Section 3: Bonus Content
Section 3 offers supplemental bonus topics that may be helpful with the business’s growth and development. Students may review these topics in their own time. If the class is being facilitated live, the instructor may decide if these topics should be discussed or taught further.
Wall-Art Canvas/Frames Pictures Online Business
Supporting Video: Selling Canvas/Framed Art Tutorial
Print-On-Demand sites like Redbubble are a great way to get started. Sell your photos, art, and designs. You can upload your photos/designs for free on t-shirts, mugs, water bottles, clocks, curtains, phone cases, canvas, poster art, and more. Keep in mind that the profit margin on these sites is low because they handle all of the back-end work, like printing, packaging, shipping the items, and providing organic traffic. Other print-on-demand platforms, such as Teespring, offer a bit higher profit margins but require you to do more work, like driving your traffic.
In addition to the many benefits of using one of these turn-key print-on-demand sites, they provide a plethora of merchandise that can be sold. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide which products you would like to offer in your online store. However, suppose you are particularly interested in creating a high-end online art gallery (selling your beautiful designs/artwork on canvases and frames). In that case, I suggest connecting with a different type of online print company that can earn your business much higher profits while still able to offer affordable prices to your clients. For example, you could purchase directly from a manufacturing print company and sell through your own websites or offline efforts.
Most turn-key print-on-demand sites (like Redbubble) offer wall art (canvas and framed art), but their super low commission structure will leave you with very slim profits. Over the years, I have found various print companies, but there are two in particular that offer a great product at reasonable prices. If you have some time right now, go check around different websites and compare the prices of canvas wall art. Now head over to one of these sites and check out the production cost of wall art when purchased wholesale (www.canvaschamp.com and www.canvasdiscount.com). I mainly use Canvas Champ now.
If canvas art and photography is the business direction you would like to pursue, here is an example of how you would execute that if a customer wanted to order one of your prints. Let’s say a customer finds your 16”x20” canvas art selling for around $75 and decides to contact you to place an order. They can choose any size or dimension you offer in that exact design. You would cater to their specifications, adjust the price accordingly, and accept their payment on the website while ensuring your correct info and shipping address. At this point, you’ll manually order the canvas wall-art and ship it directly to your customer. A 16”x20” canvas print on Canvas Champ costs you about $30, including shipping. If you sold the wall art for $75, you would be making a $55 profit! Of course, you can charge whatever you would like, within reason. Just ensure your business is profitable.
If you don’t have a website set up yet, no problem! You can also offer your products on your social media accounts and online marketplaces, sell them there, and take payments with Paypal, Venmo, Zelle, etc.
Last and certainly not least, Sell your digital images or wall art on ETSY!!! You can create the perfect niche photography ETSY STORE. This is probably the quickest way to get your online business going quickly and effectively. The first step is to go to Canvas Champ to get all of the details on the type of wall art you would like to create. Go through the purchasing process to get a feel for how the site works. A good plan would be to order a
sample for yourself so you can experience what your customers will experience.
Figure out your cost, note the product details, and start setting up your ETSY Store. Start with JUST ONE image to get comfortable with ETSY. Once set up, start advertising your new business on your social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest).
Etsy is a great “destination” website where shoppers visit to make purchases, plus you’ll get free traffic! When a customer purchases an item from you, order it from Canvas Champ, and drop ship the item to your customer. www.Etsy.com
Be creative! I am only offering suggestions for your new business. I’m confident that you will generate other clever ways to sell your photography. You can even order a few and sell them locally around your town at art shows and events. Where else could you sell your wall-art? Can you share with the E-Teen group?
My final piece of advice is to be sure to use niche-specific keywords and hashtags in all of your titles, tags, posts, and content. If you don’t use niche-specific keywords, your business will not be located by the search engines. Have fun with this, and please keep us posted on your progress, and we can’t wait to see your artwork!
Fiverr (Sell Your Services For Your Teen Business)
Supporting Video: Fiverr Tutorial
I’ll tell you why you should hire a Fiverr freelancer at the end of this article. Fiverr is one of the largest freelance marketplaces in the world. With that comes an oversaturation of freelancers competing to gain your business. You’ll notice quite a wide price range between freelancers, some charging 20 dollars to build a website and others charging 500 dollars for the same service.
Be careful when hiring a freelancer. Look at their reviews and then read them intently. Be leary if a freelancer has no reviews. Also, know that just because they are cheap doesn’t mean they won’t provide quality work. The cost of living and currency conversion rates vary worldwide. For example, $10 (USD) is worth almost 500 Philippine Pesos, and $ 10 (USD) can purchase much more in the Philippines than $10 in the US. They can charge less and still provide outstanding service.
I’ve hired freelancers on Fiverr a handful of times, and the results varied. I spent $10 for photo edits and $20 for video edits, and the results were fantastic! I also spent $25 for a freelancer to create a video ad for a Facebook marketing campaign. I was highly impressed. However, recently I spent $80 on a marketing campaign that turned out to be a joke. I hired someone from Ghana who had a few decent reviews and a fantastic description. I hired him to create an advertisement (text/images) for our homeschool t-shirt merch business. Then he was supposed to blast it out all over the internet to niche-specific websites and blogs.
The ad was mediocre at best. He then sent me screenshots of where he placed the ad.. Essentially, he just photoshopped the ad on top of other pre-existing marketing photos and never actually used his “expert” marketing skills to do anything. The clue that I got scammed was in a screenshot he sent to me. It was an image of my ad placed on a huge billboard screen in NYC. It was awkward looking and superimposed to make it appear that he was doing amazing things. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I’ll never use that person’s service again. If you want to see a picture of the ad on the city billboard, send me a message, and I’ll be happy to show you. And by the way, his understanding of English was not good. I needed to edit the ad that I paid him to create. Make sure you hire someone who can communicate well.
This one, you’ll love and hate at the same time. I hired a Fiverr freelancer (and his company) from India to build a WordPress affiliate website from scratch. I spent $100 for this Fiverr freelancer to work with me for 12 months to create a HUGE affiliate E-Commerce Amazon Affiliate Store (for info and to create a FREE Amazon Associates account, go here: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/). It’s a store that advertises thousands of products all linking to Amazon products. The best part is, since I provided the freelancer with my Amazon Associates ID, I would make a commission on each sale. The most challenging part of any and every business is driving traffic to the store. This company promised to do 12 months of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) on Google and write articles to send traffic to the website.
As you may know, SEO takes time, dedication, and determination. For two months I didn’t receive any traffic. Then I began noticing clicks and some small commissions within my Amazon account. This was so exciting for me! My vision and my plan started to pay off. Then, wouldn’t you know it, Amazon shut my Associate account down. From what I understand, the Fiverr freelancer may have been spamming other websites to send traffic to mine illegally. I don’t know. I paid the Fiverr freelancer to do everything for me, and it worked for a short time. If Amazon didn’t shut my account down, I am confident I could be making at least a thousand dollars a month at this point.
My website was www.slickkickscooters.com. The funny thing is, I hired them to create a kick scooter affiliate site. After I paid them, they told me it couldn’t be niche-specific! It needed to be a general product store. Argh!! Why a kick scooter store? I am creating/developing an air tire kick scooter. I contacted Alibaba to make and send samples to my home. I am testing market interest at www.slickscoots.com. Eventually, I hope to sell it on my website and Amazon. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that ideas!
What’s my point? Fiverr works. For whatever task you need completed, Fiverr can help. Remember, at the beginning of this article, I mentioned that you should hire someone in Fiverr. It may be a good idea to hire a Fiverr freelancer to design a logo or other art (branding/t-shirt designs/etc.) for your business. Even if you decide not to use their designs, the cost is minimal, and it may spark some creative ideas when you begin creating your own designs on Canva.com.
Growing Instagram Followers
It’s very intriguing and also frustrating to see Instagram profiles with such huge followings. It’s also no secret that these accounts are most likely generating an income due to developing such prolific audiences. And this is where we want to be, right? Most people who utilize this platform use it for entertainment, posting cute pics of their pets, kids, cars, money, videos of dancing, hobbies, sharing music, and more. Others harness the power of Instagram tools to build an income stream. We want you to build a following/audience and then develop an income stream.
How can we earn an income on Instagram? Once you can establish a decent size following of over 10k or more followers, other users may contact (DM - Direct Message) you to post “shout outs” or their “ads” on your page. You would charge them a set price to post their content on your Instagram page. For example, you can charge $10 to post their “ad” on your page for 24 hours. If needed, negotiate the terms (i.e., price or period). More prominent profiles with more followers can charge more money. Pages with 100k followers or more may charge $100 for a 24 hour “shout out.” You get the point, yes?
Another way Instagram users earn money is by either linking to their business product or service or by engaging in an affiliate marketing program. With thousands of followers, there is a good chance some of them will bite. It’s a numbers game. The more followers generated, the better chance at making sales from your Instagram page. You now know the financial benefits of pooling a large audience, but how would you begin building up followers from scratch?
We are now at the Genesis of your Instagram career. You created a snazzy name for your exciting new business, and you are ready to roll. Hopefully, you have already created a Facebook profile and then a separate Facebook Page. Once you create an Instagram account, connect it to your Facebook page. Invite all of your contacts on FB to follow your Instagram.
Instagram updates every few months and adds some new ways to showcase media. It has options to post just a single picture, add multiple images (as a carousel), a “Story,” a “Live Video,” or a “Reel.” All of these options have pretty fancy filters, too which can breathe additional life into your content. At this point, “carousels” seem to be very popular. However, if Instagram introduces a new feature, use it. Instagram may feature your content over others if the algorithm notices your account is implementing its new features.
Content is King
Post-top-quality pictures and videos of your business. What you are looking to do is create “scroll stopping” content. This same strategy should be applied to all of your social media account marketing. “Scroll stoppers” literally make people stop scrolling through their feed to stop and look at your eye-popping content. If it’s good, other users will engage with the post and may even follow the account. When others engage, engage back. If followers leave comments, reply back. While we are looking for many followers, we are also looking to form qualitative relationships.
For SEO purposes, it’s crucial to leave a description fitting for your content. After the description, follow up with HASHTAGS that relate to your business. A hashtag is simply a keyword phrase, spelled out without spaces, with a pound sign (#) in front of it. For example, #doglovers, #chocolatemakers, #jewelryfad are hashtags. These hashtags tie public conversations from all different users into a single stream, which you can find by searching for a hashtag, clicking on one, or using a third-party monitoring tool. Leave at least 10 hashtags. Instagram will auto-populate suggestions making the process simpler.
Posting often will help increase your chances of attracting new followers. Some businesses hire social media managers who post hundreds of times per day, which can be overwhelming for someone new with less experience and less content. Post 2 to 5 times per day to get started and see how that works out! Try different methods of posting (i.e., reels, carousels) to mix things up a bit. I love watching live videos and reels. Maybe live videos and reels would be better for your type of business. What kind of methods would showcase your content best?
Engagement will certainly help grow your page. Authentically engage with other accounts. “Like” photos and videos! Comment on other people’s content. There is a good chance they will return your kindness with a “follow”.
Is there a way to expedite the process? There is! It’s called “Follow/Unfollow” and is viewed as a slightly shady collection method. The goal is to follow as many people as possible and hope they follow back, and some do. There is a proper procedure for this. Instagram has flagged users for following too many accounts at one time. This is a spammy move. Think about it. A new account that has 20 followers but is following 1500 other accounts is a red flag. The proper procedure is to repurpose/recycle follow 30 to 50 per day. The next day unfollow them and follow a new 30 to 50 people. People will follow you back. It’s best to follow people who are in a similar realm to your business. Instagrams algorithms and policies can change, so please engage in the “Follow/Unfollow” at your OWN RISK.
My number one piece of advice and probably the most important is to be authentic. Then be diligent, engaging, and patient. Building up followers on any social media platform will take hard work and patience, but the benefits are well worth the investment. Love what you do, and it will love you back! Visit us at www.eteenlab.com for the full teen internet/digital experience and here.
Set Up Your Legal Business Structure
Once the business is off and running, it’s probably time to register the business within your State of residence. Registering your business can provide you with certain liability protections for your personal assets. One way is to register as a sole-proprietor which is solely using your social security number and personal name. There is little to no cost with this option. The second option is to register your official business name (or DBA - Doing Business As) with your state as an LLC (Limited Liability Company), which protects your personal assets. Your state will then recognize you as an official business in your state and send you a tax ID number. The third way to register a business is as Corporation, which is probably not applicable for your business. A Partnership is also a possibility but does not offer protection of personal assets unless the Partnership is structured within an LLC.
Sole Proprietorship: A sole proprietorship is the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to start your business, and it doesn’t require any paperwork or cost. However, in a sole proprietorship, you and your business are viewed as a single entity, which can put your personal assets (i.e. home) at risk if you’re sued. Starting out, many home business owners use this structure but eventually move on to form an LLC or other business structure.
Limited Liability Company (LLC): A safer business form than the sole proprietorship is a limited liability company (LLC), which sets up your business separate from you. This is an advantage because it separates your business assets from your personal ones (i.e. your house). If someone sues your business, they can't come after your home for money. If you hire a lawyer or use a legal resource, it can cost several hundred dollars, plus the fee your state charges. Or, you can do it yourself, and it’s not complicated nor too expensive when you consider the advantages. But it is a legal entity, so you want to make sure you do it right. Your state agency that regulates corporations will have information, and you can probably apply online.
Partnership: If there’s more than one of you involved in the business, you’ll want to set up a partnership, which is more expensive and involved, but crucial to protecting all partners. Starting out, make sure you have defined roles and percentage ownership and work determined. Partnerships can get messy, which is best thwarted by establishing all elements upfront.
Obtain Needed Permits and Licenses
This is another area where many would-be home business owners feel overwhelmed, but it’s not complex. Most, if not all, of these issues, can be taken care of online.
There are several types of permits or licenses you may need, including:
Business License: Most cities or counties require a business license. Odds are your city or county’s official website has information for businesses, including permits and licenses. If not, you can call or visit your local city or county’s government office for information and details.
Sales Tax Permit: If you sell tangible goods (stuff you can hold in your hand), and your state charges sales tax, you’ll need to collect and pay sales tax on your items. Check your state’s tax or comptroller’s office online for information. You’ll probably be able to sign up for the permit online.
Occupational Permit or License: Depending on the business you run, you may need an occupational permit. These are supplied by states that regulate certain businesses. For example, you may need a license to run a daycare out of your home. Typical regulated businesses include day and elder care, financial, grooming (i.e. hair stylists or pet grooming), food and beverage creation, and sales. Check your state’s website for information on occupational licenses.
Fictitious Name Statement (Doing Business As or Assumed Name): If your business name is something other than your given name, your city or county may ask you to file a fictitious name statement, sometimes called doing business as or assumed name statement to let residents of your area know about your business. This is often accomplished through your local city or county clerk’s office.
Employer Identification Number: This isn’t required in all business types, but it’s free and can help keep your business separate from your personal life. If you have employees, you’ll need one. Visit the IRS online for details on whether or not you need an Employer Identification Number (EIN) and how to get one. One advantage to getting one is the ability to use your business ID number, instead of your social security number, in your business-related activities (i.e., filling out a W-9 for freelance or affiliate businesses) that require a federal ID number.
Business Bank Account: Once all this is set up, it’s time to open a business bank account. Even if you run your business as a sole proprietor, you’ll want a separate account for business. The IRS is a stickler for not mixing personal and business funds.
Resources: For more information on Business structuring or for help in registering your new teen business, check here with Legal Zoom: https://www.legalzoom.com/business/business-formation/llc-overview.html
ENTREPRENEUR TERMS:
Entrepreneur Terms (Glossary):
Accounting: This concept should be in every entrepreneur’s arsenal of basic business terms. Accounting involves the systematic recording and reporting of business financial transactions. Accounting is often complicated, and you may want to hire a professional to handle this.
Accounts payable: Accounts payable measures how much you owe your creditors for goods or services supplied to you.
Accounts receivable: This is the amount of money your customers or clients owe your business for goods or services you supply. This total value can give you a snapshot of the amount owed to your business at any given time.
Acquisition: Finding and gaining new clients or customers
Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is an advertising model in which a company compensates third-party publishers to generate traffic or leads to the company's products and services. The third-party publishers are affiliates, and the commission fee incentivizes them to find ways to promote the company.
Amazon FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon): Let Amazon pick, pack, and ship your orders. You sell it, we ship it. Amazon has one of the most advanced fulfillment networks in the world. With Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), you store your products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we pick, pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. https://youtu.be/zu2DRNNw0PA (Santrel Media)
Assets: “Assets” refers to your business’ cumulative financial holdings. These are usually classified as current or fixed. Current or short-term, assets include cash or inventory. Fixed, or long-term assets, include equipment or land.
Balance sheet: This key financial document provides a snapshot of business assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity.
Blog: A regularly updated website or web page, typically run by an individual or small group, written in an informal or conversational style.
Business Plan: A business plan is a written document that describes your business. It covers objectives, strategies, sales, marketing, and financial forecasts. A business plan helps you to: clarify your business idea.
Cash flow: Cash flow is the movement of money in and out of your business. You want a higher flow of income into the business than there is an outflow of expenses from the business, and this is called positive cash flow.
Conversion: Turning website visitors into paying customers
Copywriting: Copywriting is the act or occupation of writing the text for advertising or other forms of marketing. The product, called copy or sales copy, is written content that aims to increase brand awareness and ultimately persuade a person or group to take a particular action.
Digital Marketing: Digital marketing is the component of marketing that utilizes the internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services.
Dropshipping: Dropshipping is an order fulfillment method that does not require a business to keep products in stock. Instead, the store sells the product and passes on the sales order to a third-party supplier, who then ships the order to the customer.
Ebook: An electronic version of a printed book that can be read on a computer or handheld device designed specifically for this purpose.
E-commerce: E-commerce is electronically buying or selling products on online services or over the Internet.
EIN: The Employer Identification Number, also known as the Federal Employer Identification Number or the Federal Tax Identification Number, is a unique nine-digit number assigned by the Internal Revenue Service to business entities operating in the United States for identification.
Entrepreneur: An entrepreneur is an individual who creates a new business, bearing most of the risks and enjoying most of the rewards. The process of setting up a business is known as entrepreneurship. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as an innovator, a source of new ideas, goods, services, and business/or procedures.
Expenses: Does your business incur expenditures for equipment, utilities, or inventory? These are all examples of costs—money you spend to operate your business. For the self-employed, legitimate business expenses are tax-deductible.
Hashtags: A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash symbol, '#'. Hashtags are widely used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter and Instagram as user-generated tagging that enables cross-referencing of content sharing a subject or theme.
Investment/Invest: Investing is the act of allocating resources, usually money, with the expectation of generating an income or profit. You can invest in endeavors, such as using money to start a business, or in assets, such as purchasing real estate in hopes of reselling it later at a higher price.
Liabilities: Liabilities are debts your business owes another person or entity. Like assets, you’ll have to define liabilities as current or long-term. Current, or short-term liabilities might include an expense payable to a supplier. Many business loans are long-term debts.
LLC: A limited liability company is the US-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of a corporation.
Net loss: If your total expenses exceed your overall revenues, you have a net loss. The risk of a net loss is one of many strong reasons to keep company costs under control.
Net profit: Also known as your “bottom line.” Net profit represents total revenues less total expenses. This figure is especially important at tax time. This is because you pay self-employment taxes as a percentage of net profit.
Niche: A specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service. Denoting products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population.
Partnership: A partnership is an arrangement where parties, known as business partners, agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments, or combinations.
Owner’s equity: Usually represented as a percentage, Owner’s Equity refers to the owner’s part of business assets.
Print-On-Demand: Print on demand is a printing technology and business process in which merchandise (or books) are not printed until the company receives an order, allowing prints of single or small quantities.
Profit margin: This essential business term measures how much profit you keep relative to total sales. There are three types of profit margins: gross, operating, and net. Calculate these by dividing the profit (revenue minus costs) by the revenue.
Retail Arbitrage: Retail arbitrage is an e-commerce business model centered around buying inventory at a discount from offline and online retailers, then reselling it online for a profit.
Return on investment: Your Return on Investment, or ROI, shows how much you gained or lost on a business investment relative to how much you spent on it. Calculate ROI by dividing net profit by the cost of the investment.
Revenue: Revenue refers to the income you get from a business activity in a given time. You can calculate earnings by multiplying the per-unit cost of goods or services by the number of units sold.
Royalty-Free: Royalty-free material subject to copyright or other intellectual property rights may be used without the need to pay royalties or license fees for each use, per each copy or volume sold, or some period of use or sales.
Scaleable: The ability to increase or grow any business
Scroll Stopper: Scroll stoppers are design cues that tell users: “Stop scrolling!
SEO: Search engine optimization is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. SEO targets unpaid traffic rather than direct traffic or paid traffic.
SEM: Search Engine Marketing - Paid Ad Marketing
Sole Proprietor: A sole proprietorship, also known as a sole tradership, individual entrepreneurship, or proprietorship, is a type of enterprise owned and run by one person and in which there is no legal distinction between the owner and the business entity.
Start-Up Capital: Startup capital is what entrepreneurs use to pay for any or all of the required expenses involved in creating a new business. This includes paying for the initial hires, obtaining office space, permits, licenses, inventory, research and market testing, product manufacturing, marketing, or any other expense.
Stock Photos: Stock photography is the supply of photographs that are often licensed for specific uses. The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920s, has established models including traditional macrostock photography, midstock photography, and microstock photography.
Venture Capital: Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity and a type of financing that investors provide to startup companies and small businesses that are believed to have long-term growth potential. Venture capital generally comes from well-off investors, investment banks, and any other financial institutions.
Web Crawler: A Web crawler, sometimes called a spider or spider bot and often shortened to a crawler, is an Internet bot that systematically browses the World Wide Web, typically operated by search engines for Web indexing.
Web Indexing: Web indexing, or internet indexing, comprises methods for indexing the contents of a website or the Internet as a whole. Individual websites or intranets may use a back-of-the-book index, while search engines usually use keywords and metadata to provide a more useful vocabulary for Internet or onsite searching.
Web Ranking: Rankings in SEO refers to a website's position on the search engine results page.