Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. Hey everybody, this is Conner, and you’re listening to Episode 59 of the Listening Time podcast.

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Alright, in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about online business. This is a great topic to talk about for me because I have an online business, of course. So, I’m excited for this and I think that it will be a good way for me to tell you a little bit about my thought process when it comes to developing my online business. In English, we use the phrase “thought process” to just talk about how we think about something, our approach, our ideas about something. So, you’ll be able to see my thought process when it comes to developing my own online business.

And remember that if you need the transcript for this episode, you can find that in the Episode Description below this episode. So, go down and click on that link if you need it. And remember to share this podcast with anyone else who might find it useful, any friends or family members who are learning English, and help this podcast grow. Alright, let’s get started.

Alright, so let’s talk about online business. So, first, let’s talk about the differences between an online business and a traditional business. So, the biggest difference, I think, the number one thing is that an online business is not a brick and mortar business. In English, we use the phrase “brick and mortar” to refer to businesses that have a physical building. They’re located in a building and people go inside that building to go and shop at that store or do business there. So, an online business is not a brick and mortar business. So, you don’t need to rent some physical space to actually sell your product or your service.

So, this is a huge difference. Because first of all, you don’t need to save up this money or get a loan from the bank to purchase or to rent this physical space. In English, the word “loan” refers to money that you borrow from someone else. So, if you get a loan from the bank, this means that the bank gives you money so that you can buy something, and then you have to pay back that money. This is a loan. So, if you have an online business, you don’t need to get a loan from the bank, and you don’t have to invest a lot of money at the beginning to get some physical space for your business. So, this is a big difference.

And of course, this also means that you don’t have to pay all the utilities every month. In English, the word “utilities” refers to the electricity, the water, the gas, all of those things that you have to pay when you rent some building or apartment. Those extra costs that you have. Those are the utilities. So, you don’t have to pay that.

And maybe the biggest factor when it comes to this is that if you have an online business and not a brick and mortar business, you can maybe have a wider reach. In this case, when I say a “wider reach,” I’m saying that you can reach more customers in farther places. More people can actually see your business and become aware of your business. In English, the phrase “become aware” just refers to knowing something. So, if I’m aware of the news, this means that I already know the news. So, more people can become aware of your business if it’s an online business, because you’re not limited to a physical space. You’re not limited to one location. People can access your store or your service from anywhere. So, that’s another big difference when it comes to brick and mortar businesses and online businesses.

So, another difference is that there’s usually no opening and closing time when it comes to online businesses. So, it’s not like you can’t access the website before 7am because the business is closed. The website doesn’t close during off hours. You can buy things or surf that website and do things on the online business’s website at any hour of the day, usually.

Of course, the customer service might not be available during the off hours, early in the morning or late at night. But the business doesn’t close per se. In English when I say the phrase “per se,” it’s like I’m saying “exactly.” I’m saying the business doesn’t exactly close it doesn’t close per se. So, let me give you another example. If I say “he’s not a bad guy, per se, but I don’t think he’s right for you” I’m saying that I don’t think he’s exactly or necessarily a bad guy, but he’s not right for you. So, that’s per se. So, the business doesn’t close per se, but maybe the customer service is not available during off hours.

And speaking of customer service, this is another difference between online and traditional businesses. If you have a traditional business, then a lot of your customer service is done face to face. In English, the phrase “face to face” just means that you’re there in person talking to your customer, right? It’s not online, it’s not through email. You’re actually there with them talking to them in person. So, when you have a traditional business, a lot of your customer service is face to face. You actually have to be there, and you have to deal with the customer in person. And of course, this means that you have to work on a lot of skills in the customer service area that you might not necessarily have to work on if you have an online business.

Of course, if you have an online business, you need to have good customer service, obviously. But the type of customer service is a little bit different because most of your customer service is done via messages and emails and things like that. So, you don’t have to talk to the person as much. Sometimes, you do, but usually things are done through writing. So, it’s a different kind of customer service.

When you have an online business, you have to be good at responding to messages and emails. You have to be a good writer. You have to imagine how your writing is being received by the other person. You have to pay close attention to the words that you write and the tone that comes across in your writing. In English, when we use the phrase “comes across,” we’re talking about how something is received, how some message is received by another person. So, if I say “he came across as arrogant,” I’m saying that the other person or the other people viewed him as arrogant based on what he said. So, customer service is a little bit different. If you have an online business, you have to work on writing good responses and coming across well, and if you have a traditional business, you have to work a lot more on your customer service skills in person and how you talk to people.

Alright, now let’s talk about how to start an online business. So, one of the first things you need to do, or maybe the first thing that you need to do is to identify your ideal client or your ideal customer. What is this? Well, this refers to the idea of the perfect person that you’re trying to sell to. So, for example, maybe your ideal client is someone between the ages of 20 and 30 who is trying to start an online business and they don’t know where to start and they don’t have a lot of money to invest and they are not happy with their studies or they’re not happy with their job, and they’re looking to change their life and start an online business. And maybe that’s your ideal client, and you’re trying to sell them some training which will help them start their online business.

So, you see how detailed I got when describing the ideal client in that situation. This is how you’re supposed to do it. You’re supposed to try to identify the details of the perfect person that you’re trying to sell to. You want to get as detailed as possible, so that you have the best possible idea of who is going to buy your product or your service. If you don’t do this, then you might be aiming for an audience that’s too general. In English, the word “aim” refers to pointing in a certain direction and firing a gun. So, this is the literal definition of “aiming,” right you point your gun in a certain direction, but we use it when we’re talking about many things. So, you have to aim in the right direction with your business or just in your life.

So, if you don’t develop a good idea of your ideal client, then you might be aiming for an audience that’s too general, and you might not be able to sell your product or your service well because you don’t really know the profile of the person who’s probably going to buy your product. If you know this profile, then you can tailor your product and your service to that type of person. In English, when we use the word “tailor,” we’re saying that you change and accommodate something to fit a customer’s need or to fit someone else’s need. You’re tailoring towards that person. Okay? So, if you know your ideal client, you can tailor your service and your product and everything about your business to suit that customer’s desires and interests and needs.

Alright, after you have your ideal client in mind, you have to develop the right product, of course. You have to develop a product that is good quality, and you have to be solving some problem. If you’re not solving the client’s problem, then you’re not going to be successful. So, you have to sell the solution to somebody’s problem. For example, in my own business, I’m an English teacher, of course, and my customers’ problem is that they can’t understand native English, and they can’t communicate well because of this. Or maybe they can’t pronounce things well and they don’t feel confident in their pronunciation. So, these are problems that my students have. I used the word “customer”, but in my case, I think of them more as students.

So, if my students have this problem, I need to provide the solution. And so, that’s why I made this podcast, to help people practice, and that’s why my membership includes very detailed, specialized training to help people identify the correct sound patterns in English and understand normal English spoken at normal speed, and this is why I’ve developed my advanced podcast episodes and everything else in the membership because I’m trying to solve the problem that my students have. And if I solve their problem, then they’re probably going to sign up to become a member, and they’re probably going to remain a member. So, I have to develop the right product and solve the problem that my students have.

So, the next thing you need to do is start a website or use some other service to sell your product or your service. I don’t have a website anymore. I don’t use a website, but I use the service patreon.com, which allows people to sign up and become members there. So, this is convenient for me because I don’t need to manage a website. I can use that service for my membership. Of course, this means that Patreon takes a percentage of what I earn. I don’t earn 100 percent of the money that is given to me through the membership. Patreon takes a percentage of that.

But in my opinion, I prefer this way of doing business right now because I don’t want to manage a website. It’s not in my plans right now. Maybe in the future. But for now I use the website Patreon as the service where my customers, my students, can sign up to become members.

So, another thing that you need when you start an online business is a good and effective social media presence. So, you need to develop an audience and people need to know who you are and find you online, and that’s usually done through social media. So, of course, you can use Facebook, Instagram, Tik-tok, or whatever other social media app that you want. But you need to develop an audience and build a following online so that people know who you are, and you can tell them about what you’re selling, and you can connect with your audience.

So, I’m very fortunate because before I started my membership, I already had this podcast, so I was able to start to talk to you all about my membership, and I already had an audience that was listening to me. And it was the same with this podcast. I’ve only had this podcast for a little over a year. But before this podcast, I had my YouTube channel. And so, I was able to tell people on YouTube about this podcast, and those people that followed me on YouTube, they found this podcast and that helped me start the Listening Time podcast. So, it’s always really good to have an audience, a following, on social media so that you can tell them about your product or your project that you’re working on. So, that’s a great thing to have when you’re starting an online business.

And if you don’t have that, you can always do traditional advertising. You can pay for paid ads on Facebook or Instagram, and you can reach an audience like that. But of course, that means that you have to pay for it. But that’s a good way to help you start your business as well.

And how do you grow your business once you’ve started it online? Well, I think you have to provide good free content to keep people interested and following you, and to grow your audience. I think this is one of the most important things. So, if you only sell your product, but you don’t provide good free content, you might not grow your audience, and your following might not grow. And this means that your business won’t grow.

So, I try to provide a lot of good free content. For example, this podcast is free and my YouTube channel is free and my Instagram is free. And I provide content every week. And I use these platforms to teach people, and I think that a lot of people really appreciate this, and they want to follow me because of this, and it helps me grow my audience. And in turn, this helps me grow my membership. In English, the phrase “in turn” means after this or as a result of this. So, when I say “in turn, it helps me grow my membership,” I’m saying: because of this, after this, due to this, it helps me grow my membership.

So, you also need to provide good customer service if you want to continue to grow your business. When you have a business and you have clients, you have to show them that you care about them, and if they have a problem with your product, you have to try to solve that problem. And you have to dedicate time to answering messages. Of course, it’s usually hard to answer everyone’s message, especially when you get hundreds and hundreds of messages every week, every month. It’s not easy, but you have to try to be somewhat responsive somewhat responsive. In English, when we use the word “somewhat” like this, we’re saying pretty or kind of, right? “Somewhat responsive” means pretty responsive, kind of responsive. You’re not completely responsive, but you try.

And another way to continue growing your online business is to listen to your audience. If they don’t like something about your product, then you can change it and you can get ideas from them. So, for example, before my membership, I had a website, and it wasn’t that effective. I didn’t get a lot of traffic on the website, and I don’t think people really liked my model of releasing seminars for 24 hours on that website. And I realized that my audience didn’t like this, and so I stopped this. I stopped using this website and now I have a membership, which my audience likes a lot more. So, this is a case when I listened to my audience and I changed my model based on my audience’s needs, and this helped me to grow. And so, it’s always good to listen to your audience to get a feel for what you need to change.

And of course, if you want to grow your online business, you have to come up with new ideas. You have to provide new things for your customers, for your clients. So, when I started my membership, I only had a couple of things that I was offering. And then, slowly, I started offering a couple more things and now, for example, if you become a Listening Time Family Member, you get a lot every month: you get an extra podcast episode, you get two seminars, you get a sound training video, you get an advanced podcast episode, all of this every month. So, obviously I’ve added to my membership and come up with new ideas. And so, this has helped me grow. So, overall, I’m happy with how I’ve started my online business, and I’ve definitely grown, but I have a lot of work to do. I have a lot of work to do before I can do this type of work full time, before I can dedicate 100 percent of my time to my membership and my podcast, but I hope to get there sometime soon.

Okay, so that was just a little bit about my ideas when it comes to online business. I hope this episode was interesting for you. Remember that if you want my help with your listening, if you need my training so that you can understand native speakers, then become a Listening Time Member, Super Member or Family Member. Just click on the link in the Episode Description. And if you want my advanced episodes, then become a Listening Time Family Member so you can reach an advanced level of listening. And remember that you have the transcript available for this episode in the Episode Description Episode Description below this episode. Alright, thank you for listening, and I’ll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.