Intro
Hey everyone, it’s Tom here with thisonlineworld.com, and I hope you’re all having a fantastic day today. So, if you’ve been watching this channel for a while, you’ll know that I absolutely love making money online. After all, making money online means you have the power to set your own schedule and live the kind of lifestyle you want. It also means you can escape the nine-to-five grind if you want to and live wherever you want in the world. But figuring out how to make consistent money online can be very difficult, and in my experience, you have to fail a lot of times before you actually find a money-making idea that works for you.
So, in this video, I’m covering five of the most common mistakes I see people make when trying to make money online. I’m also covering some of the major mistakes I’ve made over the years and, more importantly, how you can avoid them. Hopefully, by hearing these mistakes, you can learn from them and avoid them entirely, and start making money online that much faster. Let’s get to it.
Mistake #1: Not Niching Down Enough
Personal Experience
The first mistake people make when trying to make money online is that they don’t niche down enough. This is honestly something I did myself plenty of times when trying to make money online, and I think this is the number one culprit, which is why I’m listing it as number one in this video.
Here’s a personal example: When I started out with freelance writing, I was kind of writing everything. I was a ghostwriter. I’d write content about food, health, fitness, money—you name it. If there was an article I could get my hands on for a client, I would write it, and I was charging about 5-10 cents per word. So, I was writing at this rate for about a year. It wasn’t until I slowly started getting more into the personal finance space and specializing that I realized I could increase my rates and make a lot more per article.
Specializing and Raising Rates
Over the course of a year and a half, I went from writing at 5 or 7 cents per word to writing at 15 cents per word. I started writing for better publications and gaining more experience and knowledge in the personal finance niche. Fast forward another year, and I had clients paying me 30-50 cents a word. All of a sudden, I was writing for some pretty premium sites, making $300-$500 an article, and freelance writing had become my full-time job.
How to Niche Down
I see this all the time with other freelancers and service providers. The way to solve this problem is to ask yourself how you can niche down or specialize just one or two levels down from your main offering. I’ll give you a few examples:
- If you’re a graphic designer, you could start offering YouTube thumbnails to content creators and charge a premium for those specialty services.
- If you’re a video editor, you could start specializing in content repurposing, making TikTok reels, and YouTube shorts for long-form content creators.
- If you’re a website designer, you could specialize in Shopify ecommerce stores in specific niches like clothing or home goods.
This doesn’t mean you have to give up your core service offering, but you might want to experiment with maybe some kind of specialization or niching down a little bit and selling a premium service on the side of your main offering.
Mistake #2: Not Having a Portfolio
The second common mistake people make when trying to make money online is not having a portfolio. This one frustrates me so much because it’s again something I did for way too long, and it’s something I see pretty much every single day.
I get freelance writing, video editing, or virtual assistant DMs or emails all the time with people wanting to work for thisonlineworld or this YouTube channel. I’d say about 50-60% of these emails and DMs don’t have a portfolio link, and the blunt truth is if you pitch people online for work and you don’t have any previous work examples, you are not going to get hired. There are very few people who will just take a random shot in the dark on you and give you a chance.
How to Build a Portfolio
The solution to this problem is to just do some work for free and for yourself. You don’t have to work for other clients here, but you could just build a personal portfolio and put your projects and passion projects up there for the world to see. If you’re a graphic designer, make some logos, create websites, and put them in your portfolio. If you’re a writer, start writing on Medium or start a blog. Start these kinds of side projects, put your work out there, and then when you pitch clients, you actually have something to show them.
Mistake #3: Having Lazy Sales Pitches
The third mistake that’s stopping people from making money online is having lazy sales pitches. This is another example I see pretty much every day with people emailing this online world to try and collaborate.
I get emails all the time that start out something like “Hello Webmaster,” “Hello Blog Owner,” or “Hello this online world team.” When I get a pitch like this, it shows me that I haven’t done their research or homework because if you just scroll down or look at my about page, you’ll find my name is Tom pretty much all over my blog or YouTube channel.
The Importance of Personalizing Pitches
I made this mistake myself in the past. I’d kind of get pitch-happy and send a bunch of emails to different publications saying, “Hey, I can write for you. I can write this kind of content, whatever, whatever,” but I wasn’t really giving them a tailored, unique, and worthwhile pitch that they should even consider.
The takeaway here is: Don’t just pitch people; actually do your homework and think of how you can solve a unique pain point they might be having for their business. In other words, don’t just explain the generic service you sell. Explain how that service might be able to benefit their business in a unique way.
For example, with personal finance writing, a lot of my pitches were just basically telling people, “Hey, I specialize in these types of topics. I know this site doesn’t have these topics yet, or maybe it only has a bit, but I could help you build out that content niche and make you guys some money with my expertise in writing.”
If you’re a graphic designer, you can do the same thing. Say, “Hey, I noticed maybe you need a new logo, or maybe you’re looking to revamp your website, or make some different social media graphics. That’s what I specialize in, and that’s why I can help you out.” I see video editors do this all the time. They do a great job at it. They email me saying, “Hey, you’re not on TikTok, you’re on Instagram. What’s up? I should make you reels and TikTok shorts and things like that.” So look at the pain points a potential client might be having, do your homework, and explain how you could help them in your sales pitch.
Mistake #4: Following Your Passions Instead of Listening to the Market
The fourth reason you might not be making money online is that you’re following your passions instead of listening to what the market is telling you.
Mark Cuban’s Advice
Billionaire Mark Cuban actually has a really nice talk on this idea. In his talk, he explains how even though he loves playing basketball, he was never tall or athletic enough to go professional. So, instead of just following his passion for basketball endlessly, he focused on what he was good at, which happened to be tech and broadcasting at the time. He got more involved in that space and sold his first company for six million dollars, and now he’s a billionaire.
How This Applies to Making Money Online
The same concept of listening to what the market is signaling versus just doing what you love applies to making money online as well. For example, when I started this online world, I was blogging about all these different finance topics. I was talking about investing a lot, saving money, or budgeting because at the time I was in college, and that was what really interested me. Even though Google never ranked any of this finance content, and it was just ranking the money-making app stuff or side hustle content, I kept writing personal finance content. I wasn’t getting any traction.
So, eventually, after about a year and a half, I switched gears and focused on what Google was telling me was working, what readers were actually reading, and commenting on. My blog started growing month over month. You can see this problem impacting a lot of e-commerce stores or freelancers as well. They try to sell too many products or services, and they don’t focus on what really brings in the money.
Mistake #5: Not Reinvesting Money into Growth
The fifth and final common mistake that might stop people from making money online is that they don’t reinvest money into growth.
Treating Your Online Work as a Business
Unless you’re working a remote job or some kind of online job for a company, when you make money online, you’re typically running some sort of business. You need to treat it as a business that requires inputs to make more outputs—fuel to keep the fire going.
The Power of Reinvestment
This lesson actually took me ages to learn with blogging, and it’s probably the biggest mistake I’ve made. It took me years before I was confident enough to reinvest money back into growth. But once I started buying some of my time back by working with virtual assistants, hiring writing help, or hiring social media help, I had way more time to focus on the most profitable aspects of the business and started generating much more revenue.
Once you start making some money online, you can do the same thing. Maybe you purchase a course that teaches you a high-value skill that you can sell for even more money. Perhaps you hire a virtual assistant to help with administrative tasks, while you focus on revenue growth. Or maybe you invest in software that either saves you time or gives you a competitive edge.
Smart Reinvestment Strategy
This isn’t to say you should just throw money at an online business idea right at the start. I think bootstrapping is very valuable, and you should probably prove some kind of proof of concept before dumping money into something. But once you have an online business or income stream that’s chugging along and making some money, don’t be afraid to put a bit of money back into the business because, at the end of the day, it is a business.
Conclusion
Anyways, guys, that does it for the five common mistakes I see when people try to make money online, and some important tips to hopefully help you avoid them. Honestly, I think the internet’s crazy—there’s so much exciting opportunity out there and amazing ways to make money online. And really change your life and amplify your income.
That said, I also think embracing failure is very important. I’ve tried so many side hustles over the years—print on demand, dropshipping, Amazon affiliate sites—and none of them worked. They were all disasters. But I was able to learn a lot of valuable lessons along the way and apply them to blogging. Now blogging, YouTube, and freelance writing are what I do full-time. I like to think it worked out, and that a lot of the painstaking mistakes I made actually helped me accomplish a few things today. But looking back, I certainly could have worked a lot smarter and learned from my mistakes faster.
Hopefully, this video helps you guys skip some of those pain points and start making money online that much faster. Anyways, guys, I really appreciate you watching, and I hope you all have a fantastic day. As always, don’t forget to check out thisonlineworld.com for more unique ways to make and save money. Catch you guys in the next one.
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