Now, how are you going to pay for your education? Will it be through scholarships, student loans, funding from parents, part-time or summer jobs, internships, or some combination of these? Those are all tried and true methods to get through a 2 or 4 year program or even an advanced degree.
Have you considered also letting your education help you along the way?
"Just a second," you say. "How can I use my electronics or other technology education to make money while I'm still learning it?"
One readily available solution is to get involved with a program that lets you leverage what you already know or can easily learn on a schedule that fits whatever time you already have available.That can be anywhere from a few hours a week during business hours to a concentrated effort nights and weekends.
That program is Commission River. It's a commissioned sales opportunity focused on technology solutions. The range of offerings includes cell phones, T1, MPLS and fiber optic business lines, broadband Internet, consumer and business VoIP, and similar services.
"Whoa!", you pipe up. "I'm a techno-person, not a sales person. Besides, I'm no expert in any of that business telecom technology."
Not to worry. Most people who are really attracted to technology and willing to put in the effort to excel at it don't have that "sales" personality, either. As a student, your level of expertise will also vary by how far along you are in your studies and how much opportunity you've had to work in the field. Fortunately, neither of these factors really matter very much for this to work for you.
So, how do you make money with Commission River? There are fundamentally two ways. Many of us concentrate on marketing online. Building websites, writing blogs, contributing to forums, and other social networking fits any schedule. Personally, I'm a night owl and do some of my best work after midnight. This explainer is a blog with over 700 entries to date, most of which was written at night or in odd hours here and there.
If the Internet is your second home and you can write about new products, your opinions of this technical approach over that one, software reviews, tutorials on how things work, helpful hints and so on, you can include links to your Commission River services where appropriate and let visitors find them on their own schedule. You'll likely to find that many of your sales happen when you are asleep or at class.
The other approach is offline. That includes everything from calling potential clients on the phone, visiting business offices, sending or handing out fliers, hanging up posters, or meeting face to face at networking events. Offline marketing is especially powerful for selling higher end business services, although you may find a lot of IT managers will visit your websites and enter requests for more information.
You don't have to complete the sale on things like T1 lines or Ethernet connections. There is a staff of professionals who will call the client and work through the paperwork. You just have to get potential customers interested enough to enter their name and phone number in the system, or give you their business card.
Right now it's summer break. Consider this a perfect chance to get a jump start on the next school year. Have a look at the suite of services from Commission River. Then take a few minutes and sign up for free so you can get access to the training materials, free websites, and the complete back office system that will enable you to start generating an income.
