Here are 4 Business Ideas to Make $100,000 a Year
There is no shortage of opportunity in the world.
In this article, I give you 4 concrete examples of business models you can start today. These will help you earn $100,000 a year or more.
These businesses are not "get rich quick" schemes. They will take work, dedication, and focus. However, these are tangible ideas that you can put into action right now.
If you follow the system and trust the process, I have no doubt you can use these models to quickly earn six figures or more.
Let's get started.
1. Start a Local Marketing Agency that Specializes in Google My Business
Brick and mortar businesses need digital marketing, but most small business owners are too busy running the day to day of their business, and have no time to work on digital marketing.
Every coffee shop, yoga studio, small grocery store, mechanic, dentist, and brick and mortar business of any kind needs to market themselves locally.
Most of them don't even know where to start.
There is massive opportunity in this space. Here's how you do it.
Learn how Google My Business Works
Google My Business is not SEO in the same way that you traditionally think of SEO. It follows a different set of rules.
But it is SEO in the sense that you are optimizing information so that Google displays that information at the top of search engine results pages.
Every time you search for a local business, you are served listings as part of Google My Business, which is a separate database that hosts information and displays it in the form of a directory.
What you may not realize is that Google only displays the top 3 listings, the rest of the listings require you to click an extra link, which you probably never do.
Let's imagine you Google "personal trainer in Dubai", you will see the top three listings and the link for "more businesses." See an example below.
Those top three listings are called "the local pack." If you're not in the local pack, you're basically nowhere to be seen.
And guess what? Local businesses will pay good money to optimize their Google My Business listing to get themselves in the local pack.
Getting into the local pack will have a huge positive impact for the businesses that win this search result. It's legitimately life changing for many small business owners. The amount of traffic and phone calls that get routed to the businesses in the local pack is significant.
This is an opportunity for you.
How to Build the Business
The first thing you need to do is learn how to optimize Google My Business listings. Here is a collection of helpful articles to help you learn.
The next step is to get some clients. Every city has hundreds, if not thousands, of small businesses that need to increase foot traffic. There is no shortage of clients out there for you to work with. It's astounding when you think about it.
Every single brick and mortar business in the world needs these services. You probably drove past 200 businesses today on your way to the grocery store. Every one of those businesses is a potential client.
The numbers ...
Imagine over the course of 8 months, you are able to land 10 clients. Let's also imagine you charge each one of those clients $1000 a month to manage, market, and optimize their Google My Business listing. At $1000 a month, with 10 clients, you're making $120,000 a year.
Additionally, the workload to manage 10 Google My Business clients is very reasonable.
You could generate amazing results as long as you're organized and focused. My guess is that 4 hours of deep focused work a day is all you need. You probably wont need to hire an employee so it's safe to assume that around 90% of the revenue will be profits.
This is your opportunity, so take advantage of it.
2. Create an Ad Network
There are two types of people who work on the internet.
Builders (let's call them creators since we're more familiar with that term)
Sellers
Most likely, you're a creator. This means you want to create things, and monetize your content.
We already know that money doesn't magically flow to creators.
Money is not made, money is gotten.
If you want money, you must go get it.
That's why the sellers are so valuable. The sellers have what all the builders want.
There are millions of creators who struggle to monetize their content. That's your opportunity.
Most medium to large businesses have an advertising budget
Growing businesses NEED to spend money on advertising, because they need to exchange their cash for growth.
Social media ads don't perform as well as they used to, so companies are turning to new platforms to advertise.
As such, the two platforms I would focus on are newsletters and podcasts.
Your first step is to network and make relationships with advertisers. Start with a list of 20 businesses who are looking for good places to advertise. Then, you need to network and create relationships with creators (newsletter writers and podcasters) who would be willing to give you a commission for any ad revenue you bring to their platform.
Of course they will say yes. Remember, creators can't sell.
Demand a 30% commission, don't negotiate.
Then, broker ad space on all the podcasts and newsletters you can. You will automate the monetization for creators and you will help the advertisers make use of their ad budget.
Everyone wins, especially you!
Here are some basic numbers ...
My newsletter has 8000 subscribers. I sell a weekly ad on the Friday newsletter for $250 and then I offer a special promotion on Tuesday for $400.
My newsletter generates $650 a week. If you were bringing the advertisers to me and handling the entire onboarding process, I would gladly pay you a 30% commission. That means you will make $195 a week in commission from my newsletter alone.
Now, imagine you make a deal with a newsletter who has 30,000 subscribers or even 100,000 subscribers. Well, now we're talking about real money! $
The business is out there, you simply need to go get it.
This isn't a pipedream. As evidence of this, I will tell you that I am actively looking for a commission based sales rep for Copyblogger. We have 127,000 email subscribers and are thinking about creating a sponsorship based daily newsletter.
In addition, Ed Latimore recently sent an email inquiring about this exact service. He is offering to pay a monthly retainer and give commission for someone to help him with this exact service.
In order to make $100,000 a year, you will have to make $1923 a week.
I have no doubt that you could make $2000 a week by brokering ad deals. Especially in today's newsletter and podcast heavy environment.
3. Build a Local Media Site with a Newsletter and Directory
If I had more time, I would go hard on local media.
Newspapers are dead and Facebook killed them. However, that doesn't mean there is no demand for local media.
Everyone wants to be connected to their neighborhoods. Everyone wants to know about local events, concerts, happy hours, restaurant reviews, and more.
Local media hasn't disappeared, it's simply transitioned into a different media outlet.
I wrote a thread on how I would go about doing this. Please use this playbook. Steal the idea. It's free!
https://twitter.com/TimStodz/status/1423256517994745856
Another great example ...
Nathan Barry also wrote a great Twitter thread on his local media business. Nathan is keeping it very simple by creating a local newsletter that focuses on his home town of Boise Idaho.
https://twitter.com/nathanbarry/status/1506629255647547397
Nathan is building his entire business on ConvertKit.
The newsletter, the pricing, and even the payment infrastructure is all done through ConvertKit.
I don't have any stake in CK so there's nothing in it for me to promote them. The point is that you don't need anything to get started. You can sign up for ConvertKit and you're off to the races.
The great thing about this model is the leverage. It will take you some time to get your brand off the ground, but sending your newsletter to 10 people takes just as much work as sending it to 10,000 people.
The amount of work doesn't change, but the revenues will exponentially increase as the size of your audience increases. You'll be earning $100,000 a year in no time.
There's nothing standing in your way.
4. A Lead Gen Site for Local Businesses
Ethan and I had an entire episode about this on the podcast.
In the same way that every local business could use Google My Business marketing services, they also need leads.
The best thing about local service businesses is that there are hardly any real digital marketing professionals working in the space. The vast majority of (mostly) young people with technical marketing skills spend all their time in sexy and competitive businesses.
Almost every young entrepreneur wants to build a SaaS platform, or create a digital product, or build a successful membership site. The majority of talent spends their time working in the most competitive industries.
The real money is in boring but necessary industries. This means there is a huge opening in local business, because there is hardly any talent competing in the space.
If I had the time, I would create an entire lead gen conglomerate that generates business and leads for every industry I can imagine.
I actually think this is the biggest opportunity out of the bunch
There will always be a demand for home repair, lawn service, mobile car detailing, exterminators, and contractors.
Below is the search result for "carpenters in Nashville."
What you see is a search result of big directories. Even though the search queries are dominated by huge business directories, Google prefers to reward localized content because it's more relevant to the search query.
So if you build a business directory specific to your city, it can compete against national directories, because Google knows your site is more relevant.
Here is a great explanation through Quora. This example is a bit outdated, but the premise is still very relevant.
How to do it ...
These lead gen sites aren't difficult to build. Here's what you do.
Step 1 - Create a WordPress website.
I like to use StudioPress, but that's only because I understand how to use Genesis. Worst case scenario is that you create a custom WordPress site through a designer for $500.
You don't need to spend money on a design. A simple theme from themeforest will do just fine. Tell your designer that "you need them to download a business theme on themeforest and upload the theme onto a WordPress install through Godaddy hosting."
Use those exact words. It shouldn't cost more than $500.
Step 2 - Download the "local business directory plugin."
That's actually what it's called. With this plugin, you can create local business directories.
Step 3 - Fill the website with content.
Write articles about ...
best (insert industry) in (insert city) - for example, best plumbers in Santa Fe
examples of work from contractors
helpful to do articles
Most importantly, you want to fill the business directory with listings. The more data you have on the site, the better.
Over time, you'll be able to rank for the local keywords. You can then use this traffic to generate leads.
You don't need much traffic. Ranking for 1 or 2 search queries should generate enough leads. Over time, as you rank for more and more keywords, you will generate more and more leads for your customers.
Let's say you rank #1 for "carpenters in Nashville." You could realistically generate 15 phone calls a day and maybe a few form fills.
You can sell those phone calls for $25 a pop. The calls will be high value because the search query is directly in line with the intent of the purchaser. If someone searches for "carpenter in Nashville", you know there is a high percentage chance that the caller is looking for a "carpenter in Nashville."
If you get 11 qualified calls a day, and you sell them at $25 a piece, you're making $100,000 a year.
But wait, there's more
Phone calls are just the tip of the iceberg.
You could also incorporate form leads, ad space, featured listings, reviews, interviews, and more.
Lead generation is one of the best businesses to start because there is always a demand for your service and there is low competition in the talent pool.
Remember, all the high level digital marketers are spending all their time in industries with the most competition.
Become the digital marketer for the local contractors and you will get filthy rich.
A Quick Pep Talk
In most cases, what is stopping you from generating multiple income streams is lack of focus and limiting beliefs. The problem is not lack of opportunity. There are endless opportunities to generate six figure businesses.
If you walk away from this article with anything, I want you to recognize that you are perfectly capable of creating one of these businesses. These examples are tangible. All it requires is execution.
My suggestion is to start. You don't need to know what you're doing, all you need is to see the next step in front of you. Almost everything I know about business, I have learned by doing and learning on the fly.
Enjoy the process, embrace the failures, and think of them as lessons.
In the end, failure is nothing but data.
If you continue moving forward, it's only a matter of time until you're making 6 figures and more.