3 best jobs from home you that will pay you well

 Do you want to learn how to earn money from home or how to earn money online?

There are tons of work from home jobs that already exist. And, in today’s world, there are more and more jobs online, and this trend is expected to continue well into the future.

Some work from home jobs involve you working for someone else, or you may be able to even start your own business.

And, yes, you may even be able to earn a full-time income from home.

So, if you are looking to start making more money or if you want a new career path that lets you earn money from home, this list is especially for you.

Over the past year I have been able to interview several people who are making money working from home. They are doing their own thing, and they are rocking at life.

Hopefully, you had the chance to read their interviews on my blog, but in case you missed any of them, this post rounds them all up for you.

This round-up includes everything from selling on Amazon, teaching English, becoming a cooking instructor, flipping items for profits, and more! If you’re wondering “How can I earn money working from home?”, then this is for you.

My hope is that these stories will spark your interest, and they may even inspire you to learn how to earn money from home.

I’m always looking to add to the list of different ways to earn money online and different ways to work from home, so if you know of anything else, please leave a comment or send me an email.

All of these options are legitimate jobs, career paths, or business ideas, so you don’t have to worry about work from home job scams. As always, they will require your time and effort – as all careers do.

1) Become a virtual assistant to earn money online.

Not only does the internet allow us to complete more daily tasks online, more and more people are working from home in fields such as blogging, social media, etc. This means virtual assistants are becoming even more in demand.

Virtual assistant tasks may include social media management, formatting and editing content, scheduling appointments or travel, email management, and more. Basically, you can get paid to do any task that needs to be done in someone’s business, but doesn’t need to be done by them.

 Read this interview if you are interested in the virtual assistant job

Please give us a little background on yourself and how you became a freelance writer and virtual assistant.

Hi, my name is Gina Horkey and I’m a married, millennial mama to two toddlers, currently ages two and four. My lovely husband has the patience of a saint and stays at home with them on the daily.

He quit his job going on three years ago after we priced out daycare for two kids under two (it’s crazy expensive!). Since he’d always wanted to become a SAHD, we made a bunch of budget cuts and made it happen!

My former career was as a financial advisor and support person to a large financial planning practice. I liked my clients, co-workers and some of my work, but it wasn’t “what I wanted to be when I grew up.” Since I was only 30 (yet had already been working in the biz since age 21), I couldn’t imagine another 30 years doing something that I wasn’t really passionate about.

So I started a freelance writing side hustle while working full-time and raising two toddlers (one who was actually under one at the time). Writing, and learning more about online business in general, led me to approaching my first virtual assistance client and asking him to hire me. The semi-predictable income really appealed to me, especially as I was gearing up to quit my day job and I was the sole breadwinner.

With a lot of motivation, dedication and fear busting, I was able to build up my new freelance business enough to put in my notice and go full-time at the end of 2014. I haven’t looked back since!

 

Can you explain what exactly a freelance writer is, who they write for, etc.?

A freelance writer is just a self-employed writer who markets his or her services to individuals, businesses or both. Freelancing means that instead of having an employer, you have many clients that you work with at any given time.

No one is feeding you work, so it’s your responsibility to put yourself out there and source writing gigs. I started out primarily writing for online publications – like blog posts, case studies, and website copy (and this is still primarily the case). One could also write for print publications, textbooks, etc.

Side note: Gina has a great freelance writing course I recommend you take. You can find that here. Her courses are extremely affordable and I’ve heard great things about them.

 

What exactly does a virtual assistant do? Who are their clients?

As a virtual assistant, I like to market myself as the frontline of a webpreneur’s (online business owner) business.

VA tasks can vary greatly, but a lot of the time it breaks down to doing tasks that the entrepreneur or small business owner doesn’t like or doesn’t have time to do. Email management is a big one for both of my clients – they just don’t have the time or desire to keep up with all of the inquiries or client requests.

Other VAs may focus on social media management, formatting, and editing blog posts, scheduling appointments or travel. Basically, you can get paid to do any task that needs to be done in someone’s business, but doesn’t need to be done by them.

I’ve found online business owners (webpreneurs) to be a great niche, as they “get” working virtually. But there’s nothing to say you couldn’t contract with a local brick and mortar and work out of your home, instead of in their office.

The big benefit for the client is that you’re not an employee. They don’t have to provide you with benefits, vacation or sick time or pay employment taxes. All of that is your responsibility.

 

How much can a beginner freelance writer or virtual assistant expect to make? How much can a person expect to make around one year after they start?

Oooh, rate questions are always so interesting. I’m going to start with the “it depends” answer and then share some of my experience.

It does depend on your experience and qualifications. I had a lot of experience in the financial services industry, which as a writer is a lucrative field. This helped me to charge higher rates (think $.30/word) – the challenge is finding clients willing to pay those rates.

From what I’ve seen, most writers start out making under $.10/word or less than $50 per post. But as their experience and marketing prowess grows, they find themselves charging hundreds of dollars per article.

As a VA, many start out hourly. I quoted my first VA client $34/hr and he didn’t blink. I now charge either a weekly or monthly retainer, but don’t track or turn in hours. According to the research that exists, the average rate for a North American VA is $35-50/hr.

Again, from what I’ve seen, it’s probably more like $15-50/hr. It’s all about knowing your strengths though and how you can put them into practice in someone else’s business to help them grow and earn a positive ROI (return on investment).

Here’s a great example of ROI and how to position yourself as an investment, rather than an expense:

Let’s say an entrepreneur can bill out their time at $100/hr and they pay a VA $25/hr to take some tasks off their plate. If the VA saves the business owner 10 hours per week that they can then, in turn, bill out at the higher rate, that’s $3,000 per month more in their pocket (or time back with their family).

 

What do you like about freelance writing and virtual assisting?

I like freelancing, in general, because I have control over my schedule, my time and get to choose who I work with. I’ve never met so many cool people, as I have since becoming a webpreneur myself.

Writing is a great medium for me to express myself. It’s almost like a word puzzle, where I have to figure out an enticing introduction, an informative and actionable body and a sharp conclusion that brings it all together.

VA work is great because I don’t have to write all of the time – I don’t think I’d be happy writing for 40 hours every week. Talk about burnout or writer’s block! Instead, I can do a certain set of tasks not associated with my business and not have to be creative for a bit. I also really like the predictability in salary, which doesn’t come with the writing side as much.

Lastly, VA work rocks because I’ve learned SO MUCH from the entrepreneurs I work with. I’ve learned a lot about sales funnels, writing stronger copy and using new tools too. It’s getting paid to learn, which is the very best way there is!

 

What if you’re not sure if either are a good fit? 

I say try it anyway. If you don’t try, you won’t know.

And if you’re scared, that’s a double reason to get started and figure out if it’s for you or not. I’ve always subscribed to the thought that if I was going to try something new, I’m either going to succeed or fail hard. There’s no in between.

 

How much does it cost to start these side hustles and how much on a monthly basis to maintain it?

You could get started literally for free. I spent ~$200 to launch my business and then didn’t spend any more until I was making money (which I was able to do the very next month). I spent that money on my URL and hosting, a job board membership and a Yahoo! Style Guide.

As my business has grown and changed, I’ve seen my expenses do the same. But I’ve always used the profits from my business to reinvest in it.

As long as you have a computer and access to a strong internet connection, you’re pretty well set. That’s part of the beauty of online work.

 

What do you love about being able to make money freelance writing and virtual assisting? 

Again, it just comes down to the freedom of choice. After getting a taste of it, I’ve found that I’m also really passionate about online business.

I’ve been able to build my own business and make my own decisions. I.e. If I’m interested in launching a paid Mastermind for Mamapreneurs, I can. I don’t have to get anyone’s permission.

Best of all, though, we’re finally cashing in on this flexible schedule thing and heading from Minnesota to southern Texas for a month this winter. I would have never been able to do that if I was employed!

It won’t be a month-long vacation per say, but I can take my work with me and get a tan at the same time (hopefully!). Our two toddlers won’t be cooped up in the house (it’s 0 degrees out as I’m writing this) and we can enjoy being together and see new places.

 

Lastly, are there any other tips that you have for someone who wants to try either of these side hustles?

I’m kind of a broken record with this one, but JUST. GET. STARTED!

Don’t wait until you’re ready (you’ll never be!). Don’t read everything on the internet to learn as much as you can before putting yourself out there and trying to find work.

As Nike likes to say, “Just Do It!” Figure it out on the fly and learn from doing – trust me, it’s been the best education ever!

2) Write  eBooks on various topics

Alyssa self-published her first book and has sold more than 13,000 copies.

She is now earning a great passive income of over $200 a day from her book ($6,500 in one month alone!).

She is also the creator of From Blog To Book, a course that will help you write, launch, and market your first book. I’ve already signed up for the course, and the expertise she shares is absolutely amazing. Some of the modules in her course include:

• Mapping Out Your Book Content
• Strategies for Writing Your Next 30,000 Words
• Where to Publish Your Book
• Tutorial: Getting Your Book on Amazon
• Design Your Book Cover
• Set Pricing for Your Book
• Create Your Marketing Plan

Read the following interview in you are interested in ebook writing earning  opportunity

Tell me your story. Who are you and what are you sharing with us today?

Thanks Michelle! I’m the shorter half of HeathandAlyssa.com, a blog my husband and I run focused on the RV lifestyle.

We started RVing four years ago, when we came up with the dream to visit all fifty states on our honeymoon. An RV was the most economical way to make our dream happen (at least the most economical way that didn’t involve spending our first year of marriage sleeping in a tent), and we quickly fell in love with the RV lifestyle.

After only a month of full-timing, we made the easy decision to full-time travel for as long as possible. That meant we had to figure out two things: how to make money while traveling and how to pay off our student debt.

We’ve spent the past four years trying everything in our power to make money on the road, including starting a video production company, speaking at events, filming a documentary, learning how to make affiliate income (shoutout to Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing for teaching me everything I know), finding sponsors for our podcast, hosting a conference, and most recently writing a book.

Today, I want to share my success with writing a book for a few reasons. First, as a blogger, writing a book is basically the number one suggestion out there for how to monetize your site. It establishes your credibility, gives you authority, and is a great first paid product. Second, writing a book is a lifelong dream for most people (myself included) and it’s a huge undertaking.

And third, because too many bloggers write books the way my husband wrote his. Like this:

Step 1: They write a book.

Step 2: They send one email about the book and post a couple links to the book on the website, selling it through some nondescript ecommerce plugin.

Step 3: They freak out over selling to their audience or getting negative reviews and promptly never market the book again.

I spent months begging Heath to properly market his book, and finally he admitted to me that he didn’t think it was good enough. So he never pushed marketing it.

It broke my heart to see how many hours he spent working on this book— he’d dreamed of writing a book since before we met— and not giving it the chance it deserved.

Of course that’s when I had my own lightbulb moment because as much as I wanted to write a book, I was stuck in the earlier stages, scared to finish and publish anything at all.

 How and why did you decide to write a book?

I decided that I would one day write a book when I was six and had just learned to read. I remember the moment so distinctly. I loved reading, and after reading a book about a clown at a circus, I remember thinking to myself, seriously? I could write a book better than that. I don’t know why that moment is burned in my memory, but for years if you asked me what I was going to do when I grew up, I was going to write books.

Fast forward twenty years, watching Heath write and publish his book inspired me to finally pursue my own book. I had author friends, but I hadn’t seen behind the scenes of writing a book before. I watched him work through the process, making it up as he went along, and I realized for the first time that what really held me back was that I didn’t know the right steps.

I knew how to write because I’d spent years blogging, and I knew I wanted to write a book all about RVing because our audience was begging for it.

But tackling self-publishing would be a whole other beast. I kept getting caught up in the best software to write a book, which file format to use, and which platform was best for selling the book.

Supposedly, self-publishing was easy, but I didn’t know where to start.

Finally, I sat myself down and said if I really wanted to publish a book— if this was really my lifelong dream— then I needed to spend just as much time writing it as I spent learning how to publish it. Perhaps it seems obvious, that you need to do more than just write a book. You need to learn how to publish, launch, and market it.

But, I think that’s what we missed with Heath’s book launch. He focused so much on the content. We never thought about learning the industry, learning the tricks of the trade, and most importantly learning how to get on the most trafficked ecommerce site in the world: Amazon.  

I decided writing my first book would be an experiment. I didn’t expect it to be perfect or a huge success. I was focused more on learning how to do the whole process right.

I had a few major goals:

• Learn how to self-publish a book
• Grow our brand awareness through being on the giant search engine that is Amazon
• Create a truly passive income stream

 

 How long did it take you to write?

When I wrote the first draft of the book, the words blazed out of me in about a month. I was surprised that I was able to get all the content written in such a short time, but writing the first draft is the easy part. It’s getting the courage to share the book, gather feedback, edit, iterate, and preparing to publish the book where things get dicey.

After I wrote the first draft, I wanted Heath to read it and give me feedback. But, when it came time to send him the file, I chickened out. I was too scared to hear how terrible it was!

I literally spent months being mocked by the file on my desktop while I worked up the nerve to share my book with Heath. And, that was just sharing it with my husband! He’s basically legally obligated to love everything I do and I was still scared to share the file with him. (Fun fact: writing a book is great way to bring out allllll of your insecurities.)

When I finally re-opened the file to work on it again—around when I started giving myself a pep talk about how learning how to self-publish was just as important as the writing itself— I found that I loved writing the book itself and words flowed easily.

Equipped with enough determination to publish the book this time, I finished writing the book, getting it reviewed and edited, and getting an export of the book out to early readers in roughly two months. I then spent three months working on learning KDP, or Kindle Direct Publishing, which is how you self-publish a book on Amazon.

End to end, from starting the book to publishing it on Amazon took me 18 months, but most of that time was not spent actively working on the book, instead actively working on being terrified of publishing a book.

If you pretend that I didn’t ignore my book for a year in fear (which I would personally love to forget), then I wrote and published the book in six months.

 

 Did anything scare you about writing a book?

Pretty much everything about writing a book scared me.

I think there’s this expectation as a blogger that everything you do has to be successful. At the least, I know I put that pressure on myself because we intentionally make so much of our life public. I knew that with launching this book, if it didn’t go well, I would be a very public failure. That thought lost me a lot of sleep.

Fortunately, that fear pushed me to devote an obscene amount of time to validating the book, which meant sending free copies to readers, gathering their feedback, and improving the content of the book. I think, ultimately, this has helped my book sell better long term because I focused so much of my energy on publishing the best possible RVing book on the market.

I think I had this very wrong idea about book publishing that you can just write what you know and that would be good enough. But in this step of the process, I really learned the power of research. I asked readers to tell me, based on the first draft of the book, what lingering questions they still had or what they felt I missed.

Armed with their comments, I spent days reading other RVing books and articles researching more answers to all their questions.

Previously, I was so focused on just sharing what I knew that I literally hadn’t thought to look deeper.

For example, I had a section on how the propane tanks worked on RVs. But, I had a dozen people tell me what they really wanted to know was how to safely use the propane tank. Once I read their comments, it seemed so obvious! Of course I needed to include propane safety! We even had a great story about a propane leak I could use.

It was a great example of how you forget what you know.

So in the end, my deep-seeded fear of writing a terrible book really enhanced the book’s content and taught me a lot about the power of validating your book before you start writing.

 

 Can anyone write a book?

I’d like to think that anyone could write a book, but I think the real question is: who can write and successfully publish a book? Theoretically, anyone who can write can write a book. But, there’s so much more that goes into publishing a book than just writing!

 

 How much can a person expect to make from a book?

How much you make is directly tied to your efforts as the author. How big is your audience? Are you continuing to grow your email list? Do you actively promote the book to new audiences? How much are you willing to spend to promote the book?

There is a visible difference in my book sales in January, when I did nothing to promote the book, compared to March, when I ran a promotion and did events, compared to this summer, when I ran ad campaigns and promotions continuously.

2018 Book Sales (orange means ebook, grey means paperback)

Another major factor is how many variations of your book you sell. With just the ebook, I make $1,000/month. Which exceeded my expectations by a mile. That was life-changing passive income for me!

But once I launched my paperback (three months after my ebook was launched), everything changed. My ebook sales remained steady—despite the fact that book sales typically decline month over month—and the additional income from the paperback meant I was now making $3,000/month on average.

That’s when I really started strategizing about how to sell the book long term. Everything I read pre-publishing my book said your first three months will be the best months, and sales peter out over time. So, I was mentally prepared for that average. But, I started to wonder how I could defeat those odds.

So far, I’ve experienced the complete opposite—my book has sold twice as many copies during months 7-9 as it did during months 1-3.

This is in part due to the fact that I waited to publish my paperback until that three month period passed, which I read could “reinvigorate” sales. I had never intended to publish a paperback, but requests from readers, plus reading that having two options could increase overall sales, convinced me to publish the paperback. Based on my experience now, all authors should offer their book in ebook AND paperback form!

Now that I have the ebook and paperback formats for sale, my monthly sales have risen month over month for the past six months.

Last month I peaked and earned $6,500 from the book. So, while typically you make the most money during your second month of sales, my best month has been month nine!

Based on my research, this is atypical, but also a good lesson that books sell better when you offer multiple versions of the book and actively work to promote them. I primarily use two strategies: I run promotions offered directly through Amazon once a quarter, and I keep a running AMS campaign—that’s Amazon Marketing Service, AKA how to run sponsored ads for your book—that on average sells an additional 3-6 books every day.

With those two strategies in place, I increased income from earning around $100/day to over $200/day last month.

But, the problem with extrapolating my numbers to figure out how much another could make with a book is that the average self-published book supposedly only sells 250 copies in its lifetime. I’d like to think that this discrepancy is largely due to the fact that most self-published writers focus more on writing than marketing the book. If you want your book to sell well, you have to be willing to put in the same amount of hours into your launch and long-term marketing plans as you do into writing the book.

 

 Is self-publishing a good idea?

Unless you have a large online following already (10K+ on your email list) and have publishers reaching out to you, I think self-publishing is the way to go. In addition to having 100% ownership over your book, you can get it to market quickly and control the end-to-end process.

Traditional publishing almost always takes a couple years and you end up with a lot of hands in the cookie jar. Plus, for traditional publishing you have to write and send out a lot of book proposals, which sounds like a nightmare to me!

I think for most people, self-publishing is a great route. There are less barriers to entry and you have complete control over your product.

 

 How did you market your book?

There are two halves of marketing a book: launching it and marketing it long term.

I already mentioned a couple of the ways I’ve marketed the book long term, but one interesting thing I’ve learned about Amazon is how your first month’s sales heavily impacts your long-term sales. Based on my research, the better your first month of sales, the longer your book will sell on Amazon. So, I focused my energy on creating a launch that would sell the most books possible.

My launch plan had five essential parts: gathering influencer reviews, creating a launch team to promote and review the book, selling the book for free, leveraging relationships with brands, and emailing my list.

Most of those strategies are straightforward, but while it seems counterintuitive, giving away the book for free (initially) was the most effective part of our launch.

If you enroll your book in KDP Select (this is the program that allows readers to borrow books through Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner’s Lending Library), then you have access to two of Amazon’s promotional tools: Kindle Countdown Deals and Free Book Days.

On free book days, KDP sets your book price to $0.00 for 24-hours on the day(s) you choose. I chose for my launch day and the next day to be free days, so my book was free for the first 48-hours it was on the market.

Even though I didn’t make a cent from the 3,000+ books I sold in those first 48-hours, Amazon counts each book as a sale. So in the eyes of the Amazon algorithm, I sold 3,000 books in two days, and you want to sell as many books as possible—free or paid—in that first month.

There are of course a ton of other factors that will influence the Amazon algorithm—choosing the right keywords, customer reviews, and sales rank to name a few—but number of copies sold in the first month seems to be a big one.

After that first month, I used up my five free promo days (you’re allowed up to five days per quarter), I toyed with the free book promotion tool again this summer. The free price only applies to the ebook price, so my paperback price stayed the same (at $13.99).

I saw a huge spike in paperback sales on the free promo day and higher than usual sales on the ebook AND paperback on the days following the free promo as well. Whereas 40-50 books is an average day for me, after the free promo I would sell 65+ in a day.

So, even though I gave away hundreds of ebooks for free on the promotion day, I would make twice as much as usual that week because of how it elevated sales.

While I’ve tried multiple tactics to market my book, this has strangely been the most effective. Free days and the days following the free day are my best days of sales. I never would’ve thought that making the ebook free would make even more money, but it’s by far yielded the best results.

How should a person decide what to price their book at?

If you choose to self-publish with Amazon, pricing ebooks is easy. In addition to automatically being restricted to a $2.99-$9.99 price range set on your ebook (the price range is a lot more loose with paperbacks), Amazon offers Kindle Pricing Support. It’s in beta right now, but when you view the service, it tells you exactly what prices other books in your categories are selling the most copies at.

 

It even will auto-set your pricing based on their research. I kept my book at $3.99 for a while based on this chart, but then I looked at it closely and saw that the $4.99 price point sold almost as many copies as the $3.99 level. I didn’t notice any negative effect on sales from this price increase.

The good thing about Amazon is that you can change prices as often as you want and it only takes a few hours for changes to take effect. So if your book isn’t selling at your current price, you can change it by the end of the day.

I’ve sold my book at $2.99, $3.99, $4.99, and now it’s set at $5.99. I realized with 200+ 5-star reviews, that I could charge prices higher than my competition and still outsell them because the reviews proved my book was the better product and therefore worth more. I came up with this theory while I was shopping on Amazon and noticed how the best-selling books seemed to always be a few dollars more than the competition.

Since most of the competition I have is priced at $2.99, I was worried that the higher price point would kill my sales. Instead, ebook sales have remained steady, and I’ve made an extra $220 or so a month from the price increase.

 

Can you give a step-by-step process for writing and launching a book?

Okay, I actually have a 85-point checklist inside my course From Blog to Book detailing the process of writing and launching a book, but I’m going to simplify it here so your brain doesn’t explode.

Step 1: Figure out your book idea and validate it with your audience. I would spend at least three weeks at this step, surveying readers, examining your most popular blog posts, and gathering feedback.

Step 2: Mind map and outline your book, utilizing the feedback you’ve gathered.

Step 3: Write your first draft!

Step 4: Edit your first draft ruthlessly. Re-write it. Edit it again. Re-write. Edit. Send to an editor, if you can afford one, or a proofreader at the very least!

Step 5: Set up your Kindle Direct Publishing account and start creating your book page. At this step, you’ll create your book cover, land on a final title, write your book description, set pricing, etc.

Step 6: Start creating your launch plan. I recommend starting with reaching out to influencers for endorsements, creating a launch team, and making a list of places to write guest blogs to promote the book.

Step 7: Run through final edits of your book. Export and upload a copy into KDP and use their previewer to do a final review of the book and it’s formatting.

Step 8: Tease your book release as much as possible in the 2-3 weeks pre-launch. Make it available for pre-order on Amazon. Post excerpts on your blog. Email your list garnering anticipation for the launch.

Step 9: Launch! Email your list, post on social, and get your book in front of as many eyes as possible. Instruct your launch team to do the same, so there are links to your book all over the internet.

Step 10: Take a nap cause you’ve earned it.

Step 11: Create a long-term sales and promotion strategy.

 

What’s the top tip you have for someone who wants to do this?

Decide how badly you want to do it. I spent years saying that I was going to write a book, but I was not taking action because I let the fear overwhelm me.

But, I so badly wanted to be an author. I craved holding a book in my hands and feeling that sense of accomplishment. Because I wanted it so badly, I devoted hours and weeks to researching the best way to make it successful. I took pages of notes with links to articles on how to run the free promos and how to game the algorithm and how to write a book description.

Doing the research was not fun, but it made my book successful.

So, I would say my top tip would be to decide how much you want it and what you’re willing to do to make it happen. Late nights, research, shedding tears thinking your book is going to be terrible, freaking out when you forget to hit save and lose hours of work, getting over the fear of selling to your audience—there will be plenty of chances to get stuck and not get your book to market.

But on the other side of clicking publish, I’ve realized a lot of those fears I had didn’t happen. I created something that our community found valuable and filled a need in the market (plus, my six-year-old self would definitely give me kudos for finally following through on my dream).

3) Get your store and start selling

Yes, you can start your own online store, and you don’t need to have tons of experience or a lot of money to do so. Many people start with no background – which means that if this is something you are interested in, then you should definitely read on.

We have interview with Jenn Leach of E-commerce and Prosper, who explains exactly how to start an online store and make extra income.

Jenn is a corporate mom turned e-commerce store owner and blogger.

She started her online business a little over three years ago, and since then, she has developed and grown three successful online e-commerce stores earning an average of $19,000 per month.

She is super successful despite only spending around 5-10 hours per week on her e-commerce business.

Jenn Leach also has a course called E-commerce and Prosper that teaches you how to start an online store. She reveals her successful rinse and repeat formula to students in her course. It’s the same formula she uses to earn an average of $19,000 per month. In her course you will learn:

• How to start an online store.
• Winning e-commerce success tools.
• How to turbocharge your e-commerce success.
• How to start making money in THREE days

  Read this interview if you are interesting in having own store 

Please give us a little background on yourself, how you started an ecommerce business, and how it’s going for you right now.

I’m a Texas-based entrepreneur and blogger over at Drink Coffee & Prosper. I educate readers about working from home, starting a business, blogging, side hustles, and more.  I have an MBA from Texas A&M University and a background in business and finance.  I was working in banking for 10 years before I decided enough was enough and I wanted to finally pursue my dream of becoming an entrepreneur. 

During the final year at my employer I decided to start a business.  I tried many things: freelance writing, selling Twitter fan packages, and more.  I was very unhappy at my job and was really willing to try anything that would allow me to earn a full time income working from home and being an entrepreneur.  After many failed efforts, something finally stuck. 

I opened a women’s fashion retail store on the Storenvy platform.  I made my first sale shortly after launching and soonafter I was earning enough income to quit my day job, so I did!  One year after starting the e-commerce business I quit my day job to pursue entrepreneurship full time.

Fast forward 2.5 years later, I was the owner of 3 e-commerce businesses.  I sold my original online store, restructured the other two, and I’ve added teaching courses and blogging to my repertoire!

My remaining e-commerce business has enjoyed it’s second successful holiday season and is expected to experience some big positive changes and growth in 2017.

 

 How much do you currently earn through this avenue? How much time do you dedicate towards it?

When all three stores were in rotation, I earned an average of $19,000/month (each store) in revenue. 

My remaining e-commerce store earns $11K-$15K/month operating part time and I dedicate about 5-10 hours/week.

 

 What exactly is an ecommerce business? Can you explain this more for those who have no idea?

An e-commerce business is a business in which you conduct transactions over the Internet.  You are selling a product or service, making sales and collecting payment online.  So basically, any purchase made online would be an e-commerce transaction.

 

 What do you like about learning how to start an online store?

I love so many things about this type of business.  First and foremost, the flexibility of being an e-commerce business owner is incredible. 

I’m a mom to a special needs preschooler and wife to a disabled Navy vet.  My schedule is crazy most days of the week, like I’m sure most moms experience.  It’s great to have flexibility to take my son to school in the morning, run an errand, head to a doctor’s appointment, go to a trade show, travel, and more.

I also love connecting with customers one on one.  You get to meet a lot of interesting people and make some awesome connections along the way.

The income potential for an e-commerce business is huge.  You control your destiny.  I like that the opportunity to increase your earnings is unlimited and it feels great to be my own boss and work for myself.

Networking is an opportunity to connect with like-minded peers in your field, learn from each other, make friends, and more. 

 

 How much can a ecommerce business owner make?

The income potential for an e-commerce business owner is unlimited. 

It’s not uncommon to run into a million-dollar e-commerce owner.

 

 What steps are needed to learn how to start an online store? 

Creating an e-commerce business is not as difficult as you may think.  Here are the steps involved:

1. Pick a niche: Decide what you’d like to sell. Examples: apparel, home décor, kids wear, electronics, footwear, etc.
2. Sourcing: Research where you will purchase your products from.
3. Set up your e-commerce store: Pick a platform (ex. Shopify), buy your domain name, add products, and customize your store
4. Promotion: Market your store to get customers and make sales

That’s it.  It’s not a difficult process but it can be time-intensive. 

Picking a niche – Picking a niche and sourcing tend to be the steps that take the most time.  Figuring out what to sell is the most important part of this process.  If you don’t pick a winning category, your store can suffer and you might not see success.  I recommend for those that are new to e-commerce to really take their time with step 1.  It’s not uncommon for it to take a few weeks or even longer to thoroughly research a niche and figure out what kind of product will see successful sales in an e-commerce setting.

Sourcing – Today, with the presence of Internet, sourcing isn’t as difficult as it has been in the past for new e-commerce entrepreneurs.  There are a variety of ways to source your product, both online and in person. 

Some things to keep in mind:

• Be aware of MOQ (minimum order quantity): Your budget can be eaten up quickly if you don’t keep a careful eye on minimum quantities required for products. 
• Some helpful places to find out more about sourcing: forums. Examples: Wholesale Forum and The Wholesale Forums

E-commerce Store Setup – You’ll pick a platform that you’d like to have your store on.  Some examples: Shopify, WordPress, Volusion, etc.  Set up is usually pretty easy, involving things like adding products, product photos and descriptions, adding your payment method, shipping policy, etc.

Most platforms (like Shopify) will allow you to purchase your domain name through them.  If they don’t, you can purchase domain through GoDaddy or Namecheap (examples)

Promotion – In Steps 1-3, you picked your niche, sourced your products, and completed store set up.  The last piece is marketing and promotion.  This is your effort to get customers to your store.  There are many options to promote e-commerce stores paid and unpaid.  Some examples include: social media, ads, and word of mouth advertising.

 

What can a person sell? Where do you find products when starting an online store?

There are several products a person can choose to sell. 

Here are some examples: apparel, footwear, home décor, kids wear, electronics, etc.  You can even sell digital products like printables, workbooks, ebooks, etc.

For physical products, you find products from wholesalers. 

How it works: You purchase a product at the wholesale price, sell it for the retail price, and keep the difference as profit.  For example, a home décor e-commerce store sells a lamp to a customer.  They source that lamp from a wholesaler for $20 and list it at a retail price of $50.  The customer purchases the lamp for $50.  The e-commerce store keeps $30 as profit ($50 retail price minus $20 wholesale price). 

 

 How does an ecommerce business owner find customers?

There are many ways to find customers.  I’ve had the most success by finding customers through social media.  Some other ways to find customers:

1. Paid advertising: Ads (examples: Google Adwords), Social media ads (examples: Facebook ads), sponsored posts, paid email blasts, etc.
2. Unpaid advertising: Social media, word of mouth advertising, etc.

For hopeful ecommerce business owners, I would recommend focusing on social media.  In my first 2 years in business, I relied only on social media and no paid advertising. In fact I did no other advertising at all, just social media and I grew the store to four figures monthly in year 1 and five figures monthly in year 2.  Paid ads are also a great option if you have the budget for them. 

 

 How much does it cost to start this type of business and how much on a monthly basis to maintain it?

Startup costs can vary depending upon the type of business but generally e-commerce businesses enjoy lower start up costs compared to brick and mortar businesses. 

STARTUP

Some expenses to plan for if you want to learn how to start an online store:

1. Inventory
2. Store platform fees
3. Storage
4. Shipping materials
5. Supplies
6. Equipment

For my e-commerce store, my start up costs were under $100.  This is because I focused on dropshipping in my first year.  Dropshipping means that you are the middleman between the wholesaler and the customer.  Similar to wholesale buying, with dropshipping, the wholesaler ships the product directly to your customer. 

Look at this comparison example:

Inventory held model: Described above (in sourcing), you, the retailer purchase goods from your wholesaler.  You buy a wholesale product at a wholesale price and sell at a retail price, keep the difference as profit.  When your order is received, you have the product in hand, package it, and ship to the customer.

Dropship model: You, the retailer purchase goods from your wholesaler at a wholesale price and charge a retail price, keeping the difference, your profit.  When your order is received, you place the individual order with the wholesaler and they ship the order to your customer.

With dropshipping, expenses are a lot lower because you are not doing the fulfillment, your wholesaler is.  So, there are no packing/materials costs and no storage costs.  Your labor cost is also less because you don’t have to fulfill orders yourself or pay employees to fulfill orders.

My startup costs were very minimal.  I sold in a free marketplace with no membership fees.  I dropshipped orders and did no paid advertising.  The only costs were the cost of the product (that I would only incur after a sale was made) and PayPal fees.

When I transitioned to an inventory held model, my startup costs included:

• Inventory ($3K-$5K/month)
• Domain/store platform fees ($80/month appx.)
• Fulfillment warehouse ($1K-$2K/month)
• PayPal fees (varied)

These costs might not be typical.  I was in year 2 of my business when I transitioned to an inventory held model and private domain.  The store was already established and had higher sales.  Initial startup costs for an inventory held model might be half of this (shown above) or less.

MAINTENANCE

Maintenance costs are the regular recurring monthly costs to operate the ecommerce store. This can include costs like domain, hosting, PayPal or other payment processor fees, advertising, shipping supplies, and inventory.

 

 Are there any other tips that you have for someone who wants to learn how to start an online store?

My #1 tip would be if you have an interest in this field, dive in.  It’s affordable to start.  You can definitely do a lot of testing by buying small quantities, dropshipping, doing unpaid advertising, etc.  I would have never thought I would be where I am today, earning five figures from ecommerce. 

I started my ecomm store on a whim, literally. 

I just gave it a try.

A year later, I was earning enough to quit my full time day job. Three years later, that store is sold and I have 2 more in it’s place.  I would have never gotten to this point if I didn’t dive in and try my hand at ecommerce.

Some additional tips:

1. Ask for help before you need it – It can be easy to fall behind and if you wait until you absolutely need help, you can get delayed further by researching the type of help you need, hiring, etc.  Virtual assistants are great for handling day to day, simple tasks that can be time consuming like social media efforts, customer service, etc.  This will help you free up your time to do bigger business tasks like sourcing, ordering inventory, etc.
2. Learn – I’ll teach you my secret strategies that landed me three successful online stores earning an average of $19,000 per month! Learn how to start an online store and start earning full time income from your online store in 3 days!
3. Don’t be afraid to scale up – One of the fastest ways to increase your earnings is scaling up.  For example, if you are a footwear online retailer and doing Facebook ads at $10 day selling $50/day in product, try doubling your ad budget to $20/day for potentially $100/day product sales. 
4. Diversify your income streams – With ecommerce, there are many ways to earn money, other than through your store direct.  These additional income streams are covered in the course and are a great way to double or even triple your earnings.
5. Network – Networking has gotten me very far. It all started on Instagram for me.  I found a friend who happened to be addicted to the platform like me. We found ourselves in the same group Direct Messages late at night browsing around and soonafter developed a close friendship.  This opened tons of doors for me, meeting more store owners, joining engagement pods, forming amazing business relationships and more.

The ecommerce industry can be very rewarding. Think about how great it would be to wake up one day and be your own boss. Today, I feel so blessed to be able to have the life that I do, with a flexible schedule and the ability to spend more time with my family, all thanks to ecommerce.

https://www.makingsenseofcents.com/2017/11/how-to-earn-money-from-home.html