Turning the Internet into Income: The New Age of Entrepreneurship with Matt Raad

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Have you ever dreamed of swapping the 9 to 5 grind for the freedom of running your own online business? Join us as we sit down with Matt Raad, a man who traded zoology for the digital business world, and hasn’t looked back since.

Together with his wife Liz, Matt shares the intricacies of their transition from farming to online entrepreneurship, revealing how they unlocked a lifestyle of flexibility and freedom. For those considering dipping their toes into the world of business, Matt imparts some valuable advice, including why he steers clear of businesses involving physical inventory.

In an era where remote work is becoming the norm for many, we explore the rise of online businesses. Matt and Liz’s journey captures the essence of this, as they balance their young family with a thriving business, all thanks to the power of the internet. Amid a global pandemic, the mindset towards work has shifted dramatically, making space for the boundless potential of the knowledge economy. Non-traditional businesses that offer a high income without the need for trading time for money are on the rise, and Matt and Liz’s story is a testament to this.

But the conversation doesn't stop there. We delve into their ingenious business strategies, including how they turned a $4,500 website into a profitable venture pulling in $8,000 a month. Uncover the benefits of living in Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam and the transformative power of affiliate marketing and SEO for online companies. Plus, get a glimpse into the future of buying and selling websites and the untapped potential of YouTube as a tool for online business success. Tune in to this episode and let Matt and Liz guide you through the world of online entrepreneurship.

Some topics we discuss:
1. Leveraging Digital Assets for Financial Independence
2. Buying, Selling and Renovating Online “Real Estate”
3. Replacing your income within 12 months using websites

As you're inspired to embark on your own side hustle journey after listening to this episode, you might wonder where to start or how to make your vision a reality. That's where our trusted partner, Reversed Out Creative comes in. Specializing in strategic branding and digital marketing, Reversed Out Creative is an advertising agency dedicated to helping you turn your side hustle into your main hustle.

With a team of experienced professionals and a track record of helping clients achieve their dreams, they are ready to assist you in reaching your goals. To find out more about how they can elevate your side hustle, visit www.reversedout.com today and start your journey towards success. Our blog is also full of great information that we work hard on to provide you with a leg up on the competition.

We also recently launched our YouTube Channel, Marketing Pro Trends,  which summarizes all of our blog posts.
https://www.youtube.com/@MarketingProTrends

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to Side Hustle City and thanks for
joining us.
Our goal is to help you connectto real people who found
success turning their sidehustle into a main hustle, and
we hope you can too.
I'm Adam Kaler.
I'm joined by Kyle Stevy, myco-host.
Let's get started, all right?

(00:32):
Welcome back everybody to theSide Hustle City podcast today.
Guess Matt Rad at the BusinessInstitute Australia, right?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Good day, Adam.
Thanks so much for having me onthat try.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
I love it.
I love it all the way fromAustralia.
What time wait?
What time is it now, whereyou're at right?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
now it is around seven o'clock in the morning,
which is that's late for us.
The sun gets up really earlyhere.
We're up at five AM mostmornings with the cookaburras.
We're in northern part ofAustralia, so the sun comes up
quite early here.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Ah, wow, yeah, I couldn't handle that.
The sun will automatically wakeme up, Even if there's a tiny
little bit of it.
I got blackout curtains too,and if the sun even remotely
comes near my eyes, I'm wakingup.
So yeah, I'd be up early there,I think.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, yeah, we don't have a choice with all the like,
the wildlife.
You know, there's these birdscalled cookaburras and they're
crazy loud and they basically,once they start, you're up and
doing things.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
There's nothing you could do.
You're awake at that point.
Yeah Well, awesome.
Well, it's great to have you on.
You had somebody who hadreached out to us, one of your
assistants and it's crazy theway, when I was looking at your
profile, how you've transitionedand we talked a little bit
about this before the showstarted but from zoology into

(01:57):
digital business, growth and M&Aand sales and consulting I mean
it's wild.
But in all this in Australia,northern Australia, you guys are
.
I mean I get why you would beinto zoology.
You got some really interestinganimals there, but you know,
selling businesses can be muchmore interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Well, it turns out we love that more.
So we, you know, we, both mywife and I grew up on farms and
my wife is my business partneras well as my life partner.
And I think from growing up onfarms we had a lot of freedom as
kids, the two of us.
And when we got together at uniwe realized, and both of us
came from backgrounds where wehad no money, and I always said

(02:40):
to Liz look, I want to get intobusiness of some kind and make
lots of money and zoology is notgoing to cut it for us.
And so as soon as we left uni,with the help of family, we were
able to buy a smallmanufacturing business and we
just built that up and boughtand sold more.
We got good at it and we wereable to free up time.

(03:00):
And I think, probably like a lotof your listeners, for us we
were always looking for becausewe grew up on farms, we wanted
that type freedom in life.
It wasn't just money.
For me personally it was money.
For Liz it wasn't so much themoney thing, but for both of us
we just wanted freedom.
And I guess, like yourlisteners now, it was the

(03:21):
business.
For us was that ultimate way ofhaving security because you're
not tied to it.
Time wise, we've never workedin a business where it's nine to
five.
It's always leverage businesses, and these days, of course, we
buy and sell websites, whichdoes sound quite different to
Zoology and to even the bricksand mortar business that we used

(03:42):
to buy and sell, and weabsolutely love that.
For us, that's like theultimate business or side hustle
you could ever do, which isonline businesses.
There's just so much leveragewith them.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, and it's actual freedom.
I mean, and you, coming fromthis manufacturing background
after Zoology thing, starting abusiness that probably required
you to physically be there, youhad probably had employees,
there was machinery that neededto be fixed, there were vendors
that you had to deal with, therewas inventory issues at times,
probably, or whatever.

(04:13):
I mean you physically have tobe there and those businesses
are great.
But I can't do that from Bali.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Right, I can't.
No, no, you can't do that froma laptop.
And the other thing is, too,that maybe like for someone
listening to this, if they'rethinking about getting into a
business and Adam, I'm going tosound a little bit biased here.
So, full disclosure.
I'm these days, out of all thehundreds to thousands of deals

(04:46):
that I've seen, because I'm anadvisor in business exits and
mergers and acquisitions I'vebeen doing this for 30 years.
I've seen a lot of businessesand for bricks and mortar
businesses like a manufacturingbusiness, we're not fans of them
anymore for one main big reason, and that's why we're so
passionate about websites andyou just mentioned it.

(05:08):
There's wasn't just being tiedto the business, but it was the
physical inventory bit, becausewhen you're new in business, any
business that needs physicalinventory like a manufacturing
or wholesale import business,which is what we used to
specialise in it ties up allyour money and we're always in
debt to the banks.
We were kind of if I'm honestabout it, we were skirting

(05:30):
bankruptcy the whole time andbecause all our net worth was
tied up in a warehouse somewhere.
Now, don't get me wrong you canmake a lot of money out of a
manufacturing or wholesaleimport business, but it's not
good for beginners and we wereyoung entrepreneurs.
We knew nothing.
We knew we were totallyself-taught in business and in
hindsight I mean that's why I'mhere today it was lucky that we

(05:53):
kind of did get into it.
In hindsight I would not advisea beginner to go into any
business that involves physicalinventory, because we struggled
with it for I don't know 10years.
The payoff takes a long time,whereas with websites hopefully
that's what we can share on thispodcast, but I'm sure people

(06:15):
can realise that at the veryleast with websites,
particularly the kinds that webuy, we're not stuck with
physical inventory.
We don't do e-commerce, we justsell information, products or
advertising.
So there's none of this tyingup our money into inventory and
we've just found it very freeing.
Like you said, we're not tiedto it anymore.

(06:36):
We can work.
We literally work in our jimmyjams you know, pajamas and work
from home have done for the last10, 15 years and to us it's
like the ultimate business modelcompared to all the other
businesses that we've seen.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
That's a really good point, because you could become
an entrepreneur, because youwant freedom, but end up
building yourself a prison.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Absolutely yeah, and we see a lot of people do that
with bricks and mortar,particularly if you have a
bricks and mortar that is a nineto five style, like we're doing
B2C, like business to consumers, like a retail store.
So we've never bought.
We've only owned one retailbusiness in our lives.

(07:20):
Everything else we always forthat reason.
So we read you know being selftaught in business, we read all
the books back in the early daysand I think you know the
classics from Brian Tracy andyou know the sales guy and Tom
Hopkins we loved.
Tom Hopkins is American salestrainer or a zig-ziggler.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
You throw some of him in too.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, and zig-ziggler like that's who we used to
listen to nonstop.
Remember the days of cassettes?
Yeah, we put that in our littleute that we had, and when we,
because we had a manufacturingbusiness, we drive around
Australia selling these spareparts and we'd listen to
zig-ziggler to get ourselvesfeeling positive.
Our Tom Hopkins or Brian Tracythey're pretty much our three

(08:04):
go-tos.
Hey, yeah there you go.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
That's a good lineup right there.
That's great.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, yeah, thank you .
But you know, americans knowhow to sell and that's one of
the key skill we had to learn inbusiness.
But then later in the years, wehad this guy come along write a
book, robert Kiyosaki.
You know Rich, gad and Portadand I know it's a classic, but
honestly, he's on the money inthat and, with our experience in

(08:29):
business, when we read it werealized, yeah, we need leverage
here, we need these what wecall semi-pass.
You know, remembering his dayat him.
In that book he talked aboutbuying laundromats and, like on
one of your other podcasts youmentioned that, the gentleman
that does our vending machines,businesses like that that are
semi-passive, and we reallyliked that idea.

(08:50):
And, what was interesting, we,as business brokers and M&A, we
actually sold a few of those Iknow very successful, and so
when we saw the internet, though, we realized that's next level,
because it gives us freedomfrom having to fork out
megabucks on owning thelaundromat or whatever.

(09:11):
Yet they work 24 seven, and ofcourse, for us too, we're in
Australia the biggest market inthe world is America, and it
allowed us there was no barriersto us then to have a business
in America, which is so most ofour websites, our traffic, the
visitors come from America andthey're based in America.
So for us, obviously it's great.

(09:31):
We make money 24 seven, whilewe sleep, literally wake up in
the morning and you can see theclicks that have come to your
website and I'd say 80% of thetraffic comes from America.
So all of a sudden we realized,compared to bricks and mortar
businesses, this was a gamechanger for us.
This was about.
This was in the GFC, where westarted online, and we realized,

(09:53):
wow, this is like nothing we'veever seen in business before.
It's ultimate leverage.
I don't have to dress up in asuit, I don't have to be
anywhere, I can work whateverhours I want.
We can do this part time.
So we started a young familythen, so Liz could work on these
whilst we're raising our kids,didn't matter what hours and

(10:15):
when you've got kids.
Typically you're up late in theevening at some point one of
these.
And well, guess what we'redoing?
You've got a laptop there andwe're working away.
And it was perfect, absolutelyperfect compared to businesses
that needed physical inventory.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
So that's why we're so passionate about.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
That's why we love them.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
I mean it's so crazy too, because when you think
about previous generations, theydidn't have this kind of
freedom, right?
But there's still so manypeople that don't understand
that this is.
It's like a thing Like youdon't have to be stuck somewhere
.
And I know an American,probably with Australia too,
especially.
I know some of the laws, I meanpretty heavy handed when it

(10:57):
came to COVID in Australia, notso much here.
It depended on what state youwere in here, I mean, if you
were in California or New York,really, really hard.
If you were in Florida, dowhatever you want, go outside,
shoot a gun, ride an alligatorand, you know, breathe all over.
It Didn't matter, right?
So, but you know that uncovereda lot of things that uncovered,

(11:20):
and everybody knows this story.
Do you have to be in the office, you know?
I mean, now you almost gotthese, these, uh, their
employees, but then away they'rekind of entrepreneurs and you
know what the funny thing is is,now there's people out here and
they're cracking down on it,but there were people with two
or three full time jobs thatwere 100% remote, and these guys

(11:42):
are making three $400,000 ayear.
Yeah, they've got the skillsand they can.
They can.
Yeah, they're almostentrepreneurs, right?
Yep.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
And it's super cool.
So this is a thing that I thinkCOVID highlighted for, like
everyone and out, especially ourcommunity.
This is where we saw massivesuccess stories in our community
, where people I think it wasmore just a mindset shift
realized, oh wow, this is a realthing.
Making money remotely online isreal.
Everyone's well, not everyone'sdoing it, but it can be done.

(12:15):
And I think people started torealize.
Combine that with that RobertKiyosaki idea of you know,
having these, let's call them,you still got to work, work in
them.
But they're these businessesthat are remote and leverage,
and combined with, like, what wecall the knowledge economy, I
think suddenly people realizeokay, it's not about physically
being somewhere and swappingtime for money anymore.

(12:35):
It's about being smart andfiguring out well, how can I
make money online or how can Ileverage, working remotely so I
can earn a high income.
And that was the good thing withCOVID, because I think people
were, especially here inAustralia.
We're all fourth, we weren'tallowed out of the house, it was
, we weren't allowed to crossstate borders.

(12:57):
It was full on, really full onhere.
And, yeah, I think it gotpeople realizing also how about
we create an alternative incomebackup plan because people
couldn't work.
There were businesses that justhad to close down for 12 months

(13:18):
, so people had to, by necessity, figure out well, what's a
backup plan here, say, like,with the travel industry and
things like that.
So it was a really interestingtime and I think that's one of
the things, too, that put us onthe map a little bit, if I'm
honest about it, because we'vebeen teaching people how to
start online businesses since2010.
But, covid, suddenly everyone'scoming to us and going, oh, how

(13:42):
are your clients doing thatstuff?
And that's what I think got themessage out there that this is
a real space.
Now you can actually make moneyonline, working from home.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Well, yeah, and it's been around for years.
But people just get tied up intheir little bubble in this idea
that you have to work forsomeone else, right?
I mean, if somebody wanted topay me $300, $400,000 a year to
come work for them, I mightconsider it like hey, I can go
to work nine to five and make$300, $400,000.

(14:14):
But if you're making $50,$60,000 a year to go in and be
somebody's indentured servant, Idon't know, there's probably
easier ways to make that money.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Absolutely there is.
Well, it's like Warren Buffettsays these days, wages won't
give you enough leverage.
No, not at all.
I heard him say that at one ofhis meetings.
Like he said, you need to findother ways to get leverage on
your money because that, like inAmerica, it is tough, and it's
the same here in Australia it'stough unless you're in that

(14:45):
$300,000 range.
Man, you're swapping a lot oftime for not as much money as
what was in the past.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Well, the crazy thing is is you can automate a lot of
that.
It's not like you physicallydon't have to be there.
Even if you've got that$300,000 job, they're probably
going to be asking you to spendmore than 40 hours a week doing
that job.
You're probably going to travel, which include that in your
time right, there's going to bea bunch of travel.
If you've got a family, that'sgoing to suck.
You know you're not necessarilybeing able to go where you want

(15:15):
.
Like, you know, where are yougoing to send me?
Lincoln Nebraska.
I mean, I'm sure LincolnNebraska is awesome.
I'm just using that as anexample.
But, like, would I rather havea digital business where I can
do that and be in, I don't know,phuket?
They're probably rather do that.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Well, we've got clients that do that.
So during COVID here's aninteresting story Two of our
really successful clients, ayoung couple actually, nathan
and Alexa.
They make money buying andselling websites, exactly like
we've taught them, and they'vegot what we call little tiny
passion sites, but they own aportfolio of them so it turns
into quite a big income.

(15:58):
So they'd buy these sites,typically for under $2,000.
They fix them up and they getthem making a couple of grand a
month and then they own five orsix of those and what they saw
was when COVID hit Australiabecause it was so what's the
word?
Strict, you know the lockdownthey actually managed to get out
of Australia and for that twoyears of COVID they lived in

(16:20):
Europe and they just lived,truly lived off their laptop and
they would spend.
They weren't constantlytraveling.
They'd spend about three to sixmonths in a different sorry,
typically three to month, threemonths in a different European
country and they literally justmade money off their laptop, off
these simple little tinypassion sites.

(16:40):
So they've got one on thecrochet, one on cheese making,
but there are all these littleweird and wonderful websites
that.
You know they're a young couple, they didn't have a lot of
money when they first started,but they're able to build that
up and then and now that's whatthey do.
Now COVID's over, they've comeback to Australia and they they
still do the same thing.

(17:01):
They work basically off alaptop and they live in.
They're testing out living indifferent parts of Australia now
to see where they want tosettle.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, and I actually looked it up.
There's only so many days youcan stay.
You can be in Europe, but yougot to move from country to
country.
Like you can be in, I think,italy, what 90 days maybe, and
then you got to leave.
And you got to leave for so manydays and then come back, like
maybe a day even, and then youcan just come right back or
something.
But but it's interesting, it's,you know the way you have to do

(17:31):
things.
Or in like Thailand, you can bein Thailand, I think, 90 days
and then a lot of people go toVietnam and then come back.
I think is how they do it too,I think that's what Nathan Alexa
did.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
They went to.
They did it the other way.
They went to Vietnam, livedthere for however many months
and then they had to.
I remember, on a Zoom call tothem they said, oh, we've got to
leave tomorrow, matt, for thevisa or something.
And they went to.
Yeah, they went to Bali andthen or Singapore or somewhere,
yeah, yeah.
So that's the beauty of this ofowning these online or digital

(18:02):
businesses.
You don't, you know, there's no, there's no borders or anything
like that, and you've got this20,.
What we love about it is it's a24-7 marketplace, unlike
traditional businesses whereit's typically, you know,
daylight hours.
With these digital businesses,doesn't matter where you are in
the world and you typicallyoutsource your team that's

(18:23):
helping you run them.
So all our staff are virtual noone.
We don't need an office to runwhat we do and never have done,
and that's the other bigattraction we don't need lots of
staff to run these.
So it's ideal if you're abeginner and you want to get
into business and you knowonline businesses.
In my opinion not givingfinancial advice here, but based

(18:44):
on all my experience onlinebusiness is a way safer than
traditional bricks and mortarbusinesses to get into, there's
not as much risk.
Yeah, that's what that's beenour experience.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
When you mentioned borderless.
It's like when you have adigital business, you also don't
have to hire locally.
I mean you could get assistance.
Like I mean, you know, we dothis little Etsy thing where
we're going in a mid-journey,we're creating these patterns
for digital.
You know crafters or whateverto put on bugs or whatever in
the world they're selling, right, and they go online.

(19:15):
They look for digital productsthat like patterns, seamless
patterns that they could put onthings.
I don't have to do that.
Like I could hire people in thePhilippines.
Like I could, I could get ateam for pretty affordable to
actually do that for me.
Like I could just tell them theprocess and say this is what I
need you to do.
Here's a login to mid-journey,here's a login for this.

(19:38):
Help me out here, right, I mean, and that's, that's something
you can actually do.
And then people don't understand.
They think, oh well, you know Ihave to be able to replace my
income here, right?
No, like you could live in somany places on this planet for
so cheap.
Like I'm.
I'm honestly, I'm looking atgoing down to Argentina.

(19:59):
Like their inflation is crazy,but just this steak, you know,
is big there.
They, you know, they got thewine we don't drink but the
tango stuff.
It's very European, but thecultures fascinates me.
You have to learn Spanish,though, if you're going to live
there.
But it's crazy how like $1,600,two people could live on $1,600

(20:23):
better there than a lot of like$10,000 a month here.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yep, and that that's what.
Well, it's interesting.
Let me give you a specific.
You just mentioned Etsy, so theyoung couple that I just talked
about that one of theirwebsites.
So, Nathan, he's an electricianright and he's got no
experience in the crafting nicheand he just outsources
everything.
So they own a crochet site andhe's not a crocheter.

(20:51):
Obviously he's an electrician.
He's not into it.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
He probably could.
The way he braids wires andstuff, he might actually be a
good crocheter.
I guess I didn't think of that.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
But and Liz and I have owned websites in the same
we love the crafting niche.
That's typically the niche thatit can be very lucrative
because you can buy a littletiny sites.
So Nathan and Alexa bought thissite.
I think it was $4,500 US and itwas only making $400 at the
time.
But here's the interesting wayit makes money it wasn't from

(21:22):
selling physical products onEtsy, what it is.
They get an affiliatecommission, so they talk so this
is a crochet site and they talkabout crochet patterns and then
they just give a link over toEtsy and if someone buys that
pattern, it's not theirs, butthey're just an affiliate for it
and they get a commission.

(21:43):
Now that website is one of theones that makes them $8,000 a
month.
Now that's crazy.
Now they fixed it up.
That's a significant sum ofmoney and they don't work on it
a lot themselves because they'renot experts.
They've got two or threewriters, sometimes up to four
writers in, like the Philippinesand stuff where the rates are a
lot cheaper, and basicallytheir job is just to project

(22:06):
manage.
So Nathan and Alexa's job is toproject manage these writers to
write content about crochetingand then people go over to Etsy
and they just earn an affiliatecommission.
They don't even have to have anEtsy store or anything.
That's how leverage this modelcan be and that's one of the
sites that help them travelaround the world.
And that's $8,000 a month, likeyou said, in a country like

(22:27):
Bali, or typically a lot ofAussies here will go to
Southeast Asia.
So they lived in Vietnam.
$8,000 in Vietnam a month.
You're living like a king.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
Vietnam is literally the cheapest place in the world,
I think, to live.
It's like $800 a month for twopeople.
You could totally be good andyou're eating delicious
Southeast Asian food andbeautiful country, great things
to explore.
I mean, that's the thing it'slike.
Guys, do you want to pigeonholeyourself Like America is great,
australia is great, yep, butthere's so much more to see in

(23:01):
the world, so many more cultures.
So I mean you want to waituntil you're 65 years old to
experience that kind of stuff.
It's crazy, I mean.
And what you're talking aboutis like let's buy a site with an
aged domain, something that'sbeen around for a while.
That's one of the first thingsyou know Google's going to look
at.
It's like how long has thisdomain been around?
Does it have a high domainauthority?

(23:24):
I mean, are you?
What are some of the metricsyou're looking at when you're
trying to buy a website?

Speaker 2 (23:30):
The main thing that we teach and this is a big topic
, but we love teaching it andthat is when you do website due
diligence.
The main metrics are the profitand the traffic, and traffic is
the amount of visitors that cometo the website each month.
If we break it down in the mostsimplest terms and they're the
two main things that we're usingand running through our heads

(23:54):
what's the true value of thiswebsite?
And something else you justmentioned, adam as well, pardon
me, which I do take for granted,you're right is also the age of
the website.
Is it real?
So that's the main thing we'retrying to determine Is this a
real website?
And this is why we love what wecall passion websites, so
typically sites that are abouthobbies or like crafting,

(24:16):
learning how to play guitar,learning doing photography,
learning any new skill, bettergolf, whatever sites that have
been set up by people who arereal and they're passionate
about it, but they've gottenbored with those websites and
not have owned them for fiveyears, not really made a lot of
money, and they might not likethey might not be good online,

(24:38):
but they're experts in there, sothey're not SEO experts.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
They're not.
They don't know how to createbacklinks yeah, they're not.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Off page SEO experts yeah, they're more, just
passionate about the topic andthose are the sites that we say
are absolute gold in these days,particularly with AI.
Now it's, they're really,really.
I think they're going to be the.
We call them diamonds in therough.
They're these little, hiddenlike lumps of gold sitting out

(25:05):
there on the internet.
When you uncover one of thoseand you polish it up.
That's what Nathan Lexer did sowell with that crochet site.
They've done it as well with agardening site.
It's another really good niche,worldwide gardening sites.
So the thing is people think,oh, when you own a business,
you've got to have.
You know, businesses that makehundreds of thousands of dollars

(25:26):
or millions of dollars.
No, not at all.
You can uncover these littlediamonds in the rough.
Their best one that they boughtwas only $400.
And it was by a guy here inAustralia was on native
gardening, like native shrubs.
Sounds obscure $400.
You wouldn't think there's muchvalue in it.
That site now is making fourgrand a month, but super niche,

(25:48):
super niche, like super niche.
Yeah, yeah, they just polishedit up, and that's that's.
The exciting thing here is thatyou can, once you know what
you're doing, in terms of, likeyou're saying, what do we look
forward to buy in an in an idealworld I'm not going to say it's
always perfect, you can'talways find them but in an ideal

(26:09):
world we find those sorts ofsites, the ones that have been
around for five or six years andkind of neglected the fall I
guess you call them the fallenangels and particularly now this
year or in the last six months,when we've seen the explosion
of AI generated content.
What people want is realcontent, and so the goal is

(26:29):
finding these real sort of hobbysites that people are happy to
sell off.
And also, people do genuinelyget a bit over their websites.
When they they get them to acertain level, they typically
will sell them and flip them tomake money, to put into bigger
websites, and that's the otherstrategy, too, when you're ready
to go to the next level.
So what that means is, forsomeone coming in, you can still

(26:51):
buy really good money makingwebsites because the person
wants to move to the next level,so you can buy these good money
making websites and, in thatinstance, what the main thing
there is.
We do need to know how to do duediligence to make sure
basically everything's real,particularly the profit and the
traffic.
They're the two main metricsthat we live and breathe by.
And that's easy online becauseeverything's tracked,

(27:15):
everything's clicked.
When you know what you're doingcompared to bricks and mortar
businesses like, I think, of mybackground buying and selling
bricks and mortar when you'redoing due diligence on those, oh
man, you've got to be a bit ofa detective on bricks and mortar
businesses.
But with websites, basically,this is a free tool.
It's just Google Analytics.
That's probably the main toolwe use.

(27:36):
And then also, when you knowwhat you're looking for, you can
get live feeds now to people'saffiliate accounts or to their
ads accounts.
You just literally get a livefeed, so it's very difficult to
fake that.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
When I always watch, you know I'm all over YouTube
constantly digging in and tryingto find cool side hustles.
And you've got a lot of SEOexperts who build websites
strictly to do affiliate stuffand they'll build these things
up because they know SEO, theyknow content, they're constantly
blogging.
They've got the right structurewhen they blog right.

(28:09):
So you've got to.
You got to have the rightstructure you probably want to
do.
Actually, the amount of wordsdoesn't even matter anymore,
it's actually how relevant it isand things like that.
You know.
But if you want to pump out a3000 word blog post using AI,
great, like, yeah, I mean youcould do that now and it takes
minutes.
You know, just make sure yourkeyword density is right and all
that other stuff.

(28:29):
But then they'll go intoClickBank and I don't know if
you guys have a different sitein Australia, but here ClickBank
is a place you go to see.
It's just a list of affiliatesand how much money they pay and
whatever they're selling, andyou sell high ticket items.
And there's now now here'sanother thing the categories.

(28:49):
I think in America at least,there's, I think, six categories
that Almost everybody reallywants to go after.
People already think about it,but it's like health and
wellness, beauty toys, finance,yep, yep, there's a certain
number of them.
Yeah, and it's because theaffiliates, those are the areas,

(29:12):
these, these hot, theseaffiliates that pay a lot,
because that's where the marginsare.
A lot of these people have awhite label, supplements or
something they're trying to sell, and it's crazy, like I mean,
you're in Australia, I meanyou're not far from China, so
I'm sure you guys get a lot ofthis white label stuff like
manufactured in China and thendrop shipped.
But these companies have hugemargins and they can pay good

(29:34):
affiliate money.
I mean you could make $50 or$100 if somebody subscribes to
you know 12 month supplementpackage or something you know.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yep, yeah, and that, and it's interesting you just
mentioned ClickBank.
That's one of the mainaffiliate networks that we
recommend people go and look atbecause it's info products you
know, it's just eBooks and aninfo price and the margins are
really high.
Typically you can get 50,sometimes 75% affiliate
commissions from ClickBank, butalso you can go to CJ,

(30:04):
commission, junction and there'sa bunch of other of these
affiliate networks and you'reright, you go into those big
niches.
That's what we teach, even forbeginners.
That's the easiest ones tolearn off, even though they're
more competitive, but that'swhere the money is.
Health we've got the three mainniches that we always have
health, happiness and wealth.
Health, wealth and happinessPeople always wanting to know
how to get rich, people alwayswanting to know how to get

(30:26):
healthier, and people alwayswant to know how to be happy,
and that's the hobby sites.
You know being happy from yourhobbies, but health and wealth
are huge, huge niches online forexactly the reasons that you
said, adam.
The margins in those productsare so high.
So for us, as affiliatemarketers, you can make really

(30:46):
good money just being anaffiliate.
You don't have to physicallydeal with any end users or
anything like that.
We've just got to recommendtheir products and we get an
affiliate commission.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Well, have you ever been on the other side of that,
where you were the company thatwas looking for affiliates?

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Yes, yeah, we've done that all the time.
We've done that as well.
So we sell info productsourselves and that works really
well for us as well and that'skind of next level.
That's not something a beginnerit's not.
It's not a strategy werecommend a total beginner would
get into.
But once you've got some SEOand you know online experience

(31:26):
and you know how it works, thenthat is a key strategy that we
would recommend you use to takeit to the next level.
So you create your own courseand you typically outsource that
.
That can be relatively easy.
And then you set up a funnel,which I'm sure listeners have
seen lots of Facebook ads forcourses that teach you how to
set up these funnels and thingsand then you can sell your own

(31:50):
info product where you'recoaching someone or you're
running lessons in a like maybeit's how to take better.
You know, at some niche withinthe photography niche, I did an
interview with a guy.
He's American.
He set up a course.
He's a photographer but heoutsourced this photography

(32:11):
course for wedding photographershow they can make money.
I think it cost him about$4,000 to pay someone to create
that course for him.
You just got them off Udemy andthen he sold that course for it
was a membership style thingfor $49 a month and he turned
that into a multimillion dollarbusiness within three years and
he sold it for $10 million, plusWow, to a corporate.

(32:35):
I love it.
That's a huge success.
So not every, not everyone,does that.
That's not a normal result, bythe way, but the point is it was
just that even I was surprised.
That was the that's the powerof doing these courses yourself,
I guess, and even I wassurprised because we've been in
the photography niche ourselvesover the years.
It's very lucrative.
So even in this day and age,the humble I call it inadverted

(32:58):
commerce, the humble photographyniche is still worth a fortune
because there's always someonewanting to know.
When you think about it, whatwe're trying to do is help
someone take better photos inwhatever the niche is it might
be weddings or whatever, butalso maybe how to make money out
of it.
And so what we, what Liz and Idiscovered and we see this with

(33:18):
all our clients as well the realsecret, we think, to making
money online with these digitalbusinesses is coming up with the
niche where you're helpingsomeone, where someone's going
into Google and they're lookingfor a solution.
It's not we don't make money bygetting eyeballs to funny cat
videos and entertaining stufflike that.

(33:38):
We've never.
I mean, you can do that, butthat's a lot of work.
What we do is we try andbasically just try and be
helpful.
So if you're, if you're anempathetic kind of person and
you like helping people, this iswhere you could really turn on
your creativity.
If you can figure out, okay,how can I sew better, or how can
I find the perfect crochetpattern, or how can I play

(33:59):
better golf or how can I fix upmy health, whatever but you want
to go niche within healthbecause it's very competitive.
But we've always learned onlinethat you can.
If you can help someone, thenyou stand a chance of ranking in
Google and people will beengaged on your website and
you're offering solutions andthen, hey, a certain percentage

(34:22):
of that will take an action andhopefully buy something.
But primarily, we're there tohelp people first and foremost
and it's really interesting youmentioned SEO, my favorite topic
, search engine optimization.
Well, google, in the last year,have released what they call
this new update to theiralgorithm and it's called the
helpful update and basicallythey're saying, in this day and

(34:43):
age of AI, guys, all you need todo is provide and they call it
literally helpful content, and Ithink that's probably the.
So we've been teaching this foryears.
You know, just try and answerpeople's questions, and that's
what Google lives and breathesby right.
But it's really cool how Googlenow just kind of laid it out in
a simple one page document.
You can go Google it.

(35:04):
It's on the, it's on the Googlewebmaster guides, but it's just
called the helpful update andliterally in my opinion, that's
probably the simplest way to getstarted making online.
Come up with helpful contentthat helps someone in a specific
niche and a way you go.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
That's pretty much Well and people do these like
lists.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, there's a lot you've got to learn behind that,
but it's a lot of fun and it'svery creative.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
When people don't understand.
Like you know, if you go on andyou type in a question how do I
lose weight?
Google's going to give you.
There's a, there's a, anaccordion menu on every search
page now and people haveprobably seen it, where it says
how do I lose weight?
Blah, blah, blah, what are thebest supplements?
It says, because people alsoask these questions.

(35:53):
So every time I do a blog now Iliterally I will, whatever I'm
doing a topic on, I will go andI will search that and then I'll
look for those questions and Ihave in my blog.
We created a on our WordPressblog.
We created a custom post typewhich is like a little extra
widget that you can createinside of WordPress for the FAQs

(36:14):
.
So I go in there and I copystraight up, copy the FAQs and
then I'll go into, I'll go intochat, gpt and I'll say hey,
answer these questions.
So we have our own content,right.
And then I send it through theAI copy detector.
Make sure it seems like it'shuman written.
If it isn't, we changed it up alittle bit.
And then on every single blogpost I just put all those.

(36:35):
I'll have like five to 10 ofthose suckers on every single
blog post and then the blog postitself will be a listicle which
is top 10, top five, whateverit is.
So people got a people love top10 lists, top five lists, top
10 lists for whatever reason.
And actually they love oddnumbers in headlines more than
they love even numbers.

(36:56):
So you're like seven topreasons to lose weight today.
Boom, here's the seven reasons,right.
And then you put your you'rethinking that, right.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
You put your, your, your, your webinar on exactly
that topic, on the, the joy ofcreating listicle articles like
why, why Google loves it, andand, like you said, odd numbers.
And when you think, adam, whatyou're doing there, it's exactly
what I was saying.
Ultimately, if you break downwhat you're doing or what you're
providing for a visitor isanswers to all their questions

(37:26):
because they're they're engaged,then and that's so too many
people I think think, oh, it'sall about just grabbing
attention any way we can.
What we teach is, if you canhelp people by answering their
questions, google loves you andyour visitors will love you.
And you think what you're doingthere like that's one of the
key techniques we teach is lookat those people also ask and

(37:48):
make sure you get that into yourarticles so that you can cover
the topic completely.
So it's really handy.
So, if someone is looking forthe best ways to lose weight,
when they come to your article,there's this complete, you know
there's there's a listicle 10top ways or seven top ways to
lose weight in 2023.
And and then there's also abunch of FAQs.

(38:09):
So the whole topics answeredand people are engaged.
Hopefully they read all yourarticle and they're engaged, and
then that feeds back to Google.
So Google Analytics is trackingthat, or Google themselves are
tracking that through theiralgorithm and that's how the
internet basically goes aroundis by providing really useful or
helpful content for people.
Once you crack that one, youcan definitely make money online

(38:33):
.
I love it Pretty much.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
The key skill in this day and age One of the cool
techniques I saw is a way to getaround having to go buy SEMrush
or all these other SEO tools isyou just go into Google and a
guy he'd start to type in youknow how to lose weight and then
he puts the letter A and theneverything that anyone could
write afterwards with letter Apops up.

(38:56):
Then he puts a, B, Everythingwith a B.
After that pops out, everythingis C.
See what I'm saying?
That's cool.
So, yeah, it was a really cooltechnique.
And there you go for for maybeyour next class, that's.
That's something people are.
People are starting to dooutside of just that accordion
menu that shows up on the SERP.
Yeah, you can literally do thator whatever it is you're trying

(39:16):
to do, you know, and then justput a boot.
It gives you a bunch of B bootgives you.
I'm going to write that down.
Yeah, love it.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
That's because we use all those you know tools like
Semrush and and Ahrefs, butwe're always on the lookout, for
I still love the good oldfashioned research of just using
Google itself and also it's.
It's called it's ads planetkeyword ad planet tool.
It's very powerful.
It's totally free.
Yes, that's a little bit geeky,like it did.

(39:46):
There's.
There's a bit too much data foryour average beginner to look
at that.
What you've just described is areally nice, simple thing that
anyone could understand and do.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Quite that, yeah when people could go into keyword
planner.
Yeah, they could go intokeyword planning.
You look for they havedifferent categories and you can
actually see how much moneycompanies are spending, how much
they're bidding on keywords.
So you look for things thatthey're spending a bunch of
money on where the competitionis actually low, absolutely.

(40:18):
So, there's a competitioncategory and then there's how
much money are these peoplespending?
And then there's how manysearch queries people have on
that topic every month.
So I mean you just filter it.
You say, ok, here's how muchmoney these people are spending
$40 a click and this is a realthing.
People spend.
Companies spend $40 for everytime somebody clicks on their

(40:41):
silly little text ad.
$40 in the competition could below.
Write a blog post about it.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
Oh yeah, that's that and that's how we do.
That's how we teach our keywordresearch.
That's basically what that'syou mentioned earlier, like what
are some of the metrics when itcomes into renovating these
websites?
That's what we're looking fornew keywords like that that we
can add to the website over thelife of the websites.
Not a it's not a get rich quickthing, like we've got to build

(41:10):
these or renovate these sitesover typically a 12 month period
, and but we're doing that sortof research.
That's the sort of research andmost of our clients I say all
of our clients love that processbecause it's quite creative,
it's good fun, that's the sortof thing you're sitting at home,
it's like a game.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
It's like a game to you once you start getting into
it, like checking the data andconstantly just massaging what
you're doing, your process andchanging it up, and it's just
it's fun.
I mean, I don't know, maybebecause I'm weird like that, but
I think it's fun and it's coolto see the progress, right as
long as you're seeing progress,and then you start going down
the rabbit hole with differenttechniques and all these things.

(41:51):
You know SEOs are out heredoing which a lot of them don't
like to share their littlesecrets and stuff.
They go work at Google andFacebook and everything.
But you know there's a lot ofbest practice stuff out there
that you can do.
That makes sense.
I mean, I know people that taketheir blog posts.
When they're done with them,they'll turn them into.
They'll use chat to PT now toturn them into slide decks and

(42:13):
then they'll take that slidedeck and they'll put it on slide
share and all these otherthings so they can get backlinks
from, you know, high rankingwebsites.
But there's some fun stuff thatyou can do.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Thing about web.
Yeah, it's very leveraged.
There's a lot you can do now.
Compared to, say, 10 years ago,it's a lot more leveraged with
website businesses.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
I think so when do you think, where do you think
all this is going?
So you know, more and morepeople are going to start to
understand that this is possible.
So the competition is probablygoing to be be more and more.
Now the you know the fruit hasgotten a little lower.
Now you can kind of pick thefruit right, because you got AI
that's going to help you outwith all this stuff.
You know, where do you see thisall going and evolving, because

(43:00):
you're so intimately involvedwith this over, say, the next
five years, 10 years, if youwanted to look out that far.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
Well, the good thing is, I think it's now like it's a
respected or mature marketplace, and when you think about it so
I'm lucky I've come fromremember traditional buying and
selling of traditional bricksand mortar businesses and I've
been through the GFC with that,plus the high interest rate

(43:27):
period we had here in Australia.
I watched my parents back inthe early 90s and I think what
you'll find is people say Iisn't this market flooded?
I just say no.
Now it's just like a normalbuying and selling of the
business, which has alwayshappened throughout the history
of mankind, and so to me it'sjust now.

(43:49):
The good news is there's alwaysgoing to be websites to buy and
sell, just like there's alwaysbeen bricks and mortar
businesses to buy and sell, andit will just trundle along as an
industry, just like so.
And people are worried that AIis going to change it or
whatever.
Not really, it's just.
I mean, obviously it's hugelydisruptive, but at the end of

(44:11):
the day, buying and sellingwebsites is just like buying and
selling a normal business.
Now it's a much more mainstream.
There's a lot of big buyers outthere, which opens up a lot of
opportunities for us small guysto get these small bargain sites
, build them up and sell themoff to the big guys, which has
always been around.
And when you think about it, inbricks and mortar world, that's
basically the key strategy thatyou do to make the big money.
If you want to make lots ofmoney out of this, that's a

(44:33):
really smart strategy.
So the good news is I see itjust like bricks and mortar.
Well, if the economy goes down,things get a bit tighter, but
online it's actually easierbecause you're not in debt to
the bank, you're not forking outmegabucks, so in some ways,
it's a lot safer when theeconomy goes down.
But of course, I think it'shere to stay.

(44:57):
Bottom line is we see it gettingbigger.
Now.
We're privy to inside data,with all the big website brokers
as well.
They tell us behind the sceneslook, here's the sales this
month of what we're selling interms of website deals, and
often a lot of these guys.
They're very open about it too.
They share it publicly as well.
You can go and see what theirsales figures are.

(45:17):
They're still going up.
Wow.
Basically, this is M&A.
This is a new M&A, mergers andAcquisitions category.
I guess that was never there,say, 10 years ago.
It's just new.
It's established.
Now it's got what 10 to 15years worth of history, and it's
just getting bigger becausethere's more websites on the

(45:39):
planet.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
Yeah, there's always going to be another website.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Yeah, that's right, and so there's always going to
be an opportunity to buy andsell, just like you know, it's
exactly the same as the samemarket, as real estate.
There's always a market, nomatter what the economy is doing
.
Ok, some people have got tosell stuff cheap.
There's always a marketplacefor buying and selling real
estate, as there is traditionalbricks and mortar business.
Now we've just got anothercategory, which is online
businesses.
So in that sense, I think it'svery, very exciting in the

(46:07):
future, and particularly with AI.
That's a game changer.
It's going to create moreopportunities than less long
term.
Now there's some things that wecan't predict with AI, but on
the whole and we're talking tolots of these brokers and lots
of owners of seven and eightfigure websites these are
significant.
You know they're makingmillions of dollars out of these
things.

(46:27):
None of them are worried aboutAI.
It's because people want real,helpful content.
As long as we're doing thatwith these sorts of sites, we're
good.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Well, I think you're kind of motivating me to go
start an AI website, a blog,because there's so much AI
software coming out and I'm surethey're involved in affiliate
stuff, right?
I mean, you've got, you've gotCopyai, you've got Jarvis or
Jasper or whatever they changedit to.
It's one of the two now.

(46:59):
Yeah, you've got.
I mean, there's tons of thesetools coming out and I'm sure
they've got funding and they'relike, hey, how do we get this
out in the world?
Well, we need people on YouTubeto talk about it.
We need popular blogs to talkabout it.
A buddy of mine, he started aFacebook group and it's chat GPT
for life and business, Ibelieve, is what it's called.

(47:19):
He started that maybe two orthree months ago and it's over
200,000 members now and they'regetting constant engagement.
Every post is receivingprobably over a hundred likes
and things like that.
He's got brands now coming tohim asking it how do I advertise
on your group?
You know what's the process.
He's like I don't know what theprocess is, I didn't think

(47:42):
about that.
You know like, and he runs adata center.
He's got his own data center inCovington.
My buddy, Chris Brock I'll givehim a shout out, but he yeah,
he just started this thing up.
The timing was right.
You know, he jumped on it early.
People were getting on Facebooklooking for this stuff, so,
paying attention to trends, whynot start a blog that talks
about AI and all the new stuffthat's coming out?

(48:03):
And people are there to findthe newest things, so they're
good.
You know when you say, hey,here's this new AI tool that's
coming out.
It doesn't look like anadvertisement, but it could be.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
No.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
And you're making money.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
So that's perfect.
And actually you just mentionedsomething, adam, too.
I'll give you listeners.
Another free tool that we useto find these sorts of trends is
just the, the, the good oldGoogle trends tool.
So that's free, just Google it.
It's called Google Trends andit literally just shows you
what's trending at the moment,and you can type in any niche

(48:40):
and like, say, you can put inthe words AI and it will show
you what are the keywords or thetopics in particular that are
trending.
And we also use that tool tolook for what we call evergreen
niches as well, which is, youknow, like photography or golf.
We just want to see a nice flatline or slightly growing.
And it's a.
It's a fascinating, it'stotally free, it's really good

(49:01):
fun to to look up niches.
So there's a.
There's a really good freeresearch tools out there these
days.
I love hearing stories likethat.
They like what your friendsdone because someone like him.
I was just straight awaythinking, oh man, he needs to be
selling advertising space onthere and, like you said, he's
already been approached.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
He's already been approached.
Wow, here's a tip for yourlisteners.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
Any website these days don't care what the topic
is If it's got eyeballs likelots of visitors.
You can sell advertising spaceto the big corporates because
they know that is targetedtraffic and they traditional
media is dying.
You know the returns aren't asgood, whereas on targeted
traffic you can have a websiteabout really obscure topic.

(49:42):
But that's in some ways that'sbetter for a corporate because
they know the only people thatare coming to that obscure topic
all they want to do is learnhow to play golf, say, or
whatever.
It is not that that's obscure,by the way, but you know what I
mean.
Like golfing schools, it's a nobrainer to advertise on there
100%.
So any website that has lots oftraffic you can sell

(50:04):
advertising space directly nowto big corporates.
Do you guys do?

Speaker 1 (50:08):
anything on YouTube, or you guys do have channels on
YouTube that sell particularthings.
I mean, I just recently starteda faceless YouTube channel
where I'm using Pictory, whichis an AI tool.
That and this is an affiliatething for them.
It's just something I use, butPictory is a.
You go into chat, you create ascript out of whatever the topic

(50:28):
is, you plug it in there and itwill create a video for you.
I mean, it's got this libraryof stock photos or videos and it
just plugs them in there.
You could use a voiceover withit and then you can.
You know you got your voiceoverthing and then you add music.
It's got all that stuff and youdon't have to be a video editor
or anything.
It's super easy to use.
So I just created a YouTubechannel for my marketing agency

(50:51):
and I just talk about.
It's called Marketing ProTrends and all I do is just do
that and it kind of.
You know, the AI voice isn'tthe greatest in the world.
It just it is what it is, butyou just put it out there and
you try to build that up as well, and then at some point, maybe
in the description, you put youraffiliate links and things like
that YouTube is the secondbiggest search engine.
People don't know that, yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
And I think it's interesting.
You mentioned that that's theYouTube.
Using YouTube as a onlinebusiness or as an adjunct to
what we do as an online business.
I think that's the new big gamechanger Now.
It's been around for the last10 years and we always teach
people.
Look, all things being equal,once you get more advanced, you

(51:34):
should put a YouTube channelwith no matter what website you
own and so, like you're asking,do we have a YouTube channel?
We have our digital investorsshow on YouTube and that just
started out with 100,000 peopleout with humble beginning like
interviews like this with reallycool case studies.
But now we're finding a lot ofprivate equity firms and big
corporates are starting to lookat that and see who's on there,

(51:57):
and it's more for us, ourpersonal YouTube channel, which
is the digital investor show.
It's more like a I guess, anetworking slash branding tool
for what we do here, teachingpeople out of you know by
websites.
But I think you're ontosomething there and it's
interesting.
I've done a few interviewsrecently with people where we're
starting to see the newmarketplace within our niche of

(52:21):
buying websites is buyingYouTube channels because they're
so valuable now and, likeyou've just pointed out, it's
actually a really smart question.
It's something that's caught meby surprise is a lot of people
out there are suddenly realizing, oh, youtube is hugely valuable
.
Therefore, is there a market inbuying and selling YouTube

(52:43):
channels?
And that's a brand new thing.
That's literally just in kindof the last year that now is
people are starting to pay a lotof attention to.
So if you're listening to thisand you're a bit more, you know
intermediate, I think Adam'sonto something here.
The YouTube channel thing is,all things being equal, we

(53:03):
highly highly recommend it.
I think that's the new growtharea going forward as well, and
you watch it.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
It's already starting , yeah it is Well, my God,
you've got those ones that justplay music, right, they just
play music and it's got ananimation and they just play
music and they get tons of hitsall the time.
Or what they do is they go in,yeah, or they'll go into and
they'll just.
They'll grab audio from amotivational speaker, right,

(53:31):
like you can do a search foranything on YouTube that is open
license, right, and then youjust grab clips of these, of
people that are motivationalspeakers you know Joe Rogan, you
know Goggins, all these otherguys and then you just put these
like people lifting weights andstuff and videos behind it.
I mean those channels and thoseare faceless channels.

(53:53):
Yeah, they're making so muchmoney, but think about this it's
just like any business, right,and you, being an M&A, you know
this, saying, you know you wantto work on the business, not in
the business.
And if you leave the business,if you're, if you are the sole
reason, your business does itsthing, you're the salesperson,
you perform the services.
That is not a sellable business, because they need you, right,

(54:16):
they need you.
They want you to be out of theprocess.
They want the business to workwithout you.
So if you walk away, thebusiness still runs, right.
Your sales process is tight.
You've got everything straight,right?
You know exactly what to do.
So the YouTube channels thatare faceless, that do not have a
personality behind them becauseit would suck to buy Mr Beast's
YouTube channel and then himdecide he wants to retire, like,

(54:40):
yeah, now it's not Mr Beastanymore, right, it's?
You know it needs to be.
If you could create a valuableYouTube channel, or if you could
find a valuable YouTube channelthat's producing these faceless
things and they've got a tightprocess, that's a.
That's a great business to buy.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
That's right.
That's an asset that'sleveraged and but also on
YouTube, the branding thing isis going to be important too,
because, well, it's not so mucha branding is it, it's got to be
.
I think more and more peoplewhere the goal is in this whole
industry is real.
You know everyone wants, don'talways want people are looking

(55:24):
for answers from real experience.
You know that's useful andhelpful.
That's the main, main thingthere.
And YouTube is a veryinteresting space and, like you
said, it's the world's secondbiggest search engine.
Obviously, you know Googleowner.
They bought it many years ago,one of the smartest acquisitions
they ever did, and that spaceis going is is definitely going

(55:49):
to become very interesting, andit's the perfect tool if you own
an online business, as well asa as a secondary backup to what
we do online.
So traditionally we haven'tbothered with social media
accounts and YouTube accounts oranything like that.
With our affiliate sites, wehaven't needed to, but these
days, if you want to turbocharge them, adding in a YouTube

(56:10):
channel is a brilliant strategy.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
I love it, I recommend it.
Well, and my wife she even youknow I I mentioned to you before
the show she's building out acourse on Kajabi, which, if
nobody knows what Kajabi is,kajabi is a way to build an
interactive course, it's a tool.
Then they host the course andall that and then you could put
that on Udemy or, I guess,teachable or one of those other

(56:32):
platforms and that's wherepeople find these courses and
buy them.
But you can also sell yourcourse, you know, through
affiliates.
So I guess you know one of hernumber one strategies once she
builds this thing is do you know, put it out on her network and
let her friends and family knowand tell them to share it.
But you really need to get itinto the hands of affiliates and

(56:53):
you need to get it out there.
We had a lady on our podcastprobably like maybe 10 podcast
episodes ago.
She built an SEO course doingthe same thing, put it out on
Udemy, made $4 million in fouryears selling her course.
Now she teaches other peoplehow to make courses and it's
great, yeah, and it's like, whywouldn't you do this?

(57:15):
It's crazy.
So, matt, like, yeah, but howdo people I mean find experts
like you.
I mean, are you, are you onlyworking with the bigger
companies?
Are you wanting to work with,you know, side hustlers?
Is there a course that they canbuy?
Like, how do people find, like,how do people take what's in
your head and your knowledge andyour understanding and use it
for their, for their thing?

Speaker 2 (57:38):
Well, the good news is we we definitely don't work
with the big companies.
We specialize working with,typically, corporates or people
who are burnt out, people thatwork nine to five or, these days
, five to nine and want to earna side hustle.
So that's why I love whatyou're doing, and so we
specialize in teaching beginnershow to buy or build online

(58:01):
businesses, and we run coursesin that here at the E Business
Institute.
We have a lot of clients in theUS, so this strategy works
everywhere.
Obviously, we we startedteaching this to Australians, to
Aussies, but these days we run,you can do like our free
masterclass.
We've got a 19 minutemasterclass.
If anyone's interested, theycan jump on our website,
ebusinessinstitutecomau, and Isee lots of examples there of

(58:24):
actually how you like ouroverall strategy of how you buy,
renovate and then sell websites, and we we're very passionate
about my wife and I, liz,teaching beginners, because that
was our journey when we firstgot into business.
It was really tough and we madelots of mistakes, and so now we

(58:46):
give back by teaching beginnerswhen we're not.
We don't really teachintermediate or advanced people.
We love teaching beginners, asdo all our coaches here.
All our coaches are people thathave done our course and
they're the same no onlineexperience whatsoever.
For us, it's personal buzz.
That's how we, that's how we'rehelpful.
You know, we teach people.

(59:07):
We're good at breaking downcomplex topics into actionable
businesses that work andobviously we've got a lot of
experience as well.
So if anyone's interested andthey want to get what's in our
head, I'd suggest he's a plugfor us.
Jump on our website and checkus out.
Just go and look at our successstories.
Go and look at what our clientsare doing and consider doing

(59:29):
our free masterclass.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
That's awesome, matt.
Well, all this will be in theshow notes, in the description
guys, if you want to go in thereand take a look.
But, matt, yeah, this is great.
I mean, we're on the same page.
I think we both.
You know you found success.
Obviously I'm doing well.
You know, at some point youreally want to, you want to help

(59:51):
other people and it reallyfrustrates you to see people
struggling, not being able topay their bills.
We're in probably a globalrecession.
We're going into one, at leastin most countries, and it's it's
rough knowing that we're headedin this direction and people
are not in a position to,they're not prepared.
They're not prepared and it'sgoing to hit people like a ton

(01:00:14):
of bricks.
And you've got it.
You've got to starttransitioning.
You need a side hustle.
You have to have something elsethat could eventually.
I mean and you're doing thisfull time and now you know
you've done it so many times.
Now you could teach people, yep, and it's, it's, it's
fulfilling, it's enjoyable.
This is something like hey,look, I love buying and selling

(01:00:35):
businesses and making a bunch ofmoney, but at the same time,
you go and into work every day,you go and talk to these people
and it's crazy to watch themsucceed.
I mean, you shared a couple ofstories.
It's amazing.
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, well, it's very similarto what I love, what you're
doing with your podcast.
That's the message we want toget out is, like Warren Buffett
says, you can't rely on yourincome anymore and you need a
side hustle of building it onthe side.
The side hustle is where Lizand I started and and all our
clients do, and this isleveraged and safe, because I'm

(01:01:10):
like you, adam.
I think the world is headed fora recession at some point, and
it might not be a good one, andyou need to do it with low risk.
That's the one thing we'venoticed over the years helping
people in M&A.
We've seen people take too muchrisk on in the form of debt,
and we're very Liz and I likebeing debt free.
That's what?

(01:01:31):
Because cash is king in themiddle of a recession.
Yes, when you can make the mostmoney If you have zero debt and
you can then take advantage ofthe opportunities that are about
to come up, you watch what'sgoing to happen out there.
There's going to be awesomebusinesses to buy for cents in
the dollar, because people justneed the cash.
So that's the other thing we'repreparing for and, at the very

(01:01:53):
least, it's safe, but I don'tneed to take risk, nor should
you listen to.
So you know, if you'reinterested in this stuff,
consider website businesses,because they're so in our
experience not giving financialadvice, but in our experience
there are a lot lower risks thantraditional bricks and mortar.
But that's right.
I'm, of course, biased on thatone.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
Well, my Aussie friend, gary he lives down in
Fort Lauderdale, florida.
He grew up in Melbourne, livedunder a bridge, he was orphaned.
When he was 12 years old and hewas homeless, came to America
somehow I can't even rememberhow he told me he got to America
, started working on boats,created a yacht building

(01:02:35):
business at some point, sold itfor $60 million.
He was the only only personthey didn't have any investors
or anything sold it for $60million.
I went to his house one time.
He's a huge yacht in the backof his he's right on the
intercoastal not on theintercoastal, he's on a you know
, and they have all these littlefinger islands you know these

(01:02:55):
and you park your boat behindyour house and then you get off
your boat and you just walk intothe back door.
So he lives in one of theseplaces and he opens up his
garage and he's got like fourcars in there Rolls Royce,
phantom, a McLaren, all thesecars.
And I said, man, that's crazy.
He said how much do you thinkthat Phantom cost?
I was like I don't know, it's a$350, $400,000 car, $100,000.
And I said how'd you get that?

(01:03:17):
I was like how'd you get it for$100,000?
He said I'm in the miserybusiness.
I said what's the miserybusiness?
He said everybody that livesaround me.
Eventually, some of them getinto tax trouble.
They all live above their means.
They're using debt to pay fortheir lifestyle.
They want to live thislifestyle but they're really not
earning that much money andincome.
He said, eventually, the taxmay incomes.

(01:03:39):
They have to pay their bill andthey look for people like me to
sell their stuff to.
He's like and I just buy it,it's coming and you got to have
cash.
Right, you got to have cash Ifyou're going to be in the misery
business, which is he doesn'tlike being in the misery
business, but it is what it isand he's a businessman.
So, yeah, there they are, youknow, and you don't want to be

(01:04:01):
in the other position.
You want to be in the positionto buy, not in the position
where you have to sell.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Yep, absolutely so.
Cash is king.
That's that's the thing we'velearned in business after 30
years High cash flow.
Business is rock.
You're not.
I don't want to ever bebeholden to banks again.
That's how.
That's our number one rule.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
And you don't want to sit on inventory.
That's why we do what we do andyou don't want to be sitting on
a whole bunch of inventory.
You spend a bunch of money onthat.
You can't move.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
Especially in a recession, not good.

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
That's right.
Well, matt, this has been apleasure.
I thank you for joining me suchearly, you know, and really
early in Australia there and Iappreciate it and I think
everybody's listeningappreciates it and hopefully
some people reach out to you andget it together you know
Awesome, it's been a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
I don't think so much for having me on my on your
show.
It's just on the road, Allright, Matt thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of Side
Hustle City.
Well, you've heard from ourguests.
Now let's hear from you.
Join our community on Facebook,Side Hustle City.
It's a group where people shareideas, share their
inspirational stories andmotivate each other to be
successful and turn their sidehustle into their main hustle.
We'll see you there and we'llsee you next week on the show.

(01:05:17):
Thank you.