I’ll be honest…
When someone recently asked me about MMO, for the first time in my life, I was speechless.
“What’s that?” I simply had to ask.
I hope I’m not the only one, but I thought it was some type of online game or something like that.
What would gaming have got to do with career guidance or coaching? Well, unless you’re thinking of a career in the gaming industry.
But to my surprise, MMO is an initialism for the Make Money Online niche or industry.
I didn’t even know such an industry existed!
Here I was thinking that everyone has to go through the same “path to success”.
You join a company, you work hard, you learn to sell yourself, you get promoted, then rinse and repeat until you’ve achieved your career goals…
The New Age Thinking
It definitely was intriguing though.
I couldn’t help thinking to myself…
Is it really possible to make money in such unconventional ways?
Now, here’s the funny thing about doing research in this day and age, the moment you start to read about something… suddenly it feels like you’re being “stalked” online.
Because within a few days from the first time I heard this term, I was bombarded with videos and ads from different trainers all over Youtube, Facebook, Gmail and what have you.
From being completely clueless to seeing different types of MMO opportunities left, right, centre.
Perhaps what was most shocking to me is that this new age thinking is highly prevalent among the younger generation today. (I’ll come back to this)
After digging around the internet for a while, I realised that this industry was much larger than I initially thought. There are plenty of opportunities available with many newer ones popping up within the last 5 or so years.
Here’s a quick breakdown of some of those I found:
13 Common Make Money Online Industries You May Already Have Heard Of
- Influencer – Either as a blogger, instagram-figure, or youtuber, selling or promoting a company’s product or service.
- Online Tutor – Tying up with an online platform to provide, you guessed it, tuition services.
- Virtual Assistant (VA) – Another really interesting new career opportunity where you’re basically an online admin person.
- Online Transcriber – Someone passes you an audio or video recording and you listen, playback and transcribe the recording. Word for word.
- Logo and Graphic Designer – If you got some graphic design skills, there are websites looking for people with such creative talents.
- Ebook Publisher – Apparently there are training programs teaching people how to write a book and publish it on Amazon to make a 5-figure living. Well, go figure.
- Affiliate Marketing – If you’ve been dabbling around the internet you might have heard of this term. Affiliates are basically resellers of products of brand where they earn a small commission for every sale.
- Ecommerce Store Owner – Probably the most common one out of the entire list, the simplest way to make money online is to sell something on an ecommerce store like Lazada or Qoo10.
- Online Course Producer – Have a skill or talent? You can now monetise that knowledge by creating an online course for others to learn.
- Online Writer – With so many new ways to sell on the internet, these web owners are going to need someone to write for them.
- Online Investing or Trading – While investing has been around for centuries, the digital age brings a new way for people at home to burn, I mean, grow their wealth.
- FB Live Shows – Growing in popularity, at least among the aunties in Singapore, FB live is another channel to sell products from the comfort of your room
- Domain Squatter – This one doesn’t seem to be that easy now as compared to the early internet days but if you have a good domain name, you could flip it for a sizable profit.
There probably are many more variations and subset of these niches but the general idea is there.
You now have an ample amount of career opportunities to “earn a living” on the internet whether on a part-time or full-time basis.
The Single Most Important Skill None of Them Talk About
During my very quick (and brief) research into this rather peculiar industry, I discovered one VERY important thing about the successful ones…
Yet, despite its significance, almost none of the experts or “gurus” choose to mention it.
And that is the ability to sell!
For almost every single one of the jobs I listed above, it involves selling something in one way or another.
You’re either selling somebody else’s product or you’re selling yourself.
Worse…
For some of these online jobs, there are countless others who are willing to undercut the market by a crazy amount. Mostly because they’re from a third world country where the standard of living is way lower.
I’m talking about offering the same product or service at as much as 90% cheaper than others.
And that just means the competition is much, much steeper if you don’t already have the sales ability to justify your price or value.
Let’s take the simple logo design service as an example. A skilled designer would have spent years honing her creative juices to design a beautiful logo for a company.
Yet, you can find listings on this website fiverr where people are offering their logo designs for… yup, 5 freaking dollars.
Is MMO Possible for the Average Singaporean?
In a way, I guess I’m fortunate that I came from an era where the internet wasn’t such a predominating force in our lives.
And, despite my initial uncertainties, I had the wonderful opportunity to pick up, hone, and develop a critical skill I still rely heavily on today…
Selling!
The platform and landscape might have changed but that basic instinct I developed still plays a powerful role in my career choices today.
So, back to the question of whether I think the MMO is possible for anyone?
Definitely. I think the number of online success stories are testament to the fact you can make a somewhat decent living on the internet.
But it starts with learning how to sell first.
Get that right and I believe everything else should fall into place.
What about you? Have you tried venturing into a new niche online?
Shann “It’s A Crazy World We’re In” Wong
