5 Common Mistakes Made By New Online Entrepreneurs

If the niche for your online business doesn’t have these 5 things, you may be making a HUGE mistake and need to either:

1. Look either niching up, niching down, OR
2. Looking at another niche altogether.

Let’s jump into each one and I’ll save a super important bonus tip for you at the end.

Market Must-Have #1: An Evergreen Market

“You’re looking for a market that continuously self-renews despite season or temperature.”

An evergreen market is juxtaposed to a fad market that sort of just comes and goes. Think of fidget spinners, mood rings, Cabbage Patch Kids or beanie babies.

Some examples of evergreen markets would be: fitness, personal finance, weight loss, dog care, personal development, entrepreneurship and orchid care.

BUT just because it’s evergreen, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a “green light” market. We still have 4 more factors to consider.

So next, let’s talk about…

Market Must-Have #2: Enthusiast Market

“This describes a market where the buyers are highly enthusiastic about the topic, so much so that they tend to remain buyers for a long period of time.”

Some examples could be: antique collectors, weight loss, sports car lovers, guitar players, home brewers and bonsai tree lovers.

You want to be in a market where people tend to become buyers for life. For example, in the guitar player market, you have people who make large purchases like guitars, and amplifiers, but also purchase ongoing education products and products for maintenance of their gear on an ongoing basis.

Some examples of non-enthusiast markets (that you want to avoid) would be things like flea removal, mold removal or roof repair to name a few. These are markets where someone is looking to solve a problem, but once that problem is gone, they’re off to other things.

By the way, these 5 market must-haves come from Ryan Levesque’s latest book called “Choose. - The Single Most Important Decision Before Starting Your Business”.

This is a great resource if you’re:

1) thinking about starting an online business but just feel confused about the process of choosing a niche that’s going to be profitable OR

2) maybe you’ve already started and you don’t feel like you’re getting the traction you want

So, so far if you’ve checked the evergreen and enthusiast markets, next you’ll want to look at…

Market Must-Have #3: A $10,000 Problem

“It’s not enough to enter a market that is both evergreen and enthusiast. You need to also focus on solving an urgent problem in the context of that evergreen and enthusiast market and that’s where the $10,000 problem comes in.”

You’re looking for a problem that has a high pain point attached to it, say it starts at $1000, but it doesn’t end there.

The key question to ask here is: “What is a $1,000 problem that under certain circumstances transforms into a $10,000 problem? What’s a $1000 problem that has the potential to become 10 times bigger under certain circumstances.

One of the examples Ryan uses in the book is the new pre-potty trained puppy owner that needs to travel with their new puppy that incessantly pees on any carpet it encounters.

While this could easily be categorized as a $1000 problem (ruining rugs, carpets, cleaning bills, etc.), it becomes a MUCH bigger problem when you think about your dog peeing on airport carpets or in the belly of the 747.

So, you’re looking for a $1000 problem that, under certain conditions, could turn into a $10,000 problem, which leads us to..

Market Must-Have #4: A Future Problem

“What you’re looking for here is evidence of additional future problems you can solve for that same customer, above and beyond that first problem you might solve for them. 

Because once you’ve taken the time to solve your customer’s urgent $10,000 problem up front and set yourself up to become their trusted advisor, you have the opportunity to sell additional products and services down the road.”

For me in this business, once I help my students get their online business set up, some of the future problems I can help them solve are: 1) how to expand their email marketing, 2) how to build and sell online courses and 3) how to help them scale their businesses to six-figures and beyond.

So, if you can engage your market with that initial $10,000 problem, that gives you an open door to build credibility and to continue to solve problems they’ll have as a part of their success journey.

BUT, even if you have ALL of those 4 and you don’t have this one, your business is either not going to work or is going to be WAY harder than it needs to be.

Market Must-Have #5: Players With Money (PWM)

“A viable market is one that has PWMs: people who are willing to spend a large sum of money in one particular area of their lives to address or avoid a recurring problem, or, in many cases, to fuel an important goal, hobby or personal vision.”

THIS is THE fatal mistake I made in my first online business that caused my business to grow like absolute pond water…

My first business, zerodebtcoach.com, which is my personal finance brand, only had 4 out of the 5 of these and missing THIS one, made a HUGE difference and not in a good way.

1. It is an evergreen market.
2. It has an “enthusiast element” meaning that much of my audience had caught the enthusiasm of the BENEFITS of winning  their money.
3. It has a $10,000 problem (at the very least).
4. It has future problems like: how do I strategize to increase my income, what do I do once I’m out of debt or how can I get to financial independence.
5. The one that was missing was this step… #5: Players With Money.

So, while I had a HUGE heart for people at the low end of the personal finance spectrum who were living paycheck to paycheck, I fail

Man, I really wish I would have had this framework when I started. This would have totally helped me to pivot a MUCH more profitable sub-niche and MUCH more quickly than the 3+ years it took.

Now, the little bonus I promised is also covered in Ryan’s book and that’s to make sure that your market your entering is 1) not too big and not too small and 2) that you don’t have too many competitors AND that you don’t have too few either.

I’ll be covering the exact process Ryan teaches so that you can  confidently gauge those two things in some upcoming videos.

And, two FREE resources that will be SUPER helpful for you if you’re thinking of starting and growing and online business (even just as a side hustle) are:

1) My FREE START. An Online Business guide… It outlines the process of how to get started in 6-easy to follow step... AND

2) This video here…  that walks you through the 6 steps of both setting up and scaling your online business. So click right here and I’ll see you in that video. That’s right, just click right here, I’ll see you in this video, right here… :)