Creating a Long Term Business vs. Fast Money %%page%%

Last Updated on September 28, 2022 by Ava

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Greetings, Cashflowers! I’m excited to report that July 2018 has been a HUGE month for The Candid Cashflow Podcast! As of this writing with 3 days left in the month, we’ve had 350 downloads! That makes this our record month! At recording time, we are at 386! You’re amazing!

Our previous record was April 2018 with a total of 317 downloads. Considering that we’ve built our audience from scratch, I don’t think that’s too horrible 7 months into this endeavor.

Our top 5 episodes with 40+ downloads each as of this writing, are:

Grab the show notes for all the links and goodies at HeyYoAva.com/Episode35!

I have a ton of fresh content coming at you, and I’m always learning new stuff. I hope you’ll stick around and learn with me!

This week, I’m talking about creating a long-term business as opposed to just trying to earn fast money. I think a lot of us, myself included, start online thinking it’s the easy way to make some quick cash, and nothing could be further from the truth.

You can make quick money in some situations, but as far as creating a sustainable business, that takes money, time, and a lot of work.

I’ve seen a lot of people fall into the trap of trying to game the system and find loopholes to fast money, and it turns into a huge fail every time. So, if you’re interested in creating a long-term business, stay tuned!

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There are a lot of ways to make money online, and a thousand times as many scams and scammers trying to sell you a way to get rich quick online.

Don’t fall for them.

If you’re a regular listener of The Candid Cashflow Podcast, then you know a good bit of my business is centered around self-publishing. A few years back, someone in that community discovered a loophole.

It’s complicated, but basically, it involved the Kindle Unlimited program. At the beginning for publishers, Kindle Direct Publishing had a pool of money each month in the millions that was split among all of the self-publishers for each book of theirs that was borrowed from the Kindle Unlimited plan.

This was a great deal for the publishers, and sometimes they could earn more than when they actually sold a copy of their book. Then Amazon changed things and started paying publishers for each page read.

This wasn’t such a great deal for the publishers, as each page was only worth fractions of a cent.

A loophole was soon discovered where publishers could put a link in the front of the book to a special offer presented on the back page. When a reader clicked through the link, the system would register all pages read.

People started stuffing their books with thousands of pages and then using this link to game the system. Their earnings skyrocketed as a result and a lot of publishers made a ton of money.

Of course, it didn’t take Amazon long to figure out what was going on and put the smackdown on people exploiting the loophole.

In fact, Amazon regularly cracks down on scams. You may recall when they were suing people who were selling fake reviews.

Amazon is not the only company that regularly changes their operations to fight scammers. Google is notorious for updating its algorithm to combat users trying to game their system.

At its most basic, search engine optimization falls in this category. The thing is, if you are trying to build a sustainable business vs get rich quick, you know that gaming the system never works.

People have spent a lot of time and done loads of work only to see their businesses crumble overnight with one little algorithm tweak or change to the system. Don’t be one of them!

In this article...

5 Truths About Creating a Long-Term Business

If you’ve turned to the Internet because you think it’s easier and cheaper to make money, that’s true in a way, but you should never look at it as a way to get rich quick.

If you’re not here to create a long-term business, you’re here for the wrong reason.

The following are 5 truths that I’ve learned in my decade plus studying online business and trying a lot of different things.

1. There’s no such thing as getting rich quick online.

This is true for many reasons. Making money online takes skill. If you don’t know how to do the things it requires, then you need to know how and where to hire someone who does. The Internet simplifies a lot of things, but it’s not a magic button. Building a sustainable business takes time and a lot of targeted effort.

2. Creating an online business requires a ton of work.

If I had a dime for every word I’ve written or even every website I’ve built working my way to a sustainable business, I’d be a rich woman for sure. Choosing to work online means trying and failing a lot of times.

You cannot possibly imagine the tedious stuff just building a website involves or even producing this podcast. I spend about 10 hours each week just on The Candid Cashflow Podcast, and I do it on the weekend because, during the week, I’m too busy with my clients.

I write the blog post which is almost always 2000+ words. Then I create the images for the post and proofread it a few times. Then I record, and almost always find more typos to fix. Once that’s done, I create the show notes, edit the audio, and finally, I’m ready to publish it all which is several steps itself!

Creating content for the Internet is an insane amount of work! If you’re not prepared to do that work, then I’m afraid there’s no way you can succeed online.

3. The key to succeeding in online business is creating multiple income streams.

I repeat this every chance I get because this is one of the most important things I’ve learned about online business. No one is doing just one thing to make money. Sure, you’ll see people with their 6-figure Shopify stores, but you’ll also see a lot of them teaching how they built a 6-figure business on that platform.

The business model I see most often online is someone who has found success with a particular method of making money. They almost always turn to teaching that method to others as a means to diversify and increase their income.

In addition, they will promote products and services in their content building even more income streams. No one is relying on just one source of income online. Once you create one income stream, it’s imperative that you find a way to either build off of that stream or create a whole new source to earn from.

4. Internet businesses require capital just like offline businesses.

You have to spend money to make money. When you get started online, you have to have some kind of cash flow going on or you won’t be able to afford the things you need to build your business.

While creating an online business is significantly cheaper than a brick and mortar one, creating a long-term business isn’t a cheap process. If you are starting from scratch, you have much to learn. For instance, say you need a website. Where do you get one? How much will it cost? What are you going to put on it?

There are plenty of scammers waiting to answer all of these questions for you. There are also many legit people who genuinely want to help you. How will you know the difference?

Get a relevant mentor. Find someone who has done what you’re doing, and pay them for their advice. If you can’t afford to do that, then you have a very long and harrowing learning period ahead. When I started online, I couldn’t afford anything. I taught everything to myself through a lot of trial and error over 10 years time.

A mentor can save you a lot of time and money.

12 years in, I’ve finally begun to experience success, so you can do it without a mentor, but who has time for that? Get some capital together, and spend it wisely!

5. Internet business is available to anyone with an Internet connection and some skill.

Don’t be discouraged. It’s very easy to find good people online who are willing to share a ton of free information with you ala The Candid Cashflow Podcast…or YouTube! Grab the show notes, because I’m going include a list of great people in there that you can follow and learn from. Those are available at HeyYoAva.com/Episode35.

Creating a long-term business online is a wonderful opportunity that is available to anyone with an Internet connection who’s willing to learn. Even if you’re working full-time, the Internet is 24/7. Build your business when you have time. I worked full-time at a “real” job until 4 years ago.

No one should be struggling financially in 2018 with all of the opportunity available to you online. That’s what The Candid Cashflow Podcast is all about.

I have covered everything from turning your passions into cash flow to building passive income streams that pay you for years to come.

Actionable Steps for Creating a Long-Term Business

That’s a lot of blabbering about what you need, what you should know, and how you should approach online business. Really I just wanted to share with you some of the most profound things I’ve learned from my own journey. Hopefully, they will give you a leg-up in the game.

How can we turn this stuff into action?

Let me give you some steps. I’m going to keep this as simple as possible.

Step 1. Choose your “thing”.

What do you want to do online? Whatever thing you choose, it should be something you are good at and that you are super interested in because you’re about to be married to it.

Step 2. Will it fly?

I ripped that question off from Pat Flynn. If you don’t know Pat, then you’ll meet him in the bonus section of the show notes. Pat is a passive income expert, and he wrote a book called Will It Fly? The idea is to run your idea through the paces to find out if it will succeed before you begin.

One simple way to tell if others are interested in your “thing” is to check it out on Google Trends.

Step 3. Decide what you need to start.

Whether that’s money, a mentor, specific knowledge, or all three, figure out what you need and start acquiring it.

Step 4. Start!

Even if you’re not sure you’re ready to start. Just do it. Set goals. Learn things. Do, do, do. Action gets the job done. When action goes in, stuff comes out. Stay organized.

Step 5. Get results!

Keep tabs on the results you are seeing from your action. If you’re blogging, you should start to see traffic at around 30 posts or so. If you’re doing YouTube videos, you should be getting subscribers, likes, and comments. If you’re writing books, people should be buying them. If you’re running an online store, it should be generating some revenue.

Step 6. Track your results.

The results are in. From your results, you should be able to draw a verdict. Success or no? Track which results are coming from what actions. Good results should equal more action in that specific area. I continue with The Candid Cashflow Podcast because July was a record month. See what I’m saying?

Step 7. Concentrate in areas where you are seeing the best results. Trash the rest.

If you’re getting great results, that is awesome! See what happens when you double, triple, or even 10x your efforts. If you’re getting crumby results, stop. Try something a little different or trash your efforts altogether. I’m not one to give up on an idea the moment nothing happens, but if I try several different approaches and I’m still not seeing any success, it’s probably time to stop working on that project.

Step 8. Diversify.

So, you’ve found success! Congratulations! It’s time to figure out how to diversify that success. Don’t ever put all of your eggs in one basket. When that basket develops a hole, what will you do?

You’re going to want several other baskets to move to.

Let’s use our previous examples from Step 5.

If you’re blogging, consider diversifying with multiple affiliate programs and products. If you’re doing YouTube, don’t depend only on the revenue from Adsense. Diversify your income with Patreon or by selling your own products and services. If you’re writing books, write more and consider selling them on additional platforms.

There are many ways to create new income streams. One of my favorites is by repurposing content onto additional platforms as I discussed in Episode 31 of The Candid Cashflow Podcast.

Step 9. Rinse and repeat.

Once you find what’s working for you. Keep doing that! You are well on the way to creating a long-term business that has the great possibility of providing you with plenty of income and passive income so that you can sustain yourself and your family in the future. I hope you retire in style!

That’s a Wrap

That’s all for this episode of The Candid Cashflow Podcast. Thanks for listening! You Cashflowers are the reason I do what I do! Thanks for making it a fun and exciting adventure!

If you heard something of interest, grab the show notes so you get all the links and goodies at HeyYoAva.com/Episode35. You can view any episode’s show notes by simply replacing the number in that URL.

I also have a couple samplers available for you. You can get all the show notes for the first 10 episodes in one PDF at HeyYoAva.com/First10. You can get the next 10 at HeyYoAva.com/Next10.

If you liked this episode, I hope you will consider subscribing in your favorite listening app at HeyYoAva.com/candidcashflow. If you want to hear more, visit the archives at HeyYoAva.com/candidarchives.

Remember, I release a new episode each Wednesday.

Until next time, turning your passion into cashflow!

Creating a Long-Term Business vs. Fast Money – The Candid Cashflow Podcast – Episode 35