Even though senior citizens are one of the fastest growing demographics for starting an online business endeavor, you’ll often find most of the courses geared toward younger generations who want to build a full time business as a replacement for a traditional future career.
But the fact is, many seniors are caught in this hybrid space where they want to enjoy a retirement lifestyle, but still need or want to earn money. This may mean you don’t want to work 40 hours a week building a brand and growing an enormous business entity.
And that’s okay. When you look at what other courses often teach, it’s a slow growth process, which can be frustrating to seniors who want to see success sooner. You’re taught to pick a niche, build a website and optimize it, and more.
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to start from scratch and immerse yourself in complicated technology while you waste months getting everything set up before it pays off for you.
You already have everything you need to start earning online, and you can do it with the simplest, low tech solutions that play to your current strengths rather than push you into developing skills you don’t want or care to spend time on.
Many seniors mistakenly believe they’re behind the curve when it comes to competing for business online. But the truth is, you have something younger entrepreneurs don’t, which includes experience and knowledge – and the patience to make your passion a profitable dream come true.
Whether it’s an idea you have based on your previous career or a hobby you engage in that can be monetized online, you won’t have restrictions placed on you when it comes to how you earn and how much you work.
You want to know how to create a moneymaking business that fits into your life – not one that upends your life to make it work. With today’s tools and options, you don’t have to spend hours each day writing content or pay for complicated tools to make progress.
Everything you want is within reach – even without a fancy website, big ad budget or an existing list of subscribers. It’s time to look at this opportunity from a different perspective – one that isn’t stressful and overwhelming, but exciting instead.
Seniors Have the Real Advantage in Online Business
At first glance, you might think online business is a young person’s game. You’ll see dozens of influencers with mansions and fast cars. They’re talking about complicated technology you don’t even understand.
But this level of exposure is also what often causes their downfall or prevents them from having longevity. There are only a handful of young people who are earning a lot of money online.
The majority lack the elements you have that are going to make you competitive in the marketplace. You have years of experience and likely a stronger work ethic than anyone under the age of 30.
When someone is looking to get advice or purchase something, they often appreciate the wisdom brought to the table by a senior citizen rather than listening to a 20 year old type a product they know they’ve probably never even used.
Young entrepreneurs are more about chasing trends. You can build a business based on sharing your understanding about niche topics. Another thing that often plagues younger online entrepreneurs is that they get involved in online drama, which can devastate their brand overnight.
As we grow older, we gain a better understanding of being able to protect ourselves from unnecessary stress. Your focus will be fully on your business and not getting into spats with other competitors, which is a big turn off for the consumer.
In just about every niche imaginable, your experience and wisdom is going to set you apart. Whether you have played golf or engaged in crafts for years or you want to share what you’ve learned about relationships and parenting – the time you have spent immersed in that topic gives you an edge.
Younger entrepreneurs have to gain that credibility. And people are willing to pay for your insight, your opinions, and your willingness to share what you know that they’re still trying to understand.
It could be something as simple as learning how to can food from your garden or how to stay fit as you age. The patients that you have to follow through on your topic is going to give you an advantage over younger marketers who tend to hop from one topic to the next, hoping for overnight riches.
If you look at the attention span of most young adults, it is extremely short. You have the ability to focus on something in a way that benefits you when it comes to developing an online income stream.
Younger entrepreneurs have no life experience yet. You might have a story to tell about how you came back from a financially devastating period of your life and created stable wealth. Or maybe you’ve traveled the world and can share tips and hacks with those who are just starting to venture outside of their four walls.
The “One-and-Done” Business Model for Low-Maintenance Income
As a senior online entrepreneur, you want to do the least amount of work possible and set yourself up for continual, passive earnings. You don’t want to have to work hard for every dollar, every single day.
Many of the business models others choose require constant content creation and close attention to trends and competitors. You want something that allows you to take a more hands off approach whenever possible.
For example, if you were to set yourself up as a ghostwriter, that would require you to continually seek out new clients and schedule work that demands you be on a timetable of their choosing.
A better way to use your writing talent would be to create digital info products where you can do the work once and get paid for it again and again for many years to come, assuming it’s evergreen.
Instead of having to work for every dollar you get, you want to have an asset that will earn for you after the single amount of effort you have put in. It’s extremely easy for you to create an info product or other digital product without having to learn a lot of new technology
It can be draining to think of all of the different business models that require lots of traffic and blog content, with emails and promotions just to claw your way into relevancy on a daily basis. With a digital asset like an info product or eBook, you can allow an army of affiliates to promote for you so that they are the ones generating the content and driving traffic for your sales.
Digital products can be anything from an eBook or video course to printable files and print on demand items. You create everything once and it’s sold indefinitely. As long as it’s not something that will lose value because the information is irrelevant, you won’t have to return to it for an update anytime in the future.
The more resources you build like this on a timetable of your choosing, the more your income will consistently grow over time without you having to keep putting out new products week after week.
You can even dictate all of your knowledge into an info product and then upload the text version to various platforms so that affiliates can get a link to promote it in exchange for a commission. Sometimes, you can find a third party platform like Etsy to upload your digital assets to, and other times you might want to build a simple sales page where you can sell it directly to your buyers.
But it won’t be the same as having to navigate the complexities of building a full website and blog that you have to then optimize to try to get traffic through search engines. You can even upload your creation to platforms like Amazon and sell your knowledge there without having to pay anything upfront or build anything on your own because they have a built in audience for you.
The No-Stress Approach to Online Selling
The one thing you don’t want to do is make this more difficult than it has to be. Forget about technical nightmares and complex sales funnels. For now, just focus on making money with a business model that’s simple.
Consider opening a storefront or creating listings on a third party platform, whether it’s Gumroad, Amazon or Etsy. That way, they’re handling everything for you – taking payments, delivering products, etc.
You can focus on what you know and can share with others instead of the small details of the technical setup. Your part will only involve a single listing and then you can take a mostly hands-off approach.
Over time, you can learn a bit about getting traffic to your offers outside of the audience that’s already built in there. Tools like dictation and artificial intelligence (AI) can help you grow your business.
Dictation makes product creation much faster than typing. And with AI, you can get personalized help with learning the ropes of the business if you want to ramp things up – or even ask it to do something for you.
For example, a free ChatGPT account can create content that you can publish online and it can even optimize it for search engines if you start wanting to expand beyond your initial knowledge.
With other AI tools you can even have a human-like talking head create video courses for you so that your simple text-based eBook has a wider appeal for those who have different media preferences.
There’s so much you can automate online now, freeing up your time to relax and enjoy life. For example, you can schedule emails to go out to your subscribers on your behalf at any time. You can schedule launches to go live on some platforms, too.
You might be handy with graphics. If this is the case, you can upload your graphics to platforms that will allow customers to order tangible items like t-shirts, coffee mugs and more.
All you have to do is create the listing and they handle it all from there. They create the product, accept payment and ship it to the customer. Use platforms like Redbubble or Printful to do the job for you.
With simple sales models and automated tools, you create a stress-free business model that lets you make money easily and enjoy life in the process. No tech savvy needed. No complex logistics. Just create, list and earn.
Making Sales Without a Big Following
You might be wondering how you can compete without a competitive number of followers. There are many methods of getting eyes on your offers – and you don’t need an ad budget to do it.
Instead of working for months or even years to build an audience with blog traffic before you see significant sales, leverage what’s already available to you. People are already part of bigger networks.
It might be the existing consumer audience on the platform you publish on. For example, if you publish in Kindle Unlimited on Amazon, they have a huge buyer base looking for eBooks they can download.
Or if you get to know fellow marketers and find some who have an audience that would be perfect for your product, let them sign up as an affiliate and do all the work generating targeted traffic to your product.
Even social media groups like the ones on Facebook or Reddit can have thousands of followers, and if allowed, give you the opportunity to share your creation and make sales from the posts.
You can start your own group too, if you want to. It’s free, fun, and many seniors love the socialization and friendships that are formed in the online groups where they share interests with others.
You can share your knowledge and create value for others and they will naturally want to see if you have more in depth courses or digital products for sale. This can be done in existing groups with permission and you might even be able to bring an admin for a group onboard as an affiliate so you’re using their link to promote.
There are also influencers and micro influencers who might agree to promote you on their account for commissions as an affiliate, so that you don’t have to pay for a sponsored post.
Just because you’re bypassing the process of building a following from scratch doesn’t mean it will be less successful. In fact, securing the recommendation of others is something that can benefit you even more.
Seniors Can Earn While You Learn without Delaying Success
Too many would-be entrepreneurs, seniors included, put off their success because they think they have to have enough money, skills or knowledge to make it work. Stop stifling your progress by claiming you’re in learning mode.
You can start earning today and still be gaining more knowledge with every passing day. If you wait until everything’s perfect, you’ll never make money – because this industry is competitive and fast-moving.
Instead of staying stuck, create your first product and get it launched, learning along the way what works best and what doesn’t. It also prevents you from wasting time learning things you don’t need to know.
Start small if you want to. You don’t have to have a full blown course or a massive marketing plan to make money online. You can start with a simple, small product and just go through the process of getting it listed and seeing how it all works before you try something bigger.
Every time you create something new to sell, pay attention to what people respond best to and what they leave feedback about, whether it’s positive or negative. This prevents you from having to guess what consumers are looking for.
Being a digital product creator allows you to continue earning from everything you create, so that your income grows with each listing. You don’t need anything upfront except a willingness to be proactive – something younger generations often struggle with.
Stop sitting on the sidelines waiting for the right time to get started. You have to begin somewhere, and this easy low-tech business is a great option for seniors. With your passion and insight for a topic of your choice, you can open up a lucrative income stream immediately.