How to Actually Make Money Online in 2025 (Copy Me)

Here's the deal.

Passive income is bulls.

Getting rich quick is also BS, but building scalable income online is completely real.

You'd think you need a big audience or some fancy funnel to make money online, but the truth is it's so simple that most people find it boring.

I've personally sold over 6 million in the last two years chatting with complete strangers over Instagram.

And I do it in between meetings, on the back of my boat, even when I'm training at the gym.

It's what I call the two engine business model.

I've taught this boring model to thousands of my clients and even complete beginners started making 10, 30, and $50,000 a month using it.

And I'm going to break it down step by step so you can copy exactly what I do.

Welcome to the Martel method.

I went from rehab at 17 to building a $100 million empire and being a Wall Street Journal best-selling author.

In this podcast, I'll show you exactly how to build a life and business you don't grow to hate and make sure you don't miss anything by subscribing to my newsletter at martel method.com

so what is the two engine business model it comes down to this everybody wants to get rich

i want that for you more than you'll ever know to do that we got to focus on two areas the magnet

and the money

The reason this is so important to make money online is that most people don't have a way to attract their perfect buyers.

They don't understand what kind of content they should put out.

They don't know what they should say.

They get worried about getting in their head.

They struggle.

Even if they have an audience, I know so many people that have 100,000 plus on Instagram that are broke.

They don't know how to do the money part, how to create an offer, how to figure out the best way to get somebody to part with their money in a way that feels ethical and logical and simple.

Now, I know what you're thinking.

This won't work for me.

I only have a little audience.

Well, my buddy Mike Brown had 6,000 followers and generated a million dollars in his first year.

So maybe he got 600.

Would 100K be okay?

See, most people make the mistake of little audiences not being big enough to make big money.

I'm telling you, it's all about following the two-engine process that's going to get people ready to buy from you or run away scared.

But if you don't follow these four stages, this model won't work for you.

But you can't sell anything until you identify who you're going to sell to, which brings us to stage one of making money online.

Find your perfect buyer.

It's kind of funny looking back, but in my 20s, I thought my job was to just try to find anybody to buy.

And I would talk to people and I would send emails and I would try to create Facebook ads and AdWords and all these things to literally blanket the market to find anybody that would buy from me.

And then I realized I spent a lot of time trying to convince people that were never going to buy, that didn't have a budget, didn't matter in the first place.

They didn't even have the freaking problem that I was helping them with.

So the first thing you have to do is get really clear on solving a specific problem for somebody who has it.

This is different than everything you've heard about an ICP and all these other things because my philosophy is very simple.

If you can describe your buyer's pain better than they can explain it to you, you'll win their business.

Hit refresh, play it again.

Listen to what I just said.

If you, can you define, can you explain, can you walk somebody through the pain they're feeling in a way that they couldn't even verbalize, you become the person who gets the permission to help them.

So who can you help?

My philosophy is you're best equipped to help somebody that you once were.

That's why I love watching fitness coaches that have transformed their life, their energy, their mindset because of going to the gym and eating proper nutrition.

And then they have this passion to want to see other people do it themselves.

Those are the best people to help other people.

Folks that went through massive pain, massive challenge, major setbacks, worked their way through, got a result, and now want to teach other people.

So if you're asking yourself, who can I help?

Help other people like you.

Help other people solve the problem that you face and figured out the path.

It doesn't matter if you create a course that they buy or you build a blueprint that you help them go through or that you do it for them or you build a tool that they buy where they can do it themselves.

At the end of the day, you want to find people where you can empathize with their pain because you've been there before.

That's the best.

The truth is, if you solve a big enough pain, you will get paid in proportion to the problem you solve.

When I think about it and I go like, how do I truly communicate that I understand the customer?

I ask myself, what are their goals?

Sometimes they're unexpressed goals.

What are their dreams?

What are the things that they think about that they haven't told other people?

What blocks them from taking action?

If I can talk about this, then I become the expert.

What fears do they have?

My favorite question to ask my clients is, what keeps them up at night?

What do they Google to solve problems?

Those questions that they're asking ChatGPT or Google is your opportunity to enter the conversation they're having in their mind.

Now, let's get you some eyeballs.

Before we get back to the episode, if you want to jumpstart your week with my top stories and tactics, be sure to subscribe to the Martel Method newsletter.

It's where you'll elevate your mindset, fitness, and business in less than five minutes a week.

Find it at MartelMethod.com.

Which brings us to stage two of making money online.

Create viral content.

Viral content, everybody and their dog will promise you they have a process, a step, a checklist, a blueprint for creating viral content.

Every month, every 28 days, I get 120 million on average views on my content.

I know what it takes to go viral.

I will walk you through exactly how we do it so that you can replicate it for yourself.

And it doesn't take a ton of time and it doesn't require a big team.

And every person should be doing this.

They've just never been taught to do this.

So I'm going to give you exactly how we do it ourselves.

The first thing is most people think you need a lot of followers to go viral.

The truth is, is today the whole algorithm has changed.

About two and a half years ago, two major things changed.

First off, the same format for media is the same across all platforms.

That didn't happen before.

Before you had to create content for Facebook and YouTube and Twitter.

Now, short form content, short form videos, reels or shorts as they're called on different platforms, you can literally edit them and post them on the different ones and they will work.

That's massive.

The second part is that it used to be a social graph.

It used to depend on the amount of followers you had, how many people saw it to give it some momentum.

Today, the algorithm said,

we don't really care.

We care more about how good is the content, how many people we show it to, that they engage into it, what's called the interest graph.

And based on that small test and a bigger test and a bigger test, based on the performance, we will show it to more and more and more people.

That's how you create viral content.

And that's what's completely different.

So you could have zero followers today and have the same chance as I do with 5 million followers across all my social platforms to go viral because you created a better piece of content.

Right off the bat, everybody's freaking out because they're like, what kind of content do I shoot?

I'm going to break it down into three letter acronym.

It's called PSL.

And no, it doesn't stand for pumpkin spice latte.

It stands for point story lesson.

See, you've got this magical device in your pocket that you can use to record and create content that has the possibility of going viral.

In a second, I'll tell you exactly how to decide what you shoot.

But first, I need you to get comfortable shooting content.

So here's how I do it.

I literally think to myself, what's the point I want to make?

The point is the problem that your perfect buyer is struggling with around the problem you solve for them.

So for example, one of the points that's going to come up is like, how do I teach my team to adopt AI?

So then I say, are you a health practitioner struggling with get your team to adopt AI?

The other day I was talking to a client and this is what was plaguing them because they were like, I use it every day, but I've got 12 other people on my team and I can't seem to figure out how to get them to do it.

For the next 30 days, everybody's going to be encouraged to use ChatGPT.

And at the end of those 30 days, you're going to sit down and you're going to look at all their prompt history and the person that you feel has used it the most is going to get a $500 gift certificate to a restaurant of their choice.

I know, sounds like a lot of money, but that will get everybody on board to want to win it and you'll get a whole team that just magically gets upgraded.

So the lesson is, if you want to get people to adopt AI, you have to motivate, encourage, and reward them for doing the right behaviors.

So here's why it works.

First off, stories are the glue for remembering anything.

Another format is analogies.

So the story format can be anything, something that happened to you, something that you read about that somebody else did, could be a client story, could be anything.

If you don't have that, use a metaphor.

Metaphors are incredible.

And the lesson for me is all about being practical, frameworks.

It's actionable.

When we get somebody a result, then we start to build trust.

If they can get a ton of results in their life before they've ever given you a dollar, you become their trusted advisor.

You become the person that can direct them in their life and they will give you their attention.

But I know what you're thinking.

What do I make this content about?

That's why you got to go to ChatGPT.

So here's the prompt.

Act as a world-class marketer.

I want to create content for health practitioners.

That's my niche.

Around their challenges, adopting AI.

That's what I solve for them.

Create a list of 25 ideas for content I could create using the format point, story, lesson.

Then I want you to go on social media and I want you to find people that have massive audiences that are creating content with these points, these concepts, and watch their ideas.

It's called pre-validated concepts.

So if I see somebody that has an outlier on their video and they're talking about food prep or they're talking about AI adoption or there's something about the video that's unique, I can interpret that.

Don't copy.

Use that as inspiration and then create your version of it that you create your story, your lesson, but it's their point.

See, that way it's your perspective.

And if everybody just shared their unique stories, their points of view, then everybody'd be attracting their perfect buyers.

Now, I want to to challenge you.

This is what you got to do.

So make a commitment to me right now for the next hundred days.

I need you to shoot one video using the PSL framework every day and post them on Reels, Shorts, and TikTok.

But now that you've created that media to turn it into a magnet, how do you turn that attention into money?

Before we get back to this episode, if you prefer to watch your content, then go find me on YouTube.

I have this episode on YouTube.

I'm Dan Martell on YouTube.

Just subscribe to the channel.

Turn on the notification bell because then you'll get notified in real time.

It'll tell YouTube to tell you we've got a new episode.

So you'll never miss anything.

Now let's get back to the episode.

Which brings us to stage three of making money online.

Be social.

All right.

This thing blows my freaking mind.

I have clients that have thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and have never considered messaging them.

I know.

You're like, what?

How would they have all these people following leads, opportunities, conversations to potentially serve somebody?

And you're telling me they never message them?

Nope.

They make up reasons.

Well, why would I message them?

They follow me for this, but I want to sell that and blah, blah, blah.

What's funny is most business owners, when you ask them, why aren't you growing?

They'll say, well, I don't have enough leads.

And what's crazy is there's no lack of people that you can sell to.

It's just you don't know what to say to them to get them to want to buy.

Can we all agree that social media is about being social?

Can we all agree that if you have an opportunity to talk to somebody that you might be able to help, that's probably a good idea.

But, Dan, I don't have the time to challenge everybody.

How am I supposed to do it?

I gotta run my business.

Are we?

Okay, can we just take a second to pause?

You're telling me you don't have enough leads, yet you have people that have indicated interest by following you, and I would consider that an opt-in, and you don't think it makes sense to message them, to say hello, to say, Are you here for help?

How can I be of service?

It is wild.

And this one's my favorite.

People go, That's cool, but there's no way somebody's spending a thousand, three thousand, five thousand, ten thousand buying from somebody over chat.

I mean, not in this world of friggin' scam and fraud.

Let me tell you: over chat, I've seen clients sell $10,000, $15,000, $25,000, $50,000, $250,000, $500,000 things.

Now, did they put $3,000 on a credit card as a deposit to then set up the wire transfer?

Yep.

But did they get somebody comfortable enough to engage, to have the chat, to answer their questions for them to feel comfortable enough to make a commitment?

You better believe it.

So don't sleep on this.

So here's exactly how I use Instagram and other platforms and chat with people to make millions of dollars every year and how how you can do it very easily.

Number one, open the conversation.

When somebody follows you, and I'm talking every follower, I want you to ask them the simple question.

It's the this or that question.

And the that is always a thing you can help them with.

Are you here for the content or are you looking for help growing your business?

Are you here for this?

Are you looking for that?

Are you here for the videos or looking for recipes on how to be healthier?

Are you here for the content?

Are you looking for help with your taxes?

Whatever you do is the that.

Most people will say, well, I'm here for both.

And some people will skip right to the end and go, I need help with my business or I need help with my finances or I need help with whatever.

That is the power of opening the conversation with a this or that question.

Number two, post hand raisers.

Essentially, what you want to do.

is you just want to post a story on your Instagram or as a reel and just say, if you are this and looking for that, then let me know by sending me this message.

Like you can go on my Instagram right now and test it out.

If you send me the word coach, we're going to start a conversation about how I might be able to help you.

I would encourage you to make a post that allows people to raise their hand and say, I could use your help, but they need to know what you do first.

Number three, and this is for getting rid of the tire kickers, is ask a qualifying question.

Ask a simple question.

How long have you been looking to solve this problem?

Have you put a budget aside to solve this problem?

Like ask something that qualifies them so that you can immediately go, oh, appreciate you being here, but unfortunately, I won't be able to help.

And that's fine.

You're allowed to say, I don't think I can help and move on to the next person that raised their hand and said, I'd like to chat with you.

Most people are so scared to offend people and they feel like they have to talk to people and answer every question.

It's going to keep you bogged down and not have the time to talk to the real people that want your help.

Here's why I love to enroll people into my world.

And that's what I call selling, because I know I can't.

change their world if they're not in my world.

You can't help somebody if they're not inside your business.

So do everything you can when you're reaching out to communicate how you can add value, to be trustworthy, to show examples of customers crushing with you so you can get people comfortable exchanging money to solve a problem.

But you can't just message people and expect them to buy anything.

Before we get back to the episode, if you actually want to know what my real life looks like and see the people and the businesses and the companies I buy and my family and just like how I make it all work, go follow me on Instagram, DanMartel, to Elza Martel on Instagram.

It's where I show the behind the scenes, the real deal, real time.

I'd love to see you there.

Have an amazing day.

Which brings us to stage four of making money online.

Get the order.

A few months ago, I had a friend of mine reach out and he could not figure out for the life of him why nobody was buying from him.

And I was like, well, show me your chats.

Show me the conversations.

And I'm sitting there and I'm scrolling and I was just watching chat over chat of a person.

When the person talked about their problem, his response was, it's all good.

You're amazing.

I'm paraphrasing, but essentially that's what it sounded like.

It's like, don't worry, you're great.

And I was just like, bro, essentially, they're saying they have a problem and you're saying you don't have a problem.

They're saying that they have a challenge and you're saying, no, you don't.

You're amazing.

When you sell, you have to create a framework of getting somebody into the right emotion of getting ready to buy.

No feeling of the pain, no no decision to solve the problem.

If you're chatting, a few rules you have to stick to.

Number one is don't release the pressure valve.

That's what he was doing.

The person would come in and say, you know, I've sold this much money online.

They'd be like, you're amazing.

That's so great.

Why?

You're there to diagnose.

You're like a doctor.

The person came in.

They said, I have a pain in my knee.

And you go, interesting.

Tell me about the situation.

And then you touch them here and you push there.

And all of a sudden, you get to tell them, well, the pain in your knee is caused because your hips are too tight and you have this muscle called the psoas and if you press on the psoas and you loosen that up the pain in your knee will go away that's what my doctor said to me a while ago and that will build a ton of authority for you to be in a position for them to buy number two is you got to get them in the buying zone if you think about it some people come into your chat and they have no confidence in their ability to solve this problem Okay, these are people that are scared.

Yet again, I'm not going to solve this and I'm really concerned.

And it's not even that they don't trust you.

They don't trust themselves.

Then you have people on the other side of the buying zone, which is all about having too much confidence.

They come in and they're like, yo, I know what you do, but I don't think I need you because I think I'm pretty cool.

And those people you need to bring back into the center.

So the way we do that is we ask them questions, the reframe.

So the person that comes in and they're like, yeah, I made 10 million last year.

Your question to them is, did you make any profit?

Did you raise any money from investors?

How much did you pay out in affiliates?

Like you have to know what the questions are to get the person back to being connected to the pain.

That is the buying zone.

Somebody that has no confidence, you have to let them know.

I love that you're concerned.

People just like you are the ones that do the best in the program because when they show up, they're willing to do the work.

I have a hard time if somebody is making a lot of money coming in trying to solve a problem because I can't get their time and attention.

You are perfectly situated to be the best person to work with me.

That's what we do to reframe people that don't have confidence or have too much to get them into the center of the buying zone.

Number three is you you got to present the offer.

And the offer has to be designed to alleviate all their objections.

I literally keep it so simple.

When I show you and tell you how I do it, you're going to be like, impossible.

$6 million myself sold with my fingers chatting with strangers on Instagram.

I literally have a notes file on my phone where I copy and paste the offer in chat.

It fits exactly whatever character amount that is.

One chat, here's the offer.

It's clear, it's concise, it doesn't confuse them.

I see people over and over again, here's exactly how we do it.

And it's just this long-winded, complicated thing.

Confuse buyers don't buy.

If you try to overwhelm them with bells and whistles and features, they just won't buy.

They just want to trust that you can address exactly what you said to them were the challenges based on your background experience and other clients you've worked with.

Now that's what I do.

If you want something that all my clients use to make millions, go find me on Instagram, Dan Dan Martel, Tuels Martel.

Follow me and message me the word YouTube offer.

And I will send you a direct link to my Google Doc that all my clients are using to make millions of dollars online.

Number four, get the credit card.

I can't tell you how often people complicated getting the money.

If they say, I'm in, say, cool.

Do you want me to grab the link?

Then they go, oh, no, let me talk to my partner.

Now you have a real objection.

Be ready to take the credit card.

When they say, yeah, sounds like a plan, perfect.

What card do you want to put that on?

What way do you want to make payment?

Ask for the order.

Have a stripe link ready to go that you can send over chat.

I've sat on the back of my wake boat surfing, chatting, and then sending links.

And while I'm out there surfing, getting payments for people that want my help, it can be that simple.

It's just the truth is people want to overcomplicate it.

Have a stripe link ready to go to accept payments so that when they're ready to buy, you don't make it hard on them.

The way we win online is very simple.

Create content that that is valuable, that is useful, that educates, that inspires, and helps people solve problems.

And then while you're doing that, engage with them, talk to them, see if there's ways that you can help further.

Even if you can't, recommend somebody who can.

If you become the person that is their trusted advisor, then you will have the opportunity to serve them.

I think that is the highest form of building an online business that makes you money, that allows you to live that lifestyle that you've been after of freedom and travel and experiences, but but it requires you to put your fears aside and go all in for 30 days, posting videos and talking to people.

Thanks for listening to the Martel Method.

If you like this episode, could you do me a huge favor and go leave a review?

This helps us get the podcast more ears and helps more people get unstuck, reclaim their freedom, and build their empire.