Maravi

Internet business success stories

Internet business success stories
By Dr Moses Simuyemba
Monday August 18, 2008 [04:00]

Having written about building your own internet business last week, I have received a lot of questions and comments from people wanting to learn more about it and the ‘Building a Successful Business Using the Internet’ course that is being offered in Zambia commencing on 20th September. So, I thought I should share a few enlightening real life success stories to illustrate the power of this course and internet business in general.

Elad Shippony was a marketing communications manager in Israel, Michelle Schill was a hairstylist in Canada and Nori Evoy was a 14-year-old school kid also in Canada. But these three now have something amazing in common. They found something that changed their lives in a way they would never have thought possible. They found a system that helped them to build successful online businesses and that liberated them forever.

Elad Shippony's story is a life-liberating inspiration. Elad is an excellent example of an infopreneur, creating fun and entertaining content from his website to drive traffic from the search engines, and then monetising, or making money from that traffic without selling a product or service.

If you do not have time to manage customers (or do not want to), low-maintenance monetisation models like Google's AdSense ads, affiliate programmes, finder's fees and others can build to thousands of dollars per month.

Elad’s daughter, Maya, was born in June 2001. At the time, he was working as a marketing communications manager at a large high tech company in Israel. The job was demanding, the pay was ok, he wasn't much at home, and family time was reduced to a few hours on the weekends. Ugrh!!!

He would often catch himself daydreaming of how great it would be to work from home, be his own boss, be able to shut the computer whenever he wanted and play with Maya or go out to the café with his wife in the middle of the day.

some months later, he did manage to leave his day job much earlier than he had expected thanks to the success of his website www.coolest-kid-birthday-parties.com.

He now works from home and has built even more websites over the years. He is also performing his passion for music in front of audiences quite a bit now that he has some free time on his hands. In the process, he has developed a rule that he close his computer (with lock and bolt) every day between 4-8 pm to be his family.

Spending quality time with them is now possible thanks to his new found freedom. “And I'm achieving my dreams and enjoying every moment of life,” he says.

Michelle Schill of style-hair-magazine.com is a wonderful example of how a mother is using the web to build a life for her family, herself, and their future.

Michelle is a hairstylist and for a long time was employed as such. Her desire to succeed all started with a pompous young guy who sat in her hair styling chair long ago and foolishly announced: "You're just a hair cutter."

This while, she was still holding her scissors up against his head if you can imagine... lucky he left with both ears attached.

That comment never left her. Sometime later, she later attended a weekend seminar where she first heard two critical phrases that would shape her future- ‘Passive Income’and ‘Internet Marketing’
From then on, having done some research, she found the perfect solution to help her build that passive income and become an effective internet marketer.

Now, she works when she wants, anytime of day or night. “That's the beauty of working on your own time. A meal and a quick story, then some time for mummy to work, then a snack and clean-up, and then a nap-time for the youngest, a movie for the oldest, throw in some laundry, and set to work for a few solid hours,” she says

"I no longer work from home in the evenings and my income is constantly growing. Right now, it's double what I was making when I was standing behind a chair... I do what needs to be done the most at any given time and the nature of website building is such that I can stop or take a break at any point and carry on when time allows. I can work in my pyjamas and fuzzy slippers and switch from work mode to mommy/caretaker to silly dance partner whenever the mood strikes."

Nori Evoy, at 14 years old, was an unlikely internet business success story. She built a website called anguilla-beaches.com and says, "I now have a business that I can grow over the years. A business that is fun. I'll never do a 9 to 5. I'll always own my own life.

That, more than money, more than learning about the web, more than anguilla-beaches, more than learning how to write well, is the most important thing I've learned from SBI!. Own your own life. If you don't, what's the point?"

Nori’s web site does better than many big budget travel sites on Anguilla and she emphasises that the vast majority of offline small businesses still don't have a clue, let alone a web site. If they do have a site, it's likely the proverbial "far away tree in that faraway forest." Does it even make a sound when it falls? Well, does a site even exist if it does not get traffic?

She earns money from her website by referring traffic from her site to some of these no-clue websites. She gets paid on a pay-per-click or pay-per-lead basis and earns referrer or finder's fee for finding a customer (or a ‘lead’) for them. Sometimes she negotiates per-month advertising arrangements.

Now 18 years old, her income is in the thousands of dollars and even college seems to be an unnecessary chore with the success her website is having. But she is doing it anyway. Her website is a wonderful safety-net for her.

What is to be learnt from all this? Internet business success is achievable no matter what your background and level of technical knowledge are. All three examples I have given had no technical knowledge of how the internet works before they started their businesses.

Another important lesson is that the internet has opportunities for everyone from the housewife to the small business owner. You just have to know how to use it. ‘Building a Successful Business Using the Internet’ will show you how. Go to the
website below to find out more.

You are all you can be. Go on and be it.

www.motivation-for-dreamers.com

Labels: ENTREPRENEURS

posted by MrK @ 5:42 PM