Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Featured-6.png)
How do you know that it's time to quit with our Online Business Ideas? How can we see that pivoting and getting away from business ideas that don't work will help us to have the most online business ideas that are valuable? Which things have I quit recently and how may I help you during this live stream?
What I'll do is talk about the things I've just recently quit i.e. the big changes to my online business and help you to get answers to anything you are thinking about.
I'm Jerry Banfield and I'm very grateful to be here with you today as a full-time Youtuber who does live streams every day. I trust that when you want more of these, you'll hit the subscribe button on my Youtube channel or go follow on Facebook.
What's the biggest change I've made recently?
![Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-368-1030x579.png)
This is the biggest change I've made recently for the first time on jerrybanfield.com/contact. I've made it so that anyone can text me messages, Whatsapp or email me very easily and it does come directly to my phone or by email.
I've also got paid workshops and one-on-one calls.
How do you know that it's time to quit with our Online Business Ideas? What I'm doing now is I stopped doing my show. I just worked for like a month and spent hundreds of dollars and lots of time to get up to a local show set up. Last night, I did the first show and nobody showed up.
I think this is an indication to do something different. Now, I haven't lost the vision for what I'm doing. The vision is talking, teaching, and speaking for people.
![Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-369-1030x579.png)
However, having my own show and selling tickets to it when I've messaged and talked to lots of people and not one person came to the first show, that is an indication to adjust the details of how I do it and for me to open myself up more to speaking engagements locally where audiences already are and speakers are already needed.
To me, I try things with my online business ideas and if they don't have at least a little bit of positive reinforcement to start with then I adjust the details but I stick with the vision.
The great thing that came out of doing this is I've now got these online workshops which are the easiest way to get into a video call with me and really get some hands-on help and that was a product of doing my local shows.
![Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-370-1030x579.png)
I realized, “Well, I'm trying to do these local shows, why don't I just do an online workshop and make it available?" This was one of the online business ideas I had.
I failed my local shows. I spent a month setting things up, promoting it and nobody came to the first show and nobody seemed to be interested in coming to any of the next shows. You could say I failed but for me, that is (a) learning how not to do things and (b) the adjustments I've made as a function of that are really good.
I imagine making my contact information available for the first time in my business will lead me to connect more with you than I've ever been able to before and I thank Tom Bradford for turning me on to this into the workshop we had yesterday. I work on my Online Business Ideas.
Tom was talking about how he gets almost all his customers. First into a Whatsapp conversation, then into a call and then they become his clients that way. I thought “Wow! Why am I making it so hard for people to contact me when so many people have expressed a desire to contact me?”
![Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-371-1030x579.png)
The newest thing I'm talking about is the value of quitting. When you've got something that's not working, how do you quit faster and not set it up in a way that's a total loss? How do you know that it's time to quit with our Online Business Ideas?
For example, doing my show and having nobody show up was not a total loss because I've learned a lot from it and I've grown. I saw a question somebody asked the other day is Jerry, how can you keep doing what you do and so many things that went wrong? How do you have so much energy?
The energy is in the learning, growing and then connecting with people. I'm finally making it easier to get connected with me today. I am grateful that I'm willing and I've got a system where you can text and email me directly for the first time ever.
![Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-372-1030x579.png)
How do you know that it's time to quit with our Online Business Ideas? The biggest challenge that has been in my business was knowing when to quit. I have been particularly persistent this year with building up my platform Uthena for online courses and it took me tens of thousands of dollars to persist in areas that I'm glad I've just stopped with now.
I've spent like a hundred thousand to get Uthena built up and to really expand my business in the best way that I've done in years to learn to grow to try new things to fail all over the place. I've been spending so much money telling myself I gotta spend money to make money.
I've been spending so much money. I was getting really stressed out and thankfully, I finally got reasonable and said okay I'm gonna cut my expenses to the bare minimum. I've learned a lot. I'm in the best position to earn and serve that I've ever been in.
![Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-373-1030x579.png)
Thus, the biggest challenge this year is when to quit and adjust? These are the periods of testing that look like huge success. For example, when I was on Udemy for a couple of years and made millions of dollars in sales and over six hundred thousand in earnings.
What you didn't see were years where I tested, struggled, and failed so many different things through my online business ideas. I found so many ways not to do it and all that I learned allowed me to put together something that worked really well and I feel that's what I'm in the middle of now.
How do you know that it's time to quit with our Online Business Ideas? There's a big difference between quitting your entire vision versus quitting the specific details. That's the key to when you quit.
For me, I'm quick to quit on details. I am very slow to quit and drop a vision or an imagination. For example, I'm imagining doing live speaking events in front of audiences. I have that as a vision. I love doing that. I'm very good at it and audiences love listening to me talk.
![Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-374-1030x579.png)
I've got comments several times when I've done guest lectures people have said: Wow! That's the best my class has ever reacted to or you're the best guest speaker we've ever had here.
For example, in a criminal justice class, they had all kinds of guest speakers. Politicians come through and they tell you they're the best guest speaker I've ever seen in this class. Therefore, that's my vision and I love doing that. I love speaking and I love talking.
However, what I just quit on was the details of how I was executing that. Instead of setting up my own show locally, why don't I just go do what other people's shows where other people need someone to speak. Why don't I just be more available?
![Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-375-1030x579.png)
I realized that I need to put my contact information directly out there instead of trying to make it difficult. I've made it difficult to contact me over the last few years because I often would get too many messages all at once and then I just kind of cut everything off instead of just doing my best to make systems to respond to things.
That's what I'm learning and for any area of life, knowing when to quit and what to stick with seems to be really helpful. For example, a relationship can be a similar thing. Do you quit the relationship and at what point do you do that?
I'm grateful. I was very quick to quit relationships before I met my wife because then I was single and available for her. Whereas, if I would have stayed in relationships that weren't fulfilling for longer, I might not have been available to have then the best relationship.
I look at it the same way as my online business ideas. The worst thing I can do in my business is to be busy with things that aren't serving the most that aren't giving or doing the most. Therefore, I must constantly clear out things that are not getting some kind of response. Even if it's just a little bit of positive feedback, I must clear those out.
![Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-377-1030x579.png)
For example, in the workshops, thanks to Tom Bradford, one person immediately scheduled the first workshop and now Michael went and scheduled another workshop right away.
When I started my partner program, people immediately started joining. If there weren't waves at first but at least one person immediately joined. Meanwhile, I've done the local events. Not one person has come to any local event I've done. Therefore, why don't I just go to other people's local events? That seems to make a lot of sense.
Every time I quit something though, I take with me all of that learning. I bring with me all of that experience and out of what you might seem like failures, I've got these online workshops. I now have a great system for my contact because before, I didn't have a good system to kind of work through and to recommend once someone contacted me where to go from there.
![Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-378-1030x579.png)
Now, I'm available to answer questions and messages. However, what you can expect is you send me a message, I'll give you a quick answer. If you send another message, I suggest coming to an online workshop or scheduling a one-on-one call.
Thus, I'm available to give a bit of value for free. In my opinion, if the online workshop is something you're not willing to go to then we probably don't need to talk anymore either depending on the exact subject of it.
So, out of my failure so to speak of doing my show in the short-term, in the long-term I still imagine doing the show. Out of what looks like a failure in the short-term of my show, I've got a lot of creativity and growth.
![Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-379-1030x579.png)
Therefore, I've quit more things this year than I've quit in the last several years combined and if you want to grow in life, it's often a function of how much are you willing to fail and test new things.
I see lots of people selling systems online and the problem is, most systems people will sell you and say, "Look, if you're a personal trainer, you just do this, this, this, and this and your business will grow. "
NOT necessarily.
What I've found is you really need to set up your own system, especially online. You need to build your own business. You need to uniquely mix all of your talents and when you mix all of your talents and skills in a unique way then that you can have the maximum potential to really help people.
![Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-380-1030x579.png)
What it's really all about is helping people. If I'm helping you get what you want, if I'm giving you a lot of value, I'm certain that you will help me back.
The biggest thing I've done is just set up a new system where anyone can contact me directly via text message in the US or Canada, directly on Whatsapp anywhere else email and I've got all that up for the first time ever. So, that's kind of a big deal.
How do you know that it's time to quit with our Online Business Ideas? What I like about quitting things is it frees me up to do new things and now, as soon as I've quit my show, I've immediately got 2 more ideas and it's so much fun. I remember the question other days, how do you have so much energy? How are you so excited?
![Online Business Ideas: How to Know When to Call it Quits and Pivot](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-381-1030x579.png)
I'm having fun. This is fun. I'm testing out new things. I'm playing around. This is my dream job and I'm okay with failing. I'm okay with having things not go as I expected.
What's really fun is just to test things out and see what works like these live streams, they are working great. I love all the viewer comments and interactions. If you're doing something that's not working, especially online that you're willing to quit, quit and be available to try something new.
When I started my business, it took me about a year of relentlessly failing before I got anything to start working well. What I noticed is that if I got into the right subject and the right service, things would start working a little bit almost immediately.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-382-1030x579.png)
Now, some things wouldn't work much more than a little bit but there was some positive reinforcement from the universe almost right away.
Ramsai: Why did Udemy ban you?
That's a great question, Ramsai. That encourages me to pick a point of view to look at it. To me on the highest level, I believe that's direction from the universe for me to do something else and I'm very grateful today that Udemy gave me a final suspension on my account.
That opened me up to so much learning and so much growth that I would not have experienced otherwise. I was so focused on Udemy, I couldn't see what else was going on and as soon as the suppressed suspension came, I had a lot of innovation, growth, and testing in my online business ideas.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-383-1030x579.png)
That's when I got into cryptocurrencies. That's when I did a lot of live game streaming. I've tried music. I've had a very fun and amazing adventure over the last 3 years since not being on Udemy and today I'm in the best position to serve that I've ever been in.
I've learned so much and I've got a lot to contribute to. I have a lot of compassion, understanding, and empathy for other full-time online entrepreneurs like me because I see that it's tough online. If you're on a website like Udemy, Upwork, Fiverr, Skillshare, it's very easy to get either penalized or banned completely and lose everything.
With my understanding of that, I'm in a good position to help others and I've got great motivation, for example, on my Uthena platform. I've got the great motivation to offer students a better deal than Udemy and instructors a better deal than Udemy as well.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-384-1030x579.png)
Thus, that to me is the most real reason. In fact, what I can also see is that I thought about being banned from Udemy a lot before it happened. I remember being afraid of getting banned a lot from Udemy.
Therefore in that way, I summoned and I requested the experience.
If you want to ask me something privately, for the first time, I've made it super easy. The page might take a while to cache. I just updated it. It might take a little while to try it. If it doesn't have my phone number and Whatsapp on it in the new format, just give it a little while.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-385-1030x579.png)
Michael has signed up for a workshop. Michael is the second person that I've seen since I launched the workshops last week. Meanwhile, get free access to all the workshops with my partner program.
I've quit other things I was doing to start doing these workshops. The workshops have been extremely helpful to me. The main thing I do is get on a video call and listen during a workshop. I'm excited Michael and I are about to do a workshop in an hour or so.
All Think: How to earn money on a mobile phone?
Here's what I can give you that I hope is useful. The questions I ask determine my results.
The more generally I ask and the bigger the question is, the better results I get. For example, I could give you suggestions like to go on Upwork and Fiverr to learn skills on your phone. I can give you a lot of suggestions.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-386-1030x579.png)
The number one suggestion I have on your phone to make money is to get connected, network with people, help people on your phone and learn skills on your phone that are valuable. That, to me, is the best way to use your phone to make money.
That said, the bigger the question you can ask instead of asking how do you make money on your phone maybe you can ask the question, how can I help a lot of other people get what they want?
If you can ask that question then you will certainly get probably a lot more money in return and that's what I do. I ask how may I serve today? How may I help today? Who may I help today? This is why I often quit a lot of ideas quickly.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-387-1030x579.png)
I often will quit ideas pretty quickly if they're not giving me the chance to serve.
Thus, try asking how may I help? How may I serve today? Then you're very likely to get some results that are way beyond what seemed reasonable in a relatively short time.
Before I started asking, how may I help and how may I serve, I really struggled to make any money and keep any money that I made. The more I asked how may I help? How may I serve? How much easier is it for me to help people?
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-388-1030x579.png)
It is by updating and making my phone number and my email right out there.
The amount of money that comes back is incredible, much more than when I used to ask how do I make $10,000 a month?
Carlos: How's Uthena going?
Carlos, Uthena is going awesome. I've been loving Uthena for just a little while after thinking about selling it. I had a day where I kind of broke down a little bit. I'm like, this is stupid and I'm gonna sell it but Uthena is going awesome.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-389-1030x579.png)
We have an incredible deal for students. We have 427 video courses now. These courses have been selected as courses that have been highly rated on Udemy. We've got 427 courses for less than $1 each when you buy Uthena University.
You get all the courses we add forever at no additional cost. The people who bought it when it had 200 courses, it has already got 200+ more added.
Well, I think I'm going to raise the price of Uthena scholars because this is the main thing people have been signing up for. $9.81 a month and you get access but then whenever you cancel, you don't get access to any of them.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-390-1030x579.png)
Uthena is going great and I just worked out giving a percentage of ownership to Michel who's been doing so much like uploading the courses and responding to support. I'm now giving Michel a percentage of ownership now instead of paying him hourly.
That helps me out a lot to reduce expenses and that helps him out a lot to have much more earning potential than just working hourly.
Ramsai: I'm not getting more students on Udemy, how can I increase my course sales?
If you want to increase your course sales for Udemy, the first suggestion is to make sure your course is on Udemy, Skillshare, StackCommerce and Uthena. From what I understand, I think you're working with Michelle to get the course up, but you already have some of your courses or videos up on Uthena.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-391-1030x579.png)
Do you have them on Skillshare? Although I remember you correctly, if you're taking hacking courses, you can't put those on Skillshare but those can do really well on Stackcommerce.
Also, search my youtube channel. Take a look at that search button and look for my StackCommerce videos if you want to see them.
Here's a video that I'll suggest you watch or read the post: Start Teaching on YouTube, Udemy, Skillshare, StackCommerce and Uthena Today!
Once you've got your courses in all these different places, the best way to make sales is to put up a YouTube video previewing your course. Put the first half of your course up and then sell it.
I recommend selling it on Uthena because, on Udemy, you just can't make that much money selling your courses over the lifetime when compared to the value of the student.
When you bring a student that buys thousands of dollars to Udemy, all you get is whatever they buy of your courses and they have to use your promo code immediately. If they don't do that, you only get half of whatever they buy on your courses.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-392-1030x579.png)
When you bring students to Uthena, you get 50% of whatever they buy for life on Uthena.
If you bring someone in and they don't even buy your course, for example, if you bring them in and they subscribe Uthena Scholars, you get $5 a month for them being subscribed. If they buy the Uthena University bundle, you get half of that.
The partner program is a service. So, it's a smaller sale. It's 10% on that but you'll see since it's a service.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-393-1030x579.png)
You get 50% on courses and bundles and if there's a service, you get 10% of that. The nice thing is that the services cost a lot of money generally, for example, if you brought somebody and they ended up becoming a partner, you get almost $30 a month off of that indefinitely.
Therefore, that's my suggestion to make more core sales. I've set Uthena up as the best platform for you to be able to make more sales.
On Udemy, you can also give away free coupons. Giving away free coupons will help you get some reviews whereas, that can get you some bad reviews sometimes though which can bring your rating down and reduce your sales but usually having more students and more reviews gives you the best chance to succeed on Udemy.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-394-1030x579.png)
Therefore, you can give free coupons away on jerrybanfield.com/freecourses. You can put your free coupons on there. You can just use the contact page or we will get a form to submit your coupons but for now, you can just use the contact page.
Once your course is doing well in making some sales on Udemy, the ideal thing to do is just film and add additional videos to it and make your course the longest best course on the subject.
If you want more, I just did a 5 marketing tips on Udemy video on YouTube or you can read the blog post at How to Sell Udemy Courses 2019! 5 Step Marketing Plan for More Instructor Earnings!
If you'd like to join us, we've got one-hour workshops. You can join me for a video call. These are really fun and the main purpose I do these for is to allow me to listen to you.
When I can see you on video, when you can show me your screen if you need to on whatever you're doing, these are really good.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-395-1030x579.png)
I intend to go live once a day every day and maybe take a day or so off a week. I appreciate you being here. If you want to make sure you see all the new videos, I trust you hit that subscribe button, turn those notifications on and/or hit that follow button on Facebook. Put the See First and turn notifications on Facebook.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://jerrybanfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image-396-1030x579.png)
If you've got any questions, for the first time ever in my business online, I've got all my information out there very easy for you to contact me and ask anything.
I love you. You are awesome. Thanks for being here with me today and I'll see you on the next one.
Love,
Jerry Banfield
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://jerrybanfield.com/online-business-ideas/
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://s18.postimg.org/51o0kpijd/play200x46.png)
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.
Thank for upvote I back to upvote