Networking Creates Profits

I believe the key to success is helping others. That is fairly obvious to many of you who know me. I am at the core, a mom and a teacher. I am as such because I enjoy helping people. At one point in my life I was going to be a nurse. At another point I was going to be a counselor. Do you see the trend?

This hub is about nothing less. It is designed to help others. The key is that I will share what has been successful for me and want this to become a forum for those who, like me, enjoy helping others. I seek no personal gain except some ideas for myself and for others.

Being a teacher has its rewards. Most of them are intrinsic. I acknowledge that teachers are paid better now than they were years ago. However, few teachers are going to become wealthy unless they are great savers. I must admit that I am not. Raising three children and getting them their childhood years and through college does not leave a lot of extra for savings. I am not a complainer. I am a doer. I really believe that when life gives you lemons, first you are grateful for the lemons and next you make the lemonade and get creative and make other products as well.

Obviously, I make an income from my profession but I have earned money in other ways as well. Please read below, try out the ones that are comfortable for you and share below in the comment section ideas that have worked for you.

This is the more obvious one as most of you are connected to google adsense but for the newbies I am including it in my list.

Sign up for a Google Adsense account. I am hearing that some people are finding it difficult to get accepted. I had no problems at all. Google guided me right through the process. There are many tutorials on the hubpages and on Youtube. Thus, I am not going to list the how to's step-by-step.

I personally signed up for a google adsense account when I joined the hubpages over two years ago. I have heard that if you start a blogger.com account and sign up through them that the process is quicker and easier. This is only heresay; thus, I cannot verify it. Please let us know if this is the case.

You can become an affiliate on many sites. Basically an affiliate is just like being a middle man. You promote a product without ever handling the product. If someone is interested in something you promote and they click on the promoted product and buy it, you earn a small percentage.

I personally belong to the Google Affiliate, Clickbank, CJ, and Amazon. I hear that a lot of people make a lot of money being an affiliate. I cannot claim this being the case for me. It takes having a website that many visitors actually visit and purchase the items that you are listing. Thus, the trick is to get visitors to your site. There are umpteen million sites on the web. That is no easy task inspite of what the gurus will tell you in order to get your dollars in their pockets. I do advertise some of the Amazon products on the hubpages but have not had much in earnings from Amazon in this manner. I suppose it is because my writing has been more about information than it has been about making a profit from my writing. I look at it this way, if I earn something great and if I do not, I enjoyed writing and hopefully it helped someone learn something.

I sell items on ebay and on Amazon. While many people would not be surprised to learn that ebay is a source to sell items on, they are surprised to learn that Amazon is a great place to sell items besides books. First, do not breeze over the book selling idea. I have received books for free or purchased books for as little as eight cents each and made $50.00 each for those books. Most of them I earn closer to $10.00 each, which is still a nice profit.

Recently I went to a garage sale and bought a box of books for $5.00. It took me an hour or so to list approximately 25 books. I have already sold four of them for a profit of around $40.00. I am already in the black and have 21 other books that I will sell over time. If I don't sell them on Amazon, I hold a garage sale and sell them for a few dollars each. Either way, I benefit.

I have sold cameras, music equipment, earphones, and much, much more. The plus here is that you list it for free and you watch your email. There are no photos to take. You simply locate the item that is identical to yours, you fill in the information to list the item at your designated price and you watch your email. When the item sells, you are notified by email by Amazon, you package the item you sold and you ship it. Amazon collects the money and drops it into your bank account. You do not need to wait to have a minimum in your Amazon account before receiving your money.

I have books that have been listed for a year or more and suddenly my email has a notice. I pull it from the shelf, package it and ship it off.

By the way, as a special notation for you, if it is a book or some type of media, be sure to mark it media mail and it ships at a lower rate at the United States Post Office.

Another easy way to make money is by selling items around your house that are not being used. I sell on Craigslist and still have a basement full of items I do not use. Little by little I plan on clearing out that space and turning my basement into an apartment that my children or other guests may use. It is easier to donate or sell items than to throw them away. It is a great way to purge oneself of those unused items just taking up space.

A friend of mine just told me that she took her broken jewelry to her jeweler and made over $200.00. She motivated me to do the same and I too made $240.00 for jewelry that I knew I would never wear as it was broken or not wanted.

Go to a jeweler that you trust. If you are uncertain who to go to ask around. Again the networking process is best.

I know this will be one that will immediately put up walls for some of you. Seriously, I have tried the online survey thing myself and it makes me cringe to be honest. You answer a zillion questions only to get to a page where they want you to choose a product that will cost YOU money. Those are not for me and only irritate me. The surveys that I am talking about are legitimate ones that you sign up for and go to a legitimate survey location and participate in an interactive survey. I recently attended one that I found through Craigslist, under the employment section and under the category of etc. It took two hours. I answered some questions about health care in a group with 5 other people. I walked out of there with a check made out to cash for $100.00. A friend of mine did the same and he also participated in a mock trial and made $125.00 for that session. In that case they used the phone and the Internet and he participated right at home. It was a bit more of an invest ment of time. I believe he said it was about 4 hours but again he was at home, which meant no driving time.

Please, I cannot overly stress! Do not fall for the get rich schemes. Making money requires work. Yes, work smarter not harder, but do not fall for the get rich schemes.

I welcome your comments but I will not approve comments with links in them. This forum is truly for those who want to help others. If you have tried something that has worked, please share. If it is just an idea, try it out first, then share.

I am putting my last child through college and always seek honest ways to earn a little extra cash. I want her to have the best four years of her life thus far. I do not mind hard work. I do insist on legitimate and honest methods.

Thank you all in advance for sharing!

If you have a passion for writing, write. Of course you can write right here for the hubpages. I do make a portion of income from google adsense. Google is very touchy about people discussing what they earn. Thus, this is not a topic that I wish to get into. I am not one of the big earners. It is a perk from my writing. Also, sign up for other sites. I find Blogger.com is an easy method. There are many other sites to write for as well. I have heard that ehow is a top site to write for and earn.

My main advice here is - try this method only if you enjoy writing.

Becoming a Youtube Partner is not an easy process but this is a method of making money if you are a personable type of individual and you come across as sincere about helping others.