Every year, we change from one year to another, but last year it seemed that we were changing from one tier to another!
This is a time to reflect on how things have gone for us, especially since 2020 was the strangest year in our lifetime.
Of course, there have been losers, but there have been massive winners too.
People running or adapting to an online business models have seen their wealth grow, while many traditional retailers have collapsed.
The point is, it’s not the economy that matters is YOU and your U’Conomy
Brexit has happened and the UK is now out of the European Union, but not out of Europe.
We are entering an exciting new phase for the United Kingdom, which is now free to trade with the rest of the world on its own terms.
For most people, life will go on unchanged, but there will be changes to our lives.
If you run a business which exports imports goods you will need more paperwork. Companies like Amazon have already informed their sellers about what they need to do.
The UK is largely a service-based economy and you can easily start a business offering services.
Before Christmas most of the country went into higher tier restrictions and the Port of Dover was lined up with lorries on the motorway while the French blockaded the port of Calais – nothing new about that sort of behaviour from a country which still wants to fish in British waters after we leave the European Union!
The UK was effectively put under martial law, with much of our freedoms and rights removed as we were told that we could not travel to different parts of the country.
Will I need a Visa to go to Spain? I doubt it. EU passports were always checked or scanned. It was just quicker to stand in the EU line rather than the non-EU passport queue.
Have you made a whole bunch of new year’s resolutions? It’s at this time of year when most people would join a gym or start a diet. This might not be possible at the moment, but our intentions are still good even if we don’t always stick to them.
If your goal is to make more money will become financially free, then you’re in the right place. This year I will continue to bring you money tips to help you save and invest accumulate and enjoy more money.
As we see many shops and physical businesses struggling, the fact is there has never been a better time to start an online business.
Parcel deliveries and online purchases reached record levels last year.
At the same time, we saw a major retailers like Debenhams, John Lewis, Arcadia and others close down stores or go into administration.
Whilst it’s true that the coronavirus pandemic acted as a catalyst to speed up the decline of the High Street, the fact is some had been in decline for a number of years.
Despite this, small businesses continue to open up shops and other physical businesses investing tens of thousands of pounds in the hope that customers would come through the door.
I have seen so many small shops come and go in the last five years that I despair.
Traditional retail businesses work on the basis of finding somewhere in the town centre where there is footfall, and opening up a premises which they usually rent from a commercial landlord who requires the owner to sign a lease with a personal guarantee. This means that unlike Arcadia’s billionaire owner Sir Philip Green, they are personally liable for the lease rental payments.
They invest tens and even hundreds of thousands of pounds of their hard-earned savings, redundancy money or money borrowed against their home to open up a shop, fit it out and buy stock.
Then they have rent, business rates, salaries, taxes and other running costs which let’s say cost them a further £50,000 a year - £1000 per week.
The owners never seem to work out that you have to sell a lot of items costing between £1 and £10 just to cover the thousand pounds per week running costs, let alone your normal start-up costs.
In most cases, the same business could be set up online through an Amazon store EBay or shopify for free, or at a fraction of the cost.
There would be no staff costs or salaries, business rates and rent to pay. You would not even have to buy and store stock as this could be fulfilled from the supplier of the goods being sold.
More importantly, the business concept could be market tested at a tiny fraction of the cost and time it takes to open a physical shop and find out six months down the road that people did not actually want the stuff that you were selling or could buy it cheaper elsewhere. In other words, someone opening an online business can avoid bankruptcy and financial ruin and would not even have to give up the daytime job whilst starting the business.
I think you get the message. It is absolute madness for most businesses to open a shop in the High Street unless they have something that is tried and tested online and very deep pockets, like Apple.
Even fast food can be sold and run online from non-retail sites.
Most people don’t realise that companies like Amazon, eBay and Groupon have actually given smaller retailers the opportunity to compete with the giants.
Amazon largely acts as a matchmaker for people selling their products to Amazon customers. It has made its owner, Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men on the planet.
Huge companies like Uber and Airbnb, which made it stock-market debut last year, do not actually own cars or properties. They put customers in touch with hosts for a commission in the middle. These companies have become so successful and disruptive, that traditional businesses want to have them banned from their cities.
Did you know that you could also start a business acting as a matchmaker and selling other people’s products? That’s right, you don’t even have to invent or manufacture a product. There are millions of companies which will pay you a commission for introducing a customer to the product or service.
Furthermore, you can set up an ‘affiliate marketing’ business - selling other people’s products - part time, for very little cost and run the business on your laptop or smartphone from your home or anywhere in the world for that matter!
You don’t have to give up your job, re-mortgage your house or gamble your life savings to start making money online.
Okay, if it’s that easy then why isn’t everybody doing it? Well, first of all millions of people are doing it, so you should be asking yourself why are you not doing it!
In reality, the vast majority of people are simply not aware that this opportunity even exists. They think you have to invent a product or write a book or literally ‘reinvent the wheel’ in order to start a business.
People spend years writing and perfecting a book or an idea only to find that nobody wants to buy it. You see people on shows like Dragons’ Den or Shark Tank who have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on a product which they, or their relatives, thinks that everybody needs, but sadly nobody wants.
I can hear some of you saying, “I’ve tried that affiliate marketing and it doesn’t work. “
Like any business, you need to know what you’re doing and will need to invest some time in learning.
Fortunately, there are now many free resources and very inexpensive courses which can help you get started…watch this space!
A have happy and successful 2021!
There are more examples and practical steps to getting rich and being happy in my book, Yes, money can buy happiness, I cover the 3 R’s of Money Management, the Money B.E.L.I.E.F System and much more. Check it out on Amazon http://bit.ly/2MoneyBook.
If you’d like further information on wealth mentoring and coaching, how to survive the crisis and even quit the rat race, email me at Charles@CharlesKelly.net or send me a message through Facebook or my Money Tips Daily community. See more articles at www.moneytipsdaily.com
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