Hey y’all! We’re so pleased you dropped in to check out our Q&A with S&J. If this is the first time you’ve been here, make yourself at home and enjoy!

This is Q & A Saturday where we answer one of your questions. We wanted to do this because we get a ton of questions from y’all and we know that if one person has a question, lots of others do, too.

Every Sunday at 8pm EST we will open a post on our Facebook page and each week we will take questions from there. Every Thursday and Saturday we will be airing a new Q&A mini podcast with the answers. This will let us have more interaction with you guys and answer all those questions so you can get down the path we went down to build your business.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

Elementary Librarian

CoachXO

Let’s dive into this week’s question!

JOCELYN:  Tonight’s question is from Amber Williford and she asks:

“There’s tons of information out there about launching a product, creating scarcity, and then taking it off the market after a certain amount of time, but what will this do to those of us who have a product that will stay on the market for a while?

Do you have any tips for marketing and continually selling a product?  Maybe this is similar to the playbook and lesson plans you both sell.  Any tips would be greatly appreciated.”

SHANE: All right, we do a couple of things when we’re trying to sell a product.  We actually leave all our products open at all times.  You can go over to ElementaryLibrarian.com or CoachXO.com, you can see that you have we have our products posted at all times.  We don’t take them down but there are other ways to create scarcity besides rolling out a big launch and then taking it off the market at the end of the launch.  I know that’s a big popular thing that people are doing right now.

But I think a lot of that is because a lot of the internet marketing products that people promote like Learning How to use Facebook, Learning How to Use Twitter Ads or something like that, they are very instantaneous, right at the moment because the next time they sell that product, everything is going to change so they are going to make a new product anyway.  So I don’t know if that strategy of launching a product actually applies outside of that kind of internet marketing niche.  So if you’re doing something like we do like playbooks, lesson plans, and things like that, you probably want to leave your product up year round.

So take kind of a cue from what you see stores and things like that do.  There are other ways to create scarcity, like you can have a sale like out of season.  What happens at the end of the summer?  All of the shorts and t-shirts go on sale like a clearance sale.  So you can do that if your product is seasonal.  You could have a sale that says, “Hey, this is not going to be necessary in the next couple of months but I’m going to offer you a discount right now” and then you can just leave that up all year and go sell it again later.

One thing that I do is I love to really ramp up my marketing during those seasonal times.  Coaches are really into playbooks in the spring.  That’s when people study their defense and they decide if they are going to change things for the next year.  So during the spring, even though my playbooks are constantly for sale, I never take them down.

I ramp up my marketing efforts during that time because I know coaches are going to football clinics.  I know they are looking at their plays and what they want to do the next season.  Then in the summer time, I ramp up my practice schedules.  That’s another thing that I sell and I really push that during the summer because people are getting ready to start practice and they need that.

In January and February, football teams are getting back into the weight room so I promote heavily my weight lifting program that I have a digital product for.  So you can look at things during the year and you can ramp up your marketing for certain p...

Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle y'all!

Hey y’all! We’re so pleased you dropped in to check out our Q&A with S&J. If this is the first time you’ve been here, make yourself at home and enjoy!

This is Q & A Thursday where we answer one of your questions. We wanted to do this because we get a ton of questions from y’all and we know that if one person has a question, lots of others do, too.

Every Sunday at 8pm EST we will open a post on our Facebook page and each week we will take questions from there. Every Thursday and Saturday we will be airing a new Q&A mini podcast with the answers. This will let us have more interaction with you guys and answer all those questions so you can get down the path we went down to build your business.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

Namecheap - This is where we buy all our domains (partner link)

Hostgator - The hosting company we used when we got started.  Great hosting & customer service. (partner link)

 

Let’s dive into this week’s question!

SHANE: Today’s question that we’re going to answer comes from Neil Collins.  Neil writes:

“What’s the best/easiest way to create a niche site?  Should I use a free blog or self-hosted WordPress site, and what are some good free themes that I can use if I choose WordPress?”

JOCELYN: Alright Neil, we really recommend to go self-hosted from the beginning.  It’s really not very expensive to do.  You can get a domain name for around $11 or $12, depending on what the domain is from any domain buying site.  We use, what is it called?

SHANE: NameCheap.com is what we use.

JOCELYN: Just a little note on that, always buy your own domains even if you’re having someone else design your site.  You always want control of your own domain names in case something goes south with the design.  You don’t want to have to try to get your domain name back.  Always buy your own just as a side but you should always do self-hosted.  Purchase your domain.  It takes just a couple of minutes to install WordPress.

There are millions of videos out there that show you how to do this in just a couple of minutes.  It’s really easy to do.  Just start it up, start WordPress.  It is not very difficult to use just to start your own blog and we recommend go and buy that from the very beginning.  The hosting is a little bit more expensive.  It’s probably around $100 a year, maybe a little more depending on the package that you go with.  So there’s no other business that you can start for, you know…

SHANE: $150.

JOCELYN: Less than $200 so we highly recommend going self-hosted from the beginning.

SHANE: And you can find hosting companies all over the place.  Don’t use one of those like “design your own website” places where you drag and drop things.  You want to get a hosting company.   There are lots out there.  A lot of people like BlueHost, a lot of people like HostGator, places like that where you can go in and they will host your website for you when you’re starting out very cheaply.  They usually have like one click install for WordPress and WordPress is kind of like a Word processor.  There’s a little bit of a learning curve to it but you can figure it out.  It’s not that hard and we highly recommend doing that.

Now let’s tackle the other part of your question.  We’ve already said use WordPress.  It’s great, it’s easy, you can figure it out, I promise, but the free themes question, people always ask us that.  “What is a good free theme?”  You see, on WordPress, WordPress is kind of like a framework I guess, and then you can buy themes that you install on WordPress to change the look and feel of the site. There are a lot of free themes out there but pretty much, they are all kind of junkie and you get what you pay for.  A free theme is not very good.

You are eventually going to change from a free theme to one of the more complicated frameworks that have better coding and just allow you to do more things to change the look and feel of yo...

In today’s podcast we show you what we would do in month 2 of starting your very own online business even if you only have 1 hour a day and $100 a month.

Today's podcast is a continuation of last week's episode where we showed you what to do in Month 1. Let's dive into what you need to do in your second month of online business.

You will learn:

What to do in your 2nd month

Recurring costs to expect

How to save money on your logo

The best way to release your content so your audience can see it

The importance of a high quality opt-in offer

How to promote your new business

Enjoy the podcast. We hope it inspires you to explore what's possible for your family!

Listen to what others are saying about the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast:

Click here to leave us an iTunes review and subscribe to the show!

We may read yours on the air!

Links and resources mentioned in today's show:

Logonerds - A cheap and amazing way to get  your logo

CoachXO - See a sample logo from Logonerds here

Buffer App - For scheduling posts

Vectorstock - Stock images

MorgueFile - Free images

Canva - Free image editor

E-Books the Smart Way by Pat Flynn - A great resource if you're just starting out

BONUS: Flipped Lifestyle Guide to Your 2nd Month in Online Business

Can’t Miss Moments This Week

Each week Jocelyn and I share moments that we might have missed if we had not started our online business. We hope these moments inspire you to see the possibilities and freedom online business could provide for your family.

Thank you for listening!

Thanks again for listening to the show! If you liked it, make sure you share it with your friends and family!

Our goal is to help as many families as possible change their lives through online business.  Help us by sharing the show!

Share on Facebook

Share on Twitter

If you have comments or questions, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post.  See y’all next week!

Can’t listen right now? Read the transcript below!

JOCELYN: Hey y’all, today we’re going to tell you what we do in the second month of starting an online business with only an hour a day and $100 a month. [spoiler title="Click to View Transcript"]

SHANE: Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast, where life always comes before work. We’re your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. Join us each week as we teach you how to flip your lifestyle upside down by selling stuff online. Are you ready for something different? All right, let's get started.

JOCELYN: Hey guys. Thanks for joining us for today’s Flipped Lifestyle podcast. Today, we are bringing you part two of a series that we started last week about a question from one of our readers, Joanne, who wanted to know what we would do if we were just starting out and had just one hour a day and $100 a month. We thought that was a great question.

Last week, we started out by just kind of telling you guys what we would do in the first month. Today, we’re back to tell you about what we would do in the second month because it’s a little bit different as you go along. We are going to talk about that shortly but first we want to read an iTunes review. We do this every week and Shane is going to read that for us.

SHANE: Our iTunes review this week is from Kingdom First Mom. I love that name, Kingdom First. The title of this reviews says, “Fantastic information” with a bunch of exclamation points and it is a five-start review. Kingdom First Mom writes, “Shane and Jocelyn do a fantastic job at explaining how they’ve created great success online. I really enjoy listening to them and I learned so much. Thanks guys for the honesty you offer as well as the valuable information. Hands down, the best online business information I have ever received.”

Thank you so much. We really appreciate that review. That is our goal is to be transparent and be honest, and not sugarcoat online business and not make it sound like...

Welcome to the FlippedLifestyle.com

Hey y’all! We’re so pleased you dropped in to check out our podcast and blog. If this is the first time you’ve been here, make yourself at home and enjoy!

This is Q & A Saturday where we answer one of your questions. We wanted to do this because we get a ton of questions from y’all and we know that if one person has a question, lots of others do, too.

Every Sunday at 8pm EST we will open a post on our Facebook page and each week we will take questions from there. Every Thursday and Saturday we will be airing a new Q&A mini podcast with the answers. This will let us have more interaction with you guys and answer all those questions so you can get down the path we went down to build your business.

Let’s dive into this week’s question!

JOCELYN: Today’s question is from Dara and she says:

“I’m trying to figure out a classy way to put ads and affiliate links on my website. I’m concerned that it might be unexpected for folks to see ads or affiliates on the site. I don’t want to turn people off.”

I think this is really common concern that people have and it’s a concern that I have had in the past. Thank you so much for this question.

SHANE: I think there are a couple of ways to do this. This is kind of what we do to make sure that we don’t turn people off from our affiliate links or ads. What we do is we basically try to always relate any ads or affiliate links to the content that we’re talking about.

If I was reviewing podcast equipment because we have a podcast and maybe I was talking about a microphone that we use or something like that, maybe I’m doing a review for that, well, my affiliate link on that page would be related to my content. It would only be for the microphone that I use. I wouldn’t just randomly put affiliate links all over the page just to try to get clicks.

We don’t really do a lot of side bar advertising or header advertising. We don’t just put up banner ads because there’s a lot of ad blindness on the internet. People are used to seeing ads on those places. We try to incorporate all of the affiliate links kind of into our content. That way, it’s kind of related and it makes sense for the affiliate link to be there.

Another thing is we don’t really use Google Ads. We’ve used Google Ads and ad systems in the past, but what we found was people were getting farmed up advertising for things that might not be related to the content. It was more related to what they searched for before they got to our site or something like that, and they were seeing ads that were kind of breaking up the atmosphere of the site.

I have a football website over at www.CoachXO.com for football coaches and when I put Ad Words on that, sometimes it would show ads for other things, like maybe if there were on Amazon searching for a new computer, they might see a computer ad and it kind of jarred the experience of what my content was about.

So we kind of stopped using those automated advertising delivery things on a lot of our websites because it really was messing up the user experience. So whatever you do with your advertising, just make sure you’re protecting that user experience and that whatever you’re promoting that you are connecting that with your content to make sure that it should be there. It’s not something random but don’t be apologetic for showing ads on your website.

JOCELYN: On that note, there are ways for you to sort of control what Google shows. If you do decide to use Google Ads, and there’s nothing wrong with that especially if you’re just starting out, you can go in and set it where it will not show like adult ads, gambling sites, or a variety of different controversial ad placements because what will happen is people will be searching for whatever they are searching for and then they will email you and be like, “I saw whatever on your website.”

SHANE: “This was a naughty ad.” You’re like, “Well, that’s your fault, buddy.”

Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle y'all!

Hey y’all! We’re so pleased you dropped in to check out our podcast and blog. If this is the first time you’ve been here, make yourself at home and enjoy!

This is Q & A Thursday where we answer one of your questions. We wanted to do this because we get a ton of questions from y’all and we know that if one person has a question, lots of others do, too.

Every Sunday at 8pm EST we will open a post on our Facebook page and each week we will take questions from there. Every Thursday and Saturday we will be airing a new Q&A mini podcast with the answers. This will let us have more interaction with you guys and answer all those questions so you can get down the path we went down to build your business.

Let’s dive into this week’s question!

SHANE: Today’s question comes from Tracy Manotolo, and please if we butcher your name, forgive us because we’re very sorry. We don’t say names right anyway probably where we live so just go with that.

All right, the question is:

“Any suggestions regarding finding and evaluating a potential niche for profitability?”

Okay, I think what Tracy is asking here is not necessarily “How do I find the niche that I want to get into?” It’s more like, “I’ve got a niche I want to pursue. How do I know if it is profitable?”

So there are a couple of ways that you can do that and one of the first things that I always look for in a niche is are there competitors out there that are making money in this niche? This doesn’t have to be a very specific thing, like, exactly what you’re doing but more like a broad sense.

For example, I knew when I got into the coaching stuff, I knew that coaches would pay for playbooks. I knew that they would buy drill videos and other things to help them become a better coach, but there was nobody out there offering the exact playbook for my defense. I knew that there were people out there that would pay money for this stuff. I just had to create something that maybe didn’t exist in the marketplace or a better version of what was already out there.

I think that one of the first things you need to do is just go to Google and search for your niche. See if you can find competitors. See if you see advertising. If people are advertising over on the sidebar for products, that’s probably a good sign that people are out there and they are willing to pay good money for whatever product you’re going to create for your niche.

JOCELYN: Don’t be scared away if there are competitors. I mean, there are a lot of very competitive niches out there and people are able to make things work so don’t think that just because there are people out there doing what it is you want to do that there’s no way that you can make it. I mean, there are billions of people on the earth so chances are, someone will be interested in what you are doing.

The next thing that you can do to evaluate a potential niche is to see what is out there for free. Chances are if you are interested in a particular niche, it’s something that you personally are interested in, it’s really important to think about if you would be willing to pay for your product. I think there are a lot of people out there who have ideas and there’s lots of good information out there already for free.

That’s even true with my site, with the lessons plans. There are tons of lesson plans out there for free but for me, I want a consistent lesson plan every single day that was aligned to national standards that I didn’t have to think about and I could come in and just turn the key and make it work. I knew that I personally would be willing to pay for that.

I have a friend who wanted to start a site about like prayers and blessings. That was a great idea but the problem is, I mean, you can just type in a prayer at anytime and that can come up totally for free. I think that there could possibly be a site for that but I don’t know if you are going to be able to sell like an e-book or produc...

Hey y’all! We’re so pleased you dropped in to check out our podcast and blog. If this is the first time you’ve been here, make yourself at home and enjoy! We have a new podcast every Tuesday, and answer audience questions on Thursdays and Saturdays!

In today’s podcast we are going to share how you can start your very own online business even if you only have 1 hour a day and $100 a month.

Here is what you will learn in today's podcast

How to find hidden time in your schedule to work on your online business.

The tricks we used to free up an additional $100 per month in our budget to get started.

The MOST important things you need to focus your time and money on when you get started online.

FREE DOWNLOAD: Flipped Lifestyle Guide to Your 1st 30 Days Starting a Website and Building an Online Business!

To help kick off your first month, download this calendar which outlines exactly what you need to be doing for the first 30 days to start a website and build an online business!

 

Can’t Miss Moments This Week

Each week Jocelyn and I share moments that we might have missed if we had not started our online business. We call these "Can't Miss Moments" and they are the reasons we started an online business, quit our jobs and never looked back!

We hope these moments inspire you to see the possibilities and freedom online business could provide for your family.

Transcript

JOCELYN: Hey y’all, on today’s podcast, we’re going to show you how to run an online business if you only have an hour a day and $100 a month. [spoiler title="Click to View Transcript"]

SHANE: Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast, where life always comes before work. We’re your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. Join us each week as we teach you how to flip your lifestyle upside down by selling stuff online. Are you ready for something different? All right, let's get started.

What’s going on, guys? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast, great to be back with you again this week. I’m Shane and Jocelyn is sitting right beside me.

JOCELYN: Hey guys.

SHANE: And we have a very cool topic today. We get a lot of questions, I mean, we get tons of email and if we’ve not replied back to your email yet, I’m sorry. Our email inbox gets like 100 messages at all times. It’s just so full but one of the questions really stood to us the other day, and it was a by a lady named Joanne.

She asked us, “What would you guys do if you only had one hour a day and $100 a month to work on your online business?” She went on to explain how she was just starting out and she had limited resources financially and limited resources with time, so how is she going to start this online business? We thought that that would be an awesome topic to cover on this podcast.

We’re going to go over that today and we’re going to go back with a little 20-20 hindsight. We’ve been there. We’re in a different place in our business now than when we started but we want to go back and say basically, “If we could do it over again, what are the exact steps that we would take in month one and month two to budget our time, to budget our money, to be wise with our resources, to get the job done, and really lay a great foundation for an online business.

We think for those of you who are just starting out, this is going to be a great podcast and if you’ve already started your online business, this is going to be kind of a great checklist to look back on what you’ve already done and see if maybe you’ve missed some steps or you can maybe pivot and kind of turn things around and get them on track.

But the first thing we’re going to do every week is read an iTunes review from someone who left us a review this week.

JOCELYN: Right, this week’s iTunes review is from BPF1, not sure of that person’s name. It says, “Wish they were my neighbors” and that has five stars. It makes me think of like Mr. Roger’s neighborhood. All right, it says,