I get a question from time to time that I suspect a lot more people are thinking and that is “Can I be a reseller and run my business 100% online and work 100% from home (or from the road?) ?” and the answer is YES – with some conditions.
First of all, yes, an emphatic yes, you can run a white label business from a laptop with your website, your bank accounts, and an internet connection. I know because I’ve not only participated in doing it, I know people who, at this very moment, do just that. They run their agencies not only from their homes but without ever leaving them.
It may be a shock; to others not, but many people run their agencies 100% online from a laptop without any physical interaction with their clients and without any storefront or meeting location. These people are even “snowbirds” or live in multiple places at different times of the year.
White label reselling is one of those businesses that fit in with different people and situations quite well. We have a wide diversity of resellers here. Some people work from home offices and sell locally as a side business to their full-time jobs. Others rent small spaces and run a small office, others have call centers, others do this as a kind of hobby business, you name it, and we’ve seen it – and almost anything can work, but everything has conditions.
The essential condition of being a road-warrior type reseller is that you have to figure out your lead generation systems without the benefit (generally) of local partnerships or the kind of region-based SEO that many aspire towards. If you forgo event marketing and never meet prospects, it will certainly cost you some sales; however, many would argue that it was well worth it – again, different types of people.
If you choose to work from home, I would recommend emphasizing content marketing and self-promotion more heavily; guerilla marketing is becoming a dirty word to some. However, it does apply pretty directly to those who want to run their agencies remotely. Numerous venues exist where guerilla marketing can be a tremendous benefit – not least of which is your own social media profile set, where you can apply guerilla-style marketing techniques to drum up leads and build your reputation.
Is working remotely for you?
I’m a big believer that if you work for yourself, the word ‘work’ itself loses its original definition. People who work for themselves may work longer hours on average, but it’s what they don’t face – stress – that makes it all worthwhile. When you’re working for yourself, you don’t count the hours or minutes; you find yourself enjoying what you’re doing, it becomes a game, and in this industry, that game can be a lot of fun.
I say go for it to those who ask if they can or should try this business out on the side. If they further decide to try being a digital nomad working from the road selling white label digital marketing services remotely, I say go for that too; the real question is when you look back, what will you regret more? Leaping or not taking the risk?