Sole Trader Business

The vast majority of new marketers in an online business will be sole traders. The very nature of internet marketing makes that almost inevitable. Throughout the years, most direct selling of any sort has been done by people ploughing their own furrow.

A few years ago I was involved, for a while, in network marketing. In that scheme each person involved was designated as a Distributor and was treated as an individual within the network. There were lots of people around me and my up-line organised meetings, seminars and presentations to support me in my efforts. I did feel like part of a team in some respects but, ultimately, it was down to me.

Some of the earliest direct sellers were the door to door salesmen. Mr. Hoover in the USA built his vacuum cleaner empire on this approach. His salesmen went from house to house not only explaining the new product but able to demonstrate it too. This was obviously a very powerful marketing ploy. Rather than describing to potential customers how the wonderful new machine could clean their carpet, – the salesman would clean their carpet! No amount of clever sales copy has ever been so effective in making sales.

Direct selling almost invariably exists within the realm of new products, items which are not in the shops, mainly because they are not yet known about. The network marketing companies I dealt with years ago had products which could be loaned to people to try out for a certain length of time. The theory was that when it was time to hand these back, after the free trial, the item would have become its own salesman and a transaction would ensue.

Internet marketing is still a fairly a new form of business and marketers are still learning the best way to do things. As new technology comes along, new ways to use that technology in an online business soon follows on. It is possible to make products available for trial, but this can be a bit ‘iffy’ as we almost never meet our customers face to face. A more successful scenario is that we offer the first of a set of DVDs on a particular subject, either as a free gift or at a nominal price, and then offer the rest of the set either as a single purchase or on a disc-a-month basis for which the customer will pay the full price.

Being a sole trader in the business of internet marketing requires significant motivation. The insular nature of working alone isn’t one that suits everyone. Some find it invigorating to be in total control of everything whilst others struggle to find the focus necessary to do what needs to be done. Opportunities do arise within internet marketing to work on Joint Ventures with other marketers which means that we can work in partnership with someone else. This is a more sociable way to do business with each partner contributing to the project.

I suppose the big plus of being a sole trader is that the buck starts and stops with you. You take the decisions on what to market, where to market it and how to market it. You alone reap the benefits of success but you also suffer the disappointments of projects which fail. If you are able to “treat those two imposters just the same” (Rudyard Kipling) and enjoy your work, whatever fate may dish out, there really are few better ways to earn a crust than internet marketing.