. Just observe. What are they saying to each other? What are their grievances about the topic? What do they want to know more about? What do they want to learn how to do? What do they need that's not currently being offered? Okay, so that brings us to step number three. This is where you decide how you're going to make your money. Now, there are four major ways that people make money online, and today we're going to talk about one of them. Okay, but just to go through the four quickly with you. The first way is monetizing content with the platforms themselves. So like YouTube, you know, you can have, like, ads playing during your content, earn money from subscribers and that kind of thing. The second way is affiliate marketing. So that's literally just selling someone else's product online for a commission. And the third way is selling your services online. Now, you can sell things like your coaching. You can sell bookkeeping services, editing, ghostwriting, even membership. So you can host a membership if you wanted to. That's a service. And if you're interested in this, if you're interested in selling services, then I suggest heading over to Fiverr.com, that's F-I-V-E-R-R, so like two R's on the end of Fiverr.com, and take a look at the services that people are offering. There's more than you can imagine on there. This is a great place to start if that's something that you're interested in. I've actually made some money on Fiverr. I made some custom digital products for people, and I was on there just very briefly. I just, like, put my stuff up there and let it ride, and I started getting orders. So I know it's a great marketplace for people who want to get started with their services. Now, today we're actually going to talk about the fourth way to monetize online, and that's selling products. You can sell physical products or digital products. So with physical products, you could either create your own and ship them out, or you could go the dropshipping method. I'm not going to get into all of that. You could also do print-on-demand, which is literally just designing products with a T-shirt or a mug or a mouse pad or something like that. And then when someone orders it, it goes to the printer, and the printer makes the item and ships it for you, so you're not really ever in contact with the product itself. But what we'll talk about is selling digital products. And I know if you're here, I know you've heard a lot about selling digital products online. You can create and sell your own, or you can purchase pre-made products and rebrand them and then sell them like they're your own. I personally have had success making money online with – I started in print-on-demand and selling digital products. And I've also sold a membership as well. But I prefer to teach my students how to make their own digital products. I think there's something solid about not using someone else's work. And to me, it just feels more genuine, like you're more invested. But based on your audience and your niche, decide the route that's best going to suit what you're offering. It's not going to be the same. Someone who's into doing tricks on dirt bikes is not necessarily going to have the same business setup as someone who bakes cakes. They have two different audiences. They might be on two completely different platforms. And even two people in the same niche, two people who do dirt bike tricks. I don't know why that came to my head. But just depending on their branding or how they're trying to reach their audience or who their audience is, you know, they might be on different platforms. They might have different types of products. It just really is dependent upon you, what you're offering, what your business is all about, and who you're trying to reach and help. So there are many, many ways you can earn money online through digital products. And you can offer multiple products so that you're able to help your audience at multiple price points and at different levels in their journey. Some people might come to you having never even heard of what you're talking about and what you're trying to help them with. Other people might have already tried it on their own 50 times over. So you can offer different levels of products and reach way more people that way. So just some examples of digital products. Like you can create a workbook, e-book, or a guide that usually sells for like $10 to $100 just depending on what all it involves. Or you can offer like a live workshop so that your audience can get real time with you. You can sell those tickets for like $50 to $300. Again, just depending on your niche and what you're offering inside that workshop. And also I wanted to point out too right here in the middle of this, you know, consider how willing you are to be present for your audience after purchase. Do you want to just sell products where it's a transaction? Or are you wanting to, you know, be more of a leader and a coach in your industry and provide, you know, provide either services or something, some kind of contact or communication after the purchase? So like, for instance, you could create a mini course, you know, you would want to give your audience a transformative experience in a course, actually help them solve a problem. For a mini course, you can sell that for like $50 to $200. Or you can create a more comprehensive course with coaching or group programs for $500 to $3,000, you know? So like the mini course in that situation would be they just bought a course and that's it. You know, there's no like, oh, you know, message me if you have issues or whatever. It's just they have the course and they're kind of on their own. Or if you have the more expensive course that you're selling and it has a little bit more extensive connection with the client after purchase, you know, where they would be able to attend maybe some workshops or, you know, something that's exclusive to you and to the program that you sold them. So it's just really, like I said, the options are endless. You can literally mold it into anything that you want it to be. So if you go that membership route, you are committing to like exclusive ongoing content for your members in addition to your social media content or however you're promoting yourself and your business. So, yes, a membership can provide a more reliable monthly income for you, you know, to create that membership community. But you also have the ongoing demand for exclusive content for your members. Once you've created the products themselves, I always recommend to put these in a marketplace of some kind. And I mean like Gumroad or Etsy or something like that. Yes, there is more competition. And, yes, you have to be weary of the race to the bottom with pricing. But there are a lot of other benefits. So, first, you're placing your product exactly where your audience is already looking for products just like yours. You're just putting it on the table for them to find versus the social media route where you have to first attract them and then sell to them. So this way, in a marketplace, they're already there. You just have to provide the right product to solve their problems. Also, marketplaces are a good research tool because you can get specific analytics on products like how many times it was clicked, how that person found you and all of that. So that's going to help you determine if this is a product that's even worth continuing to promote. Obviously, in addition to the marketplace, you'll promote your own products on social media where you're putting out the content. But I do advise using a marketplace in addition to your own promotion at first. This is going to help you get sales up front while you build your online presence. And as you build your following and tweak your products and your branding, you're going to figure out what works for you. You're going to figure out what platforms you prefer using, how you want to show up for your audience. All of the details are going to pan themselves out. So try new things. And I promise, you'll know when it's time to pivot. But make sure you give it enough time. So see, there are so many choices along the way. The possibilities for your online business are endless. And this here, this is your loose framework to begin building your online business using what you have and what you know. You're going to create as you go and you'll build an amazing business. But there is no way you can do it all at one time. So start small. This is your permission to start small. You don't have to do it all at once. In fact, don't is going to set you back. You can expand once you've started gaining traction. Or if you've been doing the same thing for several months and it just doesn't seem to be working. So you can and should pivot as a brand new business owner. You just have to follow what's working. So the goal here is not to be perfect. It's not to do everything all at once. It's to take consistent action. It's to not give up, to keep creating, keep analyzing, and keep learning. You'll be more confident. And as time goes on, you're going to open yourself up to more and more opportunities. You'll naturally know how to scale and expand your business because you'll be in tune with your audience's needs and wishes. You can find new ways of connecting with your audience and have fun with it. The most important thing is to just start. No one has it figured out when they start, and that's why they start, to figure it out. So just take the first step and trust the process. Keep listening to the Total K.O. podcast, and I'll help you build the business of your dreams and create a life you love. Enjoy the rest of your day, and I'll see you back here soon. Oh, and don't forget, sign up for those episode guides. The link is in the description. I'm going to send you a guide with every new episode that I put out. XOXO.