Online Business And Online Jobs –What Is The Difference And Which Is Better

from nairacow.com

There are online businesses and there are online jobs.

It is important to know the difference between them and know the one that is best to go after.

Online Jobs

Just like jobs offline ,there are online jobs. online jobs include doing work and getting paid for just that particular job or for the time used to do the particular job done.
Examples of online jobs are :

• Data entry
• Article writing for a fee
• Graphic design for a fee
• Proof reading
• Fiver jobs
• Coders
• Programmers who program for others
• Many freelancers

Or generally , anything you get paid for only when you do it.
Is there anything wrong with online jobs ?
Nah…not really.
Many people do well with online jobs…
It does work…but it is not something I do or recommend.
I prefer to have a real business.

Online Businesses

This involves selling a product or a service…and usually involves owning online assets.
Assets like :

1. Websites
2. Blogs
3. forums
4. Info products
5. Softwares

With online businesses you can make money using many models . models like  :

1. Third party advertising (Google Adsense Adverts , Ad Dynamo)
2. Banner adverts
3. Sell your own products
4. Sell your own Services
5. Affiliate commissions from selling other people’s products and services

Online business can be sold later for a large profit and require you to invest and build it up to profitability.
It is usually more profitable in the long-term than online jobs.

Can One Have Online Jobs And Business At The Same Time?

Yes you can.
It is like having a day job and a business at the same time.
But I will advice that  you try to add an online business /asset to whatever you do online.
Something that can make you money without you having to work again and again.
Like  I said before ,there are many online business models but …the most popular and the easiest is … build a blog/site that you can make money with via advertisement.( you can make money using other business models on the same online asset)
….And advertisement could be Google Adsense or other third-party advertising programs (AdDynamo) or by selling adverts directly to advertisers .

People With  Online Businesses And Assets In Nigeria.

1. NairaLand.com …used to make money with Google Adsense but  now sells adverts as direct banners ads
2. LindaIkeji.blogspot.com - Although she is using a free blog ,she has managed to build an asset with it. She makes money with third-party adverts (Google Adsense) and direct adverts from advertisers.

There are many other Nigerian websites and blogs making money using model …and these is building an asset ….not doing an online job.
It is up to you to decide what you want to do …but my advice is that you should build an online business around your online assets . Don’t depend solely on online jobs .
Thank you.
SOURCE : www.nairacow.com

11 Inspiring Quotes From Sir Richard Branson

The iconic Virgin Group founder seems to have done it all. Now he explains how to start a company from pennies, when to "snoop around," and his trouble saying "no."

Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group--an empire of more than 400 companies that includes an airline, a mobile phone company, and a credit card company.

1. "A business can be started with very little money."

When Branson was 15 years old, he decided he wanted to start a magazine to give young people a way to speak out against the Vietnam War. He didn't have any money--not even enough change to make a phone call. But when his mom found a necklace and turned it over to the police, nobody claimed it. So she sold the necklace, and gave Branson a couple hundred dollars. That money enabled him to bring on advertisers, which led him to start printing his publication.

2. "Consider getting smaller in order to get bigger."

Rather than grow his original record business exponentially larger, Branson instead set up 30 different record companies. Rather than have a few top managers overseeing layers upon layers of people below them, some lower-level employees became managers of those smaller entities. A hearty spirit of competition developed. Branson attributes this strategy's success to the fact each company knew directly and immediately when it had succeeded, and when it had stumbled. Virgin today is a huge entity with more than $20 billion in revenue--but Branson's original strategy has been retained in that it also is a series of smaller companies.

3. "You can be a David vs. a Goliath, if you get it right."

When Branson launched Virgin Atlantic, it had tough competitors such as TWA, Pan Am, and Air Florida. "I mention these names," said Branson, "because none of them exist anymore." Why'd the others fail? The others didn't focus on the customer, Branson said.

4. "A business is simply an idea to make other people's lives better."

Branson explained this is what drives him as an entrepreneur: "If you can make peoples lives a lot better, you've got a really good business."

5. "Unless you dream, you're not going to achieve anything."

Branson is funding Virgin Galactic to make space travel more accessible to average people--even if it would still cost an individual a couple hundred thousand dollars. Because governments have traditionally overseen space travel, only a select and elite (and very small) group of people have been into space in the last six decades. Branson is trying to change that. "People in this room under the age of 50," Branson said, "if they want to go to space will be able to go to space in their lifetime."

6. "You can get too close with a doctor, or banker, and not realize you should actually snoop around."

When he launched Virgin Atlantic, Branson found a manager at his bank on his doorstep one Friday evening in a complete panic, questioning how someone in the record business could launch an airline. The banker said he would foreclose on the whole Virgin Group that Monday. "I just pushed the bank manager out of my house and told him he wasn't welcome," Branson said. He then explained that, in a state of "half-anger, half-fear," he spent the weekend asking people he knew to chip in to help him gather the money he needed upfront. And the next week he changed banks--something he should have done much earlier (he even got a better package from the new bank).

7. "Detail is very important."

Richard Branson carries a notebook at all times, so he can write down conversations. He doesn't want to forget on, say, a Virgin Atlantic flight, what his customers or staff tell him. He brings the notebook along when he visits out-of-town teams and goes out with them. "When I get drunk with staff, I won't remember, so I'll definitely write it down," he laughed.

8. "You can create a business, choose a name, but unless people know about it you're not going to sell any products."

When Virgin Atlantic was getting started, it was so much smaller than its competitors that Branson went to extraordinary lengths to put the brand on the map, including stunts like attempting to get a boat across the Atlantic in the shortest period of time. "Luckily when it sank, the Virgin brand was sticking out of the water," he joked. Likewise, when Branson tried to be the first to cross the Atlantic in a hot air balloon, it was rescued by helicopters--but Virgin was all over the newspapers.

9. "Find somebody else to run your business on a day-to-day basis."

Branson recommends you should be brave enough to find somebody else to run all the day-to-day, and nitty-gritty details of your company, and then step aside and work from home for a while, so you can start to think about bigger picture--or your next business.

10. "Protect against the worst eventualities. Make sure you know what they are."

Ask yourself when you embark on a new venture if you can afford the absolute worst-case scenario, and then just go on and do it. "You may say, 'OK, I feel so sure about it I will mortgage the house.' I have done that against my wife's wishes on two or three occasions," he said. 

"Sometimes you'll fall flat on your face, sometimes you won't," he added.

11. "I think because I have great difficulty saying the word, 'no,' almost every day's a different adventure."

Branson's not one for taking it slow. Or turning down opportunities--even if they mean jetting around the world and back.

 

GO START NOW

"A recession is the best time to start a company.
  The opportunity cost is low, hiring good people
  is relatively easy, rent and equipment are cheap
  (sometimes free) and established competitors are
  focused on reducing costs and staying in
  business, not on innovation. The key is being in
  a good position when the economy picks up."

  - Rebecca Lynn
    Partner, Morgenthaler Ventures

YOUNG CEO'S BLOG:Start Small, Scale Big!

- The ultimate dream of every young man is to retire at 40- build mansions globally, sleep in London, wake up in New York and spend the evening in Nigeria; to live life to the fullest…

Dreaming big has never been a problem but turning it into reality is the key issue. It saddens my heart when I see young people with ideas that could rule the world, employ generations and even turn them into billionaires over time, approach and execute these ideas poorly, along with their little savings.

I was once told the story of a man who needed N15,000,000 to start recharge card distribution business with paper projections that the business could triple the invested capital in 6 months. This was a man without prior experience in business, no record of being loaned money from a bank, no collateral and nobody to stand for him.

He could not move forward with his idea because of financial dearth. He refused to start small. The sad news is that those that have money to shake the market, while he is still waiting for the big money to start, today, have replicated his idea.

Starting a business is not as difficult as being in business (existence). While trying to achieve the big dream of being the best corporation in Africa or in the world, learn to imbibe the KISS concept (Keep It Simple Sweet). A company started with just N10000 could be worth N200,000,000 in the next ten years.

  But how do you start small and scale big?

Go back to history and check top 10 companies. They started small, scaled big over time, then the money started rolling in from investors: Venture capitalists and Initial Public Offer.

So before you start that next business of yours, or launch out with your first idea, consider these suggestions:

- Take time to understand your business

- Don’t assume your business will be profitable in 2 months time – test the market to understand public acceptance

- Spend less on overhead expenses – improvise or find alternatives.

- Build your network

- Keep records of daily, weekly and monthly performance

- Plough back profit

- Focus on your operations – it is the blood of your business

- After a year of running the business, ask yourself if you are doing fine

- Share your expansion plan with  business consultants

-  Improve on logistics while you still stretch the dollar

- Put your business plan together with 5 year projection based on what you did the first year.

- While your business is gradually growing, hit your network list for funds

 - Replicate your success model -  Scale fast

- Focus on the long term dream

- At this stage of your business, you already have loyal customers. So Deliver Quality to increase Income Quantity.

- Make everybody happy – customers, workers, shareholders, and yourself

- Keep growing!

The above steps could take years to yield the result you want- you don’t start a business today and think you will scale in a month. Instead of waiting forever to get everything you need to get the ball rolling, start with whatever you have now, and gradually expand.

Don’t stop dreaming big. But start small and start now.

10 Stories From the Web to Know About This Week

Barack Obama’s new budget hits with a thud, Facebook gets a browser add-on straight out of 007, a young trep and The *TeaShed are hoping to change the way the Brits do tea, a teenage inventor’s quest to make school buses more aerodynamic, Gizmodo explains Bitcoin, Vine and SnapChat win over teens, teaching yourself something new… This week’s notable news and tantalizing tidbits for young treps:

1.. Best of Obama’s Budget: Say what you will about Ezra Klein, but here are his top three best proposals from the White House’s latest budget. (The Washington Post)

obama pics

2.Facebook confidential: While you won’t need a decoder ring to decipher the hidden messages found on Facebook, you will need the browser extension called Secretbook. The brainchild of former Google intern, 21 year-old Owen Campbell Moore, the extension allows users to embed secret messages within JPEG images. (Wired)
3. Making waves in Britain: See how The *TeaShed founder Jules Quinn, 24, is on her way toward turning a fashion degree into a teaware and homeware empire. (BDaily)
4. Seventeen and going green: In seventh grade, Chicago teen and one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30, Jonny Cohen conceived the GreenShields Project, a company that makes a retrofitted wing that sits atop conventional school buses claiming a fuel savings of 10 to 20 percent. Now 17 and off to college, he has almost brought his fuel and cost saving invention to the masses. (The Chicago Tribune)
5. Demystifying Bitcoin: Gizmodo simplifies the complicated question on many people’s tongues, what is Bitcoin? This anonymous, online currency has colossal implications not only for privacy advocates and drug dealers, but the entire global economy. (Gizmodo)
6. Banks in hot water… again: A new report from the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, showed that more than half of the $4 billion earmarked for small-business loans under the Small Business Lending Fund went to repay bailouts instead. (CNN Money)
7. Losing steam with teens: Though still the most important social-media network, among teens Facebook is losing ground with the important demographic. Up and coming social networks like Vine and Snapchat are quickly gaining speed. (TechCrunch)
8. Startup perks: Despite the long hours, David Politis, CEO of BetterCloud, thinks startups are more attractive to work for than tech giants like Facebook, Google and Microsoft. He says companies ought to bank on innate perks over material riches to attract top talent. (Forbes via Young Entrepreneur Council)
9. Reframing weaknesses: How young entrepreneur James McBennett turned his narcolepsy into strength — offering a positive message not only to entrepreneurs with disabilities, but all treps who are finding it hard to overcome adversity. (Revolution.is)
10. Teaching yourself something new: Jake Nickell, founder and CEO of Threadless, describes why he thinks success in business stems from having both the ignorance and confidence to strike something new — or just strike out. (LinkedIn Today)

This story originally appeared at  YoungEntrepreneur.com