03 - How To Make Money With Your Own Services

[Vita_Vee]

If you landed directly on this page, please make sure you start by reading the 1st articles of this "how to make money online" series:

01 - What You Need to Know About Business Success
02 - How To Make Money Online With Affiliate Marketing

PART 3 - Making Money Online By Selling Your Own Services

As you all know, there are millions who have been making money online with their own service offerings. This particular business model is not difficult to get off the ground. You can start small and build it to any level you want. Or, you can branch out into other areas once you are making money. Even though many people are doing this, often times the demand far outweighs the supply depending on the service.

What you do need in order to compete well is to distinguish yourself and your service in some meaningful way. That advice is a common theme in this series of threads and hopefully for obvious reasons. The global economy is practically forcing people to find alternate ways to make money. Unfortunately, this is necessary as a matter of survival. So the natural result is a greater degree of competition all across the board.

But that is all fine and well regarding high levels of competition.

There is a lot you can do with a service offer. I suggest you choose an area of interest because once you get busy, you will obviously spend a lot of time with it. Later on you can outsource if that makes sense with your service. But nevertheless you should choose something you don't mind doing every day for hours.

Another suggestion is to choose an area that contains room for specialization. If there is a healthy demand for that type of service, then narrowing your service to some specialized area can be a good way to distinguish yourself. Plus taking the more specialized route can frequently translate into less competition.

Always strive to deliver the best service you can.

I could not be more serious on that point. We have all been the unfortunate recipients of poor service and not only with small entrepreneur-based services on the net.

This particular model spans the entire range of business levels. There are tons of one-person operations, and you will find the opportunities available from simple services to more advanced consultancy businesses. You can set-up your business with outsourced labor, and that will require you to have more managerial involvement and coordination skills. So with that example you will be responsible for acquiring business and then ensuring the outsourced tasks are fulfilled.

If you feel that a service-based business may be for you, then you should give it some serious consideration. Avoid feeling intimidated by the numbers of existing and similar service providers. You may have to be creative with marketing your service. But I can tell you with certainty there are very many ways to do that. Avoid thinking you have to market your service the way everybody else markets theirs.

You need to actively search for unique ways to market and advertise your service. Once you have experience and testimonials, then you can confidently enter more mainstream avenues for gaining exposure and clients.

What is the earning potential with offering your own service?

Keep in mind that generally speaking you will be trading your time for money with a service you perform. Yes, I realize that goes against the grain of the standard sales copy you read about "making money on autopilot." You can eventually build your business to a point where you are employing "leverage" by outsourcing certain tasks. But that all depends on the type of service you offer.

However I would ask you to adopt a realistic and grounded perspective at all times.

You can realistically build a service based business to an income that is above average. Just as an example, how would you feel about earning between $50,000 to $100,000 with your own service business? You can achieve that kind of income if you are willing to work at it. Depending on many factors, you will generally not get there overnight. Try to get rid of that type of thinking as it has been planted in the minds of so many people through sales copy.

Practically any business success will not occur overnight.

Once again, it all depends on your skills and what you offer, but you can also build a service business into a 100K to 250K annual income. That is not all that rare - I know that for a fact. Keep in mind that your income depends on what you offer and all of your efforts to build your business.

Here is another angle to consider...

You can begin with one particular service offering. Once things are going, ask yourself if there are "related" services you can introduce. Very many times there are related services available. You may have to learn additional skills, but that's ok and should not present a problem. You have to be willing to learn and evolve in business because stagnation will usually work against you in the long run.

If you outsource, then that could open more possibilities in terms of related service offerings. So the question of related services represents growth and greater income potential. Maintain an open mind and always keep your mind attuned for "what is possible" with your business.

I will tell you if you train your mind to look for opportunity, then you will see them in places where others are blind. Many times opportunity has been staring right back at you all along.

Once you have decided to create a services business, then you should plan as much as possible before launching it. I have found that solid planning can often prevent a few headaches down the line. Of course you will need to have a static website or blog. If funds are tight, then you can even get started with a Blogger blog which is totally free. You do not have to buy a domain name or get a hosting account. Although once you do make some money I strongly suggest you move operations to your own hosted account with a domain name.

If you are really new to all of this, then here is a word of caution just in case. You may have heard of Wordpress blogs. Well, do not create a (free) blog at Wordpress.com because commercial blogs are against their terms of service (TOS). That site is not to be confused with Wordpress.org which is the site directly related to all things about Wordpress CMS that you install on your own server.

Perhaps you are at a small loss as to what kind of service can you offer?

Here are just a few examples - truly just a few - that are available to you right now.

- Backlinking services

- Services related to backlinking such as profile and account creation.

- Different kinds of backlinking: bookmarking, forum account creation and posting, blog commenting, directory submissions, etc.

- Content writing of all kinds: articles, web content, ebooks, ghost writing, catalogs, product description, and many others.

- Many services related to building sites of all kinds.

- Various types and levels of software programming.

- An entire industry related to service offerings for the offline business sector.

- Research - professional keyword research, market research, competitive research (spying), etc.

- Graphics related services - There are needs for graphics of all kinds and purposes.

- Consultant services - SEO, marketing, advertising, and various sub-areas of each one.

- Services related to marketing at social sites such as Facebook.

Here are some preliminary steps for your services business:

Before getting too far along, it will be a good idea to do some basic research about your possible service. So what you will do is perform some Google searches using the keywords for your service. You can get solid ideas about a number of important items you will need to consider.

- What is the range of prices being charged?

- You can get site design ideas for your service niche. But never copy what others do because you need to be unique.

- What all is being offered, and can you get ideas for related service offerings?

- Take a look at their entire offer. Can you improve upon it in your service offer?

- How do they accept payment?

- Do they use contracts of any kind? (Important area)

- How do they structure their business?

I will tell you that when you do this kind of research, you will find people who are established. Do not let that bother you or cause you to feel discouraged. Keep the following in mind...

1. There is too much business for all the sites listed in the top 10 to handle.

2. Keep in mind my earlier comments about marketing and advertising your service business. Yes, Google gets a lot of traffic, but they by no means get it all. There are very many ways to market your site and business.

After your site is made and everything is in place, then it is time to get started with promotion. One very important item to always bear in mind is you need to get some testimonials and social proof happening on your site. There are a number of ways to do that.

- You can offer your services either for free (limited time) or at a deeply discounted price to any exisiting business owners you know.

- You can do the above in forums where your prospective clients are known to visit. Be sure to read the forum TOS regarding advertising, etc. You do not want to get banned. (Hint: we have a free "members services" section on this forum)

- There is nothing wrong at all with announcing a special promotional fee on your site. You do not have to tell people you are new, unless they ask, and just be upfront with people about it. Businesses understand very well what is going on, and they will understand what you are doing and why.

The two most important points are to be upfront and perform excellent service.

The one thing you really need to focus on is efficiency. That only makes sense because in a service business your time means money. You can think of it in terms of increasing your value, and income, by being as efficient as possible. But...

Do "not" sacrifice the quality of your service in the interest of faster delivery.

Many things you will not think of in the beginning. The simple reason is you will be entering a new territory, perhaps, and so you just won't know some things until you start doing them. As is true for everything we do, experience is the best teacher and will light the path for us. You will make mistakes, and there will be some things you will not realize until after you have done them.

But always have the view and attitude of what can be made better. What can you do to make your operation more efficient? The smallest improvements in your operation matters regardless of how small it may seem. All those little things that save you even five or ten minutes will add up over the course of a week, month, and year. Time is money.

Very shortly after you begin, you will naturally work out all your systems and processes for getting your work done. I believe this is simply natural for all of us humans. We are creatures of habit in so many ways. You will naturally find the best way for you to work.

One of the most often heard complaints about service providers are two fold:

1. Late delivery - do all you can to avoid letting this happen. Everybody understands the occasional glitch or unforeseen event that can cause late delivery. Keep this to an absolute minimum if you want recurring business. Remember, previous customers do not need to be sold to, again. They are like your email list, and they should be taken care of at all times.

2. Communications - Be a good communicator with your potential and existing customers. I have heard so many stories from people I personally know about this one. Nothing irritates someone more than having to wait days or even weeks to get an answer. I know it happened to some of my customers with my own support desk and I'm still trying to improve this area.

If you make them wait, then very often they will not; and you will lose business.

Clear communications delivered in a timely manner is good customer service. That is another way you can distinguish yourself. You can develop a business reputation that is either positive or negative in many ways. The areas of communication and on-time delivery will go far and actually become your personal, unseen spokesperson.

Do you think businesses refer their friends to good service providers? Of course! That happens all the time, every single day.

My concluding thoughts:

There is a curious thing I have noticed about people and online business over the years. It is so easy to get caught-up with our dreams; indeed, it is only natural and everyone does at one time or another. I believe very many people get swept away when they start reading all the various sales copy and stories about making money online. That is not surprising when you think about the alternatives most people live with every day.

But as I have said before, you really need to figure out what attracts you as it relates to business. Each of us is attracted and best suited for different kinds of business. A lot of people are not interested in a service based business model. While others may be and not yet realize it. For the latter group, some of them may be caught-up in the whole "making money on autopilot" thing.

I am not knocking the concept of making money on autopilot. Although very many do not understand all the work involved that "enables" one to make money on autopilot.

That is much the same as the "overnight success" in something like music. Sometimes you will read about an artist or band who is described as being an overnight sensation or overnight success. Well, what happens 99% of the time is that band or artist spent years trying to make it. Years were spent playing for nothing in crap bars and sleazy joints; livng in cheap motels and eating bad food. That is usually the story you don't read about until much later, if ever.

If you have a glimmer of interest in starting a business providing high quality service, then pay attention to those little feelings and quick flashes that catch your attention in some way.

Thanks for reading.

V2

PS: If you enjoyed reading this post, please link to it from your blogs, from twitter, from facebook, from other forums etc... I would appreciate it a lot.

PPS: Click here to read the 4th article of this "How to Make Money Online" series.

[gurucrusher]

Nice continuation thread, Vita. The service business is Huge, and I think it's going to be even more so for 2011. Things like SEO, local marketing, and social media are just a few markets to get into NOW before they really are niched out.

I think you put this kind of info into easy to understand chunks, and you really can make a lot more when you build a "business" and not just "make money" - not that you can't make money with affiliate marketing and all that, it's just easier to make $1000 a month with 1 client, than it is with 50(+) $20 clickbank sales ;-) .

[Nik]

Thanks Vita. Making money through my own services is definitely something I want to do in the future. Not only is it another way to diversify income, it's also more stable than income from affiliate sales.

[gurucrusher]

Very true. While you may make $500 in sales one day, you might $30 another!

[Rep Ola]

Thank you, Vita! This is another GREAT post from you!! You just let me open eyes and notice that internet marketing is actually an industry. In this industry there are tons of various demands and needs, not only for products but also for service. Thank you again! And Happy New year!

[Vita_Vee]

(12-27-2010 04:18 PM)gurucrusher Wrote:  Nice continuation thread, Vita. The service business is Huge, and I think it's going to be even more so for 2011. Things like SEO, local marketing, and social media are just a few markets to get into NOW before they really are niched out.

I think you put this kind of info into easy to understand chunks, and you really can make a lot more when you build a "business" and not just "make money" - not that you can't make money with affiliate marketing and all that, it's just easier to make $1000 a month with 1 client, than it is with 50(+) $20 clickbank sales ;-) .

Thanks Coty. I personally think that offering services is the fastest way to earn a great income online - of course before being able to offer something valuable one need to become an expert in one field - but it's not that difficult, everything can be learnt.

(12-27-2010 04:54 PM)niktodorov Wrote:  Thanks Vita. Making money through my own services is definitely something I want to do in the future. Not only is it another way to diversify income, it's also more stable than income from affiliate sales.

Thanks Nik. That's right, also you can get many new customers just thanks to your previous customers recommendations, which is not easily achievable with affiliate marketing

(12-27-2010 09:42 PM)Rep Ola Wrote:  You just let me open eyes and notice that internet marketing is actually an industry.

Thank you Rep Ola! That's right, IM is a huge industry and in the coming weeks/months I will try to expose all the different ways of making money on the internet.

I will also try to talk about the different overrated methods IMHO (aka scams).

[buttercup]

There is a lot of speculation in the media that the internet is in a bubble again. but the fact that they are asking kind of negates the definition of bubble

[Hazli Khalim]

There are numbers of freelance services out there. But the one I like the most is Odesk.com. You can also make a quick and easy five dollars at fiverr.com. Great website!

[uhacks]

well due to the popularity of fiverr, many sister sites has sprung up as i might says,
the concept is provide to be hugely popular..and this shows that basically any type of service or skill can make money!!

[Hazli Khalim]

Meaning there's a huge untapped market out there!

[serenin]

This is what I am doing currently. I did try to sell my services especially in SEO and internet marketing in most internet marketing forums and freelance websites. I want to learn where I should head to from here. Hopefully, I can get the answer from your lessons.

[cbhattarai]

Nice one, but i have never believed on selling our own services. Therefore, i started my own blog and i am not planning to start affiliate marketing too...