How Not To Start An Online Business - #279

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, beautiful people, welcome back. My guest today is Jonny. Without Yusef, we're talking about the wild west of creating money on the internet. Given the living hell that real businesses have been through with Covid, many budding entrepreneurs are trying to get some of that sweet, sweet internet money. So today, expect to learn the biggest tips Jonny has learned over 10 years of working on the internet, the fundamentals of creating an online business, why traffic and conversions are life, the most common problems everyone makes, and much more. It's just nice. Even if you're not planning and starting an online business, it's really good to understand the dynamics of how it works. And if you are thinking of doing it, you need to know the fundamentals. You need to understand why you should build alongside your audience, how organic and paid strategies go together. And there is no one better on the planet to talk about this than Mr. Jonathan Watson from PropaneFitness. Also, if you like this and you want to find out more, you can head to propanefitness.com/mwbusiness. And that is a free online business training that is not just for fitness professionals, but for absolutely everyone, propanefitness.com/mwbusiness. I hope that it helps. This seems like the sort of episode that really could help to broaden your horizons about how you can make money. In other news, this episode of the podcast is brought to you by fitbook.co.uk. If you are a fitness professional, before you think about pivoting online, you need to sort out what's happening in the real world. And fitbook.co.uk are the best place to go. Fitbook are the first company in the UK who provide the public with vetted and monitored health and fitness professionals. Everyone on the site is DBS checked and their work is monitored, which means that you are only alongside high quality other fit pros. Members say that their business wouldn't have survived 2020 if it wasn't for Fitbook. Corporate Livewire awarded them the health and fitness business of the year, and with the Modern Wisdom discount code, it works out at 38p per day, which is far cheaper than pretty much any other marketing that you could do. So head to fitbook.co.uk/modernwisdom and use the code modernwisdom for 50% off your Fitbook membership. You can constantly generate passive leads and clients just by having a membership with Fitbook for 38p per day. And if you're a customer who wants to find a fitness professional in your area, then you can browse all the vetted and checked fit pros for free. fitbook.co.uk/modernwisdom if you are a fit pro and just fitbook.co.uk if you are a customer. But for now, it's time to learn how not to start an online business with Jonathan Watson.
Jonathan Watson, welcome to the show.

**Jonathan Watson** (3:02)
Hey Chris, thanks for having me on.

**Chris Williamson** (3:05)
Feels like we're missing something today.

**Jonathan Watson** (3:06)
I know, I know. The third square.

**Chris Williamson** (3:10)
Missing a scone shaped, like raisin and almond scone shaped hole. Yusef is saving lives, whereas me and you just spend all our time on the internet. So I thought I'd get ahold of you today and just record a rogue podcast. What are we gonna be talking about?

**Jonathan Watson** (3:28)
Well, the internet, basically, or how people make money using the internet. So I guess the broad subject would be online business, building an online business, starting an online business. And it's pretty common at the moment, isn't it?

**Chris Williamson** (3:45)
Very much so.

**Jonathan Watson** (3:46)
I mean, a lot of people know, they're either thinking about it.

**Chris Williamson** (3:49)
You can't make money anywhere else. There is no money to be made in real person at the moment.

**Jonathan Watson** (3:54)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I suppose even people who go to offices or have worked in an office their entire life are now basically living the same life as someone who's been a digital entrepreneur their entire life. So everyone's working from home. There's a lot of remote working. But yeah, so I suppose this is something that I've been doing with Yusef for quite a while since 2010-ish, officially. I think we actually incorporated the business. I don't know whether you know this, Chris, but I think we actually incorporated propane in your flat in Jesmond.

**Chris Williamson** (4:31)
Yeah, I seem to remember that. So you've been running an online business for over a decade. And now the main source of your business is teaching other people to run an online business. So if there is anybody on the internet that can tell us how to start an online business, how not to, it's you.