I love it when people have questions and you know why?
Because when people ask me questions it means I not only get to teach them, but I too learn from the questions they are asking. The more I teach the more I learn and so do my clients, its awesome. I love it because It’s not just you that is on a journey of learning too. I myself am on a great big journey as a coach, even if I have helped lots of people, I am still learning and always will be learning.
The main theme though that I recognise all too well are the 5 most common questions everybody asks about buying online businesses, which is why I want to clear them all up for you in this very post.
1. How Much Does It Cost?
When most people ask me this question, I like to explain to them first and foremost the difference between buying a website and buying an online business. You see when you go and buy a website you are buying a start up, which we all know that 90% of ALL start ups fail right. But when you buy a business, you are buying a business with a proven track record that is consistently making money every single month AND has passed that dreaded 90% failure rate.
So how much does a website (start up) cost and how much does an online business cost?
Without beating around the bush you can buy a website for anywhere between $50 to $5,000 or more, which won’t necessarily be earning money when you buy it. Meaning you have a lot of hard work to put into the website to build it which is why you may not and generally won’t see a financial return from the day you buy it.
When you buy an online business however, it can cost you anywhere between $10,000 up to $2 million or more. The big difference is that when you buy an online business, it is already set up with little workload needed to run the business if at all and the biggest pro is that as soon as you buy the business you start gaining your return on investment back from day 1. You earn an income every single month, which is why I teach people to buy online businesses because it’s smarter and easier as opposed to buying a websites.
Plus I would be doing my clients a massive disservice by allowing them to buy a website where it is more than likely going to fail. After all I got into this to work smarter not harder.
To sum it up though you wouldn’t want to spend any less than $5k-$10k when buying a business and the more you spend the easier it gets. Basically as you already know you get what you pay for and the more you put in, just like in life. The more you get out of it.
2. Where Do You Buy Online Businesses From?
Not from Flippa.
If you know me or any of my stuff, you know I don’t like Flippa because they are predominately selling websites that are either broken or scams and not selling solid legit businesses worth their weight. Instead to find great online businesses you know are solid investments it’s best to buy from website brokers.
The reason for this is that website brokers have their business and reputation at stake and don’t want to risk it by selling crappy online businesses. Which is why I suggest going through a website broker.
3. Why Do People Sell Their Websites If They Are Already Making Money?
Such a great question that comes up more often than not. A question in which I answered in a blog post called ‘Why Do Sellers Sell A Profitable Website’.
Though to briefly summarize it;
Sellers are selling their online businesses for many different reasons, one being yes of course the business may be underperforming which is why we need to do our due diligence and we could possibly turn it around meaning we pick something up for cheap and get a better return from it with a little bit of elbow grease.
However predominantly sellers are selling their online businesses because they would like to use the capital for another venture, or they need the money for some other reason. A lot of people also fall out of love for the business they have and believe it would simply be better in someone else’s hands and I have bought 2 businesses myself from sellers with this very reason.
The key takeaway you should get from this is that although some businesses are being sold because of underperformance, many if not most are being sold because the seller no longer wants it.
4. What Do I Need To Do To Get Started?
The most important thing you need to get started is the commitment to making a change from where you are now. Once you have that commitment made to better your life and improve your lifestyle both financially and to gain time freedom, the next steps are easy.
Which is basically learning how to buy an online business, which means understanding how a few key online business models work and earn money, setting some goals for what you want to achieve and executing on those.
Although the most important thing you do need is the willingness and wanting-ness to improve your life one way or another and the rest will follow.
5. How Do I Know How Much Work A Website Needs
As complex as this question may appear it is easier than you may think. You see when you decide to start buying online businesses you start to understand how the 7 key online business models actually work, make money and what would be required to run one of those businesses.
In knowing that, which is a skill you can acquire quite easily you will then be able to understand how much work each website may need. Predominantly though almost every website listed for sale will inform you in the description what workload is required to run the business and how long it may take. However if you want to know more you can simply ask the seller and they will inform you further. On top of that, if you are to buy the business generally in the contract is a few training lessons from the seller teaching you exactly how to run the business and possibly grow it.
There you have it, some of the most asked questions on buying online businesses. I hope you found this post super informative, if you did please feel free to share it. If at all you have further questions, please simply comment below or contact me directly where I can quickly answer them or possibly put out a FaceBook Live or a post dedicated to that question.
