8 steps to take now to start selling your knowledge online today

The logistics of getting ready to sell your knowledge online in <3 hours and $130

I decided to go “all in” on my consulting business, on November 28th, 2022.

I had nothing built yet.

No website, no pricing / packaging, no way to invoice customer, no logos, etc.

I didn’t care, I needed revenue.

But this style doesn’t work for everyone.

You see, when it came to launching my consulting business, I resonate a ton with Justin Welsh here:

I think Justin is spot on here, but there are many that this doesn’t resonate with.

They want to have at least a few ducks in order before getting going.

Today, I’m going to help you get your ducks in order before selling your knowledge online.

I genuinely think this is one of the biggest obstacles for people.

What things ‘should’ I get setup before finding my first customer?

→ Should I build a website?

→ Do I need a business license to operate?

→How would I invoice or collect payments?

It can be overwhelming.

With that said, here’s a list of 8 steps you can take today to be ready to go.

**none of this is financial or tax advice. Consult your CPA for tax related questions.

Form a LLC (10 minutes, ~$100)

Forming an LLC is easy and will only take you a few minutes.

Use Legalzoom.

There’s some basic reasons why you should have an LLC that you can read on your own.

At the end of the day, if you do 1 engagement this year or scale to go full time, it’s best to have one.

Shouldn’t I be forming a S Corp?

Here’s my opinion:

If you decide that you want to begin to scale your consulting business, you should form a S Corp. The tax benefits are significant.

If you’re only doing ~10k a year on the side, it’s probably not worth the hassle.

When you decide to scale >$20k a year and are looking at multiple streams of income, it’s worth the investment.

Find a good advisor, they can help with all of this.

I have an incredible advisor that helps to setup and manage all of this. Email me if you want an intro: me@blakeharber.com

• A good advisor will range from $5k - $20k a year

• They will often do fewer services for less ($1k - $5k a year)

  • this is a great place to start. As your finances become more complex (multiple businesses or income streams / real estate invesements) then you can consider doing full engagements.

Below are resources to understand the differences between LLCs and S Corps.

• https://www.bradendrake.com/blog-scorp

Open a business bank account (10 minutes, Free)

You’ll want to being to separate your person finances and side hustle.

If you set this up now, it’ll be so much less of a headache when tax time comes.

If you don’t do this, you will likely be missing a lot of tax deductions down the road.

All you’ll need is your EIN number which will be given to you when you form your LLC in Legalzoom.

Get a Business Credit Card (10 minutes, Free)

You will only use this CC on things that can be deducted at the end of the year.

I’m not an expert, nor am I giving tax advice here… but everyone should learn what things can be deducted. It’s less complicated than you think.

If you read this book, your eyes will be opened to what is possible.

Read: Tax Free Wealth

Buy your domain (10 minutes, ~$12)

Go to domains.google.com

Choose a domain. Don’t overthink this. Obviously I didn’t.

www.blakeharber.com

You’ll need this before you build your website.

Get setup on the Google business suite for email.

Website (5 hours, $15 - $150 / month)

A website is completely optional at this point. If you’re planning on this being a long term thing, go for it.

My honest opinion: If this is stopping you from finding and signing your first engagement next week, don’t worry about it right now.

If you’re all in for the long run, it still shouldn’t stop you from prospecting your first deal.

A few things to consider:

• Do you plan to sell courses online?

• Do you only plan to do consulting?

• Are you willing to migrate your website down the road if you change your revenue strategy a bit?

• Do you have experience with email marketing tools at all?

• How much experience do you have building a website

Here’s what I decided worked for me:

• I wanted a somewhat simple interface that I could learn. I had limited experience previously building sites on Wix, Shopify and Weebly

• I knew I wanted an ‘all in one’ solution. I wanted to be able to keep contacts, email marketing and analytics in one single platform. I don’t know enough about sophisticated website stuff to use separate solutions anyways.

• I knew I wanted to build and sell online assets at some point.

I started with GoDaddy’s website (where I bought my domain). HORRIBLE.

I built the site. It was garbage.

If you want SUPER SUPER simple, give it a shot. It’s very limited and not very user friendly.

But, it’s cheap as hell.

There are better cheaper options like Wix, Squarespace and Weebly.

I migrated after 3 weeks to Kajabi and have never looked back.

The learning curve took me ~4 weeks.

I’m 60% proficient now.

I’ve found Kajabi experts on Upwork that can do 10x the work I can in 60 minutes. I’ve spent ~$120 that it worth it’s weight in gold.

Things like UX improvements & funnels would have taken me >12 hours to figure out and build would take someone on upwork ~60 minutes.

It’s one of the more expensive solutions but the tool is incredible.

I’m on the growth plan due to things I’m building out.

Create a logo (30 minutes, Free - $100)

There’s a few ways to go here:

1. Create your own or ask a friend

2. Use an AI logo creator. They are everywhere now.

3. Upwork is a lifesaver here.

Find someone’s designs you like, send them some inspiration work from Pinterest to your upwork contact and you’re off to the races.

They can usually turn something around in 12 hours.

Don’t worry about perfecting this, you can change it later.

Remember, nobody knows you exist yet so it won’t matter if you change the logo in 2 months.

Create a Stripe Account (10 minutes, Free)

Stripe will connect to your website (if you’re selling courses or online materials), and will be used to invoice customers

You’ll need your EIN and business name to setup your account.

Customer Invoicing (60 minutes, Free)

There’s many options on how to do this but I’ll outline 3:

1. Use a Canva template - Free. Fill it in yourself

2. Just use Stripe - you can send invoices directly via stripe

3. Use a 3rd party management group like I do (for consulting / advising services)

I’ll speak to #3 below:

Continuum is a fractional executive platform that will handle all of your back of office for free. What does this mean?

• They’ll actually source customers for you

• Create Contracts for customers

• Send and Sign contracts with customers

• They’ll send your invoices

• They’ll collect payments

• They’ll pay you out

The best part of all, you’ll only get a single 1099 at the end of the year.

I’ll work with >30 customers this year.

Managing and collecting 30-1099s sounds like a nightmare.

Now, go find your first customer…

That’s it.

You’ve setup all the logistics required to ‘get going’.

Recap:

• Form a LLC

• Open a business bank account

• Get a business credit card

• Create a logo

• Buy your domain

• Build a website

• Create a free stripe account

• Commit to 1 way to invoice

In my opinion, even if you aren’t ready to take on a first customer, you should do these things.

Put 3 hours on your calendar in an evening and knock them out.

So, when the time arises, you’re 100% ready to go