How Do You Start an Online Business from Scratch (The BEST Business Model for Newbies Revealed)

Today, I want to share with you another story from the 2019 High Status Summit. One of the questions of the night came from a man named Rashad from Toronto.

He stands up and tells me, “So my question is, I have my business, it's a service business. So, one option is online business, but I don't know what the hell to do. I don't know where to start. I got lots of information here, but I don't know where the starting point is.”

Around the room, there were a lot of people in the same boat. Let's tackle this.

I asked him to tell me more about his business.

“I have cleaning businesses, we do restaurant and office cleaning, and then festivals and stuff like that, then a power washing and drain cleaning. I have 30 employees or so. It’s on autopilot basically, but I can't relocate it somewhere else. I have to stay, it's local. I’m just wondering, how do I start my online business?"

So, here was my advice. There are so many places you could go. I have yet to see anything simpler than just doing email marketing for local businesses. There are other ways you can make money from your laptop… Like affiliate marketing, but then, you've got to build an audience, do traffic, test all these different offers. There's a lot of conversion metric tracking. It's harder than you think it would be.

You could start your own consulting business but then you have to run ads, funnels, testing and you spend a lot of time closing on the phone, wasting time with prospects. Also, not easy.  

Here’s an example. There’s a sushi place in Newport Beach and I know all the staff. I asked them how many people come in here every single day? Like how many tables? One of the workers, Angela, said, "I don't know, maybe 300 people." 

So, let's say 300 people a day come into this restaurant seven days a week. That’s 2,100 people a week, 8,400 people in a month and 100,800 people in a year. Let’s say about 50,000 of those are repeat business. So, we got 50,000 people coming in a year and I said, "Angela, how many of those 50,000 are on your email list?" The answer was zero.

When a customer comes in, orders a spicy tuna, has a great meal, then they leave and walk out those doors, how do you know when or if they're even coming back?

I don't care how good your food and service is, once they walk out those doors, there's a hundred other restaurants that are all advertising to them, trying to take them away. Always.

All these local businesses think they grow and do better by just repeat business. They don't really want to go the extra mile and do social media marketing or something. So, they want repeat business. They don't want to acquire, they just want repeat business. It's safe, it's comfortable. They get it.

So, this sushi place has 50,000 people coming in. They’re getting zero people on the email list. I said, " what if you just got 1 out of 3 people who came into the restaurant to give you their email address at point of purchase?" It’s as easy as adding, "Hey, by the way, would you like to save 10% on your order today?"

Your customer might wonder how. All they have to say is “it's a new thing we're running here. All you simply have to do is give us your email address so we can update you on new, cool things we're doing at the restaurant and you'll save 10% immediately on your order.”

Let's say we get just one 1 of 3. Now we've got 17,000 people in one year on their email list. So, you come in as an email income expert and you build them a 17,000-person email list in one year. That’s unbelievably valuable. And it’s unbelievably easy to do.

So, the sushi owner doesn't want to learn tech and these tactics. Here’s what you do.

You set it up for him, install a simple system with their servers to collect email addresses at point of purchase, then you build up the list. Three to five times a week, you send an email to that list on behalf of the restaurant, and all those 17,000 customers will receive things like, "We're having a special on spicy tuna this week," or "Here is our customer of the week" with a picture. Now, all of a sudden those 17,000 people are getting reminders about this restaurant all the time.

I don't know about you, but top of mind awareness is really important. The next time they're like, "Hey, what should we get for dinner tonight?", they think of your restaurant because of the email and they go. It’s absolutely that easy. Hope that helps new entrepreneurs with a place to start.

Talk soon.

- Jason Capital

Recognized Top 100 Entrepreneur By The White House

Best-Selling Author, Guest Contributor To Forbes, CNBC, Entrepreneur