About Income For Introverts

Income for introverts was written out of our frustration with attempting to build a full time income online.  Our epiphany came when we read a blog post that suggested AdSense was the perfect income source for an introvert. That really resonated. In discussion with my son and business partner we had talked about the many things we like about AdSense. No sales, no customers, no phone calls, no interruptions, etc., but had not thought to tie that to personality type.

Of course, we find it difficult to earn as much as we would like with AdSense.  We also worry about being banned for some unwitting infraction.   So, we are always looking for other introvert friendly ways to increase our income.

I am a sucker for internet "Guru's" books on how to earn big bucks online and have purchased and studied many of them. I now realize I never went anywhere with them because most require some extrovert skills I lack.  For example,  here are some alternate online income ideas with a description of which aspects are difficult for an introverts like us.

"OfflineBiz" is a membership site that promotes business development by talking to local business owners about how you could use your online skills to help their business. I agree the need is their and business owners in these hard times may be receptive to the idea. In fact, when I find myself talking with business owners it can be fun and interesting. However, building a business out of developing them as customers isn't going to happen.

They suggest people with very little online experience can sell their services and outsource the technical work via RentACoder or other services. We do have a few website we build for customers and that has not been our experience. At some point you always need a programmer.  Many years ago an experience programmer taught me "A manager needs to know enough programming to tell when his programmer is lying to him!"

Customers: If you have customers, you have to negotiate price, terms, etc. In negotiations, I always loose. I price myself to cheap, I do to much work for free, I feel guilty if the customer can't effectively use a solution, etc. So, any business model that involves customers has some problems. It's tempting because a few quick customers can do wonders for solving a cash flow problem (at least for the short term). However, as time goes on you notice they:

• Call for help at inopportune times. You're "in the flow" on a complex problem when the phone rings. Five minutes later you hang up and realize you will have to start over on your project.
• "Forget" to pay you on schedule so you have the joy of collections calls to look forward to.
• Become a legal liability. If your solution is mission critical and they are loosing money because it is down, you have a problem. That is especially frustrating if the problem is something link a cable cut at your ISP, about which you can do absolutely nothing.
• Sales: No matter how good your product, someone has to handle sales. For example, the conventional wisdom is that when you're website reaches a significant (whatever that may be) volume you will do much better financially to sell direct ads on the site than continue with AdSense. However, that means someone has to be prepared to pick up the phone or send Emails that promise a "customer" they will make more money buying your ad than it costs. That will lead to promises about traffic volume, click thrugh rates, and other metrics which I am very uncomfortable promising.
• I realize business owners are used to unmeasurable results from their advertising spend, but am still uncomfortable with the idea. The idea of taking a call from a customer because advertising with me didn't work the sales magic they were counting on is extremely distasteful.
• Products: Income potential is also related to the products you sell or promote. Mesothelioma, the cancer caused by asbestos, is perhaps the most famous example. Personal injury lawyers will pay an amazing amount for referrals from potential clients with this problem. Diet, weight loss, supplements are other areas that pay really well. Unfortunately for me, I have no interest what so ever in writing about them.
• Clickbank is where many online marketers get the products they promote, but who wants to promote scams? There is probably some good stuff there, but there is a lot of "product" about running your car on water instead of gas and other unlikely solutions.

I agree with the conventional wisdom that the best long term approach is to sell your own products. However, that also brings up issues of fulfillment, returns, customer complaints, etc. It should be possible to outsource those parts of the business though.

Besides AdSense I like the Ebay affiliate program the best. For the kind of sites I write I feel like the visitor can make the choice of looking at an Ebay auction and they won't go their unless interested. If i pick my searches to match my site content everyone is happy.