I am finally getting serious about earning to support myself. I contacted a marketing guru that I know of and whom I have done business with earlier. His name is Marlon Sanders and he was kind enough to give me advice. He also sent me a free copy of a PDF that he sells online.
Marlon starts off with some self help advice. The basic point is that you have to get off your butt, think and feel positive and take action in order to earn money. Some time back I would have turned up my nose at such advice. I follow the teachings of Ramakrishna Math and their teachings are to renounce women and gold. But there is a difference between a Sattvic person who renounces the world and a tamasic person who is not motivated to earn and support himself.
I think Marlon’s advice is just what the doctor ordered as far as I am concerned. I have to overcome my tamasic impulses and using rajasic motivations to help me do so is advisable.
After about 3 chapters Marlon gets into the business or marketing aspects of the challenge. He recommends that newbies should market a service online rather than try and sell products. And the following are the basics about how to market your service and earn well.
- Firstly you need to have – and if necessary learn – a marketable skill. Marlon speaks of his dad who started off repairing TVs for free for his friends and pretty soon had so much work that he was able to ask for payment. Later, when Marlon was struggling, he started selling his writing services. At first, he didn’t do very well. But he kept at it and pretty soon was very highly paid. But he had to increase his SKILLS along the way. He worked the night shift till 7 am in the morning to make enough money to buy more training for himself.
He bought a $5,000 marketing course that helped him enormously. - Burn this in your brain: YOU’VE TO USE FOCUSED ENERGY AND HAVE AN IN-DEMAND SKILL YOU CAN PROVIDE TO OTHERS.
- You have to differentiate – show people the difference. What is your USP? And it isn’t enough to TELL people. A lot of times you need to SHOW them. There is nothing like visual proof or evidence. SHOW people you can do it. Prove it to them.
- Learn the importance of the law of supply and demand. If you have an in demand skill and a USP you will make a lot of money. It is not about working hard.
- You need not do the actual work of rendering the service yourself. You can outsource that to freelancers. The money is in the marketing of the skill.
- You have to offer people what they WANT, not what they need. People need a lot of things they don’t want! They NEED to eat more vegetables. But a lot of people don’t
WANT more vegetables. They want ice cream, soft drinks, steak and candy! Become an expert in what people want. Become an expert in finding sources for products or services. Become an expert in advertising and marketing. This is the path to money. - Marlon goes on to talk about upwork.com and how you can learn an in demand skill. In chapter 7 he gives the reader an assignment. Look through the freelance sites online and magazines and study all the different kinds of services people perform for others.
Ask yourself: What problem are they solving? How much money do they get for solving that problem? Why are they getting paid that amount of money to solve the problem? - Marlon learnt a lot from Anthony Robbins. All human beings are motivated by the desire to gain pleasure or avoid pain. Look for people with pain because they are going to be motivated to get rid of the pain or solve the problem. They are also going to be motivated by the desire to obtain a result. If you see people in pain, don’t you think they might be willing to pay you to fix their pain or get rid of their problem?
I have finished reading about half of the PDF that Marlon was kind enough to send me. Quite possibly I will write another article about the remaining portion this week.
If you have any questions about marketing feel free to ask. I’ll end here. Please explore the site for more articles on self help, spirituality and politics. If you would like to contact me the link is below
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