MBA1800 Q&A Wednesday: Do I need a website if I don’t have a product yet?

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Visit Dell.com deals. Hey Yo. Welcome to the $100 MBA show, the business podcast that always has your back every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is Q and A Wednesday. On Q and A Wednesdays we answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you got a question you want to ask, just email me over at Omar MBA Net. Today's question is from Patty and Patty asks. Hey Omar, love the podcast. I'm an artist that sells my handcrafted calligraphy prints. Right now I don't have a website. Any pieces I do sell I kind of just sell off social media. I sell about one or two pieces a month but love to sell more. Not sure if I should start building a website or maybe one of those landing page builders. Is that necessary or should I just stick with social? Would love to get your advice. Thanks Patty. Patty, thanks so much for asking this question. Many entrepreneurs start selling their products or services just on social media platforms with their followers and it begs the question, do you actually need a website? Would it help you build a business? Would you make more Sales. Well, we get into all that in today's episode. I'm going to answer those questions. I'm going to give you my advice when it comes to your first steps forward and what would happen if you just stayed on social. That's an option, too. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Hey, Fidelity. Can I get a second opinion on stocks in the Fidelity app?

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Patty's question about selling products just off social media and not having a website is a brilliant one because there are many people that start out this way and don't know really if it's necessary or when to move to an actual website. I have very, very strong opinions about this topic, and the best way for me to explain why I believe you should have a website is through an analogy. And then I'm going to ask you a question to really get you thinking. So the analogy I can think of is, you know, you can buy a home and move in and sleep in that home and have that shelter and be your place of residence, or you can buy a tent and you can pitch that tent on somebody else's property or even, you know, a public park. In the moment, you might think, hey, this works. The tent is giving me shelter. The weather's nice. I'm okay. But the weather's not always going to be nice. And right now, no one's complaining. But that land that you're pitching your tent on, it's not yours. And anybody can kick you out anytime, they can kick you off that land versus a home you own that's built on a great foundation that no matter what the weather is, is still going to hold. Now, the reason why I give this metaphor is because when you build your business on social media, that's exactly what it is. You're building on somebody else's property. You don't own Instagram. Instagram can change the algorithm, can kick you off, can do whatever they want. It may be unlikely, but it's possible. And you don't have the ability to do anything you want in your corner of the Internet.

You.

You're limited to what Instagram, for example, allows. And by the way, anything that you put on Instagram is Instagram's property. Those images you put up, they're not copyrighted anymore. Part of their terms and services is that all the content is theirs. They can do what they want with it. You're on their servers. Obviously, most of us don't read these terms and conditions, but give it a read if you want to. You will see. And I don't want to be too harsh about this because I do think it's good because you're getting started with it and it gives you some traction and you're getting some sales and it's a good place to. But now that you have some buyers, it's time for you to move to a website. Now the question I have for you is do you buy anything of value that doesn't have a domain name itself or have a website? Would you buy a couch? Would you buy a watch or transfer money or get help from a medical professional if they didn't have their own website or secure way for you to make that transaction? No. Intrinsically, when you sell on your own website, it gives your products value. It makes people trust you more, it makes you more credible, it gets you more customers. Now the good news is, is that having a website is actually quite easy. It's so easy compared to what it was just 10, 15 years ago when I started out as an entrepreneur. And I'm going to give you a quick formula, very simple. You are selling a physical product, a print that's going to get delivered at somebody's house. So you need an e commerce store. There are many platforms that makes easy for you to create an e commerce website. Two of my favorites is Shopify over@shopify.com and Squarespace. If I had to choose between the two, I prefer Shopify. It's a lot more dynamic, it will scale with you. So go ahead and go to shopify.com and sign up. It's very inexpensive to get started. Their basic plan is like $29 a month to have an online store for price of a takeout meal is pretty good. So that's number one. Number two, you need to buy your own domain name. This is the URL or the website name like webinar ninja.com or 100- MBA-NET or your name right dot com. Now I recommend you buy your domain name outside of your store builder outside of Shopify or Squarespace because you want to be able to control this domain no matter what service you use. In the future you may build your own website, custom website, later on when you're rocking and rolling and you have the money to invest in that and you want to make it easy to do that. So it's very simple to do this with Google Domains. Just go to Google Domains. I believe it's Google Domains and you can buy a domain name for as low as $10 a year. In my opinion, domain names are incredibly underpriced, incredibly cheap to have a piece of real estate on the Internet. If you don't know what domain name, you don't have a business name yet. Just use your own name as your domain name. If that's not available, use a middle initial in the middle. If you can't find the.com, go with the.co or the.net or the IO, it's okay. If you have a business name, use it. Buy that domain on Google Domains and then you can connect your domain to your Shopify or Squarespace account and they have tutorials for that. And then carve out some time. This is your next step. So step one, sign up for Shopify or Squarespace. Number two, buy your domain at Google Domains and number three, carve out some time to start building your website, your store. Keep it simple in the beginning and when I say carve out some time. If all you have is a weekend, carve out four hours on Saturday morning and within four weeks you will have a website. You don't need more than that much time to get going. If you want to learn more about how to start your first online business with a website. I do have an audio course on Himalaya and you can get Access with a free 14 day trial because you're a listener of the show. Just go to 100mba.net audiocourse and you can click a special link to get access to my full audio course on how to start your first online business. This is one of the best courses ever created and it's going to show you A to Z how to do what I just explained in today's episode, but in greater detail. So Patty and everybody who's listening, who's in Patty's position right now, that is it. This is going to help you get the ball rolling. Number one, buy your E commerce store platform, Shopify or Squarespace. Number two, get your domain at Google Domains. And number three, carve out four hours on the weekend sometime to dedicate to build that website. And what's great about these platforms is they have all these great tutorials, all these great instructions. All these built in courses for you to learn how to build your online store easily. It's in their interest that you actually get this done so you can continue to pay them month after month as you grow your business. And it's well worth it because you're making money and driving traffic to your website. Now your website is going to get you so much more business just organically because you're found on Google. People will search your keywords, search your product, search your name and they'll find you and they'll be able to directly purchase your products on your website with no back and forth, with no dming, no nothing. You collect payments, you get paid. It's a real business. Do you want to learn more about how to start your first online business? Of course. Like I mentioned, check out the auto course at 100mba.net audiocourse I got more on today's Q and A Wednesday, but before that, let me give love to today's sponsor.

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To wrap up today's Q and A Wednesday, Patti Build your own website. Your website is your store. It's your business. You play by your own rules. You build your own kind of aesthetic and brand. You have more control of your marketing. You have more control of being found on Google. People can buy your products and services day and night without having you around. People can actually buy your prints and you get paid while you're sleeping. Take that next step and take on my three steps that I gave you as homework and you won't regret it. Thanks so much for listening to the 100 RMBA Show. If you have a question you want to ask here on Q and A Wednesday, don't forget, be shy. Email me over at omar00mba.net we love answering questions on Q and A Wednesday to help you and other listeners to have similar questions. You'll be surprised how many people have the same questions that you have. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Starting a website might sound overwhelming, but trust me, you have done much harder things in life than build a website with very easy to use building tools. I've built several websites and used many of these builder tools and it's dead simple. You have definitely done harder things. Learning how to drive is harder. Learning how to ride a bike is harder. If you ever moved home, that's definitely harder. You can do this. Dedicate the time and make it happen. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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