For the past few years, dropshipping was probably the most promoted business model – and for good reason.
It required little to start, it was easy to scale, and it wasn’t too difficult to understand.
While dropshipping is still very much a viable business model, it has lost a lot of its appeal recently. Dropshipping used to be an easy ‘side-hustle’ kind of income stream that could very easily be built and maintained.
Now it takes a lot more to maintain a dropshipping brand. It takes more money, more time, and more knowledge to make a dropshipping business work. For experienced digital marketers with some money to invest, dropshipping is a reasonable venture, but for the newbie with little to invest, it’s a different story.
Thankfully, there’s a lesser known cousin to dropshipping that is a lot more accessible to these newbies…
This alternative is known as drop-servicing, and I think it’s the dropshipping of the modern world.
Before you read more about drop-servicing, learn how to create your very own profitable business in just 21 days!
Drop-servicing is simple: you sell a service to somebody and you outsource the work of that service to another person.
For example, you can sell a logo design package on your site and when somebody purchases it, you get their specifications and pay a graphic designer to create that logo for you.
The customer never knows that you outsourced the work to another person.
It’s just like dropshipping because you focus on the marketing of your product while somebody else covers the fulfillment.
This business model is great for people who want to specialize on branding and marketing, as the actual fulfillment of the service takes a lot of time and specialized skill, which you may not have.
The person performing the service is happy to get service – the profit you get as a result of markup can be considered the marketing fee you get in exchange for finding customers.
Here’s a list of services that you can drop-service:
• SEO
• Web design
• Logo/brand design
• Video editing
• Photography touchup
• Facebook ad creation
• Ad design
• Voiceover
• Copywriting
• Portraits
• Influencer marketing
• Freelance writing
• Blog post creation
• Plumbing
• Electrical work
• Home repair
• Trash collection
• Furniture moving
• Car repair
• Audio editing
• Programming
• App development
• Data entry
• Course creation
This is a non-comprehensive list of services meant to get your brain working and thinking of what you can offer your customers. You can find a variety of other services to offer by doing some additional research.
One of my favorite research tools is Google Keyword Planner. It’s a free tool that you can use to see the analytics on different keywords.
You can see how many people are searching for different keywords, see how high they bid (this is an indicator of how in demand they are), how high the competition is, and related keywords that you might be able to use.
Use this tool to find problems with high demand for a solution and little competition.
You can find vendors to drop-service from these various marketplaces:
• Fiverr
• Freelancer.com
• People Per Hour
• ProBlogger
• HubStaff Talent
• UpWork
• Facebook Marketplace
It takes a lot of research to find a good fulfillment partner. They need to be good at what they do, okay with your role in their business, affordable (so that you can add a decent markup), and relatively fast in their delivery.
You can also find cheap virtual assistants with a specialized skillset if you get a high volume of orders to process.
Drop-servicing is NOT a get rich quick scheme. It’s a legitimate business that takes time, dedication, and diligence like any other venture. It’s just a preferable venture because of its relatively low startup requirements.
It’s a great way to bring an extra stream of cash every month in addition to being easily scaled (just hire a team of qualified virtual assistants, like mentioned earlier). There are people in this niche bringing in 5-figures a month in profit just by doing what we discussed today.
There’s an ENOURMOUS demand for B2B services – your drop-servicing brand can take advantage of this. For example, there are thousands of real estate agents looking for digital marketing help. They need hot leads, but they don’t know how to work social media to get those leads.
Now, if you were a social media expert you could directly help them. But you don’t even have to be a social media expert to capitalize on this market – through drop-servicing you can be the individual that connects the social media expert to the real estate agent in need of his services.
Not comfortable with drop-servicing? Then check out this alternative – build your very own profitable business over the course of JUST 21 DAYS! Take a look.
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