Making Money Online: The Middleman Method

There is a very easy way for people to make money online, without any initial funding. I like to call it the middleman method.

What is the middleman method? Essentially, what you will be doing is buying a service from one person, and selling that to someone else for more money. It’s like flipping on Craigslist, only mostly digital!

Find a niche. There are many ways to make money using the middleman method. Try to find something you know you can sell for more. If you go on Fiverr, you can find a range of creative gigs you can take advantage of. A few gigs you can look out for are:

  • Logo creation
  • Testimony videos
  • T-shirt design

Before you start ordering gigs, you’ll need to post an advertisement. Go to various websites like craigslist.com, backpage.com, and forums and create a service advertisement. Set the price to a bit more than the Fiverr gigs you found, so you can make a profit. Around $20 or so.

But wait? How will you pay for the Fiverr gigs with no money? Ask for the higher priced payments up front. Around 30% of who you contact back will agree with an upfront payment. You will only need to do this for the first few clients before you build up a nice amount of money.

Now when you get clients from your postings asking for custom design work or videos, go on Fiverr and order that specific gig.

That’s basically it! You’ll be working as a middle man, connecting buyers with sellers and essentially collect a commission from each transaction. The best part is you don’t need a website, special account, or any (easier with a bit, around $50) money.

Ways to scale this: It may be easier to manage the first few transactions in a smaller city, but to scale this up post multiple ads in bigger cities. Even if you’re not in the United States, post your advertisements daily in cities like Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis, Boston, Orlando, San Diego, Portland, Kansas City, etc. You will get a lot more offers, which will make you a lot more money.

If you begin to get overwhelmed with orders, raise the price. You’ll get slower replies, but you will only need to do a fraction of the amount to make the same amount. Why do 10 orders a week at $20 each ($150 a week total [10*$20-10*$5]), when you can do 5 orders a week at $50 each ($225).

Collect the e-mails from those who you send their completed request. If you plan on doing more than one method (logos and t-shirt design for example), I suggest keeping different mailing lists. If you ever need cash faster than normal, you can e-mail your list to see if they need any new work. I recommend using Mailchimp to maintain your mailing list.

Comment below to let me know how this works out for you.