How I Started My Online Business Plus Lessons Learned

I get asked quite a number of times from my readers and my friends around how I get started the online business. In this post, I’d like to share my story with you on how I get started my online business together with some lessons I learn along my online journey. Watch the video below:

How I Get Started?

In 2009, I was working full time as a fire safety engineer in the building services industry, working closely with the architect, services engineer and the local authority. Just like most of the people here, I was looking for alternative income on top of getting my monthly paycheck.

Fortunately, there are plenty of preview and seminars around in Singapore (you can attended at least 2-3 preview every week) that pitch about generating extra income via different kinds of vehicles from MLM, properties, stocks, Forex, Internet marketing to other opportunities.

So I attended a 3 days internet marketing seminar and decided to invest 4 figures in Jaz Lai‘s Inbox Cash Explosion (ICE) workshop. During the workshop, I get my first website up and running including a blog and a squeeze page. Though I know about internet marketing before hand, I have never built a website before.

About The Workshop

We started everything from scratch in the workshop including buying a domain name, setting up a web host, configuring the DNS in the registrar, building a blog and a squeeze page for list building, traffic strategies,  etc… The core system is based on list building with your funnel setup. This is a proven and powerful business model and every successful marketer is building a list for their businesses.

I was really glad that I have my blog and squeeze page setup because that was considered an important milestone to me. Without a website ready, it will be hard for me to take action because I always have the fear to deal with complicated hosting, server or website design. All I can say is that once you did it, it becomes history and you will be laughing how simple it is.

Also, I was fortunate to get exposed to list building when I first get started because it is a proven model and still the model that I am sticking to until today.

Results?

I wish I can see hundreds or thousands of dollars right after I completed the workshop. No it did not happen. I took massive actions after that and start driving traffic via article marketing and just within a week, I made a sale from Clickbank!

I generate around $12 commission from Clickbank from the funnel that I setup in the workshop. I must admit that $12 is not mind blowing and in fact it did not really cover my time and effort spent in article marketing. However I was extremely excited and happy!

At least now I know make money online via affiliate marketing is not a scam and the system I learned from the workshop is working! I realized the formula to generate more sales!

Traffic + Conversion = Profit

It is only a matter to scale up the traffic and optimize the conversion before I can generate more sales and make more money.

Stay In The Game

My first $12 online really motivates me to carry on my online journey, to keep learning, improving and taking massive actions. All I know was the system is working and I need to put in more effort to see the results. Although it was very tired to do all the work after works, especially we tend to work long hours in Singapore.

So, I probably have a spare 1-2 hours to work on my business. The more actions I took, the more I learned and I’m glad I stayed in the game. I am getting results slowly and I’m up for the game

Thanks Jaz and the team for the great effort in the ICE workshop!

Fill The Gap

Fast forward now, I am running my online business full time (I resigned in Feb 2011). Throughout the online journey, I find that it is essential to know where you are and where you want to be. Find the gap in between and fill it up.

No matter what phase you are in, this is applicable. For example, if you hope to generate extra income apart from your job, you will need to learn another skill that can help you to generate extra income. So, the gap is actually the skill of another vehicle that can help you.

If you currently only drive 100 visitors to your site and you make a few dollars but you need to earn at least a few hundred dollars, the gap is actually the traffic. You will either need to generate more traffic by yourself or outsource to others. So, once you know the gap, fill it up.

Your Responsibility

I always believe you are responsible for where you are now. As a business owner, we need to have different mindset comparing to being an employee working for your boss.

An employee is like a technician. You fix up whatever is on your hand as told by your boss. A business owner needs to play 3 roles, which are to plan for the future of your business, manage your business and doing whatever is on your hand. It is up to you how you want to juggle the roles or outsource the roles.

As an employee, if you need a software in order to do a job, you will talk to your boss to request if he can buy the tool for you to do the job. As a business owner, investing in the right tools and resources are a must. We can’t have the mentality of an employee if we want to succeed. So, we will need to work out the risk for every decision we make. This is a very different mentality between an employee and a business owner.

If you never make a single dime online, you will probably find it hard to invest first. Your mentality might be “once I generate money online, I will use the money”. However, every business requires a start up and maintenance cost (i.e. hosting, domain, autoresponder). As a business owner, you need to invest in yourself and your business.

Once you have a blueprint, start taking massive action to earn your first $1 online to give you confidence. Keep learning and improving along the way to see the results you desired. Feel free to leave a me a comment to share your thoughts and stories.

To Your Success,
Ming Jong Tey