Earlier this year I listened to a recording of a teaching session. The instructor was teaching on how to solve a particular problem. They went into great detail on all the specifics. I liked the fact that they were covering a lot of details. When they finished, they offered a pdf file that summed up all of the main points.

As it turned out, the pdf was the key to me understand in a practical sense what was taught on the recording. My definition of practical is – “something you can use.”

Much of the advice I’ve heard over the years was more theoretical than practical. Please understand that I’m talking from my own perspective not just in a general sense.

Most people don’t follow through on information because it’s impractical to them in the sense that – they really don’t know enough to be effective.

You can watch a car repair video in which the dashboard is removed from the car and what seems like a minor repair is done. Can you do it? Realistically, most people won’t.

Most people can handle six steps. Give them twenty-six and nothing happens – even if each step on its own seems doable.

Now, let’s take this thinking and apply it to starting and building a new online business from October of this year through December 31^st.

YOU NEED SOMETHING TO SELL

First, you need something to sell. Start with one thing. A product or a service. If you sell information, books or courses, the same thing applies. If you sell a service, it works the same way.

Forget about upsells, cross-sells and down-sells for now. If that’s overwhelming to you, then it’s overwhelming to you. Pretending it isn’t or even trying to convince yourself it shouldn’t be is off the table. Completely off the table.

DECIDE HOW TO SELL IT

Next, you need to have your offer on some kind of sales page. You can have a one-page website with an offer. Here’s a simple method. Install WordPress on your domain. Install a landing page system of some kind. I can give you access to my own tools if you want. Contact me for more info about that.

The point is, you’re using a fill-in-the-blanks template for your offer and you’re connecting that offer to PayPal or whatever service you use to take payments.

You’re in business!

MOST PEOPLE DO THIS INSTEAD

Most people make online business very complicated. If you don’t have a page with an offer on it, you can’t make a single cent. That said, most people belabor things like blog posts, logos, complicated membership platforms and shopping cart systems.

Remember, we’re talking about building something new. Something fresh. Something that will make money between now and the end of the year. I know there’s a lot of advice out there, but common sense tells you, if you don’t make the offer, no one will say, “Yes!” or click the buy now button.

That makes sense, right?

But people have told you that you need all the other things in place before people will buy from you, right?

REMOVE THE COMPLICATED ELEMENTS OUT OF YOUR BUSINESS

At the end of the day, people buy solutions to things that remove their frustrations and help them make progress in some area of their lives.

There’s something you do best, isn’t there? Something that helps people.

Some kind of knowledge or experience.

That’s what people are really buying. Not your website design. Not your logo design. Not the shopping cart system you’re using.

So, let me encourage you today… if you’re stuck, shoot me an email at jimmy at jimmykrug.com. Let me know where you’re at and I will let you know what solutions I have to help you.

You can “dig wide” or you can “dig deep.” What I mean by that is, you can master a few important things to help your existing assets, or you can try to get good at things that at the end of the day – probably will never be your forte.

If done it both ways. I’ve gone “wide” and turned over every stone because I was curious to see if there was anything of value underneath. And I’ve gone deep and was able to really do something I believed in. Guess which was better?