This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.

Original link：https://www.shopify.com/blog/sell-musicIf you love making music, it’s one of the most fulfilling ways to earn a living. Whether it’s your full-time job or a lucrative side-gig, selling music is a creative way to make money doing something you love.

But what if the money’s not there? Selling your music doesn’t come with any guarantees. For a lot of musicians, the siren song of a profitable music career just isn’t worth the risk. Check our guide on how to make money online to get started.

So how do you reduce that risk? Or even eliminate it altogether?

Making money from music isn’t easy, but it’s not impossible. By setting up diversified, automated revenue streams⁠, musicians in 2020 are able to reduce the risk and take a chance on their dream career.

Wondering what that entails? You’ve come to the right place.

How to make money with music

Earn streaming royalties through digital distribution
Make money playing gigs
Sell band merchandise online
Collaborate with brands and other musicians
Sell beats and samples
Teach music classes and sell lessons

In the early stages of your music career, it’s crucial to have multiple revenue streams. Without the backing of a major record label, any single stream is unlikely to generate enough income for you to earn a living.

But operating together, a number of (mostly) automated revenue streams can help you mitigate risk and focus on making music, rather than selling it.

Let’s go over the most common revenue streams artists use to monetize their music:

1. Earn streaming royalties through digital distribution

It’s important here to understand the difference between a streaming service and a distribution network:

A streaming service is a platform people use to listen to music. The most popular are Spotify and Apple Music.
A distribution network distributes and collects royalties from those streaming services.

Musicians don’t really have a choice when it comes to streaming services. Not even the biggest artists in the world are protected from backlash when removing their music from popular streaming platforms.

It’s important that you stream your work on Spotify and Apple Music, the two largest, most globally available services. Other popular streaming services include Google Play, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music—plus genre-specific streaming services like BeatPort and JunoDownload, both of which cater to electronic music producers and fans.

How to find and select the right distribution network

Most distribution networks are able to send your music to all major streaming platforms, so this isn’t a major concern. However, there are significant differences in what services distribution networks offer, their pricing, and their royalty payments that are important to consider when you’re looking for your distribution service.

Let’s go over some of the more common distribution networks.

1. Landr

Price: Plans start at $4/month

Pros: Provides access to all major streaming services and pays 100% of streaming royalties to the artist, making it one of the less expensive options.

Cons: Intrusive ads for Landr’s flagship product—its mastering software—can become irritating, especially if you’re an experienced producer and have no use for the product.

2. TuneCore

Price: Plans start at $9.99/year for each single

Pros: Includes a suite of tools to help artists prepare, promote, and sell their music. Also pays 100% of streaming royalties to the artist.

Cons: Confusing pricing structure. Since you’re charged on a per-song, per-year basis, there’s a higher risk of paying out more than you take in.

3. CD Baby

Price: Plans start at $9.95 for one single

Pros: Includes CD and vinyl distribution, allowing you to easily sell physical copies of your music alongside digital downloads, as well as access to Show.co, a music marketing platform.

Cons: Pays a lower percentage of streaming royalties—91%—to the artist than other services.

4. Amuse

Price: Free

Pros: Most affordable. Very easy to use, and great for smaller artists. Amuse also doubles as a record label, offering a chance of being discovered. Pays 100% of streaming royalties to the artist.

Cons: Only works via a mobile app with no desktop version. Features are very limited compared to other services.

Courtesy of Amuse

2. Make money playing gigs

Playing live is one of the most profitable ways for musicians to make money. While the internet has made it possible to live stream music performances, there’s nothing that quite matches seeing one of your favorite artists perform in person.

How to find paid gigs for musicians

Playing live is not only a good way to generate income, but also one of the best ways to build an audience. Gig fans always win out over social media fans in terms of how valuable they are to your music career, since they’ve proven themselves willing to pay money to watch live music.

Assuming you haven’t bought a tour bus yet, you’ll need to find good local venues to play if you want to build an audience of real live music fans. One way of doing this is through gig-booking apps and websites like ReverbNation Gig Finder.

Gig-booking sites and platforms are more accessible, which means many of the shows tend to be corporate events targeted toward a broader audience. These performances can be very lucrative, but keep in mind that they’re less valuable in terms of building a sustainable audience.

Thinking long term, you want to build relationships with local venues in your “scene.” This is where your networking skills will come in handy. Start small and find venues that are open to new acts.

Creating an electronic press kit

When you start reaching out to venues, there’s a chance they may ask for an electronic press kit (sometimes called an “EPK,” “promotional package,” or simply “press kit”).

An EPK is a digital collection of documents, videos, images, and, of course, your music. Venues use EPK’s to get a quick overview of your “brand.” You can create a press kit using design tools like Canva, Adobe Spark, or the PressKitBuilder.

Courtesy of The Suburbs

What to include in your electronic press kit:

Links to your songs on Spotify and Apple Music
Professional, high-resolution photography
Links to your social media profiles
A brief bio of your band⁠—similar to an About Us page
Music videos, if you have them, or any other media
Press quotes or reviews
Contact information

Courtesy of Pup the Band

3. Sell band merchandise online

Selling band merchandise is one of the best ways to make extra money while working as a musician. With a fully automated merch store, you can generate income without taking any time away from writing and performing music.

How to sell band merch online

With Shopify and print on demand, you can set up a fully automated merchandise store in minutes. Start by deciding what products you want to sell. T-shirts are a must for bands, but print-on-demand companies offer a wide range of products, from water bottles to canvas bags to home decor products like pillows:

Create your designs: If you know how to design a logo, it’s easy to create a variety of unique designs for your band that can be printed on merchandise.
Set up your store: Start your Shopify trial and set up your store. If you’ve never set up a Shopify store, we’ve got a ton of resources to help you get started.
Automate with a print-on-demand app: With print-on-demand apps, you can outsource the manufacturing, shipping, and logistics to a third-party company. Print-on-demand companies are paid a percentage of your sales, so you don’t need to pay for products until they’re sold.

This means that once you’ve set-up your store and products, you don’t have to do anything else. The print-on-demand company handles printing and shipping and is paid via a cut of your sales.

Some of the more popular print-on-demand apps that integrate with Shopify include Printful, Teelaunch, Printify, and Gooten.

Courtesy of Merch Connection

4. Collaborate with brands and other musicians

A lot of musicians make extra money through side hustles. There are a number of ways to make money through collaboration, depending on what kind of music you make and your specific music skills.

Freelance sites like Upwork, Freelancer, and Twine have postings for vocalists, producers, and skilled instrumentalists. There are also a number of apps and platforms available for finding other musicians to collaborate with. Examples include Jambro, ProCollabs, AirGigs, Vampr, SoundBetter, Kompoz, Blend, Vocalizr, Melboss and Audiu.

Courtesy of The Drum Broker

5. Sell beats and samples

If you’re a producer, one common way to make money online is by selling samples and beats as digital products. For some producers, this can even become their primary form of income. Selling samples and beats allows you to spend work hours making music, which is the primary benefit.

What to know about selling your beats online

Mixing and mastering. Performers purchasing your beats will expect a level of technical quality. If you’ve never produced beats before, it’s not something you can pick up in an afternoon.
Licensing. When performers purchase beats from you, they’re actually purchasing a license to use that beat in their music. There are many types of licenses, so make sure you understand what rights you’re giving up when selling your beat.
Marketing. There are a ton of places to find beats to license, but performers tend to be very picky about what they’re looking for. This means that successfully selling beats online will be very dependent on your ability to find a niche and build a reputation on social media.

Courtesy of Reid Music

6. Teach music classes or sell lessons

Not all musicians are after global superstardom. For some, training the next generation of artists is a bigger accomplishment than playing the Super Bowl half-time show.

If you’re interested in training others, LectureOwl is a great place to apply to be a private music teacher. You can also create a music course on a number of online learning platforms.

Where to find teaching jobs for musicians

LectureOwl
Skillshare
Teachable
Podia
Thinkific
Udemy

How to get started with music marketing

Playing shows and selling merch is all well and good, but you can’t make money from it if you don’t have an audience. That’s why understanding how to market your music is just as important as the ways you profit from it.

Let’s go over the essentials of marketing your music online.

1. Build a social media following

It’s important to make it easy for fans and venues to find you online. While streaming services are great for linking your music, a profile on Spotify isn’t enough to build an audience. This is why your social profile is so important.

If you’re just starting out, focus on growing your audience on social media. Then you can switch your focus to getting them out for shows.

There’s a lot to cover if you want to take a deep dive into social media marketing strategy, but in general, there are a couple of things to keep in mind as you’re building your profiles:

Focus on building your audience over driving ticket and merch sales
Keep your followers updated about new merch and live shows but, more importantly, keep them updated about you
Show off your talent by posting new songs or works in progress or performing via live stream
Engage with other musicians, brands, and bloggers in your scene by tagging them, commenting on their posts, and following their profiles
Make interacting with your fans a priority⁠—building personal connections with your audience will do more for brand awareness than anything else

2. Submit your work to music blogs

Music blogs exist for all kinds of genres and are a great way to target a specific niche. They can also be local, which is additionally good for finding fans who will come to your shows.

Many music blogs allow open submissions, but keep in mind that any blog with open submissions needs to wade through a lot of bad ones. This means you need to stand out.

Here’s how:

Choose the right blog. Music blogs can cater to specific genres, so make sure you’ve familiarized yourself with the blog and that your music is a good fit.
Follow the submission guidelines closely. Many blogs use automated systems that will filter out your submission if it doesn’t adhere to specifics.
Include contact details. The more work the blog has to do to find you the less likely they will be to follow up.

Have your electronic press kit ready. You may be asked to attach this in your initial submission or in follow-up correspondence, so have it ready.

There are lots of blogs that accept open submissions from unsigned artists, but we’ve put together a list of some of the more popular ones. Keep in mind that many music blogs are genre-specific, so not every blog on this list will be a good fit for your music.

A&R Factory
HighClouds
Earmilk
Xune Mag
Aquarium Drunkard
FACT
Kings of A&R
Metal Injection
Xttrawave
IndiePulse Music
Audiotox

3. Get on streaming playlists

Many streaming services offer playlists to users or algorithmic recommendations. Each service operates differently, so optimizing for specific streaming services may come with its own set of rules.

Since Apple Music and Spotify are the two most popular streaming services, they offer a higher degree of reach, so they’re the most important ones to optimize for.

How to get your music on Spotify playlists

Spotify has a suite of tools available to help artists optimize their profiles for the platform. Start by claiming your profile. From there, you’ll be eligible for Spotify’s algorithmic playlists.

While there’s no guarantee that you’ll show up in people’s feeds, over time, as more listeners subscribe and save your music, you’ll become more likely to be seen.

Spotify’s algorithm evaluates your music based on your profile activity and its users’ activity on your profile.

Release music often. Spotify values activity on your profile, so releasing music more frequently will increase your chances of appearing in playlists.
Create your own playlists and include your music. Spotify allows any user to create playlists that are available to any other user of the platform. The more user-created playlists you’re on, the more likely you’ll be to appear in automated playlists.
Ask friends to include your music on their playlists. This will also look good to Spotify’s algorithm.
Link to your music on Spotify from your website and social accounts. Links to songs from external sources are considered high value by Spotify’s algorithm.
Make good music. Easier said than done, but ultimately you won’t show up on people’s playlists if your music isn’t worth listening to.

4. Use visual content like music videos

Music videos are always a great promotional tool for music. There are plenty of ways to go about creating video content but, for musicians specifically, there are a couple of things to keep in mind:

Start with a strong video idea. If you’re envisioning your band playing in an empty warehouse, it might help to restart the brainstorming process.
Prioritize uniqueness over professionalism. Your video needs to grab attention. Working with a full professional production team can get expensive quickly and doesn’t guarantee any social media views. A cheap but interesting music video is far more likely to go viral than an expensive boring one.

Start making money with your music

For musicians in the 2020s, it’s rare to collect revenue from a single source. Being able to fund your music career is about constructing a system of diverse revenue streams that are easily manageable so you can focus on what’s most important: making music.

Managing risk is all about how well you diversify. Dumping tons of money into your music career isn’t going to pay off if you don’t have enough revenue streams. But by understanding how you create those protective streams, you can focus on the most important thing: making kickass music.

Ilustration by Pete Ryan

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Affiliate Marketing: How to Turn Product Recommendations Into Passive Income

May 7, 2021 Affiliate Marketing, Elksourcing by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.

Original link：https://www.shopify.com/blog/affiliate-marketing

Smart entrepreneurs running a thriving business know there’s always more they can do to make that business grow. One way of taking things to the next level is by finding an alternate stream of income. That doesn’t mean starting a second business, but finding ways to complement and grow the business you have by offering more value to your customers and followers.

If you aren’t participating in affiliate marketing, it’s time to consider taking advantage of this lucrative revenue stream.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is an online sales tactic that lets a product owner increase sales by allowing others targeting the same audience—“affiliates”—to earn a commission by recommending the product to others. At the same time, it makes it possible for affiliates to earn money on product sales without creating products of their own.

Simply put, affiliate marketing involves referring a product or service by sharing it on a blog, social media platforms, or website. The affiliate earns a commission each time someone makes a purchase through the unique link associated with their recommendation. Done well, this performance-based opportunity can go from side hustle to profitable business by netting you a healthy income.

How does affiliate marketing work?

To participate in an affiliate marketing program, you’ll need to take these five simple steps:

Find and join an affiliate program
Choose which offers to promote
Obtain a unique affiliate link for each offer
Share those links on your blog, social media platforms, or website
Collect a commission anytime someone uses your links to make a purchase

Commission rates vary dramatically, depending on the company and the offer. On the low end, you’ll earn about 5% of the sale but, with some arrangements, you can earn as much as 50%, usually when promoting a class or event. There are also affiliate marketing programs that provide a flat rate per sale instead of a percentage.

Benefits of the affiliate marketing model

Affiliate marketing offers several benefits to affiliates (i.e., you), one of which is its ease. Your side of the equation simply involves handling the “marketing” side of building and selling a product—educating customers. You don’t have to worry about the harder tasks, like developing, supporting, or fulfilling the offer.

Affiliate marketing is low risk. Since there’s no cost to join affiliate programs, you can start making money with an established affiliate product or service without any upfront investment. Affiliate marketing also can generate relatively passive income through commission—the ideal money-making scenario. Though initially you’ll have to invest time creating traffic sources, your affiliate links can continue to deliver a steady paycheck.

Finally, successful affiliate marketing offers the potential to significantly scale your earnings without hiring extra help. You can introduce new products to your current audience and build campaigns for additional products while your existing work continues to generate revenue in the background.

Before you get too excited, know that great affiliate marketing is built on trust. While seemingly there are an endless number of products or services to promote, it’s best to only highlight those you personally use or would recommend. Even when a product interests you or fits within an existing hobby, becoming a great marketer for that product takes a lot of work.

How to find affiliate programs

If you’re wondering how to get your feet wet in affiliate marketing, you’ve got a few options. Not every company offers affiliate programs—some businesses manage their own affiliate programs while others use an affiliate network.

An easy way to find affiliate programs is to visit an affiliate marketplace or platform. Browse your niche to find top performing affiliate platforms. Here are some of the most popular:

AffiliateNetwork
AvantLink
CJ by Conversant
ClickBank
FlexOffers
LinkConnector
RevenueWire
ShareASale

Another option is to visit the websites of the products and services you use and like to see if they have an affiliate program. Large companies often have programs they promote on their site, such as Amazon Associates or the Shopify Affiliate Program.

You also can take a more direct approach. Reach out to the owner of a great product you come across and see if they offer an affiliate marketing program. If they don’t, they might be happy to set up an arrangement with you, such as offering you a special coupon code to share with your followers. The best deals often are found when you’re the first to inquire and have a relevant distribution channel, such as approaching the seller of a new fitness product if you’re a health and wellness blogger.

Affiliate marketing programs will have terms of service you need to follow, so read the fine print. For example, your link usually will have a cookie with a specified timeframe, and some programs don’t allow you to purchase pay-per-click ads using the product or company’s name.

Choosing your first affiliate program

As you brainstorm products or browse through affiliate platforms, the most important criteria to keep in mind is that the product should be aligned with your audience, or the audience you hope to build. Ask yourself, is it something your target audience would find valuable? Does it fit with your area of expertise?

A food blogger probably wouldn’t promote beauty products, for example. A wide range of other products would make more sense, such as cookware, meal kits, gourmet ingredients, or even aprons.

Also make sure the product or service you’re promoting is a fit for the platform you’re promoting it on. For example, home decor and clothing are well suited to image-heavy platforms like Instagram. However, if you’re promoting more in-depth purchases, like software, your review may convert better on longer-form platforms, like a blog or YouTube.

Creating a plan to promote your affiliate offer

As we mentioned earlier, affiliate marketing revenue eventually can become a form of passive income, but you still have to do some heavy lifting up front. The success of your program will depend on the quality of your review.

To create a good review, it’s best to get personal. Share your experience in your blog, social media post, or video. If you’re writing a personal review, give a candid opinion based on your experience with and knowledge of the product. The more open you are, the more authentic you will be. People will be more comfortable following your advice if they feel they can trust you.

Trust is a key factor in your affiliate marketing efforts, because people need to trust you enough to act on your recommendations. The level of trust you’ll need to make affiliate sales depends on your industry and the products you’re recommending—for example, it takes more trust to be an effective affiliate for a $1,000 course than it does for a $20 t-shirt.

Beyond just sharing your experiences, you can build trust by limiting the number of affiliates you promote, or by only becoming an affiliate for products you personally use, and sticking to your area of expertise. For example, people trust my recommendations for Canadian financial apps, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to have much luck as a Sephora affiliate.

—Desirae Odjick, founder of Half Banked

Talk to a product expert

Another option is interviewing others who use the product or service, or even interviewing the person who makes or sells it. This can give your review more depth, creating a narrative for the reader.

Create a product tutorial

While your success with affiliate marketing can depend on the overall size of your following, another way to drive higher-converting traffic is by providing a tutorial on the offer. People often perform “how to” searches on Google, such as “how to save money for college” or “how to decorate a laundry room.” If you offer a tutorial that solves a searcher’s problem and clearly showcases the value of the product, your referrals will make more sense in context and you’ll provide the customer with a stronger incentive to purchase the product you’re recommending.

Find relevant search terms

If you’re promoting an offer through a blog post, research which keywords someone might use in a search engine to find an answer to a related problem.Google Ads Keyword Planner is a good tool that can help. (It’s free to use, but you’ll need to create an account.)

Consider your angle

Depending on your offer, figure out how much energy you should invest in instructional or tutorial content, which is often a natural lead-in to someone trying a product for themselves. For example, you could record a video of yourself using and getting the most out of a physical product, or showing off the benefits of a digital product, like software. Unboxing posts are popular, so if you receive the product in the mail, document your experience opening it up.

Set your distribution strategy

Once you’ve written your promotional content, share it on your website or social media platforms. If you have an email list, you can create an email marketing campaign. And be sure to have an affiliate marketing hub on your website with a Resources page where you share a quick list of all of the tools you use and love.

Try offering a bonus

Sometimes marketers promote their affiliate programs by offering bonuses to anyone who purchases the offer. For example, you could give a free ebook you wrote to any follower who makes a purchase. Promotions like this encourage customers to buy by sweetening the deal. They’re especially persuasive if the bonus you offer is something you normally sell, because then shoppers can see its actual dollar value added value right on your site.

You can find several examples of affiliate bonuses in action when business coach Marie Forleo opens her popular B-School for entrepreneurs each year. To encourage sign-ups through her affiliate link, Laura Belgray, Forleo’s own copywriter, offers a one-on-one copywriting session as a bonus. Marketing coach Amy Porterfield adds a bonus bundle, with an invitation to one of her live events, access to a private Facebook group, Q&A sessions, and a variety of downloads. Adding a bonus can be a good way to stand out if several other affiliates are promoting the same product.

Keep things legal and above board

Don’t forget to disclose to followers that your post contains affiliate links. For one thing, it’s required by the FTC. But explaining the reason for your affiliation also can help you connect with your audience. For example, the financial independence bloggers at Frugalwoods offer this disclosure: “Frugalwoods sometimes publishes affiliate endorsements and advertisements, which means that if you click on a link and buy something, Frugalwoods might receive a percentage of the sale, at no extra cost to you. We only write about, and promote, products that we believe in. We promise not to tell you about stuff that’s dumb.”

If you need help figuring out what language to use in a disclaimer, it’s worth taking time to consult a lawyer.

Examples of businesses using affiliate marketing

Looking at some of the companies that participate in affiliate marketing will provide you with inspiration—as well as proof that this is a legit and lucrative revenue stream.

Wirecutter

Wirecutter, a site promoting gear and gadgets—from kitchen tools to travel gear—that was acquired by The New York Times in 2016, says it only makes recommendations after “vigorous reporting, interviewing, and testing by teams of veteran journalists, scientists, and researchers.”

BuzzFeed

BuzzFeed Reviews started out as a gift guide and expanded into reviews of various product categories. What makes the site unique is that it covers a variety of ordinary items, giving top picks at three different price points. BuzzFeed’s reviews are quite thorough, which provides lots of value to the reader. Here’s arecent post on toilet paper and another on women’s white t-shirts.

Ready to get started with affiliate marketing?

Earning money with affiliate marketing programs can be a rewarding way to add a new revenue stream without taking on too much risk. All it will cost you is your time. By investing the hours upfront, you can continue to reap the rewards.

Frequently asked questions about affiliate marketing

Can you make money from affiliate marketing?

Yes, you can make money from affiliate marketing. When someone purchases something using your referral link, you earn a commission on that sale. Every affiliate marketing program and payout structure is different.

How can I start affiliate marketing with no money?

You don’t need any money to start affiliate marketing. Find and sign up for an affiliate program that’s a good fit for you, get the links, and start promoting the products to your audience. The most successful affiliate marketers spend time nurturing their communities.

Where can I promote affiliate products?

Experiment with different tactics to find the best places to promote affiliate tactics. Some ideas include:

Run social media campaigns
Use blogging to educate your audience about the products
Use your social accounts/ pages to create micro-content about the products
Send monthly emails or newsletters as recommendations to your subscribers
Create helpful videos around the product or a problem that they can solve
Add banners and buttons to your site
Offer promos, coupons, incentives, or loyalty rewards to consumers

Which product is best for affiliate marketing?

The best product for affiliate marketing changes with market trends. When signing up, look for products that people are actively looking for or purchasing at that moment. Some of the most popular products right now include:

Health and wellness products
Fashion and apparel
Computer accessories Insurance
Car accessories Bicycle add-ons
Bottles and protein shakers
Backpacks

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12 Profitable Hobbies You Can Monetize (You Probably Have At Least One)

May 7, 2021 Elksourcing, Profitable Hobbies by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.

Original link：https://www.shopify.com/blog/make-money-from-your-hobbiesWe’ve all got our hobbies—pastimes we dedicate some of our spare hours to because we find them fun or fulfilling.

While we don’t typically get into hobbies to make money, some of them can become a stream of income if you take it seriously enough. Depending on how you direct your talents and interests, you can get anything from free stuff to extra spending money to a full-fledged business where you sell things online—all by doing something you might’ve done anyway.

Here’s a list of 12 common lucrative hobbies that make money, whether it’s through freelancing, becoming an affiliate, building an audience, or starting a business.

12 profitable hobbies that make money

Writing
Illustration and design
Music
Cooking
Gardening
Photography
DIY crafts
Comedy
Coffee
Memberships
Brewing beer
Gaming

1. Writing

Writing and publishing online has the potential to offer you a lot of practical value outside of being a mere hobby. You can use it to further your career and establish yourself as an expert on a topic. You can build a platform for sharing your ideas. Or you can rent out your skills.

The most obvious way to make money writing is to sell it as a service—freelancing on sites like Upwork or Fiverr or reaching out directly to blogs for paid gigs. Good content writers with niche expertise are usually in demand.

However, if you have the discipline and know how to write a good blog post, you can create your own blog-based business by picking a niche and building an audience over time.

Whether you care about tech or travel or cooking, our guide to starting a blog that you can turn into a business will walk you through what you need to know.

For more inspiration, check out how:

Best Self Co. used blogging to sell its productivity tools.
Wait But Why built a business around Tim Urban’s humorous and insightful content.

2. Illustration and design

Like writing, illustration and design are creative money-making hobbies you can do at home on a freelance contract basis. Fiverr, in particular, features many newer artists with a variety of illustration styles. Clients post projects for which they need to hire these skills, whether it’s marketing projects or custom portraits or anything in between.

If you want more control, you can put your art on items—from t-shirts to posters to canvases—and sell those instead. It’s important to understand that to turn your art into a product, you’ll need to cater to a specific market or build a unique brand. The former is usually easier.

Hatecopy is an excellent example of a business that was started by an artist putting their work onto things people can buy.

And you don’t need to front the money for inventory either. Print-on-demand services offer a low-risk way to take advantage of your creative hobbies. You’ll just need to create mockups of your products to list online. Once you make sales and know what designs and creative have the most demand, you can consider investing in your own inventory.

To learn more, check out the following resources:

How to Start a T-Shirt Business: Everything You Need to Know
How to Sell Art Online: The Ultimate Guide

3. Music

Next up for profitable hobbies that make money? Sell music. You can take this hobby business in a few different directions.

For starters, there’s the traditional approach to making and selling music—recording your own songs or albums and selling them on your website or hosting them on a platform like SoundCloud.

You can also create different types of sounds that aren’t full-fledged songs or albums, things like beats or samples. Beats are short hooks composed from different sounds and meant to be a background for a musician, while samples are a portion of a sound recording to reuse elsewhere.

You can list beats on third-party sites that work similarly to stock photo sites. Essentially, people purchase your music to use in their own content. These are typically shorter in length and rely more on instrumentals and less on lyrics. There are a variety of sites where you can list your beats, like Airbit and BeatStars. Airbit paid out $32 million in 2019 to its artists, while BeatStars sellers made an estimated $40 million—double what they earned in 2018.

Samples by Vanity sells samples that artists can remix and splice together to create their own music.

You can make your audio exclusive or non-exclusive. There’s more money to be made when you sell exclusive rights, but you need to produce high-quality work, like SoundOracle. His excellent work has earned him quite the reputation—and his sounds have been featured in more than 20 Grammy Award–winning songs. He sells his beats with both exclusive and non-exclusive rights.

4. Cooking

Food has become an art form worthy of taking elaborate pictures and spending the time to perfect the craft. It’s not only amateur chefs who are involved, but people with adventurous palettes looking to explore new tastes.

Cooking is one of the hobbies that make money that you also can share with the world in a variety of ways, from starting a blog, YouTube channel, or Instagram account dedicated to recipes to diving head first into a business by creating your own food or cooking products. Some even hit the road with a food truck business.

According to Google, 59% of 25-to-34-year-olds take their mobile devices into the kitchen, using resources on the internet to find and practice new recipes. There’s definitely a market of DIY chefs looking for content (as well as products) you can create to serve them.

For inspiration, check out:

Spice Girls: From Hobby to Family Food Business
The Secret Ingredients to Building a 7-Figure Meal Service Business
Overdraft: Will His Family’s Food Business Turn into a Recipe for Success?
How to Start an Online Food Business (guide)

5. Gardening

Gardening has seen a spike in popularity as people spend more time at home. It’s a hobby that can make you happier, healthier, and perhaps even richer. Millennials spent $13 billion on plants in a single year.

Leaf & Clay sells succulents, either for a one-time purchase or on a subscription basis.

You can also sell products to help your customers indulge in their own gardening hobbies. Technology seller ēdn introduced an indoor garden to their product line.

6. Photography

If you own a nice camera and know how to use it, you’ve got a few ways to turn photography into one of your hobbies that make money on the side.

While you can become a freelance photographer, this can restrict you to shooting local events and gigs. And when there are no events, there are fewer photography gigs.

For a more scalable side hustle, sell your shots as stock photos or prints. You can also use your photography skills to grow a massive Instagram following and monetize it. You need to pick a niche to serve or a “lifestyle” you want to capture in your photos.

Fun fact: Professional photography accounts are the second-most lucrative on Instagram in terms of how much brands are willing to pay for a sponsored post. And you don’t need hundreds of thousands of followers either.

Check out our guide on how to sell photos online for a more detailed look at how to monetize your photography.

7. DIY crafts

Crafting is another on our list of profitable hobbies that make money. If you enjoy working with your hands, there are plenty of things to make and sell: candles, bath bombs, jewelry, soap, and more. This is a $40-billion industry waiting for your next idea.

“Handmade” communicates a certain quality, care, and uniqueness that department store alternatives often don’t offer. You can test the market for your products by selling them on a smaller scale to friends, family, or on Etsy, and think about scaling into a full-fledged business as you rack up customers.

If the idea of crafting the goods yourself isn’t striking a chord, you can also sell products that allow customers to flex their own maker muscles at home. Create DIY kits for fun projects, like FlowerMoxie’s DIY bridal bouquets. Or, tap into the home improvement industry—between 2018 and 2019, home improvement spending increased 17%.

Here are a few more inspiring stories about DIY businesses and resources to show you how it can be done:

Growing a Handmade Brand: One Family’s Journey from Etsy to Shopify
Etsy and Shopify: How Three Makers Used Both to Grow Their Businesses
Why JM&Sons Launched Their Furniture Business Out of a Shipping Container
Etsy Alternatives: 8 Online Marketplaces and Website Builders for Makers

8. Comedy

Are you good at making people laugh? Do you know what the hottest memes are right now? Why not take that sense of humor and use it to build an audience on the internet? Comedy is one of the more creative ways to make money on this list.

You can probably think of several Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter accounts that amassed large audiences simply by curating memes and viral videos or tapping into a niche of humor that no one else was serving. Who knew all those hours scrolling your social feeds would be one of the hobbies that make money?

Once you have an audience, you can partner with brands to do sponsored posts or turn your best running jokes into t-shirts and other products.

Examples of this include:

The WeRateDogs Twitter account
The Méme Bible
Yes Theory’s YouTube channel

9. Coffee

Selling coffee online is a great way to turn a common hobby into a business idea. Globally, people drink more than 400 billion cups of coffee every year, fueling an industry worth $60 billion annually. And as coffee drinkers have become accustomed to brewing their caffeine fix at home, it’s a prime time to capitalize on this opportunity. If coffee is one of your own passions, it could be next on your list of lucrative hobbies.

Whether you enjoy the hunt for the perfect bean, creating a perfectly frothed cappuccino, or just sitting down to your morning cup with a book, coffee drinkers can take this business idea in a number of directions.

Globe-trotting creatives Jeff Campagna and Tania LaCaria found that coffee mixed well with one of their other passions: motorcycle travel. They opened up their own bike garage, Steeltown Garage Co., complete with coffee shop and merch for sale, and they’re cultivating a whole community through their hobby-based business.

Check these out for more inspiration for your coffee biz:

How a Coffee Obsession Became a Business That’s Doubling in Growth Every Year
They’re Making Fair Trade Coffee a Bit Fairer
Overdraft: How This Army Vet Fought His Way out of a Financial Ambush

10. Memberships

Memberships are a great business model because they set you up for recurring revenue—often automatically withdrawn from your customers’ chosen method of payment. These businesses work by charging customers a recurring fee in exchange for products and/or services.

Here’s where the hobby aspect comes into play: memberships can be based on almost anything, in almost any niche. Gardeners might look to the California Native Plant Society for inspiration. Its memberships grant buyers access to educational content, events, and discounts with partnering businesses.

Danielle Spurge turned her crafting hobby into a full-blown business. Now, her company, The Merriweather Council, sells memberships to help entrepreneurial makers leverage their talents to create sustainable craft-based businesses of their own.

The possibilities are quite literally endless here—you just need a hobby and some imagination to get the ideas rolling for your own membership-based business.

11. Brewing beer

Homebrewing, or making your own beer at home, is next on our list of money-making home-based hobbies. More than a million Americans have brewed their own beer at home, and it’s trending upward. In 2018 alone, the global homebrew market was worth an estimated $12 million.

If you love sampling or making craft brews, there could be a viable business opportunity there. Brooklyn Brew Shop sells homebrew kits and accessories so its customers can enjoy the hobby themselves.

If you want to go this route, make sure you brush up on the legal requirements in your local jurisdiction. Alcohol products come with extra restrictions and regulations—and not being privy to that can end up costing you big time.

12. Gaming

You might be skeptical about the notion of gaming being one of the hobbies you can make money with from home. But if there’s a pattern in this list, it’s that if you can get people to pay attention to you, you can potentially turn it into a profit.

In this case, it’s the rise of the “Let’s Play” video format that has enabled us to make money online via gaming, in particular live-streaming on Twitch. Just like learning how to make money on YouTube, you can monetize gaming by sharing ad revenue. But there’s also the potential to get one-time and subscription donations from a large community of viewers. This means the amount you earn through live streaming will vary greatly, but that it’s relatively easy to start at least making residual income.

While the amount of commitment you need to make a significant income might turn gaming into work for you, you can still have fun with it if you choose to stream a game you love, are good at it, and bring your personality to the table.

Gaming is a fast-growing industry with a lot of passion behind it. If you’re an avid gamer who understands the needs of the market, you already have an advantage as an entrepreneur in this space.

You can consider building a business of your own to cater to the needs and interests of gamers, like how:

PC Gaming Race speaks to the superiority of PC gamers.
Corey Ferreira sold gaming glasses inspired by his own gaming needs.

How to make money from a hobby

To start a business based off your hobby, you’ll need to take the following steps:

Validate your business idea: Do some market research to make sure there’s demand for your offering.
Find a business name: Give your business a unique identity.
Make a plan: A business plan will keep you on track to meet your goals.
Understand business finances: Set up business accounts, payment processing, and other money matters.
Develop your product or service: This is where you turn your hobby-inspired offering into something customers are willing to pay for.
Pick a business structure: Legitimize your business and protect your personal assets.
Research licenses and regulations: Ensure you’re conducting business lawfully.
Select your software systems: Build your website, set up accounting software, and get the rest of your tech stack up and running.
Find a business location: Determine where you can operate your business, whether it be from home or somewhere else.
Plan workload and team size: Bootstrap or hire help, depending on your plans.
Launch your business: Let the world know!

When you make money from a hobby

When you start making sales, you’ll need to keep track of the cash coming in and the money going out. This makes tax time easier, simplifies the process in case of an audit, and protects your personal assets. Additionally, it helps you ensure your business stays profitable. It’s a good idea to get set up with an accounting software to manage your books.

Make money from your paid hobbies

I enjoy writing, so I started a side hustle as a freelance writer to earn extra cash in school. I also like to dabble in dance, so I started a Shopify store dropshipping LED shoes for dancers.

In many cases, when it comes to our side hustles, it’s the things we tend to do for free and for fun that hint at the kinds of businesses we can pursue using our own passion and interest as fuel.

So if you have the urge to start something but don’t know where to start, ask yourself what you’re good at or already know about.

What do you already do in your spare time that could turn into something more?

Header image via Getty Images

Shopify Tutorial

How to Make Money on YouTube (Without a Million Subscribers)

May 7, 2021 Elksourcing, Make Money by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.

Original link：https://www.shopify.com/blog/198134793-how-to-make-money-on-youtube

YouTube stars are today’s self-made celebrities—people who have earned an audience by creating content geared toward teaching, entertaining, reviewing, and being awesome on the internet.

Most of these small-screen celebs do what they do just to do it, to scratch an itch for creating things and being in front of an audience.

Making money might not be your reason for starting a YouTube channel, but the opportunities to earn are a pleasant surprise once you realize how many of them there are. You can also check our guide on how to make money online.

Who makes the most money on YouTube?
Who’s going to watch your YouTube Channel?
How to make money on YouTube
How to “sell” without annoying your audience
Are you ready to monetize your YouTube channel?

You can also check our guide on how to make money online.

Who makes the most money on YouTube?

According to Forbes, these 10 channels were the top earners on YouTube from June 2017 to June 2018:

Ryan’s World, $22 million (22.4 million subscribers)
Jake Paul, $21.5 million (19.7 million subscribers)
Dude Perfect, $20 million (47.1 million subscribers)
DanTDM, $18.5 million (22.3 million subscribers)
Jeffree Star, $18 million (16.5 million subscribers)
Markiplier, $17.5 million (24.5 million subscribers)
VanossGaming, $17 million (24.9 million subscribers)
Jacksepticeye, $16 million (23 million subscribers
PewDiePie, $15.5 million (102 million subscribers)
Logan Paul, $14.5 million (19.9 million subscribers)

This list might leave you with a lot of questions about how these YouTube stars earned their fortunes. Let’s explore some of those questions.

Do you get paid for uploading videos on YouTube?

Content creators aren’t paid by YouTube for the videos they upload. Neither are videos monetized by default. For you to start making money on YouTube, you have to enable monetization in your YouTube account settings. From there, you have options to join the YouTube Partners Program or have your videos listed on YouTube Premium.

How do you make money from YouTube?

There are a few takeaways from Forbes’ list, putting aside the millions of dollars made and subscribers gained.

First, YouTube channels can be monetized even if they don’t have millions of subscribers. Your earning potential isn’t determined solely by the number of subscribers and views you have, but also by the level of engagement you generate, the niche you cater to, and the revenue channels you explore. That’s not to say subscriber count doesn’t matter—check out our tips to get more subscribers on YouTube.

Second, this list of top 10 earners might give you the impression that the millions of dollars made comes directly from YouTube. In fact, each of these channels has its own line of merchandise. These channels found and built their audiences first, before launching their own merchandise. If making money on YouTube is in your marketing plan, the first step is the same for everybody: have a clear understanding of your target audience.

Who’s going to watch your YouTube channel?

Building your own audience puts you in a great position to monetize content in a variety of ways. But you’ll only be able to take full advantage of the opportunities you have if you understand the makeup of your audience.

For many YouTubers looking to monetize, the more niche your channel, the better position you’ll be in to work with brands looking to target specific audiences (more on that later).

You’ll want to pay close attention to:

The gender of your audience, to see if its skews toward one particular group.
The age range most of your audience falls into.
The geographic location—countries or cities—where your videos are being watched.
Your audience’s overall engagement, or “watch time.”

With this demographic information at hand, you’ll have a better understanding of your own audience and be able to work better with brands. All demographic insight can be pulled from your YouTube analytics, but to compare your own channel against others try a tool like Social Blade.

With that out of the way, we can start talking about the different ways your YouTube channel can make money.

How to make money on YouTube

Like learning how to make money on Instagram or via blogging, your audience might unlock your YouTube channel’s earning potential. But when you create multiple revenue streams, through side side hustles or businesses, it’s easier to monetize.

Luckily, there are several ways to accomplish this—let’s take a deeper look at each of these streams.

Become a YouTube Partner and earn money from ads.
Sell products or merchandise.
Crowdfund your next creative project.
Let your audience support your work through “fan funding.”
License your content to the media.
Work with brands as an influencer or affiliate.

1. Join the YouTube Partner Program and earn money from ads

The first revenue stream you’ll likely explore is ads. Whether you want to earn money on YouTube without creating videos or as a content creator, joining the YouTube Partners Program and setting up monetization is a vital step. You can apply for monetization once you’ve hit 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours over the past year.

How to enable monetization on YouTube

Sign in to the YouTube account you want to monetize.
Click the icon for your account in the top right corner.
Click YouTube Studio.
In the left menu, select Other Features > Monetization.
Read and agree to the YouTuber Partner Program terms.
Create a new AdSense account or connect an existing one to your channel. (You need an AdSense account to get paid.)
Set your monetization preferences.

Once that’s done, head back to the dashboard and click the Analytics tab on the left side. From there, you’ll need to choose Revenue from the tabs at the top, then scroll down to the chart Monthly Estimated Revenue to get an idea of your predicted revenue.

How many views do you need to make money?

The number of views you get doesn’t correlate to revenue earned. If your video gets thousands of views but no one watches or clicks the ad, you won’t make any money. This is because of YouTube’s criteria for billing advertisers: a viewer must click an ad or watch the ad in full (10, 15, or 30 seconds) for you to get paid.

However, with the release of YouTube Premium, you no longer need to rely on advertisers to create engaging or enticing ads to earn revenue.

Check out YouTube Premium

YouTube Premium is a paid membership program that allows fans to watch and support their favorite content creators without ads. For creators, not much changes, as they will get paid for content consumed by non-members on YouTube along with content on YouTube Premium.

Creators are paid for YouTube Premium based on how much members watch their content. Consider revenue earned from YouTube Premium as a secondary revenue stream in addition to what you’re already earning through ads.

While it’s easy to set up, earning money through advertising as a YouTube Partner is far from the most lucrative revenue stream you can create for yourself.

Why you should look beyond ads for revenue

YouTube recently received a lot of backlash due to its decision to be more transparent about advertising on the platform and what qualifies as “advertiser friendly” content. Essentially, many creators feared that, due to the nature of their content, they would lose out on the ad revenue that helps support their channel.

According to YouTube, your content could get excluded from ad revenue if it includes:

Sexually suggestive content, including partial nudity and sexual humor
Violence, including displays of serious injury and events related to violent extremism
Inappropriate language, including harassment, profanity, and vulgar language
Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, use, and abuse of such items
Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters, and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown

But the reality is that YouTube has been demonetizing content that it doesn’t deem advertiser-friendly since 2012 via an automated process, without warning and without the content creator’s knowledge.

Now, the situation is actually better, as creators are notified when their content is flagged and can contest any time they feel a video was mistakenly excluded from YouTube’s advertising network.

Advertising might be a common means of generating passive income for creators, but the trade-off is that YouTube gets to keep around a 45% share of ad revenue.

In short, YouTubers should explore other revenue streams to sustain their creative hobby.

Below, we’ll share how to earn money from YouTube without AdSense.

2. Sell products or merchandise

There are plenty of products to sell that can help you make money through your YouTube channel. Making and selling merchandise—t-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, snapbacks, you name it—has a benefit beyond revenue.

Merchandise increases your exposure by putting your online brand and personality out into the offline world and deepens the relationship between you and your fans as they literally “buy” into what you’re doing.

Roman Atwood sells a variety of merchandise in his store under his Smile More brand.

Selling branded swag is easier than it might seem at first.

You can order affordable designs tailored for specific products, like t-shirts, using freelance sites such as Fiverr.

And when it comes to handling orders, you can integrate your store with services such as Oberlo or one of the many print-on-demand providers that take care of shipping, fulfillment, and customer support, letting you reap all of the benefits of a dropshipping business that demands less effort on your part.

Alternatively, you can partner with an existing merchandising network for creators, such as DFTBA (Don’t Forget to Be Awesome). However, you’ll be competing with other YouTubers and have less control over adding products, offering discounts, integrating your content, and all the advantages that come with owning your own ecommerce site.

You can even go a step further by manufacturing and selling your own unique products and powering your business through your YouTube channel, like Luxy Hair did to sell its hair extensions with hair-related how-to video tutorials.

As a YouTuber who’s already earned an audience, you’ll have two advantages from the start that other store owners would be jealous of:

A content engine that consistently drives traffic to your store.
Your audience’s trust, which you’ve earned by regularly serving them your own brand of content for free.

3. Crowdfund your next creative project

When money is all that stands between an idea and its execution, crowdfunding is a good way to make it happen.

Whether you need help buying better equipment, hiring actors, or covering other production costs, you can call upon your own audience and the crowdfunding community to pitch in if your idea is compelling enough.

Many successful crowdfunded creative projects tend to offer a sneak peak or “trailer” that gets people excited, so consider shooting a video explaining your project or offering a taste of what it’ll be like, such as this popular Kickstarter for Kung Fury, a short film paying homage to ’80s action movies.

Popular crowdfunding sites with a proven track record of campaigns from YouTubers include:

Kickstarter: One of the most well-known crowdfunding sites, great for funding cool products and creative projects. Be sure to set an attainable funding goal because you’ll only secure it if you actually meet the goal you set.
Indiegogo: A Kickstarter alternative that offers more flexible funding options.

4. Let your audience support your work through “fan funding”

Similar to crowdfunding a project, you can also set up “fan funding” streams to source donations from your audience.

As a creator, you’re contributing your voice to the internet without forcing your audience to pay for admission. So, if you’re offering good content, your audience might be inclined to support you on an ongoing basis.

Many fan funding platforms offer creators another place for people to discover their content and a way to engage their most loyal audience and reward them for their support.

Wait But Why creates more long-form written content than YouTube videos, but is a great example of receiving support from the Patreon community.

If you choose the crowdfunding route, be sure to follow a couple of best practices. First, create transparency around how the money will be spent. This will get your fanbase invested in your story or mission, and they will literally buy into the value of your content. Second, offer enticing rewards for better pledges. The more you can make donors feel like they’re getting something exclusive for being a loyal fan, the more likely you are to get donations and higher pledges.

Some popular fan funding options include:

YouTube’s Super Chat: Super Chat is a feature used when going live on YouTube. It lets you create a tipping jar for your viewers to donate whenever and however much they feel like contributing. You’ll need to set up your YouTube account for advertising as outlined above.
Patreon: The membership platform that makes it easy for creators to get paid. Fans can subscribe to their favorite creators for as little as a dollar a month and receive exclusive rewards.
Tipeee: Lets you get a combination of both one-off and recurring donations

5. License your content to the media

If you happen to create a viral video with mass appeal—say, a funny clip featuring your dog—you can license your content in exchange for money.

TV news outlets, morning shows, online news sites, and other creators might reach out about rights to use your videos if they happen to go viral.

You can also list your videos in a marketplace, such as Juken Media, where your content will be easier for the right people to find and purchase.

When this video of a woman wearing a Chewbacca mask went viral, tons of media outlets wanted in.

6. Work with brands as an influencer or affiliate

Influencer marketing is going to be one of the advertising bedrocks of the next decade.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Brands are investing more and more in influencer marketing, spending their typically large advertising budgets on influencers who’ve already won the loyalty of their audiences.

This creates a massive opportunity for you as a creator if you can negotiate the right deals.

Brendan Gahan, a YouTube marketing expert and influencer, recommends establishing your baseline flat fee by looking at the number of views your videos typically get and multiplying it by 5 to fifteen cents per view (which is around what many brands are willing to pay for views via YouTube ads).

Depending on your leverage—your audience demographics, content quality, and how unique and profitable your niche is—you might be able to negotiate a better deal if the brand is a good fit.

Becoming an influencer on YouTube is reported as the highest-paid platform for brand partnerships, according to Aqer. But to give you an idea of what you can potentially charge, a mid-level influencer charges a brand around $20 per 1,000 subscribers, or $2,000 per $100,000 followers, according to one study.

The key when partnering on brand-sponsored content is to be transparent about it, not endorsing anything you don’t actually like or believe in, and being upfront with your audience about why you’re doing it.

Here are just a handful of the many influencer marketplaces you can add your channel to and get discovered by brands both big and small:

Grapevine Logic: One of the more popular influencer marketplaces, you only need 1,000 followers to join.
Famebit: With a wide range of brands to work with, you might find a sponsorship opportunity you’ll be proud to be a part of. You need 5,000 followers to join.
Channel Pages: Partner with other YouTubers as well as brands.
Crowdtap: Complete small content creation “tasks” in exchange for money and other rewards. There’s no restriction on how many followers you need to join.

Some influencer marketplaces offer you free products, while others are known for having big brands who are willing to pay more. Capitalize on the opportunities that best suit your needs, but list yourself in as many places as you can to ensure maximum visibility for your channel.

Alternatively, you can also become an affiliate marketer for brands and make residual passive income through commissions from every sale you generate through your channel. This works especially well if you review products as part of your YouTube channel. Since there’s no risk involved on the brand’s end (they only pay when they make sales), there’s usually a low bar to getting started.

Popular affiliate programs include Click Bank (1% to 75% commission, depending on what the vendor sets) and Amazon’s Affiliate network (earn up to 10% per sale). You can also reach out to brands in your niche that are running their own affiliate programs, which isn’t uncommon in the ecommerce space.

How to “sell” without annoying your audience

Many of the above strategies for monetizing involve promoting products or campaigns (e.g., crowdfunding a video series). But you’ll want to make sure your promotions don’t sabotage the integrity of your content.

“Selling out” is a real concern for a lot of creators. But if you never ask, you’ll never get.

There are a number of “placements” you can choose from for promoting products or campaigns.

Record a call to action in your videos

“If you liked this video, then hit the Like button and subscribe.”

Many YouTubers include a call to action along those lines at the end of their videos to grow their viewership. By suggesting the intended action you want them to take, your audience is more likely to take it.

You can adapt this approach to direct your audience’s attention to a revenue-generating opportunity.

Add well-timed YouTube cards to your videos

Whether it’s part of your deal with a brand or you’re promoting your own products, YouTube Cards offer an eye-catching way to get the attention of engaged viewers.

You can set them to pop up at just the right moment, when they’re most relevant and least distracting to increase their impact.

Add links in your video descriptions

You can funnel viewers to your store, Patreon page, Kickstarter campaign, or other revenue-focused part of your online presence by adding links to your video descriptions.

If you’re a video creator who wants to focus on generating revenue as an affiliate marketer, look at Unbox Therapy. Unbox Therapy specializes in product reviews, and it uses affiliate links in their video descriptions to make money via YouTube audiences. The channel is signed up as an Amazon affiliate. It places these unique links—pointing to the reviewed product on Amazon—in video descriptions. If the viewer purchases the item via clicking that link, the affiliate will earn a small percentage of revenue share paid to them by Amazon.

If you’re creating videos about your own products and you own or manage a Shopify store, you can incentivize new customers to buy your products with buy X get Y promotions or discounts.

Promote your offer on other platforms

Just because your content is hosted on YouTube doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be taking advantage of all the other distribution channels out there.

Spread the word about new campaigns or discounts on Twitter, Facebook, and any other profiles you own.

The more places your message lives, the greater the chance it’ll be seen. So it’s always a good idea to grow your following beyond YouTube with social media marketing.

Are you ready to monetize your YouTube channel?

What compels most creators to create is rarely money. It’s the thought of making something for the world to enjoy.

But ironically, that puts them in a great position to actually make money in a content-obsessed world.

While the hard part for many businesses is getting and keeping their audience’s attention, YouTubers have already figured that bit out.

All that’s left is to get creative—to channel the entrepreneurial drive to explore ideas—with how you choose to monetize your passion.

Illustration by George Wylesol

Frequently asked questions about making money on YouTube

How do I make money on YouTube?

There are several ways you can make money on YouTube:

Become a YouTube Partner and earn money from ads.
Sell products or merchandise.
Crowdfund your next creative project.
Let your audience support your work through “fan funding.”
License your content to the media.
Work with brands as an influencer or affiliate.

How many views do I need on YouTube to make money?

You need 4,000 watch hours to join YouTube’s Partner Program to make money from ads. However, the number of views you get doesn’t correlate to revenue earned. If your video gets thousands of views but no one watches or clicks the ad, you won’t make any money.

How many subscribers do I need to make money on YouTube?

You need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours over the past year to join the YouTube Partner Program and earn money from ads.

Shopify Tutorial

What Is Point of Sale Software? A Checklist for Choosing the Best POS for Your Business

May 7, 2021 Elksourcing, Point of Sale by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.

Original link：https://www.shopify.com/blog/6809394-point-of-sale-pos-software-uses-and-applicationsPoint-of-sale (POS) software is constantly evolving. Clunky cash registers alone can’t keep up. Brick-and-mortar retailers are adopting leaner systems that operate on mobile devices in favor of complicated setups that cost thousands of dollars.

But it’s not just retail stores that are interested in POS systems—online store owners who sell at craft fairs, trade shows, and farmers markets are also in need of inexpensive and easy-to-use point-of-sale solutions.

So, what exactly is point of sale software, how do you know if you need it, and how do you choose the right tool for your business?

Table of Contents

What is point-of-sale (POS) software?
What does a POS system do?
Signs it’s time to switch your POS
The importance of choosing the right POS
What is the best POS software for a small business?
How to buy your POS
Grow your small business with Shopify POS

What is point-of-sale (POS) software?

Point of sale software is what brick-and-mortar retailers use to conduct sales in person. It’s sometimes a cash register, computer, or even a tablet where cashiers input products, tally the cost, and conduct the financial transaction. Most POS software will also communicate with inventory levels to keep everything in balance.

A lot of big-box stores have wildly complex and expensive POS solutions, some of which were custom built for their needs. Independent retailers are moving away from these traditional POS systems and toward cloud-based point-of-sale solutions.

Types of POS software

There are two main types of POS software: on-premise and cloud-based. On-premise POS software requires you to be on location to use it. Terminals are the most common on-premise POS. Cloud-based POS software offers more flexibility, as you can use any connected, compatible device to access the dashboard. Cloud-based POS software is becoming more mainstream—the market was valued at around $1.29 billion for 2019, with an expected growth rate of more than 21.38% through 2026.

A cloud-based POS allows you to conduct sales and check in on your business even when you’re not at the store. You access it directly from the internet, and it’s often compatible with most POS hardware (cash drawers, printers, etc.) and other tools in your tech stack. This is great if you’re a small business that sells in a store and online along with the occasional in-person event.

When you use a cloud-based POS and link it to your Shopify store, your inventory automatically adjusts, helping you mitigate costly problems like stockouts. Cloud-based POS systems are also typically less expensive and more convenient than a tethered on-premise solution.

There are other types of POS software that fall into one or both of the above categories:

Mobile POS (mPOS): A mobile point-of-sale can move around inside or outside a store. Store owners can take transactions from a central point of purchase, like a traditional checkout counter or cash register, or wherever they need it to be. To take transactions on the go, retailers often use hardware like a tablet or smartphone to process transactions. Best for: Pop-up shops; increasing in-store conversion rate
Tablets: A tablet POS can be both mobile and docked to a station. These POS systems run on Android tablets or iPads, acting as either the main POS or supplementing your central POS station. This is also a mPOS. Best for: Selling products with lots of details, features, and/or use cases; collecting lots of customer data at the point of purchase; self-serve options; pop-up shops and event sales
Desktop: POS systems that run on a desktop computer are typically on-premise solutions docked to a checkout station. They’re bulky but often more powerful and reliable, depending on the hardware you choose.
The main POS station in a permanent brick-and-mortar store; businesses that want to add mPOS in addition to their desktop setup
Self-serve kiosks: Self-serve kiosks are common in food-based businesses, especially for quick-service restaurants and fast casual dining. This type of POS can drive a 15%–30% increase in average check size. They also work in retail environments. Best for: Food-based businesses; reducing lines and wait times; digitally savvy customers
POS apps: Depending on the POS, there are a few point of sale apps to choose from. POS apps work with your hardware and other compatible devices to enable you to access your data and manage business operations. Best for: Businesses that want flexibility and customizability without needing lots of technical resources or budget
Open-source POS: Open-source software allows companies to use their source code to build custom solutions with their platform. You can build your open-source POS system internally or with external collaborators. Best for: Enterprises with lots of technical resources; highly unique POS needs
Multichannel POS: A multichannel POS can integrate with various commerce channels, an increasingly important capability. These channels include your own website, third-party online marketplaces, your store, pop-up shops, event sales, wholesale, social media, and more. Best for: Ecommerce merchants who do or plan to sell in-person; multichannel online brands
Retail POS: A retail POS has features tailored to a brick-and-mortar business selling products. These features could include inventory management, forecasting, and multichannel selling. Best for: Pop-up shops; permanent brick-and-mortar stores in a traditional retail environment
Restaurant POS: Restaurant POS systems are designed with food-based businesses in mind. Specific features might include menu planning and costing, ingredient-level tracking, dish customizations, and self-serve ordering. Best for: Food-based businesses (fast food, casual, quick-serve, sit-down, etc.)

Components of a POS system

There are other pieces of hardware that can complement your POS setup:

Barcode scanner: In addition to scanning barcodes, you can also use some scanners to add discount codes. There are 1D barcode scanners that use the traditional bar code, and 2D barcode scanners that can read QR codes.
Cash drawer: Unless you only process cashless payments, you’ll need somewhere to put the cash customers use to pay for your products. The cash drawer is a safe, secure place to organize bills.
Credit and debit card reader: This piece of hardware can read debit and credit cards. There are several ways to read a card, including swipe, tap, and EMV chip. You need this for payment processing so you can receive the funds from the customer’s bank.
Receipt printer: These aren’t always essential, especially if you use Shopify POS, because you can send email receipts, but a printer can connect to your POS and spit out receipts on the spot.
Label printer: There are some instances where you’ll need to print a label—ship-from-store, for example. With a label printer as part of your POS setup, you can do that on the spot.
Scale: If you sell products by weight, you’ll need a scale to be able to determine how much to charge customers. Some scales connect directly to your POS for a seamless checkout.

What does a POS system do?

Modern POS systems offer far more functionality than simply administering transactions. They can complete other business functions, as well as inform important business decisions, including:

Managing inventory across all locations, both online and offline
Providing sales metrics and reporting
Managing customer data effectively
Improving in-store sales
Adapting to business needs with customizations

Managing inventory across all locations, both online and offline

Whether you have inventory at your storefront, pop-up shop, or warehouse, keeping accurate counts across the board is a tricky (and sometimes tedious) task. Inventory is one of your largest expenses as a retailer, and you need a simple way to manage it. That means having the right products in the right place at the right time—and a POS that helps you achieve that goal.

A modern POS system should help retailers manage inventory anywhere you keep your products. Not only does this level of inventory management make tracking easier, but fulfilling orders is quicker when you know how much of a product is at a given location at any time.

With a POS, you can easily monitor stock counts across all your stores, while keeping customers happy by avoiding stockouts and automatically ceasing sales of products when inventory runs out. Accurate stock counts streamline ordering from vendors so you always have inventory in stock wherever your products are selling best.

Complete visibility of your inventory across all locations also makes it easier to move stock from one place to another (e.g., from warehouse to storefront) when you run low on a product. And it’s simpler to create purchase orders and accurately create your demand forecasts.

Providing sales metrics and reporting

A POS is useful for far more than processing transactions. You also can use crucial information from your point-of-sale solution to make data-informed decisions about your entire business.

Modern POS systems make it painless to see analytics across every channel in your retail business, both individually and as part of your business as a whole. The ability to break down and filter sales data this way can often shed light on what’s working—and what isn’t.

So, when you’re assessing a POS system, ensure you can easily track the following:

Data for both in-store and online sales
Sales broken down over time (number of sales by day, week, month, etc.)
Sales per employee
Sales per channel (across all stores and for each location)
Staff activities broken down by employee
Product reports (to see what’s selling and what’s still sitting on shelves)
Number of orders (broken down by various stages of fulfillment)

Easy, intuitive access to this kind of data can help you make better decisions and understand the overall health of your business.

Managing customer data effectively

A POS should also help you easily collect, track, and manage customer information. Access to these details can help you better understand your ideal customers and identify your most loyal shoppers.

When evaluating your shortlist of POS contenders, make sure that your top choice helps you manage the following:

Customer profiles. Collect contact details to build in-depth profiles of your customers to help you learn more about them and their shopping habits.
Customer order histories. Quick access to a customer’s order history can help you effectively cross-sell and upsell by offering on-the-spot, tailored product recommendations based on past purchases.
Customer loyalty programs. A POS should give you access to your loyalty program across all sales channels, whether someone buys online, in-store, or elsewhere.

Improving in-store sales

The traditional shopping experience has changed, and retailers have to meet the ever-evolving demands of customers in order to compete. But a POS system can help you keep up with a shifting industry.

The right POS features can help you appeal to the empowered shopper and make more sales. For example, use your POS to stay in touch with customers and keep your products top of mind after they leave your store. Sales associates can email customers a list of items they were interested in but didn’t purchase while in-store, so, when they’re ready, the customer can buy those items via a feature like Shopify POS Email cart.

Providing a variety of shipping options is another way you can serve your customers’ evolving needs. You can use a POS feature to ship a purchase to whatever address is most convenient for a shopper, whether it’s their home, their office, or another location—which can give you a competitive edge.

A POS that offers flexible shipping alternatives can minimize the need for returns and exchanges and keep sales strong. That’s why the following pickup, purchase, and delivery options are quickly becoming table stakes:

Buy online, pick up in-store. In-store pickup allows customers to buy online and collect their order from the retailer’s physical store or a third-party location. Thousands of stores are decreasing returns and selling more by letting customers check the size, color, and shape of their purchases before walking out—all while offering highly valued flexibility.
Home delivery. After customers buy products in-store—especially heavy or large products, like furniture—they don’t necessarily want to lug it home with them. As an added convenience, offer home delivery. Or, if an item isn’t available in-store, but is at another location, customers can buy in store and have the item shipped to their home.
In-store returns/exchanges for items purchased online. Creating a hassle-free returns experience for customers can actually build loyalty. For example, if a customer wants to return a product they purchased online, they may want to make a return immediately rather than sending the product back via snail mail. Make it simple for them to visit your store to make the return.

This creates an opportunity for a friendly, well-executed staff response to potentially sell them additional products and, at the very least, build a more engaged customer relationship.

“We opened a retail location in order to allow customers to come into the store, see their products, and cultivate trust and long-term relationships. Shopify gives customers the option to buy online and pick up their items from our NYC store.”

Nalata Nalata

Adapting to business needs with customizations

Your POS hardware and software should complement rather than conflict with your business and brand. Ideally, your hardware and software should be sleek, intuitive to use, and blend in.

After all, your brand and products should get the attention of customers—not your POS system.

When assessing a POS, also check for a robust app store. Using apps, you can customize your POS system to fit your unique business setup. App integrations can also help connect your POS with other handy tools that help you run your business (like marketing automation software, bookkeeping platforms, and invoicing tools).

If you know you’ll need some help with setup or personalization, check for a healthy partner network. With plenty of partners to choose from, it’s easier for you to hire an expert to set up your POS, maintain it, or help you customize it to fit your needs.

How do I choose a POS?

Here’s a quick list of keystone features to look for when purchasing a POS system:

Full visibility into your inventory across all locations, updated in real-time
Robust analytics and reporting capabilities
Quick access to customer profiles, order histories, and loyalty programs
Flexible payment, purchase, and delivery options
Flexible returns, exchanges, and store credits (e.g., buy online, return in-store)
Customizable with a robust app store to suit your unique business needs
Easily integrates with your business tech stack (e.g., email marketing, accounting, etc.)

Signs it’s time to switch your POS

You might have been using your current POS system for a while—it’s good enough, but you suspect there’s something better out there. There are a few surefire signs it’s time to shop around for a new option:

Inventory management is difficult and doesn’t automatically sync
Lack of payment options
No mPOS option
Customers can’t use online gift cards in store and vice versa
Staff management issues
Customizations require lots of technical resources

Inventory management is difficult and doesn’t automatically sync

Merchants that don’t focus their efforts on omnichannel sales are missing out on serious revenue opportunities. Customer behavior has evolved and it continues to do so in the COVID-19 economy.

A consistent, harmonized experience across all of your sales channels is what customers have come to expect. Shoppers don’t want excuses about out-of-stock items—they want a seamless buying experience, no matter where they get your products.

Regardless of where you sell, it’s important that your POS automatically syncs inventory across all channels. Not every POS system reconciles online orders, in-store inventory, and warehouse inventory, and that can create headaches both for your staff and for your customers.

Manually reconciling inventory across all the places you sell and store your products is tedious and prone to human error. When your inventory syncs automatically, you know exactly how much stock you have and where it is at any given time. It’s also easy to understand how well each product is selling and create purchase orders based on performance and updated stock levels.

With that information at your fingertips, you can prevent stockouts, easily move inventory from one location to another, and get a full picture of all your sales from one place. A POS that’s part of a unified commerce platform unlocks that kind of visibility.

That was the motivation behind fashion brand Assembly New York’s switch to Shopify POS.

“Why [manage] two things when you could have just one?” says Ale Tarver, Assembly’s store manager. “If you’re selling online and using a POS from two different systems, why are you double checking your inventory? You’d have to manually adjust things, and that takes a lot of time.”

Lack of payment options

More customers than ever are using their smartphones to pay at checkout—whether through a service like Apple Pay and Google Pay or credit card details stored in a digital wallet.

According to a recent report, only 17% of global payments will be made using cash by 2022. Digital wallet usage is projected to go up to 28% during the same period, to hit 1.5 billion users. And consider the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on top of that—it has accelerated the need for contactless merchant-customer interactions.

Digital wallet payments are undeniably convenient for shoppers and retailers—the tap-and-go option allows customers to leave their physical wallet at home and the speed helps keep queues under control.

When a point of sale doesn’t offer an option to accept digital wallet payments, you’re potentially leaving money on the table. While almost all POS systems can accept and process payments via cash and credit card, not all accept near-field communication (NFC), or “tap” payments (Apple Pay, Google Pay, tap debit/credit cards, etc.)

It’s also difficult for retailers to offer these convenient payment options for customers on their own. Dealing with banks or payment providers means you’ll need to sign lengthy contracts, pay exorbitant setup fees, and figure out confusing payment rates.

Rather than trying to detangle these complicated options, look for a POS that provides low transaction rates and predictable fees. A point of sale provider should be transparent about fees and automatically deduct them from each sale to eliminate lump-sum payments, so you know exactly how much you’ll be paid.

No mPOS option

More than 29 million people are expected to use mobile POS payments in the US in 2019, totaling more than $87 billion in transactions. Statista predicts that number will grow by 29.6% annually, closing in on nearly $246 billion by 2023.

However, not all POS systems are compatible with mobile devices, which can make it difficult or even impossible to accept mobile payments or process transactions anywhere other than your checkout counter.

The ability to move your point of purchase around is a simple modification that can revolutionize the shopping experience for your customers. Here are a few of the things a mobile POS can do:

Reduce checkout friction and ease pressure on employees

One of the biggest benefits of mobile POS hardware like the Shopify Retail Kit is that it helps point-of-purchase congestion. A mobilized POS lets you process transactions on the spot from anywhere in your store, which also enhances your customer service.

No one likes waiting in tedious checkout lines. According to a recent survey from Forrester, 32% of shoppers would abandon a long line to go elsewhere for a faster checkout experience.

A mPOS also supports your employees. Staff are better equipped to help customers, answer questions, and use their mobile device (powered by your POS system) to check inventory availability without running off to “look in the back.” It’s challenging to provide a high level of service when employees are tied to a checkout counter.

Easily transition from inquiry to sale

With a stationary POS, customers interact with one employee on the sales floor when they have a question and another when making a purchase. A single point of contact creates better rapport between sales associates and shoppers, enhancing the experience, increasing trust, and potentially leading to more sales.

Increase flexibility around when (and where) you sell

Retailers often need to get out into the community to sell beyond the confines of their storefront—customers like to interact with brands outside a brick-and-mortar store, from pop-up shops and pop-in stores to food trucks and public markets. To take advantage of these kinds of events and activations, you’ll need a flexible POS that allows you to sell seamlessly from anywhere.

Gather customer email addresses and go paperless

Brick-and-mortar retailers don’t have as many organic opportunities to collect customer information as ecommerce stores—but a mobile POS system can help with that. For example, customers can opt to receive an email receipt instead of a paper one. Your employees can input this info into a personalized customer profile via a mobile POS, giving you access to their email address and the ability to stay in touch after they leave your store. (It will also save you money—and a few trees.)

“50% of foot traffic in the store is new customers experiencing our brand for the first time. Since we capture contact details at point of sale, we can use email marketing and retargeting to continue serving customers online.”

Michelle Cordeiro Grant, LIVELY

Customers can’t use online gift cards in-store and vice versa

The gift card industry was estimated to be worth $160 billion as of 2018, and three-quarters of the volume in gift card program redemptions are still in physical cards, versus 25% for digital gift cards (or eGift cards).

Not all POS systems allow shoppers to use eGift cards in-store or to use physical cards online, which is frustrating for customers. But the right POS can offer the flexibility to allow customers to pay for purchases with gift cards anywhere they shop.

Staff management issues

Managing staff can be a retailer’s most time-consuming task. Your to-do list includes everything from creating schedules and monitoring performance to ensuring you have the right number of employees working at the right times.

Fortunately, a best-fit POS system can help retailers automate (or even eliminate) many employee management tasks from their list. Using your POS system, you can keep everyone accountable by creating staff logins and monitoring sales for each employee by tracking all orders and cash register activity.

With separate employee logins, you can also easily (and fairly) reward staff who are exceeding expectations. Retailers can see who is generating the most sales and who is lagging behind in meeting their monthly quota. With this information readily available, merchants can easily reward or praise star employees. Retailers can also provide help for those who may be struggling with sales or customer service.

Additionally, you can consult your POS data to inform staff schedules. Based on the number of transactions for a particular period, you can spot trends like peak busy hours and recurring lulls, then schedule accordingly.

A comprehensive POS will also have plug-and-play features to help you get more mileage from your system. For example, with Shopify POS apps like ClockedIn, you can pull up timesheets and get staff to punch in and out of their shifts.

Customizations require lots of technical resources

With Shopify POS, you can customize the platform and experience yourself—no coding needed. There are hundreds of apps that plug in seamlessly to help you build the tech stack you need to run your business. The main benefit is the ability to add (and subtract) functionality at will.

Nimble is the name of the game right now. Retailers need to be able to adapt quickly in today’s economy and that includes customizing your POS for new workflows, sales channels, payment methods, and more.

Michelle Cordeiro Grant from LIVELY explains that Shopify’s customizable platform allowed the company to create an online booking experience called a “fit sesh,” where women can fill out their personal details and schedule a time to come in for a bra fitting. Thirty percent of their sales now come from people who booked fittings online.

ENJOY EXCLUSIVE APP OFFERS: For a limited time only, Marsello, Endear, and Xero are offering exclusive offers and discounts for retailers who are new to Shopify POS.

Should you make the switch?

These are the essential questions you should ask before switching your POS system.

Does my POS automatically sync inventory across online and offline channels?
Does my POS accept digital wallet payments?
Is my provider transparent about fees?
Do I have low transaction rates?
Is my POS compatible with mobile devices?
Can my customers use online gift cards in store and vice versa?
Does my POS allow for multiple staff logins and monitor/incentivize sales accordingly?

If you answered no to a lot of these questions, it might be time to change POS systems.

The importance of choosing the right POS

Many single-store retailers still don’t have a POS system at all. And whether you’re just getting started or migrating from another tool, it’s critical to make the right choice so you find a system that can grow with your business.

Setting up your first point-of-sale (POS) system, or switching to a new one, can seem daunting. With a nearly endless array of options, specifications, and reviews to compare, researching which POS to use can feel as overwhelming as buying a car or a house.

Sure, finding the right POS software requires a lot of upfront research—but the return on your investment is worth it if you find the right fit. The homework involved requires far more effort than a typical purchase, but you have more to gain from choosing the right technology. A strong fit can make or break your customers’ experience.

Your POS needs to make sales, returns/exchanges, inventory management, and omnichannel retail as simple as possible. A synced, unified commerce experience goes a long way toward boosting your bottom line and giving your customers a hassle-free shopping experience across all sales channels, both online and in person.

What is the best POS software for a small business?

Not all POS systems are created equal. While we’re biased—we work hard to make the all-new Shopify POS the best solution for our merchants—every retail business has its own needs, and every business owner has to choose the POS that best meets those needs. The same is true for a small business POS system.

For small business retailers in particular, Shopify POS Pro is the best POS system. It has inventory management and analytics capabilities that are upgraded from the Shopify Plan. Plus it offers unlimited staff and registers, omnichannel selling features, and staff roles and permissions.

How to buy your POS

The most important part of finding the right POS is doing your due diligence, and that’s difficult when you’re running a business. A Quickbooks survey from 2018 showed that almost one-third of entrepreneurs work 50 hours per week, and another 11.8% work 60 hours per week.

It’s a hassle to switch tools that are integral to running your business, but with the right information, you’ll be ready to make the transition and reap the benefits.

Ask your network

A great place to start is by asking the people you already know and trust. This could be both internally and externally. Maybe you have an experienced employee who can make a recommendation—they already know the ins and outs of your business. Or, ask someone outside your company who has extensive experience with POS systems. They might be able to point you in the right direction to help you begin your search.

Check review sites

To understand how other businesses are using a particular POS, read through a few review sites. You can compare competing POS systems and get a better grasp of each one’s benefits and limitations from retailers who have firsthand experience.

Here are a few great websites to check for business technology and tools:

G2
Capterra
Merchant Maverick
Software Advice

Read corresponding case studies

For more details on how a specific POS system can help you succeed, try checking out a few case studies. These in-depth articles offer insights into individual business success stories, including accounts of how a POS drove better business results.

We’ve handpicked a few Shopify POS case studies to check out:

Assembly New York Maintains the Business of Hype with One Back Office
How LIVELY’s Omnichannel Approach Increased Average Order Value by 80%
Selling in Tandem: How Tokyobike Synced Their Storefronts and Doubled Sales

Get a demo

A demo can give you a sense of whether a POS will meet your business’s unique needs. It offers an overview of a particular point of sale and introduces you to its top-level features.

Scheduling a demo also allows you to take the POS system for a test drive and have any questions answered on the spot.

To try out Shopify POS, get in touch with our experts.

Check contract minimums

Look out for contract minimums, as some POS software requires merchants to agree to stick with their tool for X amount of time. This is limiting for a number of reasons, and it can lock you into a tool that isn’t right for your business. Instead, prioritize POS software that comes contract-free, like Shopify POS.

See it in the real world

As a final step in finding the right POS, go shopping. Visit some retailers and see how a POS system fares in the wild. Chat with business owners to get a firsthand understanding of a POS system’s best features and quirks.

Grow your small business with Shopify POS

The all-new Shopify POS was built to help small business retailers thrive in the modern retail environment. Get all the features you need to run your online and brick-and-mortar store—from one easy-to-use platform.

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How to Find a Mentor as an Entrepreneur (Plus 6 Places to Look For One)

May 7, 2021 Elksourcing, Mentor by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.

Original link：https://www.shopify.com/blog/how-to-find-a-mentor

Successful entrepreneurs, or professionals in any field, aren’t made overnight. It takes them years of effort, of trial and error, to amass all the experience and knowledge that got them where they are today.

At some point, they were in the same spot as anyone just starting out: unsure how to navigate the hurdles before them, looking up to someone who was somewhere that they wanted to be.

These people who have “been there and done that” offer one of the most understated resources entrepreneurs can benefit from: mentorship.

A good mentor can help you avoid common mistakes early on, solve troublesome problems, and offer up valuable connections and advice, while helping you realize your full potential as a person.

What is a mentor, exactly?

A mentor is someone who has priceless experience that you don’t have yet, who has made all the necessary mistakes on the road to success, learned from them, and is willing to pass on those lessons to you.

A mentor doesn’t just have a good grasp of the specific knowledge you need to succeed, like how to create better Facebook ads or how to bring a product to market. They also possess an intuition that’s been honed over the course of many years doing what you hope to do, that can help you confirm, abandon, or shape some of your own business instincts.

A mentor helps you find your best self faster than time alone would allow.

Mentorship occurs naturally in nearly every field. But in the world of business, especially, you’d be hard-pressed to find a success story that didn’t involve a mentor or three along the way:

Warren Buffett credits Benjamin Graham with helping to shape him into a savvy investor.
Richard Branson says his uncle taught him how to harness his eccentricity into entrepreneurial endeavors.
Oprah Winfrey recognizes the influence that poet Maya Angelou had on her, not just through her writing, but as a friend and mentor.

In fact, according to a survey of over 180 business owners conducted by UPS, 70% of the entrepreneurs that underwent mentoring had businesses that survived for 5 or more years. That’s double the rate of businesses that didn’t have the advantage of a mentor.

But perhaps most important to note is that a mentor isn’t a consultant. A true mentor won’t charge you a fee for their advice. Nor will they do the work for you. A mentor, in an ideal situation, becomes a valuable friend. They see you as a good investment of their time because they see value in you as a person, and vice versa.

That’s because mentorship is part of a cycle of good karma that involves giving back to those who would walk a similar path because someone did the same for you.

Anyone who’s achieved some success in life will likely reflect on their journey and wish they knew back then what they know now. And while time travelling is off the table, imparting those experiences and lessons in the next generation is a nice alternative.

The right (and wrong) way to pursue mentorship

Mentorships are formed in all kinds of ways—there’s no single method to follow.

However, a mentor should ideally be someone whose work or career you genuinely admire. A mentorship is a relationship after all and it needs to be built on mutual respect.

A good mentor:

Has a visible, verifiable track record of success in the area you want to grow in.
Is open, friendly, and appreciates curiosity.
Is passionate about their field and craft (this often translates into a desire to teach).
Has a great work/life balance and can spare a few moments to chat to you on a regular basis.
Is thoughtful and considerate, and doesn’t make up assured answers to questions just to appear knowledgeable.
Has been mentored in the past and understands how valuable mentorship is to someone who’s just starting out.

Many mentorships happen organically, starting off as friends or colleagues or as teacher-and-student. Sometimes the mentor sees potential and promise in a mentee and believes it’s worthwhile to cultivate it by offering advice or a sounding board for their ideas. Sometimes, the mentee has to actively seek out the experience and advice of the mentor.

But it’s also possible, through networking and cold outreach, to forge these relationships from scratch yourself.

Using cold outreach to find a mentor

I’ve written often about the value of cold emailing as a way to network, create partnerships, and develop your business. But it’s also a good way to seek out advice from experienced strangers.

Here’s a template you can adapt that’s based on cold emails that have both worked for me (looking for career advice) and on me (people asking me for career advice).

Hi [FIRST NAME]!

I stumbled across your profile on [WHERE YOU FOUND THEM] while I was doing some research into [WHAT YOU WANT TO DO]. I really liked [COOL WORK THEY DID].

I’m looking to [YOUR GOALS AND WHAT YOU’RE DOING NOW TO ACHIEVE THEM] and would love to learn more about how you [WHAT THEY’VE DONE].

If you have some time this week—even if it’s for 15 minutes over a coffee, Skype or phone call—I’d love to pick your brain.

Have a great week!

Ideally, you’ll want to get some face time with a potential mentor—whether it’s in-person or over Skype—so you can establish a better connection with them and show them that you’re serious about success.

Keep in mind that these people, due to their own success, likely have an inbox full of people asking them for things. So try to be as accommodating as possible.

Here are some tips for entering into your initial conversation with a potential mentor:

Prepare a list of specific questions about both their story and your business.
Start by telling them about yourself so they have context around your pursuits and your problems.
Be conscious of their time and express your gratitude towards them (if you’re meeting them offline, offer to pay for the coffee, drinks, or food).
Towards the end of the conversation, ask them if it’d be okay if you two stayed in touch or if you could shoot them questions if you ever have any.

But above all, get a sense of how much you can be yourself around your potential mentor. A good, lasting mentorship is built on a solid foundation of friendship, openness, and a mutual interest in a particular field.

Maintaining your relationship with a mentor

One of the common misconceptions about mentorship is that the structure of a mentor and mentee relationship is like that of master and student (think Yoda and Luke Skywalker or Batman and Robin).

But that puts the responsibility on the teacher’s shoulders.

Instead, look for mentorship opportunities where friendship, honesty, and mutual respect can co-exist with a large gap in experience between you and your mentor.

According to Lois Zachary, author of The Mentee’s Guide:

“We’ve come a long way from the mentor as the sage on the stage. Rather, the mentor is the guide on the side that asks questions that take people to deeper places of insight. It’s a dance, it’s a partnership, and a mentor should not be giving the answers, they should be raising the questions and should be helping the mentees to seek answers to their own questions.”

Don’t expect your mentor to do anything for you or even show you how to do something (there’s Google for that). Instead, rely on your mentor to check your own gut, validate your work, and learn how to think about your problems.

When you’re learning, you’re not supposed to look good. Be vulnerable and be curious. Mentorship is all about asking questions.

Often, the most stupid thing about so-called ‘stupid questions’ is not asking them.

It can be hard to gauge how much commitment you’ll get out of a potential mentor. Some will offer you a more structured relationship where you regularly meet to check-in on how you’re both doing.

Others will offer the occasional advice when you ask for it or help you out over a Google Hangout when you get stuck. Whatever the case, the relationship should be founded on friendship and a common passion. Don’t ask for too much of your mentor, but if you’d like a bit more structure ask in a considerate manner that respects their time: “I get a lot of value out of these conversations, what do you think about making this a regular thing—maybe once a month?”

The opportunity to watch you grow and develop and realize your ambitions is the main reason a mentor will give you their time. But you should also try to offer them something in return—whether it’s to contribute one of your skills to their project or just to spread the word about their latest venture. Even a “thank you” card or email is a nice token of appreciation.

6 places to look to find a good mentor

There are a ton of different ways to go about finding a good mentor. If you’re lucky, you’ll find one or two over the natural course of your life’s journey. But if not, you can hopefully find one with experience you can tap into in the following ways.

1. Find a mentor match on Ten Thousand Coffees

Ten Thousand Coffees, for lack of a better analogy, is like a dating site for local mentorship and networking.

It streamlines the natural cycle of mentorship by letting you list your profile and browse a database of professionals who are open to networking or mentoring the next generation.

You can reach out to mentors you’re interested in and, as the name suggests, ask them to sit down for a cup of coffee and talk about careers.

It’s organized into “hubs” so you can find people not just by skill set or industry, but by university, college, and company networks.

2. Meet experienced entrepreneurs at Meetups

Networking is easier in-person for a lot of people. And the internet has done a great job of coordinating passionate people with shared interests into offline “meetups”.

You can find these events on sites like Meetup or Eventbrite, and sign up for the ones that are relevant to you. Be sure to check out these networking tips before you attend.

3. Hop on a Clarity call

While Clarity isn’t exactly a mentorship platform (you have to pay to speak with these mentors), it does offer on-demand consultant calls with experienced professionals and entrepreneurs.

It breaks experts out into specific areas of business (business development or pitching to investors) for focused phone calls that cost anywhere from $1 to $10 a minute.

There’s also a place where you can post your questions and get answers from knowledgeable entrepreneurs, similar to Quora.

4. Ask around in forums and online communities

There are also plenty of online communities for experienced and new entrepreneurs to talk about their business. These forums are a good place to seek out mentors directly, as long as your post communicates your promise as an entrepreneur and you put yourself out there in the right places.

Reddit is home to all manner of subreddits where you can ask around, including r/entrepreneur or r/smallbusiness. Do a search for “mentor” in these subreddits for examples of how others have asked about mentorship opportunities in the past.

If you’re a Shopify store owner, there are also plenty of Facebook Groups you can join to ask for feedback or casual mentorship, including:

The Official Shopify Community
Shopify Strategy
Shopify Entrepreneurs

Be wary of any offers you find through these channels. Sometimes they’re consultants who only want to offer you paid services. Other times, they might not be as experienced as the image they like to project.

But I have seen fruitful relationships come out of asking questions or for feedback in these places.

5. Connect with potential mentors on LinkedIn

LinkedIn should be a fairly obvious avenue for connecting with potential mentors.

But did you know that 89% of senior leaders on LinkedIn are interested in giving advice?

Not only do LinkedIn profiles let you search for specific skills or experience that you’d want in a mentor, but you can also reach out to them directly with a connection request even if you don’t have their email.

6. Form a Mastermind Group

Entrepreneurship can be a lonely adventure of lifelong learning, but with a mastermind group it doesn’t have to be.

A mastermind group is a form of peer-mentorship. It’s an ongoing support group of like-minded people working on their own projects while helping each other out, sharing experience and talent, and keeping each other on track with regular meetings.

Mentorship: A cycle of learning and giving back

There’s no cutting corners when it comes to growth. You need to throw yourself into your problems and figure things out as you go. But you can accelerate your growth by finding a friend in a mentor, gaining access to free experience that they already paid for themselves with time and effort.

A mentor doesn’t have to be a single person either. As long as you’re curious and put yourself out there, you can learn from all kinds of people with different experiences that you don’t have yet.

Those who benefit from mentorship also tend to be compelled to give back. I’ve found this to be especially true within the Shopify community. Maybe you will too. And so the cycle continues with today’s entrepreneurs helping tomorrow’s see their own version of success.

Shopify Tutorial

The Founder’s Zodiac: Are You Entrepreneur Material?

May 7, 2021 Elksourcing, Entrepreneur by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.

Original link：https://www.shopify.com/blog/what-is-an-entrepreneurAfter studying some of the one million business owners who use Shopify, we discovered that founder types tend to fall into one of five personality types. Which one are you? Start with our quiz.

Imposter syndrome. Self doubt. The urge to give up. We bet you’ve experienced these feelings at some point, Stargazer. If you’re lucky, you’re surrounded by people who affirm your talents at work. But what if you’re a company of one?

Natalie Gill started her fresh flower business from her apartment, relying on savings to bridge the gap after she quit a soulless corporate job. She survived on little sleep and at times an $11 per week food budget. She lost weight—and friends. But she persevered through the toughest points of her journey (hello, self doubt) to build Native Poppy, a successful multi-location retail business.

There’s no question that Natalie is an entrepreneur today, but I’ll argue that she’s always deserved the title—even before she quit her job, even before her first sale.

What makes a person an entrepreneur? We’ll explore the meaning of entrepreneurship, what it takes to be an entrepreneur, and the unique traits of each entrepreneur personality type (including yours). Think of us as the invisible passenger along for the ride on your business journey, here with affirmation and support to help you live your truth—as an entrepreneur.

✨ Shortcuts

What is an entrepreneur?
What are the personality traits of an entrepreneur?
How do I become an entrepreneur?
Finding your inner entrepreneur—advice for every Founder Sign

What is an entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur is, by conventional definition, someone who starts and runs a business, maybe taking on financial or personal risk in the process. But this description of entrepreneurship ignores the more nuanced aspects—the passion, the grit, the desire to bring ideas to life, the drive to solve a problem.

Over time, the creator economy and the gig economy helped to broaden the scope of what it means to be an entrepreneur.

Over time, the creator economy and the gig economy helped to broaden the scope of what it means to be an entrepreneur. Maybe you’re assembling furniture or designing merch for a local band in your studio apartment. Either way, you’re working for yourself and taking your future into your own hands.

The pandemic brought devastation to the entrepreneurship community through 2020—3.3 million businesses in the US closed between February and April. Yet, entrepreneurship offered a path for those looking to supplement loss of work, combat isolation boredom, or react to opportunities created by changing consumer trends. While business as a whole decreased during 2020, entrepreneurial spirit surged.

And our definition of “entrepreneur” is forever changed.

What are the personality traits of an entrepreneur?

Earlier in our series we discussed the unique entrepreneur personality traits of each Founder Sign. There is no single personality profile that determines success potential. Each Sign demonstrates strength in specific areas, each with a unique superpower that defines how they run and think about their businesses.

Top entrepreneur traits:

Risk tolerance
Passion
Vision
Discipline
Self reliance

Other helpful traits for entrepreneurs include perseverance, versatility, ambition, critical thinking, and attention to detail. Chances are you possess some of these qualities. Maybe you’re risk averse but have excellent discipline and attention to detail—your strength will lie in building a steady business slowly with a solid safety net. Or maybe you’re not overly disciplined or focused on detail but you’re bursting with passion and vision—you’d make a great leader, bringing on skilled partners attracted to your ideas and enthusiasm.

So, how do I become an entrepreneur?

Simple: just start. There’s no test (unless you count the test of your will as you navigate the uncertain startup phase). There’s no required degree or years of work experience. When you’re your own boss, you make the rules. Lean on your best entrepreneur trait and take your business idea to the streets.

The downside is there’s also no guarantee, no steady paycheck. In most cases, though, the reward trumps the risk. Best case scenario, you build a life on your terms. If you fail, you’ll dust yourself off and, armed with experience and thicker skin, try again.

Finding your inner entrepreneur—advice for every Founder Sign

Entrepreneur mindset is a combination of beliefs, knowledge, and a way of thinking that allows you to approach challenges, act on ideas, and balance risk. It can be achieved regardless of the strengths you were born with. Personal growth exercises and trial and error will help build your entrepreneur muscle.

This month’s business horoscope centers on how to achieve an entrepreneur mindset and start a small business with confidence—no matter what your personality. (Don’t know your sign? Start here.)

The Cartographer
The Trailblazer
The Outsider
The Mountaineer
The Firestarter

Feature sign: The Cartographer

There’s a lot to work with here, Cartographer. For one, you have a great mind for business because you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and put in the work. You’re an excellent planner and a natural at spotting pitfalls before they happen. You’d pause before calling yourself an entrepreneur, though, because you see it as just doing what you love.

Entrepreneurship often involves some risk—and that’s not really your playground. You’re drawn to predictability and income you can rely on. But your curiosity and passion for your craft tends to get the better of you. If you’re scared to make the leap, start small. Know that you can be an entrepreneur at heart before you even launch that website or make your first sale. Be confident in your abilities.

Become an entrepreneur and build a business around a cause

If anything is going to tip you into the entrepreneurial pool, it’s your passion. Are there social or environmental causes that inspire you? The pandemic has accelerated the interest in businesses that have a sustainable bent or social mission. Now is the time, Cartographer. Get your feet wet.

The Trailblazer

This month, Trailblazer, take the opportunity to allow your ideas to bloom even before buds appear on the trees. You’ll be ready to burst into spring with the energy and passion to act on those ideas.

You are a born entrepreneur, with your penchant for detouring from the well-trodden path and making your own. Success will come to you if you understand how to harness that explosive energy of yours. Be an entrepreneur who understands your shortcomings. You’re best to focus on what you’re passionate about and leave the rest to others. You’ll need that passion to get you through the most overgrown paths.

Become an entrepreneur with a better way of doing things

The pandemic has created opportunities to build new businesses around changing needs. Disruptors like Uber and Slack emerged from the last recession. What will you build to change something for the better in a post-pandemic new world?

The Outsider

Your natural entrepreneur ability lies in your quiet solitude and steady determination. You want things done right, and you’re the best person to make that happen. While you may lack some of the conventional traits that we apply to entrepreneurs—passion and risk-taking—you have unmatched patience and dedication to your craft.

You’re the type, Outsider, who tends to undersell yourself. To you, you’re just one person making a living doing what you’re good at. But your entrepreneur story is one of the oldest—the roots of entrepreneurship and early trade were motivated by necessity.

Become an entrepreneur by monetizing your craft

Focus on what you do best, Outsider, and build it slowly. You’re likely not one to bring on a partner or even staff, but you can patch the holes in your skill set by consulting experts, outsourcing admin tasks, or learning new tools that automate some of your processes. The pandemic brought a lot of change, rapidly accelerating the shift to online. Don’t get left behind by being stuck in “the way things always were.”

The Mountaineer

When we look to the entrepreneurial greats of the past century, we see your face, Mountaineer. Many business leaders of our time share your vision and unrelenting pursuit of big ideas. You’re a natural. You have an entrepreneur mindset built in, but it’s always something you can hone. So you’re an entrepreneur in spirit? Take this month before spring lures us outdoors to make a leap toward that great idea.

Build an audience first, then become an entrepreneur

You’re a self-starter, there’s no question, but you can’t do it on your own. You thrive in the company of people. So start there. Use your natural people skills to build a following around your idea or brand and nurture that audience before you launch. Gather energy from the company of others to take your idea from hypothetical to reality.

The Firestarter

Your personality makes you a natural fit for entrepreneurship—you take risks, spot opportunities everywhere, and close deals in your sleep. Entrepreneurship is probably already on your resume—even if you didn’t know it. If you haven’t officially started your own business, this lull between the winter holidays and the first signs of spring (while we’re all stuck in lockdown) is the perfect time to put your ideas to paper and take action.

Become an entrepreneur by jumping at opportunity

If there’s a silver lining to be found after a year of pandemic life, it’s that new opportunities are everywhere. Creator tools and new technology rushed to market to address changing consumer needs, making it easier than ever to bring your ideas to life. The world will be forever changed, and you’re just the personality type to join the legion of the entrepreneurs of the future.

If you’ve yet to determine your Founder Sign, take our quiz, then sign up for our newsletter. The Founder’s Zodiac runs every month and offers up advice and relevant content curated just for your type.

Illustrations by by Alice Mollon

Shopify Tutorial

The 21 Best Business Podcasts to Listen to in 2021

May 7, 2021 Business Podcasts, Elksourcing by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.

Original link：https://www.shopify.com/blog/business-podcasts

Ask anyone at the top of their field how they got there or how they found success in business and chances are you’ll find overlapping patterns of hard work, long hours, and—perhaps most important—continual self-education.

Experience, books, blog posts, and videos usually make up the curriculum of the self-taught entrepreneur, but podcasts offer their own distinct value: they let you listen, learn, and grow while you’re getting ready in the morning, going for a jog, driving around, or even working on your business.

Some business podcasts are in-depth conversations with experts, recorded and released. Others take the form of audio documentaries that pull you in with captivating stories. There are a lot of options out there.

That’s why we rounded up 21 of the best business podcasts for aspiring and established entrepreneurs, whether you’re looking for practical marketing advice or a motivational push.

The best business podcasts for busy entrepreneurs

1. Shopify Masters

Hosted by: Felix Thea

Made for: Entrepreneurs looking for a complete series on everything ecommerce, shown through the lenses of fellow merchants, sharing the most important lessons they’ve learned along the way.

On this official Shopify podcast, host Felix Thea interviews experienced Shopify store owners from all over the world, working in a variety of industries. Some have left six-figure salaries to become entrepreneurs. Others started small on Etsy and were forced to grow when success came as a surprise.

What makes Shopify Masters unique is it doesn’t rely on well-known names in business to garner attention. Instead, it features the everyday entrepreneurs who are experts in their own right and have proven their mettle in running a business on and offline.

Anything to do with running a business on Shopify is up for grabs on this show, from how this direct to consumer brand disrupted the cookware industry to the journey of building a cause driven business to running a successful Kickstarter campaign.

The podcast takes on a case study format, with guests offering a transparent look at the strategies, tools, and Shopify apps that power their businesses. Shopify Masters is for anyone interested in running or currently running a business on Shopify—especially if you want to go beyond what works “in theory” to learn about what works in practice. Merchants often share their revenue, email pitches that helped them win opportunities, and other information in the show notes—something you usually won’t get from other business podcasts.

Shopify Masters is a weekly podcast featuring practical and proven ecommerce business advice from successful store owners.

Noteworthy episode: Check out our recap of the most memorable episodes from 2019.

2. Oberlo’s Start Yours

Hosted by: David Vranicar

Made for: Ecommerce entrepreneurs who want to start and scale a dropshipping store.

Oberlo’s Start Yours isn’t the type of business podcast you listen to once. It’s more the kind you bookmark for whenever you need an emotional and mental boost.

Start Yours rounds up what’s worth talking about in dropshipping and ecommerce and consistently features guest appearances by ambitious entrepreneurs and ecommerce legends, like John Lee Dumas from Entrepreneurs on Fire. The content is story driven—covering the headaches and triumphs of running a dropshipping store—and presented in a light and entertaining way that encourages you to apply the lessons learned to both your work and lifestyle.

Noteworthy episode: Entrepreneurial Mindset: How Entrepreneurs Think Differently

3. Duct Tape Marketing

Hosted by: John Jantsch

Made for: Small business owners of all kinds looking to learn more about marketing on a budget.

John Jantsch has been running this weekly podcast for more than a decade, interviewing experts, authors, and thought leaders.

There’s so much valuable content here on subjects in all areas of marketing. The podcast dives deep into the technical, like getting more results from Google Ads, as well as the more abstract, like building a memorable brand or and the role of authenticity in marketing.

You’ll not only learn how to differentiate yourself from the competition and make your business truly unique, but also to check out content covering everything from new trends in marketing (like voice search) to increasing productivity.

Noteworthy episode: How GDPR Highlights How We Should Be Marketing

4. HBR IdeaCast

Hosted by: Sarah Green Carmichael

Made for: Entrepreneurs who are scaling their business and running into growing pains, especially when it comes to building a team.

The Harvard Business Review’s IdeaCast features weekly discussions about business management, often through interviews with industry experts.

It’s not much of a surprise that it has exceptional advice on everything from networking to business management. This podcast shines most, perhaps, when talking about managing a team of employees and contractors. If you’re planning on growing your team to scale your business (or if you’ve already done so), these episodes are a must-listen.

In order to make the information being shared more valuable and easier to grasp, the host often frames advice firmly around real-life case studies we all could learn from.

Noteworthy episode: How Some Companies Beat the Competition…for Centuries

5. The $100 MBA Show

Hosted by: Omar Zenhom

Made for: Entrepreneurs who want to learn more about the actual process of running an efficient business, not just growing one.

The $100 MBA Show attracts 50,000 listeners daily while discussing actionable advice about how to build a business using predictable patterns to your advantage.

Host Omar Zenhom is always upbeat and energetic, and his clear passion for creating efficient processes translates into interesting and valuable information entrepreneurs can use to build a better marketing flywheel or improve business operations.

In addition to growth, this podcast also frequently looks at how to avoid or resolve common problems that likely will pop up along the way.

If business owners are feeling stumped, they can also submit questions for possible inclusion in an upcoming podcast.

This podcast has featured a long list of engaging experts, and even if they’re not all big names, they’re excellent guests who offer valuable insight. This is reflected in the podcast’s wide acclaim, with awards or mentions from outlets like Forbes and Inc. magazine and iTunes.

Noteworthy episode: How to Price Your Services

6. The Copywriter Club

Hosted by: Kira Hug and Rob Marsh

Made for: Business owners doing their own copywriting or who want to learn more about the craft of high-converting writing.

Every week, catch an in-depth interview with experts on how to write compelling copy that converts for individualized brands.

Great copywriting bolsters nearly every marketing activity: from your product descriptions, site copy, email marketing, PPC campaigns, and more. Marketing still lives and dies on the words you use to communicate. Having a strong understanding of what makes great copy stand out will allow you to better write your own or identify great copy written by someone else.

This podcast can help you understand how to write copy that converts, including product descriptions and marketing campaigns. In addition to this huge perk, it also talks a lot about how to run and market small businesses, which will be directly relevant to a number of audiences.

Noteworthy episode: SnapShot Copywriting

7. Mixergy

Hosted by: Andrew Warner

Made for: “Big picture” entrepreneurs who love learning about and borrowing ideas from different industries.

Airing several times a week, Mixergy features interviews with people at the top of their very diverse fields.

There are episodes on how to reinvent classic experiences like wedding dress shopping or whether parking tech will have a future in autonomous vehicles.

Andrew Warner often is celebrated for his exhaustive research of his guests and his bulldog approach to interviews. He usually doesn’t let people off with easy answers and always drills down with follow-up questions.

There are also a lot of case studies in this podcast with different owners about the businesses they have grown, and tons of valuable information to show entrepreneurs that there is no one right way to run a business.

Noteworthy episode: Is Heart-Led Entrepreneurship Good for Business?

8. The Jason and Scot Show

Hosted by: Jason Goldberg and Scot Wingo

Made for: Entrepreneurs interested in and selling in the ever-changing world of commerce and retail.

Jason (also known as the Retail Geek) and Scot started this weekly show to share some of the high-level debates and conversations they were having about the future of retail and commerce.

Their podcast is unique for its focus on what’s making headlines in the worlds of ecommerce and physical retail.

Jason and Scot’s interview-style episodes share interesting insights from industry veterans, but it’s their deep dives that are especially worth listening to for what’s going on right now in retail. Whether it’s Amazon’s latest experiment or the trend toward VR/AR, listening to these two friends talk is always a good time.

Noteworthy episode: Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Deep Dive

9. Creative Empire

Hosted by: Reina Palmer and Christina Scalera

Made for: Entrepreneurs in creative fields or entrepreneurs who want to get more creative with their marketing.

Every week, this show examines how to not only build a creative business but how to turn it into an empire.

Are you selling your own paintings, home-cooked baked goods, floral arrangements, or handmade clothing? You have a creative business, and while a lot of business podcasts may not vibe with you, Creative Empire will.

Each week, Creative Empire features guests who chat about how you can combine creative goods with the business side of things to make a cohesive enterprise that will thrive. And even better, they tell you you can do this without hindering your vision or your business and staying true to what you want.

The hosts talk a lot about unique marketing strategies, like how to create engaging quizzes or how to become a podcast guest.

Noteworthy episode: Mentoring Session: Baby-Proofing Your Business with Rachel Brumely

10. Nerd Marketing

Hosted by: Drew Sanocki

Made for: All business owners who see themselves as entrepreneurs too.

Marketing is part of this podcast’s name, but Drew regularly discusses his current experiences with new businesses and other insights into how to be a successful entrepreneur.

Nerd Marketing goes over everything you’d expect from a marketing podcast. There is a lot of advice about how to start, grow, and market your small business, with plenty of ecommerce-specific content, like how to increase your average order value with different targeted strategies.

Sanocki takes things a step further, however. He also offers “insider” knowledge, like how to sell a business, and his favorite resources and private equity contacts.

Noteworthy episode: How You Sell a Business—“The Deal Process”

11. eCommerce MasterPlan Podcast

Hosted by: Chloe Thomas

Made for: All ecommerce business owners, especially those who want to develop plans for customer retention or relationship building.

For 30 minutes a week, the Ecommerce MasterPlan Podcast gives you actionable insights on how to get more customers and make more meaningful relationships with them.

While there are a variety of different topics discussed, the show’s strength is easily the frequent deep dives into everything customer-centric: acquisition, retention, and loyalty building. Not many podcasts will focus on this the same way and with the same frequency.

The podcast also features great information on the latest ecommerce tech and offers tips on subjects like how to maximize profit and save money.

Noteworthy episode: 40% Year on Year Growth by Focusing on Customer Service with Gary Amstutz of Sticker and Label

12. The Social Media Marketing Talk Show

Hosted by: Eric Fisher

Made for: Small businesses doing their own social media marketing.

This weekly show is produced by the Social Media Examiner team to discuss all the changes happening in social media on a weekly basis.

Ever feel like you get whiplash from all the new features and changes coming to different social media channels? The Social Media Marketing Talk Show will help you stay up to date while explaining what all of the changes mean for you.

The podcast is hosted by Eric Fisher, a member of the Social Media Examiner staff, but regularly features other members, along with experts like Andrea Vahl and Madalyn Sklar. They’ll make the changes happening in social media feel more accessible, so you’ll know exactly how to get started.

Noteworthy episode: Live Video Updates and Facebook Ad Creation

13. eCommerce Fuel

Hosted by: Andrew Youderian

Made for: Six-and seven-figure ecommerce store owners looking to scale.

Andrew Youderian has built several million-dollar ecommerce businesses, so he’s an excellent go-to guy to talk about everything happening in that world.

This podcast, unsurprisingly, features a lot of discussion about managing online businesses, but there’s also a lot of emphasis on how to get to six or seven figures with your business—and then grow some more.

The podcast reminds you that the sky’s the limit, and it shows you how to get there. If you want to think big and take home a pretty good chunk of change too, this should be at the top of your listening list.

Noteworthy episode: Selling Physical Products with a 100% Remote Team

14. The Goal Digger Podcast

Hosted by: Jenna Kutcher

Made for: Women entrepreneurs who are ready to rock their business lives and their personal lives.

Instead of a traditional talk-and-interview format, this several-times-a-week podcast takes on the feel of a live workshop.

There’s no doubt that Jenna Kutcher knows her stuff, but this podcast feels different than the others because Kutcher herself isn’t the typical business person you’d expect. Each episode feels like she’s your best friend cheering you on in life and business. She’s an engaging host, and the podcast provides specific strategies that entrepreneurs can use to market their businesses.

In addition to dishing out marketing advice in areas of expertise like SEO and Instagram marketing, Kutcher goes deep into subjects that other podcasts stay away from, like work-life balance as a CEO and a mom, and how to make your brand more inclusive.

Want more of the Goal Digger podcast? Kutcher has a private Facebook group.

Noteworthy episode: The #1 Way to Be More Inclusive

15. How I Built This

Hosted by: Guy Raz

Made for: Anyone who loves a good entrepreneurial origin story.

Entrepreneurship can be a lonely endeavor, especially in the early days.

How I Built This, produced by NPR, helps you feel like you’re not so alone by sharing the struggles and defining aha moments of the founders behind the companies you know and love.

Guy Raz is a compelling and curious host, adept at drawing out untold stories you won’t find on a company’s About page.

Unlike other podcasts on this list, and despite its name, How I Built This is less about the tactics and more about the journey. However, a lot of thought and care goes into each episode, and Guy Raz’s narrative approach to podcasting is definitely unique among interview-style shows.

The spin-off series How You Built That is also noteworthy, for its focus on innovative small businesses you may not have heard of.

Noteworthy episode: Honest Tea: Seth Goldman

16. Unthinkable

Hosted by: Jay Acunzo

Made for: Entrepreneurs who want to challenge conventional thinking and get creative to grow their business.

Every week, Jay Acunzo and his guests discuss entrepreneur stories that aren’t being talked about today but have a big impact on how we run our businesses and our lives. The scope of the podcast is focused on people who break away from industry best practices—you’ll hear stories about risky, rebellious, unconventional, and intuition-driven paths to success.

If you’re bored of the same old entrepreneur success stories, Unthinkable is the perfect podcast for getting inside the minds of daring business leaders and listening to something worth your time.

Noteworthy episode: The Man Bun

17. Honest Ecommerce

Hosted by: Chase Clymer

Made for: Anyone in ecommerce who wants real-life examples of proven marketing tactics.

Whether you’re just getting started in ecommerce or are a seasoned vet, you’ll want to add Honest Ecommerce to your must-listen list.

This weekly podcast gives a satisfyingly candid look at the work behind experts ecommerce and digital marketing. There are lots of laughs, insights, and value bombs from host Chase Clymer and his guests as they share first-hand accounts of how these tactics work in real-life marketing situations.

The series details how to tackle everyday challenges for online stores—from customer retention to omnichannel marketing and conversion rate optimization to product sourcing—leaving you with a ton of actionable ideas to build a thriving ecommerce business.

Noteworthy episode: Carving Out A Niche and Being a Leader on Subscription/Delivery Services with Mark Fachler

18. The Unofficial Shopify Podcast

Hosted by: Kurt Elster

Made for: Ecommerce entrepreneurs who want to grow their Shopify stores.

If you’re a longtime ecommerce store owner, you might have seen The Unofficial Shopify Podcast around once or twice.

Each installment takes on specific challenges Shopify store owners face—like increasing average order value, using content to boost sales, machine learning, and rebranding—and digs into ways you can apply them to your store. Hosted by Kurt Elster, founder of Shopify agency Ethercycle and an ecommerce legend, this podcast is perfect for people who want to turn their Shopify stores into revenue-generating machines.

Noteworthy episode: Profitable Facebook Ads & Audiences Decoded with Kurt Bullock

19. OMG Commerce’s eCommerce Evolution

Hosted by: Brett Curry

Made for: Ecommerce store owners who want an in-depth look at what’s new and what’s next in the industry.

ECommerce Evolution is a weekly podcast from OMG Commerce, a marketing agency with a focus on search campaigns and multichannel selling. It dives into topics that typically fly under the radar, like B2B ecommerce and story selling, and features inspiring stories about entrepreneurs who’ve sold stores for a million dollars in 12 months.

Host Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce, interviews merchants, vendors, and experts influencing the industry. Each episode is packed with actionable tips and advice you can use to take your business to the next level.

Noteworthy Episode: Success with Marketplaces and Multichannel Selling with Mike Ugino of Sellbrite

20. Entrepreneurs On Fire

Hosted by: John Lee Dumas

Made for: Anyone who needs a little inspiration on their entrepreneurial journey by listening to real stories from top business leaders.

John Lee Dumas has been running Entrepreneurs on Fire since September 2012. He sets himself apart from other business podcasts by launching a new episode every day. His style is casual and engaging, and there are over 2,100 old and new installments.

John’s interviewed top leaders and innovators, including Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Barbara Corcoran, Tim Ferriss. The stories are insightful, interesting, and have helped millions of listeners succeed as entrepreneurs.

If you want daily practical tactics and tips to help grow your business, Entrepreneurs On Fire is the podcast for you.

Noteworthy episode: 3 Ways to Avoid Being an Unhealthy Entrepreneur with Eric Martinez

21. Playing for Keeps

Hosted by: Kristen LaFrance

Made for: Ecommerce business owners who want real-life strategies that build brand affinity and reduce churn.

For a well-thought, strategic look at what’s going on in the crowded world of DTC ecommerce, look no further than Playing for Keeps. Customer churn specialist Kristen LaFrance dissects the latest retention and customer success tactics from a thoughtful point of view.

Leaning toward subscription-based businesses, Kristen draws links between ecommerce companies and how they get (and retain) their most successful customers for the long haul. She injects a powerful yet light-hearted and down-to-earth personality into the show, covering topics such as customer habits, buying triggers, increasing average order values, and more.

With new episodes weekly, you’ll constantly walk away with endless strategies to find and keep your best customers and grow a more profitable online business.

Noteworthy episode: MeUndies on shifting to membership with TJ Stein

What business podcasts do you listen to?

When it comes to business podcasts, you’ll likely find you prefer certain hosts over others, or certain formats and lengths. But whatever your preference, podcasts can be helpful companions on your entrepreneurial journey.

Category: Shopify Tutorial

How to make money with music

1. Earn streaming royalties through digital distribution

How to find and select the right distribution network

2. Make money playing gigs

How to find paid gigs for musicians

Creating an electronic press kit

3. Sell band merchandise online

How to sell band merch online

4. Collaborate with brands and other musicians

5. Sell beats and samples

What to know about selling your beats online

6. Teach music classes or sell lessons

Where to find teaching jobs for musicians

How to get started with music marketing

1. Build a social media following

2. Submit your work to music blogs

Many music blogs allow open submissions, but keep in mind that any blog with open submissions needs to wade through a lot of bad ones. This means you need to stand out.

3. Get on streaming playlists

How to get your music on Spotify playlists

4. Use visual content like music videos

Start making money with your music

What is affiliate marketing?

How does affiliate marketing work?

Benefits of the affiliate marketing model

How to find affiliate programs

Choosing your first affiliate program

Creating a plan to promote your affiliate offer

Talk to a product expert

Create a product tutorial

Find relevant search terms

Consider your angle

Set your distribution strategy

Try offering a bonus

Keep things legal and above board

Examples of businesses using affiliate marketing

Wirecutter

BuzzFeed

Ready to get started with affiliate marketing?

Frequently asked questions about affiliate marketing

Can you make money from affiliate marketing?

How can I start affiliate marketing with no money?

Where can I promote affiliate products?

Which product is best for affiliate marketing?

1. Writing

2. Illustration and design

3. Music

4. Cooking

5. Gardening

6. Photography

7. DIY crafts

8. Comedy

9. Coffee

10. Memberships

11. Brewing beer

12. Gaming

How to make money from a hobby

When you make money from a hobby

Make money from your paid hobbies

Who makes the most money on YouTube?

Do you get paid for uploading videos on YouTube?

How do you make money from YouTube?

Who’s going to watch your YouTube channel?

How to make money on YouTube

1. Join the YouTube Partner Program and earn money from ads

How to enable monetization on YouTube

How many views do you need to make money?

Check out YouTube Premium

Why you should look beyond ads for revenue

2. Sell products or merchandise

3. Crowdfund your next creative project

4. Let your audience support your work through “fan funding”

5. License your content to the media

6. Work with brands as an influencer or affiliate

How to “sell” without annoying your audience

Record a call to action in your videos

Add well-timed YouTube cards to your videos

Add links in your video descriptions

Promote your offer on other platforms

Are you ready to monetize your YouTube channel?