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Business

July 2020 – Newsletter

July 1, 2020

Happy July! I hope that all is well with you and your loved ones.

This year has stirred up just about every emotion possible, and I still don’t know what to make of it all.

I’m afraid I have to disagree with many of the things that have happened this year. From the management of Coronavirus to the issues resulting from the George Floyd situation, things are bad. Hate has consumed just about all aspects of the United States and even the world. It’s sad. It’s not how it is supposed to be. Things need to change.

🤟 Though there are many things to direct anger at, the world needs more love and patience. I have avoided lashing out in anger because it would likely be misguided. I am upset, but I was not personally attacked. Until I must protect myself and my family, I will lead with love and patience.

⛰️ In May, we moved from California to Montana. I plan to share more about that soon. I started planning the move about two years, and last year after our summer trip, we decided that we would move after our kids finished their 2019/2020 school year.

💼 The pandemic affected my business to some extent. I had some photography jobs canceled, but I had a lot of client work through my online marketing agency, Hill Media Group. Companies had to pivot quickly and take more of their business online. Though I sometimes beat myself up over going in too many directions professionally, it paid off this time. I have also been doing a lot of Real Estate Photography since arriving in Montana. I am currently working on redesigning my Photography website.

📹 It has been hard to make video content for my YouTube channels with all of the changes going on. The kids are home all day, which limits my time to film. The pandemic kept me indoors. I haven’t figured out where to film since moving to Montana, and the weather has been a little wet here. I’m figuring it out, and I plan to get back to a regular schedule of producing video content soon.

Personal Channel | State of Tech | Ditch Auto

🏋️ Remember that weight I lost late last year eating healthier and achieving 20,000 steps for an entire month? I gained some of that back during the pandemic. I recently got a gym membership here in Montana and have been hiking once a week with my family. I am still intermittent fasting and am starting to eat cleaner again.

📤 I have sat down many times to write a newsletter. I initially promised a weekly newsletter, but I struggle with the need to provide value. I feel that if I don’t have something to teach someone, I should keep it to myself. Sharing in this way was a stretch for me today. I decided to share today because I want to maintain my relationship with all of you. It means so much to me that you would subscribe to my newsletter. Even if it only contains life updates, I want to be sharing it with you.

Thanks for subscribing to my newsletter. Stay safe and healthy,

Jerad Hill

Filed Under: Newsletter Tagged With: Business, Covid-19, newsletter, Photography Leave a Comment

Life After the COVID-19 Hit!

March 23, 2020

The Dispatch Newsletter by Jerad Hill

I have hesitated writing because if you are like me, you’ve received plenty of emails. I wanted to make sure I had some value for you, but before I did that, I had to get over a few of my own issues I was experiencing over the past month. I was immediately affected by Covid-19 losing about $35,000 in business due to the cancellation of several event video production jobs.

Receive this newsletter by email by subscribing here.

Last month was not the most productive month for me either. I outlined why in a video on what’s changed in my Notion usage especially in regards to my Daily Log. With everything going on, it was enough to provide the kick in the pants I needed to get back on track.

Many of us are facing uncertainty, which makes us feel vulnerable. I remember feeling this in 2001 when 9/11 hit months after I had opened my first brick-and-mortar retail business. I remember feeling it again during the market crash in 2008. It is different this time, as I know you’re aware, but we still have to keep moving forward.

I believe that this experience is going to change the way we communicate with each other. We are utilizing our mobile technology more than ever before because it’s the only safe way to communicate right now. You might find this video I did on 5 Apps You Need to Survive Social Distancing:

Businesses also have to get smart about how they can maintain relationships with their customers. I am helping my clients do that right now using social media and video.

I have also put up some new videos on my YouTube channels, so I wanted to share those with you.

I am planning to start going live on Instagram a few times each week. I have a couple of interviews set up that should be pretty interesting for those of you who are small business owners. Make sure to follow me on Instagram and turn on notifications so you get pinged when I go live.

I hope that all is well with you and that you are safe.

Working From Home

If you are working from home, I have some tips for you. I started working from home again over a year ago. With my family now home all day, it has changed the way I work. I put together a video on 10 Tips for Working from Home.

If you are a Mac user, you might like this video on the Top 5 Mac Productivity Apps for Working from Home I put together.

Social Distancing

With extra time on our hands due to not being able to take part in our communal activities, what should we do with that extra time? I believe times like this are opportunities for us to grow. I have a few ideas on What You Can Do While Social Distancing. Check out the video:

Filming Yourself

Communication is changing. We are using video, even more, these days which means learning How to Film Yourself. I put this video together discussing how to do that.

What’s Next?

I have been using this opportunity to rethink what I am putting out to the world through my websites, social media, and YouTube. I love to teach and I want to lean into that even more. Many of you have taken one or more of my online courses, I plan to work on those. Some of them are old and need to be updated. I have other ideas that I want to work on as well. I plan to get some new course content on LearnWithJerad.Com soon and I will update you first when it is ready.

I also want to be communicating more often, so I will be using Instagram Live and Facebook Live to do that. Make sure you are following me there.

Jerad Hill Show Podcast

Podcasts are on the rise. Make sure to check out my podcast, The Jerad Hill Show. Click the image to see some of my recent episodes. You can get the show in your favorite podcast player or in Spotify.

Now

🇺🇸 Writing From: Home Office

💪🏼 Current Challenges: Stay Safe & Productive!

📱 App of the Week: CleanMyMacX​

🎧 Listening: Brain Food Playlist on Spotify

📖 Reading: Profit First – Mike Michalowicz​

🍿 Watching: Will Ferrell Deeply Regrets Eating Spicy Wings | Hot Ones – YouTube

➡️ More now​

Stay Safe!

Most importantly, be safe. There is so much fear and misinformation out there. Use this time to work on something new and give yourself the opportunity to learn something new.

See you soon in the next one!

Filed Under: Newsletter Tagged With: Business, Covid-19, personal development Leave a Comment

Building a 2020 Vision

December 15, 2019

Building A 2020 Vision - Sunday Dispatch - Jerad Hill

Hey Friend 👋, the year is almost over, and that has me thinking about next year. Are you a new year resolution maker, or are you a bit more pessimistic like I am? In the past, I would scoff at new year resolutions because I not only knew that most people don’t stick to them but that I also had a pretty lousy track record myself.

I’m not sure if it’s the coming new decade, me turning forty next month, a bit of both, or just a coincidence, but I have been searching myself a lot this year looking to optimize various aspects of my life. A few months ago, this idea of creating a 2020 Vision for next year that will launch me into the next decade started to take form. 2020 will be the year of perfect vision. I want to encourage you to take this journey with me.

To dive deeper into this metaphor, you have to learn to focus on something before it becomes clear.

Even if we are not sure we can pull it off, we have to have a vision, somewhere to aim our focus. I have recently started running, and I find that if I choose a point and focus on it, each step is more consistent, and my body stays in line.

How To Create a 2020 Vision

I hesitate to give any advice because I am in the thick of it myself, but I want to share what I am doing right now to improve my focus. I have some ambitious goals for next year, and I plan to execute them while sharing the process along the way. I learn best by experience. If I can do something myself, or follow someone as they do it, I learn. Reading about what someone did years ago when the landscape was different does less for me. Are you the same?

YouTube Analytics for State of Tech – Last 28-Days

This image displays the projected revenue from the past 30-days of State of Tech, my mobile technology YouTube channel. In August, just a few months ago, it was $1,450.00 US. That is massive growth in the last few months, and I achieved it by focusing on creating new videos. In the first half of this year, I occasionally released new videos and did not have a plan in place. Now I do. It will take a lot of work to keep this momentum going as there was a significant boost in traffic from holiday shoppers after Black Friday, but I have a plan.

As I run towards my goals going into 2020, I don’t want to do it alone. Running is more fun with friends, so I want you to come along if you desire more focus as I do. I started a Facebook Group, and I would love for you to join me at no cost. This group is free to join. I will share some of what I am doing publically on social media, but I want to create a tribe of people who plan to make 2020 their best year yet. Click here to join the group.

YouTube Analytics for State of Tech – August 2019

📺 New Videos This Week

Here are a few of my latest videos. I had a goal to release some new camera-related videos as the Christmas shopping season was ramping up. My tech-related videos on State of Tech were performing great and it had been almost a month since I had released any videos on Ditch Auto.

Nikon Z6 – 6 Months Later
Canon 90D vs Nikon 500D Comparison – Which Is Better?

From My Resonance Log

Ideas, quotes, and thoughts that are “resonating” with me make it to my new Resonance Log in Notion. Here are a few from the past week:

What’s the one thing I can do this morning that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary. ~Gary Keller “The One Thing“

“If I’d waited to know who I was or what I was about before I started ‘being creative,’ well, I’d be sitting around trying to figure myself out instead of making things. In my experience, it’s in the act of making things and doing our work that we figure out who we are. You’re ready. Start making stuff.” ~Austin Kleon “Steal Like an Artist“

“When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running. And a system can be successful in many different forms, not just the one you first envision.” ~James Clear “Atomic Habits“

Now

🇺🇸 Writing From: Home Office
💪🏼 Current Challenges: 20,000 Steps/Day for 30-days (Day 21 – Friend me on Fitbit)
📱 App of the Week: Instapaper (I use this to save things I find on the web to read later)
🎧 Listening: Tim Ferriss Show #401 Gary Keller
📖 Reading: How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease – View on Amazon | Get Free on Audible.Com
🍿 Watching: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – Prime Video
➡️ More now

Next

I have a lot to accomplish in the next week. It’s the last week before my kids start their Christmas break from school. I want to dedicate as much of my time to them as possible

Have any questions for me?

Let’s talk about it in the Facebook group. Click here to join me. Of course, you can always hit reply, and email me.

Thank You!

Thank you 🙏 for your support.

Want to fuel the next Sunday Dispatch? Buy me a coffee.

Disclosure: My content occasionally contains affiliate links and I earn a small referral commission for your purchases (at no extra cost to you). This helps fund the costs to support the newsletter, and I’m grateful for you!

Filed Under: Newsletter, Personal Development Tagged With: Business, Focus, personal growth, Self Development, Vision 1 Comment

5 Step Guide for Creating Passive Income – Money Making Guide for 2020

September 5, 2019

5 Steps to Passive Income 2020

If you are trading time for money like most do to earn a living, take a moment and read this. It could change your life, just as it has mine.

I used to trade time for money as my primary source of income. I would do work and I would get paid for the work I did. That was it. Nothing more, usually nothing less. Why is this a bad deal for you? Well, it’s because your time is not scaleable.

You are given a certain amount of hours in the day that you can be productive before you need rest. If you trade time for money, that limits your earning ability. It is limiting for anyone whether they are a doctor or a school teacher. If you really push it, you can work and get paid for about 12 hours a day, but most of us don’t want to work like that. Even if we need to for a period of time, we never see ourselves working that hard our entire lives.

If you want your income to scale beyond the hours you have in the day, you will have to rethink the way you make money. If you want to have more freedom and flexibility in your day, you will have to make changes. That is what this post is all about.

Before you start looking at different options for making passive income you have to be in the right mindset. Passive income doesn’t mean you won’t have to work. You will have to work. At the beginning, you may even have to work harder than you do currently. This is typically the case with anything you start. It takes work until you build up momentum.

I started looking into passive income options about five years ago when I decided I was tired of chasing clients. I love working with clients but I don’t enjoy the chase. If a client wants to work with me, great. If they don’t, bye Felicia! There is plenty of work out there for everybody and plenty of clients in most cases. The perfect fit will find itself organically. What I just said there is going to frustrate a lot of salespeople. I used to enjoy the sales process, but my focus changed. The face to face sales process is not scaleable.

If I was ever going to have the freedom and flexibility I wanted in my life I would need to make changes to the way I earned money. I would have to be able to put that on autopilot to some extent. My first step was attempting to grow my online marketing agency Hill Media Group. I started by hiring a few employees and getting an office. That grew to multiple employees but I quickly realized that my growing agency was consuming more time than it was giving me back. You can’t just hire people and get time back. It takes a lot of time to grow a business like that to the point where your team can handle most of the daily activities around the business. This option was not for me and it was not the first time I had realized that building a business with employees was not the right direction for me. Sometimes I’m a slow learner.

So how do you go from trading hours for money like I was? It’s a lot easier than you think. You already have the expertise, you’re currently getting paid for doing something right? Let’s start by utilizing that. These are the 5 Steps I have identified you can take to start building a passive income revenue stream today. Let’s jump into it!

#1 Identify Your Area of Expertise

This has been a tough one for me. Not because I can’t identify what I am good at, it’s that I want to be good at everything. It is hard for me to focus on one area of expertise. This is my struggle. For you, it may be figuring out what that area of expertise is. We all have some sort of professional skill and usually a hobby or two we have invested time in to. However, don’t limit yourself only to what you currently know. Nobody says you have to start with a skill you already have.

In his book “Choose: The Single Most Important Decision Before Starting Your Business,” Ryan Levesque said: “consider that you can always learn how to do something that others would like to know.” You don’t have to be a professional, you just have to know enough to teach somebody.

I am currently pouring into a couple of different areas of expertise. Early on, I chose Photography, and have since added in mobile technology and teaching others how to create their own lifestyle rather than accept the one that was handed to them. That sounds like a lot, and I should probably pair down a bit, but for now, that is my focus.

Whether you are a lawyer or a manager at a Starbucks, you can turn your area of expertise into passive income by teaching others what you already know and do. You just have to present it in a way that helps others.

For the Starbucks manager it might be helping local coffee shops hire and train baristas. A coffee lover usually opens a small coffee shop out of a love for coffee, not because they have management and employee training experience.

A lawyer could create an online course to help new lawyers start their own private practice right out of law school rather than working for a larger firm which will push them to generate countless billable hours.

You already have an area of expertise. You can utilize that to help others or you can learn something new. You only need to know enough to teach others about it. We’re not talking Ph.D level stuff here.

I created my first online course for photography on the subject of teaching people how to take better photos using manual mode on their camera. I felt the best way to learn was to understand how the settings worked and how they effected each other. I didn’t bother with big terms and rules that would make it hard to understand manual mode. I just taught it as I know it. Over 250,000 students have taken my course and are taking better photos because of it. Some have even gone on to start their own photography business.

Do you have a hobby like Mountain Biking? The YouTuber Seth’s Bike Hacks is making passive income by turning his love of Mountain Biking into informational videos that help anyone improve their off-road biking experience. Beyond making money from ads that run on his YouTube videos he also tests products you can find for sale online and has built up a large enough following to make passive income-producing exclusive content to those who pay a small monthly fee on Patreon for access to his content. I am not sure what he used to do before making Mountain Bike videos, but he can now support himself and his family through his love of Mountainbiking. He has even turned the process of getting better at Mountainbiking into passive income by talking about that in videos. He didn’t start out as a professional Mountainbiker, he simply took something he loved and started making videos about it. How cool is that? I can give you tons of examples of people who have done this with YouTube or a blog.

#2 Decide On your Platform

There are many different methods for earning passive income. I have already talked about blogging and YouTube as two different options. Here is a list of passive income methods I have determined as being something you can do on the side and build up over time.

  • Blog about a topic
  • Create YouTube videos on a topic
  • Create an online course
  • Create a podcast
  • Write an ebook
  • Sell stock photography
  • Promote affiliate products
  • Online Workshops or Seminars
  • License something you created such as art or music

Everything I have listed above is something I have tried. Some require more work and/or expertise than others. In order to sell stock photography, you need to be able to take great photos. To license your music, you have to be a musician. However, where people often get held up is thinking that they are not good enough to do these things. The simple act of doing will make you into what you need to be. I’m going to borrow another quote from Ryan’s book: “If you don’t think you’re ready to teach someone, think again. The simple act of teaching will raise your expertise exponentially, in a way you didn’t even think was possible.”

You should probably just go buy his book. I listened to it on Audible while driving to and from the airport and while on a flight. Get your first month of Audible Premium and this book for free. Click Here!

It was actually that easy for me to monetize this article and make it create passive income for me while at the same time providing value to you. Prefer reading books over listening to them? Buy the book instead, by Clicking Here.

I have found that I learn more about something preparing to teach it to someone else than I would have learned had I just wanted to educate myself about it. It’s pretty amazing actually. This is why I end up producing so much content online. I learn by teaching others, and so can you.

Choose one or two options from the list and get started today. You can make the learning process part of the education you are sharing with others just as Seth does on his Mountain Bike YouTube channel. Not good in front of cameras? Create a blog and a podcast instead. The tools have never been more available than they are now.

My blog is a WordPress website. You can sign up here for WordPress and start a blog for free. I recommend you do this regardless as you can start your process of building passive income revenue streams by writing about it just as I am here. Even if you are not ready to start your blog, I suggest you buy your website address domain name. Do a quick search to see what domain names are available here.

Just make sure that you don’t start too many things at once. I recommend two at most and I will do my best to create resources to help you along the way, so make sure to subscribe to my blog by clicking here or using the form in the sidebar.

#3 Be a Giver!

You are going to have to have the mindset of giving in order to build passive income. If I had decided to write this blog and sell it to people, it probably wouldn’t sell. I have not established myself enough in the area of passive income. Those close to me know that I make a large portion of my income from stuff I do online, but I have not been specific enough about it yet. While I work on changing that, I will continue to give.

In the book, “The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea,” Bob Burg makes this statement: “Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.” I read this book back in 2008 when it was originally published and when I was already on my “lead with value” path. It helped enforce and solidify what I was already doing and gave me even more of a desire to give away as much as I can. Click Here to buy it.

What I have come to learn is that you have to earn the ability to ask people for money. People have so many options these days, you have to give them a good reason to trust you over someone else. If I added up everything I have published online I would guess that at least 95% of what I have put out there was put out for free. That means that I charge actual money for less than 5% of the work I put out. Sounds crazy right? It’s not though, because people are watching.

I put out a ton of photography content before I charged for any of it. That content, however, was monetized in a passive way to the viewer. There was a short ad that played before the YouTube video would start. There were links to the products I used in the description that are Amazon Affiliate links. I avoided the traps other creators get into such as partnering with brands where I would end up trading money for time again. I created what I wanted to create as if I was teaching younger me what he needed to know.

The most important takeaway here is that I gave first. Another great book that validates what I have said here is Rich Dad Poor Dad. Robert Kiyosaki shares this thought in his book about those trading time for money: “They get up every day and go work for money, not taking the time to ask the question, ‘Is there another way?”

#4 Make Yourself Unique

It is said that there is nothing new under the sun. However, it is also said that you are unique and there is no one else on earth like you. God and science back up those two statements. Understanding that makes me very optimistic. It means that even though there are likely others out there that have been doing the same thing you are considering for much longer, your approach can be unique because you are unique.

There is no other photographer talking about cameras and camera settings the same way as I am because I am unique. While there may be some similarities with other YouTubers out there, my tone, personality, and every other unique aspect of my person makes my presentation different than every other photography educator out there. There are people who would prefer your presentation over that of someone else’s.

With that said, the internet does not reward people often for copying others. You need to have your own unique take on what you are going to share with others. This will take time and that is ok. It takes time to develop your voice on a topic, this is part of the process. Just go look at any popular YouTuber’s first video uploaded. Finding your voice is part of the process and it’s a process of growth.

With every new blog post, video, podcast episode, or whatever you end up creating think to yourself, “how can I make that better next time.” Don’t feel bad about what you have already created, just look at how you can improve. How can you tighten it up or make your points more clearly? This is something I am constantly doing, especially in videos where I tend to talk more than the average YouTube viewer prefers.

You can not do what I am suggesting without creating and publishing. You have to put something out there and measure it. You can’t do this privately. You will have some flops and that is ok. You will need to learn that every form of feedback or lack thereof is a form of measurement that you can use to make it better next time. In the marketing world, we call these KPIs or “Key Performance Indicators.” When I put something out there, what are measurements of acceptable outcome? Perhaps its email newsletter signups or new YouTube subscribers.

I prefer thinking of feedback as data that I can use to improve my KPIs. That helps me from getting emotional over a negative comment. You are going to get them simply because you are putting yourself out there. Don’t let someone else’s negativity distract you from your goals. Be unique and you will be rewarded for it. Being unique takes work, but just like being a giver first, it pays off tenfold.

#5 Develop Your Passive Income Revenue Streams

Hopefully, by now you have an idea or three of how you plan to generate some passive income. We talked about topics and I gave you some examples. We also talked about platforms, and I gave you some options there as well. Now it is time to start creating and earning your passive income.

As I discussed earlier, you can’t just create something and try to sell it. You need to build an audience in that space first. You do this by creating content such as blogs, podcasts or videos. The only shortcut to success in this area is to pay for ads on platforms such as search engines and social media to reach the right customers. This can be costly and I am going to assume you are not going into this with a large ad budget. This is why Step #3 Be A Giver is very important. You have to build trust with people and you will do that by giving them information, just as I am doing so in this article.

Using your chosen platform, make it a point to create something once each week. When you have more time, create more often. Write a weekly blog and share it on social media. Invite people to signup for your blog so they get your new writings in their email box. People are busy and likely won’t remember to visit your website often so getting them to subscribe to your email list is a great way to remind them of new content. Continue to feed them information for a while before making the ask to buy something. Your product could be an ebook or an online course. You could even start by giving your first ebook or online course away for free. This will help you build your email list even faster and it’s how I have over 45,000 people on my email list.

It is an individual decision as to when you should try to get your audience to buy something. You can’t give everything away for free forever, but as I have, you can monetize what you are giving away for free. Eventually, you will need to offer something more substantial that people can purchase directly from you. This is where your real earning potential is. I struggled in this area for a long time. This is where I plan to help you thrive.

Helping you get started is the easy part. It only took one blog post that I wrote in one day, all before breaking my intermittent fast for the day. Helping you replace the income your daily job provides is a whole other thing and will take more guidance and accountability. I have created something new just for people like us. It’s a free Chat Community on Discord where we can encourage each other and learn from each other as we build and grow our passive income revenue streams.

Join the Free Chat on Discord.

Key Takeaways

It sounds like a lot, but the key is to just get started. Even if you only have an extra hour each week, you can get started today. Building passive income takes time and as you start to see the fruit of your labor you will desire to allocate more time to working on your passive income projects.

Let’s recap what I shared with you today:

  1. Identify Your Area of Expertise
  2. Decide on Your Platform
  3. Be a Giver!
  4. Make Yourself Unique
  5. Develop Your Passive Income Revenue Streams

All of what I mention above will take work and dedication, which is why I created the chat group on Discord. Most of the people around you will not understand why you are starting this project so you will want some people you can do Passive Income with which is why I created the Discord group.

Building Passive Income Revenue Streams means you are starting a business and you need to treat it as such. There are no special credentials or licensing you need to get to start (unless you plan to give medical or legal advice, or something like that). You don’t need a business license until you decide to sell something. You can earn passive income from affiliate programs such as Amazon Affiliates without ever having a business license. It’s not required. A business license is required when you charge for a product or service directly to another person or entity, such as when you sell an ebook. This requirement could vary depending on where you live so I would check with your local business governing authority to make sure.

Ditch That 9 to 5

This is the first step towards ditching that 9 to 5 job where you can stop trading your time for money and instead invest your time into work that will continue to pay you even if you take your foot off the throttle pedal for a while. It won’t happen overnight. Treat it like an investment in yourself and your future. It will pay off and when it does, it will feel better than any paycheck you ever received from a job.

Next Steps

I have given you a few action steps to take in this post. I recommend you jump on them now. Don’t wait or procrastinate. Procrastination is a form of stress relief through avoidance. You will feel your body resist this change but you can override that tendency by creating your blog now or making that first video for YouTube.

Join the Discord Chat so we can discuss this together. Even if it’s just you and me in there, it will be worth having someone in your corner to encourage you along the way.

Signup for my email newsletter using this link or the box in the sidebar. I will make sure you get useful information when I have it to provide to help you on your journey of creating passive income.

Follow me on social media so you can see that I am living this lifestyle and not just blowing smoke. My passive income growth allowed me to travel full-time for two months this past summer with my family of six in our travel trailer. If it was not for my passive income revenues I wouldn’t have made it a week.

  • Jerad on Instagram
  • Jerad on Twitter
  • Jerad on Facebook
  • Jerad on YouTube
  • Jerad on Linedin

I hope this article gave you the encouragement and tools to get started today. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments section below this post. You can also reach out to me on social media or through the Discord chat group I mention above.

I look forward to hearing the story of how you transformed your income by creating passive income revenue of your own.

Filed Under: Blog, Passive Income Tagged With: Business, byob, passive income, work from home Leave a Comment

How to Start a Business For Free

April 26, 2019

Start a Business Online for Free - Here's how!

The number one reason why people never start a business is fear but close behind that is cost. A common misconception is that starting a business is expensive, but that just isn’t true. In this episode, I talk about how easy it is to start a business online and share the tools you can get for free to get started today.

Episode Sponsor: WPEngine – Best In Class WordPress Hosting: https://jerad.link/wpengine

Links mentioned:
My courses: https://gocreatoracademy.com
WPEngine: https://jerad.link/wpengine
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I have a lot of conversations with people who are interested in starting a business. Pretty much everybody in my circle of people that I talk to that are not currently self employed have expressed some sort of an interest in maybe starting up their own thing. I think it’s something that most of us kind of fantasize about, the idea of starting a business or like this idea that’s been kind of bumping around in our head and we’re thinking like, “What if I put that out there and decided to make it available to the world?” But the number one thing that people bring up to me as a barrier to entry in starting a business is the costs of starting up a business.

Everybody has this misconception that starting a business is expensive. And depending on what you’re trying to do, maybe it could be, but for most of the business ideas that I hear from friends of mine and people that I come in contact with, these are all things that you can start relatively for basically free, if not for a small amount. Because really all you’re doing is getting your idea out there and kind of getting it in front of people and seeing if there’s any interest. And that really is something that you should do first before you dive in and start investing a bunch of money. A lot of us think that we have to have everything ready to go, we have to have a perfectly polished product ready, designed, tested and ready to deliver before we can open our doors for business. And that, that usually requires a lot of expensive startup expenses, a lot of capital that you have to have, you know, and it really does vary depending on what you are wanting to do as far as your line of business.

But most businesses can be started for basically nothing. You could at least get your idea out there and start, you could at least get your idea out there and start to kind of put it in front of people and see if there’s an interest for your product or service. So I have some ideas I wanted to talk to you about today on how you can start your business for free using basically just some of your time, of course. A lot of times we will trade our time for something that we could pay somebody else to do instead and that, of course, takes money, having startup capital. But for those of you that have some extra time in your day, maybe you’re willing to spend a little bit of your weekend kind of plugging away and working on this project, I think it’s something that you can get out there and get done for free, and then even make your first few dollars without having spent any money out of pocket, just your time.

So before I get started, I wanted to mention the sponsor of this episode, which is WP Engine. WP Engine is a WordPress hosting platform that provides websites that are basically turnkey. Now WordPress powers over 30% of the Internet and there are lots of different ways that you can access WordPress. One of the things I’m going to talk about later in this video is how to get a free WordPress website. But if you’re wanting something a little bit more robust that comes with more theme options, so that you can really customize and kind of design your website to be unique. And also, an easy process, I say design a website, that sounds like it was going to require a lot of knowledge, but it really isn’t. And then maybe you want support. You want to be able to email or contact support so that you can have some help and assistance throughout the process. You want a robust system and make sure that your website is going to be up all the time. You want to have storage space so that you can upload photos, or small video clips of your products or your services, so that you could show that to other people. WP Engine is proven to be one of the best out there as far as it goes to WordPress hosting. You’re definitely going to have a great experience with them. The link is down in the description below, or the show notes. Check out their plans and pricing today. So the first thing that you really need to figure out before you go down this path of starting your business is whether, or not you are selling a product or a service. A product, of course, is something that you’re going to have, to have ready. It’s maybe something that you have put together and you’re going to be shipping to people, or perhaps it’s a product that you do on site. Maybe if you’re thinking about starting a local business, but most of the time a product is something that is going to be delivered to a person.

A service is something that is performed such as, if you are a local business, maybe a plumber going in unclogging a drain, or a training session, maybe you’re taking an area of expertise that you have and you’re teaching other people about that, consulting, these are all services that people provide. Products are something that is more of a deliverable. So for example, with my line of work, if I am going to produce a video for a customer or a client, I will go and film. It’s actually half and half. I will go and provide a service, I’ll go and film, I’ll help with, you know, the planning and everything of getting this video put together. But then I also have the deliverable, which is the finished video, that is the product that I deliver. And so you kind of have to look at how your product or service is going to be delivered, how you’re going to work that out.

A lot of online only businesses are usually product or service based, because you can maybe put together an ebook or some sort of a course or a product that you can sell, that’s something that you do maybe provide a little bit of service, because you want to keep your students or your users engaged and keep them around and make sure that they aren’t just jumping from one thing to the next. That you’re providing valuable information for them and continuing to give them useful content so that they can continue to be engaged with you. Or services. Maybe you are a graphic designer or you have some sort of a service that you’re going to provide to people. If you’re like me, you have a lot of experience in website design, so I may actually use my knowledge to build a website and deliver that to a person. I can do that all online without actually having to meet with a person. I do of course, like to meet with people, but I can do that all online.

So you really have to have a clearly defined idea of what you are going to be offering. Is it a product, is it a service, is it some sort of a hybrid? And that’s going to drive your decision making and how you market this product. You have to be thinking about how you’re going to communicate what you’re offering to the person on the other end who is looking for that service. So, the first thing that you need to do is determine that and then you can start moving on through the process of starting to put together your business identity. Now, I have a lot to say too much for this video on how to put together a business identity. Do you use yourself, your name, your face, and make the product and service about you? Or do you come up with a business name and put that out there so the business is more standalone?

I am going to put a video together later on this, because I have several businesses including a business that I branded with my own name. And that has caused it to be a little bit more challenging for me to create content and put content out there under my own name, because the search engines tend to associate you with a particular category or industry. So for example, I marketed myself as a photographer for a lot of years. And so the internet knows me as a photographer under my own name. If you search for me by name, Jerad Hill, you’re going to find a lot of photography related stuff because my name is associated with that. And so Google, thinks when somebody’s searching for me by name that they’re looking for a photographer, unless you put some sort of a word after that to help Google further understand what you’re looking for. Google’s going to bring back all of my photography related content and you won’t see my digital marketing agency, Hill Media Group. You won’t see some of my other YouTube channels unless you start scrolling for a little while. You’ll come across that stuff.

So you want to be careful not to kind of box yourself in. But then again at the same time, a personal brand is a very strong thing and if you are okay with that, if you are okay with associating your name with that particular industry, product or service that you’re going to be producing, then I think that there is a good argument for using your name and building a personal brand, because there’s a lot of trust built in that too. It’s easier for people to trust a person than it is for them to trust a business and so if you decided to go down that route because you’re producing content, like I’m doing here, you’re producing some sort of information. Maybe you’re going to be getting into consulting or something like that, using your name might be better because there’s a better chance for you to build trust with a person. It’s a lot easier for you to build trust by putting information out there and sharing it with others if you’re using your own name.

It’s why I’m using my own name and putting out this content, because I feel like I’m pulling from all of my years of experience of being in business and running different businesses and building businesses and deciding to fold certain businesses and all of this stuff that I’ve done over the years, I want to put out there under my own name. I don’t think that it would be valuable to put it out there under some new business name that nobody knows. So I’m using my own name. So think about that when you are deciding on your identity, and then when you have decided on your identity, you’re going to want to create social media accounts for it and a website of course for that. And so I recommend of course, setting up a Facebook page, not a Facebook profile like you probably already have, but setting up a Facebook business page. I have a link down in the description below to a free course where I teach you how to do that.

So you want to check that out, go through the entire process of setting up a Facebook page. It’s not too challenging, but there’s a lot of options and I want to make sure you choose the right one based on the type of business and whether, or not you’re a local business only or you’re servicing anybody with an internet connection who can connect to your content. There are some variations there, so you want to make sure you choose the right account. And then of course, Instagram. Instagram is very visual, it’s photos and video clips. But you are going to want to create an account there, because you will be able to utilize hashtags and communicating with others who are in similar industries or even the type of audience that you’re looking for. You’ll be able to communicate really easily with people there on Instagram. If you are more, if you’re okay with getting behind the camera like I am, or getting in front of the camera, I guess you should say, or I should say, YouTube would be a great platform as well.

I think YouTube is just continuing to grow. It’s exploding. There are people that are looking for good content, they’re looking for information, they’re looking to grow and expand themselves and they’re using YouTube content for that. And so YouTube creating is definitely an avenue that you should go down if you are interested in creating a YouTube account and getting that set up. I am working on a short course for that on how to go through the process of setting that up and making sure that you have, you know, everything that you can for that YouTube channel when you’re ready to launch it. And then of course, depending on the nature of your business there’s other social networks like Linkedin. If you are offering something that would be marketed to professionals or other people in business, like a business to business type of product, I think it’s important to have a Linkedin. You may already have a personal Linkedin, which is great. You’ll want to customize your Linkedin to reflect the nature of your new business. And then of course, you can start a company page for your Linkedin as well and you could produce content underneath that company page.

It’s been shown that longer form content really works well on Linkedin. And video also works well on Linkedin because there are not a lot of people producing video content on Linkedin. So, when you put up a video it tends to stand out from everybody else. Of course given time, this will change because people are becoming more and more comfortable in front of the camera, which I’ve been doing for a lot of years. I’ve been getting more and more comfortable or trying to get more and more comfortable in front of the camera, so other people are going to be doing that as well. And then last of course, set up a email address that is specific for your business. You can do this for free by setting up a Gmail account. If you want something a little bit more professional, you can set up an email account using the domain name that you purchased and we’ll talk about that here in a second.

So rather than your email address being like jeradhill [at] gmail.com, it would be [email protected] instead, which is a little bit more, a little bit more professional looking and it gives you a little bit more control. And I’ll talk briefly about that here in the video as well. So once you have those things set up, and the reason that I’m, I put social media before your website is when you’re thinking about setting up your social media, you want to use your business name or the name that you’re going to go buy if you’re building your personal brand. So for example, I used to have a personal Facebook profile and it was facebook.com/jeradhill. Well, I decided after a while that I wanted to merge that over to a Facebook page and actually convert it over to a Facebook business page, because I was going to be producing more content related to the different businesses that I have, videos and content, like what I’m producing now. And I wanted that to be a page, so that I had all the marketing tools that they give page owners, Facebook page owners.

I didn’t want to have that for my personal Facebook account and I don’t even really have a personal Facebook account. I have one that I use just so that I can, you know, keep in touch with family and join Facebook groups and stuff like that. But my Facebook page is my primary home on Facebook. And so you want that username, so slash whatever it’s going to be. Or if you’re on Instagram, your Instagram username, you want those to be consistent if possible. It just makes it easier and cleaner if they can be consistent and be the same. So be thinking about that and you may actually have to search a little bit to find a username that’s going to work on all of these platforms. I didn’t mention Twitter, I don’t think so. Twitter’s another one that you should join. I feel like you should join all the social networks, whether, or not you’re going to use all of them is another thing.

But it is important to kind of lock down your business name on all of them, because if later on down the road you decide you want to start using one of those social networks and now your username is taken, you’re going to have to go with a different username, which is kind of a bummer. So I just recommend locking all of those down, it definitely is an easy process and it’s free to register all of those. So why not?

So next we’re going to be setting up a website and you can do this for free. You can go to wordpress.com and when you go to set up a page they have on their pricing page, of course, they have some plans that start at $3 a month. And for blogs and personal sites, you really can just start with a blog or a personal site. They have a tab for business and online stores that gets a little bit more expensive, but you can start with a blog or personal site, which starts at $3 a month.

Of course, if you scroll down below that, there is a free plan. You can start with a free plan, you’re just going to be getting a sub-domain website. And what that means is that it would be like jeradhill.wordpress.com instead of jeradhill.com, and then of course you have to pay a few more dollars in order to get your own domain name. With their $3 plan, you actually get a free .blog domain. I did that early on when .blog was a new domain. So jerad.blog is my actual blog website address and it is a WordPress address. For the $5 a month plan, they give you a free domain for one year and so you get your domain name, you can register it right from within here and you can get your own .com, .net and there’s a whole slew of dot extensions, whatever you wanted. You can also opt to just buy it out, so you don’t have to buy it through WordPress, you could just flat out buy it. I’ve been using Namecheap lately.

I always used to shy away from those cheap kind of low price domain name registers, but Namecheap actually has been like really awesome and I’ve been kind of slowly moving away from GoDaddy whenever I need to renew a domain name, I’d been moving it over to Namecheap. Namecheap has just been super easy to use and their customer support is actually really good as well. So, but WordPress as far as your website goes, you can get one for free. You can use one of their WordPress plans or of course you can use the sponsor of this video, which is WP Engine. If you wanted something that’s a little bit more like professional and turnkey and ready to go, but is still WordPress. I think WP Engine is definitely the best option, but you have to be ready to commit to like $35 a month or something right around there. Of course, the title of this video was how to start a business for free.

So wordpress.com definitely is one that you are going to want to go with, especially if you’re trying to get it done for free or as close to free as possible. Know also that you’re not stuck with one of these, if you want to move your website from wordpress.com to WP Engine or to any other hosting platform that’s out there, it’s really easy to do that. And it’s probably a video that I should put out, maybe not on this YouTube channel, but it’s definitely a video that I should put out on how to move a WordPress website from one site to another, because it is an easy process so long as you just have it set up correctly. So you’re never locked in forever on any of these. You know, I recommend maybe taking advantage, if you’re going to pay for a plan, some of them offer a better price if you pay for six months or a year at a time. So if you know that you’re really going to go after this, you might want to look at getting the better pricing.

But that’s really the only way that you would ever get locked into anything is if you paid for pricing out into the future. And then you kind of have to use the services, because you paid for them already. So, there’s a list of business ideas that I wanted to put together because a lot of times, you know, we’re thinking, “Well, I want to start something, I just don’t really know what it is.” And a lot of times a list of ideas is a thing that can help get you started. You may read an idea, read a suggestion from a list and say like, “Oh, okay, like I didn’t even think about that. I’m not going to do exactly that, but I have this, that just triggered this other idea in my head and I want to do that.” And I am always starting little things and so I want you to know that you do not have to have this all perfected and planned out.

I am always starting little ideas and kind of putting it out there and seeing what happens, and just kind of watching. One of the new things about WP Engine is that they give you fantastic analytics on the traffic that comes to your website. So as you start to share the link and put it out there, as you start to put maybe a blog or two up on your website and a little bit of content, and Google starts to send traffic to your website, you’re going to be able to kind of see what people gravitate towards on your website and whether, or not they’re finding it informational or not. Analytics is a really tricky subject when it comes to websites. All of the numbers and data can help you understand things, but you have to understand what those numbers and all of that data means, so there’s a bit there. But having those analytics helps you also understand whether, or not your idea maybe is going to be able to take off.

A lot of times, and I’m sure you’ve been on a website where you come into the front end of the website, you kind of go through this process of like clicking and looking at things, and then if you leave the website without taking some form of an action, that helps the person who runs the website know where the drop off point was. Maybe you, if you didn’t complete the purchase and go all the way through, then they know what page was the breakdown point. And that’s really cool information for those of us that are, you know, running online businesses because that helps us better craft our message through the process. If there’s a spot in your website that is constantly, like people are jumping off and leaving from that point, there’s probably an issue with the content there. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad content, it might mean that you just solved their problem and then they left. I have a tendency to do that. I give away a lot of the information, it solves the person’s problem and then they leave. And I didn’t do a good job at giving them a next step.

And so that’s the process of making your website kind of flow and giving them the right information, so that it takes them through the process of signing up for your product or service or making a purchase or putting in their email address to learn more or whatever that process is. So I mentioned that list of business ideas, and this is where I will ask for your email address. I have a list of businesses that I think are things that you can start for free. These are businesses that all you have to do is, it may be educate yourself a little bit on before you start them. Maybe take advantage of the education that you got, you know, going to college or something that you’ve studied over the last several years as a hobby, or something that’s been fun or informational to you. These business ideas are things that are not going to require putting out any money to get started. It’s just going to be your time, investing your time to better understand, maybe what some of these are.

And I hope that if, maybe they’re not ideas that you can jump on right away, but maybe it triggers something in you and you say, “Oh yeah, you know what? That’s not it, but this is,” and that’s really what I’m after, is helping you just jog your memory or your mind a little bit to help you come up with something. Because when you can come up with something and get excited about it, that’s going to show through the way that you project yourself and your content and everything online and it’s going to draw other people in. And that’s obviously the kind of person that we all want to do business with. So I hope that that helps, that this helps you on the process of getting started. I think that the biggest barrier to entry is fear, really, fear of just starting. And then of course, money. Sometimes there are other things that block us from getting started on, you know, maybe being an entrepreneur or being self employed. So I hope that this kind of knocks a few of those things down and helps you on the process of getting started on starting your own business.

Signup for access to my list of business ideas: https://jerad.blog/subscribe

Maybe even one day you will replace your income and not have to go to a day job anymore, but being able to invest in your own business, which obviously I think is just better.

What are you waiting for? Get started on that idea of yours!

Filed Under: Blog, Passive Income, Personal Development Tagged With: Business, Entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, online business, Start a business Leave a Comment

Cleaning & Clearing Continues

January 13, 2019

Hello Wanderers! Ok, that’s something new. Playing around with a way to address those of us who desire to wander and create more freedom in our lives. It is a fight at times so I’m going to refer to us as Wanderers for a while and see where it goes.

This week the cleaning and clearing have continued. In my first post, I spent some time explaining what This Week In Freedom was all about by giving you some of my backstory. I also shared that I was going through a process of getting back to the essentials by getting rid of stuff and being ok with getting rid of it.

I want to share with you these pictures of the shop at my office. The office that I am working on getting out of was where I conducted business for the last few years. I have had three different offices over the past eight years. Though I downsized a lot to fit into the office I am now moving out of, I will need to downsize much more to be completely out of there and not need a large storage unit, which I am trying to avoid. The shop was quite a mess because I had started to go through everything and had moved a couple of storage racks home. Before taking away the racks the entire floor was for the most part clear. Check it out.

So I spent just about all of Saturday going through everything. I wanted to make sure that boxes with personal documents such as prior tax returns or anything like that were removed. Some of these boxes have traveled with me from house to house and office to office. It was time to break that cycle.

I went through all of the emotions while going through this mess. Part of me wanted to throw it all in the dumpster or donate it all on the spot, but I knew that was not the responsible thing to do. There is a lot of equipment here that still has value. I would be shortchanging myself if I did that. I ended up listing about 15 things on Facebook Marketplace and most of it sold that same day within a few hours.

By the end of the day I had completely gone through everything and am ready to sell it all off or donate it. I fired off an email to my CPA last night asking whether it would be more beneficial to sell everything off or to donate it to an organization that would inventory everything and provide me with a detailed list. Once I have that answer I will decide which direction to go. Regardless of what I do, the shop must be empty by a week from now. Though I am in a lease until the end of March I want to know this place is empty. I will regain just a little bit more freedom in my mind knowing that this place is cleared out.

At home, we have also continued to go through our stuff and clear out more. I mentioned having several bags of clothes to get rid of, we have added more clothes, old toys and stuff we don’t really use anymore to the mix. Check out this pile, which doesn’t include a few bags that are in the garage. Now I didn’t know who Marie Kondo was prior to last week, but I think she would be proud. I think we have only begun to see just how much we can get rid of.

So much was done this week in the journey to freedom. Each week brings us one step closer to our summer road trip. To recap, our plan is to travel for the entire summer in our travel trailer. Pending something unforeseen, the only issue that could arise is the finalization of our adoption of Mikayla. We have been told that we could have a court date sometime in June or July but that is something we can schedule and as we get closer, we will have more details.

In the near future, I plan to bring my wife into the fold of This Week In Freedom as she was the one that made that pile as big as it is. My wife really enjoys organization and has had some really good ideas for our travel trailer that will assure we all have some space for the things we do decide to keep and take with us on our trip.

I have also created a YouTube channel for This Week in Freedom, but have not created any video content for the channel yet. I do plan to soon. Ideally, I would like to do these weekly updates in video form and include video from throughout the week.

Dreams don’t come to fruition overnight, nor does freedom. It’s a constant battle of will and the desire for something better. Even last night, my kids were bored. They couldn’t come up with something to do yet they have so many options. It would be much easier for them if they had fewer choices. I really do wish that our trip could start tomorrow, but until then we will keep working toward essentializing and ridding ourselves of the unnecessary.

Keep fighting the good fight Wanderers! What can you cut back on this week to create more space in your life? I look forward to updating all of you next week with photos of an empty shop with nothing in it.

Filed Under: Blog, Personal Development Tagged With: Business, Cleaning, Family, freedom, lifestyle design Leave a Comment

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