How to Start Making Money: First things First
How to start making money is a nagging question for so many people, especially in today’s economy, yet it shouldn’t be so. People need money to live in our society, so why should it be difficult to make it?The reality is, it’s not difficult. Many people simply spend way too much time on how to make money and not nearly enough time on simply making money.
Here, then, are some points on how to make money, a simple starting primer. This is not intended to be the final word, nor the only word on how to make money, but simply a place to start. You, with your own creativity, personality and initiative, can take it to your own level. I’ve written many articles on how to start making money online, but let’s back up even further to the very basics; then we can work ahead from there.
Disclaimer: Certain links on this site are affiliate links for which the owner is remunerated for sales and/or leads.
How do you go about making money in the first place? What has to happen in order for you to start making money?
Money is a token of value. Often, as in the case of paper money, or in today’s world, electronic money, the token, itself, has no value at all. It simply represents value. The token carries the promise that whatever it represents can be exchanged for something of equal value somewhere else. In other words, if you have a token of equivalent value to a gallon of milk at your grocery store, you can exchange it for that gallon of milk when you go to your store.
In order to acquire the money, you need to either do something (time) that is worth something to someone else, or you need to sell something. That’s it. It’s very simple.
The problem is not in making money, it is in finding those who need your time or your goods. This means you need to be able to offer something valuable that you can do or something valuable that you can sell AND you have to be able to find the people it is valuable to.
Let’s break it down.
- You need a product or service that sells
- You need to find buyers.
The first thing you need to do, then, is to find or create a product or service that is valuable to others. Then you have to sell it.
Take your mind off how to start making money online for a moment, and think simply about how to make money. What can you sell?
When I walk down my street, here, there are people selling free range eggs for five dollars a dozen. They don’t have lots of chickens, and five dollars isn’t a lot, but people eat eggs, and can see the sign as they drive by.
Let’s say they sell a dozen eggs a day. At five dollars a dozen, that’s one hundred and fifty dollars a month. That may not sound like much, but for many who are reading this, it may be more than a hundred dollars over what you made online, last month!
If they were to advertise online on a local classified ad site, like Classified Ad Land, they might easily double their local market, meaning they would probably have to buy more chickens!
Many people who have figured out how to start making money did it by taking skills they were very interested in or already had, such as jewelry making and just started telling others about it, who also told others. They also sold at craft fairs, in local buy and sells, in local classified ad sections, and also online on sites like Etsy, Amazon and Ebay.
Some people are good at writing, some are good at proofreading, some at building websites and still others at SEO. These are very marketable skills, so why not sell them? Again, they can be advertised locally in your newspaper, by word of mouth, and in some places, even with a small lawn sign.
These skills can also be sold online on places such as Fiverr and SEOClerks. People are earning full time incomes on sites just like these two!
Do you sell flowers from your garden locally? Have you thought about saving the ones that don’t sell, drying them, and selling them on Etsy?
Do you live near the ocean, a lake or maybe a river? Do you walk on the beach? Have you ever picked up an interesting stone or piece of driftwood? Some people make a lot of money selling things like these on Ebay.
Are you really interested in something or have a favourite online hangout, but don’t have the skills or imagination (yet) to come up with a product? Have you thought about becoming an affiliate for someone else?
Affiliate marketing is a fantastic way to sell your own products, but is also a terrific way to start making money online, right from the comfort of your home, without having to develop or manufacture anything, yourself, and without having to spend much money.
Basically, an affiliate is someone who sells something for someone else and gets a commission on everything sold. It can be products or services; it doesn’t matter. The bottom line is, you can start selling without developing any product or service, yourself.
All that is required to be an affiliate is for you to get buyers to the company sales page. The number of ways this can be done are numerous, including via social media, email, blogging, signature files, and more. Methods range from the simple and inexpensive to the highly competitive world of pay per click marketing (which is not the way to start).
I have written a number of articles that may help you combine both easy ways to start selling products and services and easy ways to start marketing them.
First of all, in what might be called a “lightweight primer,” How to Make Money Online looks at some of the common mistakes made by the unwary that you need to avoid, and some of the places to start looking immediately that won’t require you to create anything of your own.
In Ten Ways to Make Money Online, I explain a number of ways you can both create or find products and then ways to sell them online. Selling online is an excellent way to reach a very large market, especially if you’re like me, and live in a rural area.
It’s important to choose a good company to affiliate with, if that’s they way you plan to begin, and How to Choose a Good Company will help you to avoid some of the common pitfalls that so many seem to fall into. Basically, when you are focusing on how to make money, you’re dealing with cold, empirical science, not pie-in-the-sky hype and get-rich-quick schemes. Anything that even hints of emotion needs to be viewed with great suspicion and care.
Diane Bjorling, a recognized social media expert, asked the question so many ask, Can you really make money with Affiliate Marketing? Her question and the answers and discussion that followed reveal some of the most common reasons people actually fail in such a simple system. Simple as the reasons for these failures are, a lot of people continue to make the same mistakes, and you don’t need to be one of them! You would be surprised how many people earn a full time income as affiliates. Talk to them on communities like the Adlandpro Community. Take the Marketing Challenge, yourself, and see what happens. I did and it taught me a lot about making money online. Furthermore, I still make money from what I learned.
Making money is not difficult online, but there are definitely ways not to do it. Make Money Online – how not to explains two major mistakes many people make when trying to make money online as affiliates, and these are things you must never do. Either one of these will make it almost impossible to make money, and even worse, one of these mistakes can permanently prevent you from ever making money again.
Social Marketing is a very effective way to sell products and services in the online world, but it’s only effective if it’s done properly. A lot of people have mistaken the social sites around the world like Adlandpro, Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook for drive by billboards where you paste up ads. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet, if done properly, social media is an excellent place to meet new people, many of whom may become your friends AND valuable customers.
Don’t beg! It may sound ridiculous, and if it does, that’s good. Don’t be like the person who advertised all over with the crazy subject line, Sorry, I need money. While most people would never be this blatant, many do almost as bad, asking people to buy their product or service. You product or service must fill THEIR need, not yours, if you want to sell it. The vast majority of people will buy from you when you provide them with what they’re looking for, not because you sound desperate.
Finally, once you figure out how to make money, don’t be satisfied with just being the same as everybody else. Take it to the next level when you learn how to think outside the box with SEO 101: Thinking Outside the Box. Once you learn how to make money online, you can greatly increase the amount of money you make by making yourself unique, interesting and a go-to person for your niche. How much better it is to have people coming to your site because they want to see what’s going on, BEFORE you tell them what’s new!
