7 Entrepreneurs Who’ll Never See 60 Again
Recently I had the pleasure of some emails and phone calls with a lady named Sara Wilson, a free-lance writer earning online. Hmm, that’s not very unique in the way of news, now is it?
Well let me focus the narrative a little more on our theme, here, being a resource for Seniors and Retirees making Money On Line. You see, Sara contacted me as part of her research for an article she was writing on assignment to find just what the subject line is here, People over 60 earning On Line. I’m sure she put a lot of work into the article, I recommend you read it , but it does turn out she didn’t have too much problem finding multiple success stories. If you are coming up on retirement soon, or you’ve already retired and think that the rest of your life will be spent in wishing and hoping that whomever is president will toss you the bone of 2% COLA increases, then take heart. It’s not just this 60 plus ‘voice in the wilderness’ writing here with the message, there are plenty other seniors who are empowered in their retirement for as long as they want to be active.
For those who don’t chose to read the full article, I’ll summarize it here, it even opened my eyes to a few things. Sara’s client, the folks who commissioned the article have a pretty interesting and useful web site that is worth a visit as well.
- 64 yo Woman earning from AdSense: Many folks have heard of Darren Rowse who first became known for making a six-figure income from blogging. many more, though, don’t realize that Darren’s famous ProBlogger.net website is not where he earns most of his money. The ‘star’ of his portfolio are sites that review and give tutorials on digital cameras, exactly as this lady does. Think AdSense and other Pay Per Click services are dead? No way.
- 64 and 62 yo Couple teaching via a Membership site: One eBusiness model many of us don’t pay enough attention to is loosely defined as a membership site. You offer content or a service that people want and then charge them, typically a monthly fee, for access. Think no one would pay to ‘belong’ to something you create? Here’s a couple with paying members from 31 countries that proves they will if you get it right.
- 64 yo Woman selling on eBay: eBay, I can here some of you saying, that can’t make money. Well, there are 27 billion dollars a year changing hands there that will prove you wrong. Selling on eBay is one of the fastest and most reliable ways to start today and see dollars flow into you account in a week or less. Here’s a lady making $30K plus per year to prove it.
- 76 yo Woman Coaches for Profit: 76! Aren’t you all washed up by then? Can a 76yo actually make money? Well the straight answer is, yes. I loved this example because it showed exactly what I have often preached. No matter what you original skills, play to your strengths … and it’s easy to convince seniors they will learn better from another senior … $30K plus for this lady proves my theory.
- 62 and 65 yo Men Selling an Online Service: It’s easy to find a dozen different ways to earn commissions or otherwise profit from the products of other people, but most Internet gurus will tell you, the most successful path is to create and sell you own product. “I can’t do that” you are saying as you read this. Well, no doubt these guys thought that too until they decided to solve a problem that plagued millions of people. These guys are now making over six figures per year and it’s cute, the “take away’ I got was their original internet was to sell ‘conventionally” I.e., “brick and mortar” storefront and all the normal trimmings (and overhead). They started online because it was cheap and quick and now find there was never any need to think about real-world real estate, investment and hassles.
OK, there you go. read the article for some more details, visit these folks online to see what they are doing, but most importantly, your take away is: Do not tell me you can’t make money online.
Good Tips Are Timeless
I saw this post recently on a blog I read and recommend, Retire @ 21 by Michael Dunlop. Seemed like something familiar 
to me, so I did a search here (you do know, if you are having trouble navigating, you can just type a word or two you are want to find into that “Search” box in the top right corner, don’t you?
Here’s what came back: What Can You Learn About Making Money From Your Granddaughter?. Seems like I wrote this up more than a year ago, least September to be exact. You see, you don’t have to be young to stay up to date 
But I didn’t point this out to try to embarrass anyone or to make Michael look bad … these are both original articles and I was tipped off about Ashley by a post on yet another blog … I picked it up because of the learn from your grandchildren angle, Michael is focused more on the “Youthful Entrepreneur” aspect, but it doesn’t matter … the end message is really the same.
While I am sure that Ashley is as intelligent as she is attractive, I see no evidence she is another Einstein, nor do I see any really special education or secret edge she has, except one.
I am positive she did not listen to all the smarter, better educated, and especially “more experienced” folks who have told her “you can’t make money online”.
You can, she did, and let me tell you why there has never been a better time:
Years ago I recall a book which was titled something like “How to Profit From the Coming Hard Times”. Can’t find a listing for it right now, so I may be off slightly on the wording. However, in looking for it I found that Amazon has a bunch of similar titles, any along the same vein. No matter where this investment/stock market situation winds up, no matter how battered you feel over your current 401K status, whatever the rumors or realities of layoffs at your work are, there are ways to profit in, and even from the days ahead.
You can empower your retirement, you can stand upright rather than go around with the bowed head of a supplicant, and you can make money online.
Focus on stories like Ashley. Money can be made from the most unusual niches. If you are a senior or retiree looking to earn money online, this is your time! In fact, if there is no other good idea floating around in you head right now, write and self-publish a book on strategies to cope .. you certainly have the experience for it, and there has never been a better time.
To Make Money With AdSense, You Must Know AdWords
Many of us small-time amateurs get into the blogging for profit game because of the big frog in the advertising puddle, Google AdSense. AdSense is a very interesting and valuable tool in any blogger’s arsenal. It costs nothing to join, has no monthly maintenance or carrying charges and can work for virtually any blog or conventional website.
Of course it is also the tool many beginning bloggers love to hate, because AdSense will not produce much in the way of income unless you learn how to use it wisely. There are probably a thousand times more bloggers earning pennies per day from AdSense than there are earning even a few dollars a day … but that does not have to be the case.
It is not the tool, however that is at fault. In spite of articles you read every few weeks about the demise of AdSense it is still a very viable tool and profitable to both Google and to many bloggers, including me.
So how do you move from pennies per day to dollars per day? One key is, you have to understand how AdWords work. The only reason AdSense exists is to provide display area and “eyeballs” for Google AdWords customers. Think of AdSense as the paper that newspaper ads are printed on … AdWords are the advertisements themselves that the newspaper sells in order to earn money to produce the newspaper.
So how do you learn AdWords? Well you could just open an AdWords account and start spending money for ads to teach yourself how it works … but I don’t recommend that course of action.
Instead, take advantage of valuable and often free resources from experts in the field. My friend Eric Giguere has been wring about and earning money from AdSense for years. Along the way he’s learned a lot about AdWords. Today Eric announced a freebie book detailing some of his knowledge. As with much of Eric’s work I am sure he could have packaged this as a “for sale” eBook, but he has chosen to give the book away. Take advantage. You can’t beat the price and the understanding you gain will be valuable even if you never buy an AdWords ad in your career. Recommended.
Free AdWords Guides
There are many eBooks available about Google AdWords. Most are not free, but there are some good free guides out there, including:
- The Only AdWords Affiliate Marketing EBook You’ll Ever Need
- This is a guide I’ve started to write about using AdWords to make money via affiliate marketing. Unfinished as of yet, but potentially useful.
- The Unofficial Guide To Google’s Quality Score
- A great guide to how sites can reduce their advertising costs by increasing the quality score of their advertisements.
Free AdWords Tools
As with the eBooks, there are many software tools — online and downloadable — that are useful for AdWords advertisers. Here are some free ones:
- AdWords Keyword Tool
- This tool for AdWords customers is also available for free to anyone who wants to do some keyword research using Google’s extensive search data. Here you can find out monthly search volumes and estimated ad costs for almost any key phrase you can think of. read more AdSense and AdWords tips from Eric here
You can learn a lot from Eric … I certainly have … and I subscribe to his blog, I suggest you do so also.
As a side note, Eric also produces a Gangbuster, sophisticated yet simple Site Builder program which will help a lot in building sites that work well within the AdSense system and comply with all Google’s rules. Also recommended.