Making money online or offline – 3 Simple practical steps – ExpertsNG

Making money online or offline, isnt’t as difficult as many may think.

Would it not be satisfying to know how to make money fast and smart (either online or offline), at least know how to make it smarter than your friends, family, and every other person in your circle of friends?

What if I told you that making money is not as hard as we have been conditioned to believe?

Allow me to take you back memory lane to when you were a child. I bet that at some point, especially when you thought that money was made from paper, and since papers were made from trees, you probably had looked up at a tree and thought… If money is indeed made from paper, surely, you could make money grow from trees (I honestly did)!

Or perhaps, you heard those words “Do I grow money on trees?” from your parents on asking for a toy or an extraordinarily expensive cloth or shoes. Perhaps, for you, it was pondering over the idea of growing money on trees.

Over the years, I had pondered on that statement, and also the idea of being able to grow money on trees; being able to practically go to a tree in my compound and just take money every time I needed it. Although it might seem an impossible task that is what it is.

So in actual fact, we do pluck money off trees, money does grow on trees. You just need to know which tree, and how to get money off it.

The 3-step guide to making money fast and smart

1. Understand yourself
2. Identify opportunities
3. Build a company around a product or service to make life better for at least one person

Bonus Tip: Put yourself and the product out there so the people that need it can find you.

1. Understand yourself

I once read on a friend’s Facebook wall that “It is by admitting who we are that we get what we want!”

For me, we are not all forged in the same fire, so what works for some may not necessarily work for me. My understanding of this fact has constantly guided my decisions through my entrepreneurial pursuits. I do not undertake any venture without trying to acknowledge my strengths and weaknesses. This most often leads me to the question of WHY.

Understanding the reason behind your pursuit of a goal would most times determine the level of push you would be willing to give such goals, it determines also the level of resistance you may be willing to put up with.

So, the question is why do you want to start a business?

In entrepreneurship, it is always about cash or king.

Cash – Are you going into business to try and make more money for yourself? or    King – Are you going into business because you want more freedom and control of your time?

Read more on the concept of Cash or King.

So understanding the reason why you want to go into business or why you would want to make money is a key to knowing the best route you’d take to at least have a better chance at making money.

Once you have the reason established, the next thing is to ask yourself some very sincere questions about yourself, your strengths and skills; the answers to the under-listed questions would help you figure out the type of business you should venture into.

The questions are:

• What are your skills?
• What do you love doing naturally, where does your passion truly lie
• What drives /motivates you to take actions
• Where is your area of expertise?
• How much capital do you need?
• How much capital do you have – financial, social and political?
• Do you truly understand what it takes to be an entrepreneur?
• Are you truly ready to be an entrepreneur?

Your ability to answer the questions above as sincerely as possible would go a long way in setting your foundation – please be honest.

Identify Opportunities

As simple as the term may sound, it is the single most important aspect of any money-making pursuit. I said earlier that the best form of money-making practice is to look for problems you can solve and get paid for. Identifying opportunities is at the very core of what you have to do to keep making money, But if you do not understand how to convert problems into opportunities or identify opportunities where others see challenges and problems, then you just may not be a good entrepreneur.

So how can an entrepreneur identify opportunities?

Luckily, with some training, everyone can identify opportunities.

Following the under-listed steps will help anyone find and identify business opportunities.

• Listen to yourself and identify the pains you have on a daily basis going about your normal work-life schedules.

Almost every innovation out there today came about as a result of an entrepreneur getting frustrated with the way things were done and sought to make them better.

The very first step in identifying opportunities is to listen to yourself and understand the pain you go through on a daily basis. Then, ask yourself if such pain is common to others. If it is, then you may just be on your way to identifying a money-making opportunity.

• Listen to your potential and past clients

Another sure way to unlocking opportunities is to target potential customers and listen to their needs, wants, challenges and frustrations within your market space or industry.

Find out and understand the products and services they use currently and those they have used before. Understand what they like and dislike about such products and services, understand why they came to you?

What were their objections to those services and products, understand their objections to your products or services? This will help you to find opportunities to develop more tailored products and services, hone your target market, identify and overcome common objections. It could lead to either a service or product innovation in your current industry.

• Understand your competitors

It is a very good practice to always understand what your competitors are doing or what they are not doing. Do a little competitive analysis to see what other startups are doing, and more importantly, not doing? Ensure that you understand what makes customers go to them over you or others.

Read more on competitive analysis and strategy here.

Analysing and understanding your competitors ability to vie, their strengths and weaknesses would help you identify key business opportunities that you could leverage to expand your market reach and develop your products and services.

By all means, please shop from your competitors, no better ways of learning from them than actually going through their sales process as a paying customer.

• Understand and leverage technological trends

It seems half of the people trying to become successful these days expect immediate results with little to no effort; such practice may have worked some years ago, but this is 2019 you need to work HARDER and be SMARTER than your competition.

Technological advancements today favor only those who are willing to study, learn and apply what they have learned to problem-solving. Technology is making it possible for people to multi-task, work smarter, etc. The problem, however, is that not everyone is technology savvy, so as an entrepreneur trying to make money the smart way, your best bet is to learn how to leverage technology and by that act, you would have enhanced your possibility of making money.

• Plan your business and write it down to improve your chances of success.

It is always a good idea to have a business plan to help guide you through the rigorous process of starting your business. A well-structured plan can help to improve your chances for success.

Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs these days do not see the need for writing a business plan, they consider it too expensive a task to perform; a waste of time and money. Due to this misconception, they go into business blindly.

Barely committing sketchy details of their plans to mind, but unknown to them, having a well thought out, well written and articulate business plan would actually help them start up faster and smarter.

A business plan can help you gain clarity, focus, and the needed confidence to put your money towards the achievement of your goal. A plan does not need to be so elaborate, what is needed is clarity and to ensure that major aspects, especially finance are looked into.

Majorly, a business plan helps bring your business to reality; writing your goals, strategies and action steps, gives you a helicopter view of what you intend going into, and gives you the means to make adjustments where necessary.

Essential elements of a good business plan

According to Sequoia capital, the under listed is the minimum expected component of a well-written business plan/pitch

1. Company Purpose
2. Problem
3. Solution
4. Why Now
5. Market Size
6. Competition
7. Product
8. Business Model
9. Team
10. Financials

At the least, a good business plan should give answers to the following questions:

•  

• What is my product or service?
• What pain am I solving
• Who are my prospective clients/customers?
• What value am I offering my customers/clients in exchange for their money?
• Are their enough people with the problems that I am trying to solve?
• Is the market ready for such a product or service?
• Do I have the means and skills required to get me off the ground successfully?

1. Build a company around a product or service to make life better for at least one person

As humans, we would rather pay a professional to fix something that causes us pain, more like buying a pain killer, than spend money on enhancements, beautifying stuff, etc. More like spending money on multi-vitamins.

If you could build your business around something that makes life better and easier for someone, something that fixes their pains; service or product that fixes a problem for your customers, they’ll thank you for it, with some willing to pay a premium.

Follow these basic steps to help you get started with building your company

• Legalise your company
• Write out exactly what you are set up to do, in not more than a sentence and truly understand it
• Employ a staff or take interns to complement your skills
• Do not be tempted to rent an office, work with what you have
• Train your staff/interns and let them understand your mission and vision
• Start producing your product or rendering your services

Thank you for reading. I would love you to leave a word or two on the comment section below, perhaps, others may learn more insights on this topic from you too.

Bonus Tip: Put yourself and the product out there so the people that need it can find you

You are definitely losing some money If you do not find ways to put your product at least 7 times in the face of your potential clients weekly. Your potential clients must learn to trust you, and the best way to gain trust these days is to be consistently at their faces with your value propositions.

Leverage the social media and you would have increased your chances of success by at least 35%.

Here is a list of some tips/tasks you can carry out online to start making money

• Make money by completing surveys Online
• Make money blogging or vlogging
• Make money online through trading in Binary options
• That takes about 6 months for an article to start ranking on Google. So normally, on the average 3 to 6 months is the initial investment time you would need to put into your blog before it starts receiving some traffic, though there are methods to help you improve on your rankings, click here for tips on that.
• Once it starts receiving traffic, you could make money from the following sources:

1. Selling products or services
2. Online advertisements from companies like Google – Adsense, and many others out there
3. Affiliate marketing – Amazon affiliates, Jumia affiliates, etc
4. Sponsored posts
5. Offer Your Services on Fiverr to Make Money Online Without Investment
6. Make Money as a Virtual Assistant – did you know that you could actually set up a company of virtual assistants and get paid
7. Create content for Others
8. Create and sell courses online for people
9. Offer your services on sites such as fiverr.com, Upwork, etc for a fee
10. Make Money by Testing Websites and Apps
11. Make Money from YouTube Videos
12. Start and make money from a niche Website online
13. Take very good photos and videos and sell them online on stock sites such as Shutterstock

So tell me, was this article on Simple practical steps to making money online or offline of help to you in any way, what would you rather change on the article and finally have you taken the first step towards starting your own business?

You could read our high ranking articles:

• How to start a tailoring business
• HOW TO START A DROPSHIPPING BUSINESS IN NIGERIA: A STEP BY STEP GUIDE.

Please put your answers in the comment section below to help me make this blog better and also help others out there.

By the way, are you a Nigerian, and have you worked with or know some highly skilled experts (Tailors, Auto mechanics, Barbers, Chefs, etc) in Nigeria? Please recommend them here to increase their online visibility and give other people the opportunity of hiring them too.