In
the last few weeks, I have been privileged to receive so many calls from people
who are interested in information about entrepreneurship, small business and
start-ups. These requests were attributed to many articles I had published
online about starting a business of your own with little or no capital; also,
the recent economic downturn has necessitated the search for alternatives to
paid employment. Majority of young and the active population makes use of the
internet to source for information on virtually anything ranging from “how to”,
“what”, “when” of anything imaginable. I won’t be surprised to see people ask Google
search engine what President Buhari ate as breakfast. All these centers around
information marketing.
When you make a living
online, a lot of people won’t understand what it is you do. Some of them will think you’re nothing more
than a spammer - just because you work on the Internet. You might even run into people who
automatically assume you’re into promoting porn, because they think that’s all
the Internet is used for!
You need to be prepared to
deal with people like this. Some of them
may even be close friends and family members who are simply ignorant about the
various marketing uses for the World Wide Web.
The first thing you need to
explain to people is that very few people who work on the Internet are
spammers. Spammers actually make up a
very, very small minority of those who make money online.
If you do any sort of email
marketing, you should explain that every single person you send email to have
signed up specifically to your newsletter, and clicked a link to confirm that
they really want to be on your list.
Explain to them that subscribing
to your newsletter is a lot like signing up for delivery
of the newspaper, or a
magazine subscription. People sign up to
your newsletter, and then you send them valuable information, not just
advertising.
If you sell eBooks online,
you can explain to people that you’re a bit like a book publisher, but all of
the books you publish are in digital format.
You can tell them that instead of paying a lot of extra money for the
printing, binding, marketing, and shipping of a physical book, you eliminate
those costs by selling all of your books as downloadable products.
If people still don’t
understand, you could even show them what an eBook is by letting them view one
on your computer. If your main business is advertising affiliate products, you
can tell people you’re in advertising.
Explain to them that you run
a website (or websites) and you place advertising on that website. Every time someone clicks an ad and purchases
something, you receive a commission. If you make most of your money through
AdSense or selling advertising on your sites, you can simply tell people that
you place advertisements on your websites, and you charge advertisers for that
ad space.
If you want to, you could
show them some of your sites or blogs to illustrate the point. Some people feel
more comfortable just telling people they design websites. If you’re a decent website builder, this will
probably really impress people, but be prepared to get requests from people
asking if you’ll make them a site, too. see
If you don’t want to deal
with all of the questions about spamming and porn, just telling someone you
design websites will usually be enough to throw them off your trail. If people are particularly persistent with
their questions, you can start to point out some examples of people who have
been very successful making money online.
Don’t just use examples of
famous Internet marketers like Linda Ikeji or Seun Osewa of Nairaland! Use some
examples with verifiable “proof” in mainstream media. For example, the famous Stephen Akintayo of
Gileadbalm has a number of stories out there about him.
You should try to realize
that some people will just never understand what you do. Try to explain it the best way you can, and
if it doesn’t work, accept it. Some
people just won’t get it. If the in-laws or your spouse are nagging you because
your money isn’t yet streaming in, and you feel pressured, put together a
simple presentation that answers all of their questions and puts their minds at
ease.
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