How to make money by using other people’s business –Real Life instances to guide you

This wouldn’t be the kind of article, you would usually bump into on my blog, Ghbase.com but I feel it’s necessary that I share a few tricks I have used to survive when I needed to make some extra cash.

There are lots of unemployed people in Ghana and these days, you speak to about 10 people and 5-7 are unemployed or perhaps not earning enough salary from the work that they do.

From my experience, the biggest mistake is to rely on just one income stream in this life although there are some few exceptions as some jobs can make you soo much that, just one stream is more than enough but even that, its still dangerous because the likes of Jeff Bezoz, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, don’t have one income stream.

I wouldn’t delve into the subject of income streams as I would need to dedicate a full article to it alone so will quickly get into the main objective of this article.

I understand times are hard in this country and its really hard to find a job these days but sometimes, it’s not because there are no jobs, that’s why you are jobless or not making enough to cover your bills but that, you are not zealous enough and not thinking hard enough or let me say, you are scared to make a move.

I want to share my personal tricks that have helped me made some cool cash and also my observations on how others are also making some cool cash so you can tweak it to fit your field and make things work for you.

So as you know, my name is Chris Handler and a co-founder/Owner of Ghbase.com—An entertainment news focused blog.

There are several ways one can use his/her blog to make money and I won’t talk about all of them today but will focus on one way that helped me make some good profits that I used it to invest in my business to make more.

So I was approached by a company about 2 years ago, who wanted to advertise on my website, I reviewed their terms and once I felt I could deliver, I accepted and I was paid and each month, I make between $800-$1,200 plus promoting them on my website.

So during my work with them, they told me they had been trying to reach out to some website to advertise but were not getting any feedback from them.

When they mentioned the site, I told them I knew the owner and could be a middleman.

I negotiated with the website owner who was my friend and he charged $300 a month a banner on his website, looking at his traffic, I also added my charges and after several negotiations, the client agreed to pay $500 a month (We started from $800)

Boom—I had made $200 by just being a middle man and I said to myself, what If I recommenced other websites to this company.

Then a I recommended another friend, and he charged $400 and I negotiated to reach $700 a month with the client—Booom, another $300 made.

So now I was making $500 by just being a middle man for two websites.

Then I had 3 more sites joining and by the time I realised I was making a combined $1,000 by just being a middleman—just because I was able to sell my ad spaces from colleague bloggers to a client who needed it badly.

I even recommended a friend’s popular channel one time and he charged and I earned my cut but after a month client didn’t want to continue—Can’t state the reason here but I was hurt as it affected me too….lol.

This became constant and for months, I was earning $1,000 freely by just recommending and negotiating—I would blow some of that money on new clothes, send some to family and you know….. (I won’t say the other one)

And some of these sites had more visitors on their blogs than me but I was not bothered at all—I love that my friends succeed because if they succeed, I can take my share in it so that’s a lesson there be happy if your friends are excelling.

Now that’s the story, later I took that to another level and made more but won’t write about that for now.

All I’m trying to get you to understand is that you won’t really need to own a certain business to make money..

We all have ideas and just need capital or some investment to push but until that happens, do you fold your arms, waiting for some miracle?

Make money from someone’s business by marketing their business for them and you can still walk away with some money—you just have to be creative.

In 2018 I held an online E-commerce course, where participants paid Ghc50 and I made Ghc6,000 selling but I stopped because I couldn’t handle the numbers and conversations—Yeah, I’m somewhat lazy if not like I should be driving a rangeover.

For those who enrolled, I told them that, they didn’t really need capital to buy their products to sell, they can start small by selling for others.

So I gave an example of how a friend was selling suits on campus to make some money—He joined all WhatsApp groups on campus and made his presence felt in those groups, by not just spamming but participating in conversations in the group and then he would subtly market his suits.

When anyone wanted to buy, he would send all the pictures, to you, then you let him know your sizes and he would bring you the suits for you to chose one—All this while, he didn’t bu the suits.

What he had done was collaborate with those who own boutiques in town, and sell their stuff for them for a commission—If he seals the deal at 300ghc and manages to sell it at 400ghc, he’s made 100ghc profit for the effort.

Another real life example of how to make money from other people’s business is the story of a friend called Issah.

So I completed SHS in 2012, then in 2013 a friend( his name is Isaac)  partnered with me to start designing websites—He taught me basic design, how to host a website and all that and even was the co-founder of this very blog-Ghbase

I remember we would wear our purple long sleeves with black trousers and ugly roaming the streets of Accra in search for clients to develop websites for so we can make some money before starting tertiary education.

Oh how I wish I can write about all of it here but will tell that story another time, so let me just tell you about Issah and how he helped us made money while he made some for himself.

He was in level 300 at UG, I think when he came to us— He would go to churches mostly and submit proposals that he can build websites for them and once he gets the contracts, he would come to us to build for him.

He would charge the church Ghc500-Ghc800 then and come give us Ghc250-Ghc300 for us to design a website and sometimes I would do it and at times my partner would—All we needed was a domain which was less than Ghc20 then and we had a server we were paying a small fee yearly.

Each time, Issah came around we knew we were going to make some Ghc200 and we were so happy earning that without roaming in the hot sun and it went on for some time till we found blogging and stopped.

I’m telling you these real life stories to sort of motivate you and open up your mind on something you can do to earn some sort of income.

You don’t need to own a business to make money, you can partner with people who already own businesses and make some money.

You just have to be creative, and take advantage of Social media to make some money because we have lots of opportunities today that weren’t available some years ago.

Most importantly, you need to enlighten yourself and even upgrade your skill set if possible by taking some online classes.

There are lots of websites offering free courses, some charge a small feee, learn a new skill and make money with it.

Some of you all you do on Youtube is watch music videos—Youtube has lots of videos on how to do this and that and you should take advantage.

Sit yourself down, ask yourself questions, discover your talent and make use of it—If it’s how to convince people on how to buy anything that you know how to do, look for some product or service and promote it.

One last example—There are lots of people in the markets who are selling stuff or making amazing things but are not getting enough sales because they’ve not heard about Social media advertising or running ads on Social media, but you have, so why don’t you talk to them, know their prices and come market on Social media.

A saw a lady friend selling Shoe Racks, Cabinets, etc she’s not even a carpenter but she realised, she could look up modern carpentry designs on Pinterest and talk to a local carpenter who can make them, agree on a price and then rush to Social media to promote them, the when the gig comes, she lets her Carpenter make them—It’s a win-win for them right?

Another person I know was coming up with Kaftan design concepts for men and would get a good tailor to sew, he got his friends to model in them, took nice pictures, promoted them on Social media and branded them well and was making cool cash and during that time, learned how to sew himself and now he owns his own brand.

I’m hoping that you can learn something from this and begin to examine yourself and see what you can do, what service or product you can market even though you don’t have the skills set to do so.

Look at existing products or services, figure out what is missing and what modifications you can make and push it and make money.

If it’s your friend who’s doing a business but is perhaps not getting enough clients and you have good marketing background and can in a way brand better by starting as an agency and get him the clients, do it—Get the clients come to you, then you to your friend and boom, he makes money, you also make money than waiting to be hired by a company as a marketing executive.

If you don’t make a move, by learning a new skill, upgrading and looking for opportunities and taking advantage, I can assure you that, your condition will never change and you would be 50 and blaming demons, family members but yourself.

If you learned something from this article, SHARE it with friends, that way I can be motivated to make more of such articles and even perhaps videos so we can all grow together.

Thanks for reading, you can share comments with me via email [email protected]. If you are making it in your field and want to share your experiences with others, we can arrange some video shoots as well.