Retirement Business Lessons: Grow Income & Prosper (2024)

59 Shares

RETIREMENT BUSINESS LESSONS #1: You may be as surprised by Mike’s answer as I was. A travel blog that prospered during the pandemic? How could that be?

I see two reasons. The first one is that Mike’s site isn’t a typical travel site that only attracts tourists. In fact, the majority of his visitors are Florida residents (i.e., local people) who want to learn more about Florida’s history, culture and attractions. Clearly they were still interested in these topics during the pandemic even though they could only be “armchair travelers.”

In addition, people chose areas close to them for their travels during 2021, as traveling long-distance was still difficult.

The second reason is how Mike earns income from his site. His main income stems from advertising, followed by book sales and speaking engagements (see his answer to question #2). Unlike a traditional travel business, he does not rely on hotel bookings or selling tours.

As long as enough visitors kept coming to his information-rich website, reading his content, clicking on ads, and buying his books, he kept earning good income.

Watch our 2020 interview with Mike to learn more about how he weathered the pandemic.

RETIREMENT BUSINESS LESSONS #2: Only 5% of Mike’s income is generated actively (with speaking engagements). The other 95% can be considered passive income.

While passive monetization options typically have lower profit margins than more active methods, they have one big, “set-and-forget” advantage: you set them up once and they keep earning money, even in your sleep!

Of course you have to put in a significant amount of work upfront. You need to create high-quality content, and lots of it! It’s also not a 100% “set-and-forget” model, as you have to promote and update your content and build up a relationship with your audience.

But it certainly gives you more freedom than, for example, selling services or hard goods.

And freedom is a worthy goal to achieve, especially when you start your online business after retirement, like Mike did.

An example of Mike’s simple Facebook posts that achieve his main goal: driving people to his site.

RETIREMENT BUSINESS LESSONS #3: Another unexpected answer from Mike. We usually hear that Facebook changes all the time, that you have to adapt your posting strategy almost on a daily basis, like fellow travel business owner Andrew Smith told us.

Mike, however, sticks to his simple, yet effective, posting strategy. He posts three times a day, always at the same time. Each of his posts focuses on his main goal: getting people to click through to his web pages.

Could this consistency be his “secret”? Not just the consistent, predictable posting schedule, but also that he always posts in the same format. Food for thought before jumping on the next Facebook trend!

RETIREMENT BUSINESS LESSONS #4: Can you spot the common theme in Mike’s answers? Whether it’s about posting to Facebook, creating ebooks (he talks more about that in our 2019 interview) or sending a newsletter — Mike likes to keep things simple.

He has a real knack for developing simple methods that work. Could this be a welcome “side effect” of his many years as an engineer? Possibly.

If you’re like me and tend to overthink and overcomplicate things, take some time to study Mike’s strategies. What could you simplify in your approach to building a website / online business?

RETIREMENT BUSINESS LESSONS #5: Not surprisingly, Mike has an efficient system in place for updating his content. Everything he does is optimized to give him the most return on his (time and money) investment.

Rather than picking pages to update randomly, he starts with the pages that rank high, but not highest. By updating and improving these pages, he might be able to push them even higher on Google, which in turn increases the number of clicks they receive.

The more traffic Mike drives to his pages, the more he earns from Mediavine.

By the way, you don’t need a tool like RankIQ to apply this strategy. Google Search Console gives you much of this information as well. That said, if your site earns good income (as in Mike’s case) it makes business sense to invest in a tool that helps you streamline the process and save you some of your most precious commodity — time.

RETIREMENT BUSINESS LESSONS #6: When I read Mike’s advice, my first thought was: “Great tips, and they really apply to any age group.”

On second thought, his advice seems indeed even more important for people over 50, i.e., people getting closer to retirement.

In retirement, we finally get to do what we really want to. At least that’s the idea of a happy and healthy retirement.

We also might need more technical help than the younger generations. As a Solo Build It! member, you’ll have access to our 24/7 support team and to a super helpful community in our forums.

And if there’s a task you can’t or don’t want to learn, you can outsource it to our experienced team of SBI! Pros. No need to waste precious time looking for competent help at places like Fiverr or Upwork!

In summary: You’ll have access to all the support and help you need for building your online business in one place. Usually, this type of convenience comes at a premium price.

Not so with Solo Build It!. You can get started for as little as $34.99 per month or $329.99 per year.

(Mike once calculated that it would cost him almost $4,000 per year if he had to buy all the tools included in Solo Build It! separately. Talk about a bargain!)

RETIREMENT BUSINESS LESSONS #7: After interviewing dozens of solopreneurs, I’ve realized that many struggle with outsourcing.

In the beginning of your online business journey, it makes sense to do everything yourself for two reasons: One, you need to learn and understand the whole process and two, your business doesn’t earn enough to pay for outside help.

But what’s holding solopreneurs back once their website generates a steady cash flow?

Possible reasons are:

• Not wanting to lose control (“Will someone else do things exactly as I want and deliver high quality results?”).
• Concern about training the person (“How long will it take me to teach this person everything they need to know?”).
• Not knowing where to find the right person, especially when it’s about writing content (“Where do I find someone who writes well and is knowledgeable about my niche?”).

I was curious to hear about Mike’s experience with finding his Virtual Assistant and content writers. He told me:

“My virtual assistant is provided by SBI! Pros. I have used no other, and only recently began using her to help me update my existing content.

I have had no luck in finding reliable content writers. RankIQ has a mastermind group on Facebook and they have content writers. They have some good ones, but in my case their lack of knowledge about Florida has led to some mistakes I don’t want to have repeated. The same has been true of my trials with Fiverr and Upwork, so I am still looking.

One idea I’m considering is a search for writers among my 14,000 plus subscribers, offering them a chance to write for me.”

Mike’s idea of searching for writers among his community is excellent. The chances of finding a person who has both knowledge of his topic and writing skills are much higher than at freelancer platforms.

If you also struggle with outsourcing, this article might help: 5 Easy Steps to Hiring the Perfect Virtual Assistant for Your Business.

• Bio
• Latest Posts