Effective Strategies to Reduce Time Spent on Online and Remote Work. Are you dreaming of working from home for 1-2 hours a day and earning twice your current income or moving to your office? Uhm.. not sure; it doesn’t seem like it from here.
Some people have a well-developed and automated job, are not overly ambitious, and actually work about 2 hours a day. However, new beginnings require more effort and self-motivation. If you are ambitious and have a strong will and determination, working from home can significantly reduce your working hours or improve your results.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this type of work. This article will discuss them and show you the risks and opportunities. If you are thinking of starting an online business or already have one, be sure to read this article!
What is an online business?
For this article, when I say online business, I also mean total remote work with no time constraints. An online business is a set of activities where you make money online by selling services or products. The best case scenario is when you can scale those earnings regardless of the time you spend at work.
Some online businesses are more scalable than others. If your work is unique to each client (i.e. you can’t do the work once and then sell it to different clients), your business has limited scalability and requires your involvement. The exception is when you can train additional employees to do the same work under your brand using instructions and materials you create.
If you do any consulting, your work and income depend on how much time you dedicate to this service. Let’s compare three different consulting business models.
Consultations you attend in person
You are doing in-person consultations at the client’s premises. Let’s say you can only do 4-hour consultations per day, which still requires you to travel, so you spend 6 hours, not counting the time spent preparing. In this scenario, you only get paid for the time you work, and you earn money for the time you spend.
Online consulting
You can conduct online consultations with the help of professional equipment (camera, software, sound system). Then it will be possible to do even two consultations per day or reduce working hours without spending time on commuting.
The consultation time will also be shorter, as the meeting is subject to courtesies (time for greeting, small talk, coffee, etc.) that are often severely limited or even neglected during online consultations. You are also no longer limited to a specific region. You can offer your services not only nationwide, but also worldwide.
Consulting firm
You can encapsulate all your knowledge and consulting expertise in documents: instructions, procedures, and diagrams. Then you can hire and train your staff to consult on your behalf and under your supervision and direction. You can employ up to five employees to consult with clients at a time. Even if they provide in-person services, this will be at least partly an online business for you.
You should prepare these people for consultations and be ready to solve unusual problems that require your specific knowledge and experience. In this way, the scalability of the business depends on the number of employees you can manage; if they operate in different parts of the country, you can expand the reach of your company to a wider area.
A webinar or video course
You can also create a persona, such as a fictional person or company, based on your experience that would characterize your average (representative) customer. Then, record such consultations as videos (in the form of two-hour webinars) and embed them in your online store.
By working once (you spent time creating it) you can make the purchase multiple times, so one day 4 people might buy your consultancy and the next day 10. Digital products are timeless products – you can sell them for a long time, even for several years, and earn passive income (you earn money without doing anything else).
Scaling your online business
Creating a scalable business offers significant opportunities. There are many ideas for products and services; you don’t have to do a webinar or a consultation. It could be an e-book, an online course, or a white-label product. Digital products have great scalability potential, but there is also scalability in industries that seem unscalable: graphic design or software development, for example.
It is enough for a specialist to create an offer of semi-custom products. This is a product template (app, graphic, website) that they can adapt to the customer’s needs faster than creating a new product. They can enter the customer’s logo and data, and change colors or other elements. The price will be slightly lower than a custom product, and the work time will be more than halved.
What are the time-consuming things in online jobs and remote work?
Below you will find some of the main things that consume the most time in online trading.
Legal and accounting issues
Legal and accounting issues are very important, but they are not loved by entrepreneurs. Few like to spend time on monthly payments, completing documents for an accountant, preparing regulations and a privacy policy. You also need to keep up with changes in legal matters and keep up to date.
Technology
If you want to run an online business, you need to have a website and a store to sell products in. You need to manage a website and WordPress plugins, choose the right hosting, know the basics of SEO and internet marketing, and constantly update your knowledge.
Creating a product
It is the most critical part of e-commerce. In online commerce, in addition to commercial products, it is worth creating free materials such as a lead magnet for a newsletter subscription or articles on the blog that will position your website in search engines and create your expert brand. But text materials are not the only option. You can also create graphic, video or audio materials.
Composition
In addition to the material contribution of the content, you must also submit it. An e-book requires graphic processing and the creation of a PDF or epub/Mobi format if you plan to make it available to e-readers. When creating a video, you will need to invest money (if you outsource) or time (if you do it yourself) in editing the material and preparing graphic materials and explanations.
White label products also need attractive cover and marketing materials. Just take the time to make the product look good before any merchandising materials.
Marketing
It usually takes the most time in an online business. It is very important to get customers to reach you and use your products. This is how you get customers, so you should invest your time, money and energy into effective marketing.
Logistics
When a customer buys your product, you need to deliver it. If you sell physical products, you need to store them somewhere, but logistics apply to digital products as well. You can do it yourself or delegate it, but keep control of the process. First impressions are very important, so double-check that the customer receives the ordered product in an attractive way.
Online business development
When you start an online business, it often takes the form of a hybrid with your other activities. You work full time and then set aside 1-2 hours a day to build an eCommerce business. As your online business grows, you will find that you can earn almost as much as you would if you were working full time during those two hours.
Then you move on to seriously improving your business. It’s time to think about what you can improve. Analyze what you spend your working time on and find the 20% of activities that generate 80% of your revenue according to the Pareto principle. Delete, limit, or delegate the rest. How can you streamline your operations to develop an effective, scalable eCommerce business?
Delegation
By delegating tasks, you can spend time creating important materials because that is your core business. You can delegate other things that take up your time, such as legal, accounting, technology, material composition, marketing, and logistics. Other people can handle these things while you develop your business.
In conclusion
Online business has many advantages over working in an office. Not having to commute saves you an hour or two a day, but e-commerce has more significant advantages. The ability to sell and provide services online allows you to expand your business significantly. You can sell nationwide or even worldwide.
You can scale your business, that is, automate and delegate activities, and create digital products that sell themselves without any further intervention from you. In the meantime, you can focus on improving automation, delegation, scalability, and improving your business.
Effective Strategies to Reduce Time Spent on Online and Remote Work