How Can Pharmacists Work From Home? Is It Possible? Yes!

Would you believe me if I told you that you can make money from home, as a pharmacist? What if I told you that you can earn a passive income online, even whilst doing your normal day job...

Does it sound crazy? How can Pharmacists work from home? Are there online jobs for pharmacists? I am a pharmacist and I am living proof that you can make it happen. I am so excited to show you how, and to help you to get started.

First things first, let us get to know each other, shall we?

WHO AM I?

My name is Roopesh. I am a pharmacist-turned internet marketer. I live in South Africa. I obtained my B.Pharm degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

I graduated in the year 2000. I remember the time when I had to make a choice as to what I wanted to study. My first choice was actually Commerce. I wanted to become a Chartered Accountant. My second choice was to study Pharmacy.

I was even given a bursary to do CA. I guess you can call it a change of heart... 

Here is a picture of my pharmacy class of 2000. 

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Over the past 19 years, I have had the opportunity to work within the various sectors of pharmacy.

I started off doing my internship and community service for the government, then went on to work for a third-party pharmacy medicine manufacturer and spent the rest of my pharmacy career within the private retail community pharmacy.

I found it most rewarding to work in the community pharmacy. I enjoy speaking to people and socializing, and I guess that is why I never bothered to move elsewhere.

What about you? What sector of pharmacy are you currently working in? Are you enjoying it at the moment? 

Share your story below and let us get to know each other a bit better.

How did I come onto the online world? It was not something that I thought of or considered. I never imagined starting an online venture. To be honest, I had this misconception that everything online, is a scam.

However, I literally had to make changes fast, as my livelihood was hanging in the balance....

STARTING AN ONLINE BUSINESS- NEW AND SCARY ADVENTURE

6 years ago I had an incident with my hearing that has changed my life. I am permanently deaf in my right ear. I was told that when I was little, I suffered from meningitis which ultimately caused the hearing loss.

For most of my life I have had to rely on the left ear for my day to day communications. I love my music and love going to concerts.

I had decided to attend a concert of a popular singer, thinking that it would help me to blow off some steam, as I had been going through an immense amount of stress for a few months. Little did I realize that this fateful day was going to change the course of my life in a way that I never expected.

The next day I could hear ringing noises in my ear. Initially, it was not so loud, but it was still bothersome nonetheless. However, as the days went by, the ringing got more louder and intensified, to the point that it affected my day to day conversations and interactions.

It was later diagnosed as chronic tinnitus. Tinnitus is a constant ringing in the ears. I had multiple sounds in my ear simultaneously, from ringing, to whooshing, to droning and cascading noises.

It was crazy, and I started to panic. The reality of not being able to hear clearly again, had started to kick in. To add insult to injury, I further experienced three vertigo attacks, which caused permanent hearing loss. The stress had tipped the scales over!

My career was hanging in the balance. How would I deal with the customers at work? Unfortunately, as much as I did not want it, I had no choice but to purchase a hearing aid.

My hearing has never been the same. Music and movies were not enjoyable anymore. At that point, I had to look for something else, another way to make money. 

I needed a back-up plan. What happens should I go completely deaf? This is when my search for finding an alternative way to earn an income, lead me to the world of internet marketing.

HOW DID I GET INTO THE ONLINE WORLD? BLESSING IN DISGUISE

I always had the ambition of wanting to earn a passive income. I even went to the point of doing non-pharmacy stuff to achieving this goal.

I spent a considerable amount of my time, energy and money on opportunities such as studying real estate, horse racing (yeap, not one of the best ideas), being an extra in TV commercials, joining MLM'S or Multi-level marketing companies and buying an educational franchise for kids.(You can read my full story here).

Little did I realize that it had to take for my hearing to deteriorate, in order for me to shift my focus and look towards a completely different source- the internet.

On the evening of August 12th, 2015, as I was browsing through FaceBook, I came across an interesting post. A post where I saw some friends bragging about a MLM that they had just joined.

I turned to Google to learn more about this network marketing company. The review article helped me to decide that this was not the right option for me. However, the article did suggest an alternative way to making money. One that did not require recruiting, and this is what captured my interest.

It had to do with a business model called affiliate marketing. No recruiting necessary, no experience needed. You can build a business based on your own passion. The bonus was that they recommended a teaching platform that was free to trial.

At that point, I had nothing to lose. I signed up immediately. I was hooked and within my 6th day, I signed up for their premium membership.

Today, close to 4 years, I do not regret the move.

WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING ALL ABOUT?

Affiliate marketing is a commission based business model. Basically, you earn a commission for selling other peoples products or services via your website.

The 3 key components for a successful affiliate marketing business are:

• The affiliate merchant or vendor,
• The customer, and
• Your website.

You start off by choosing a topic for your website. In my case, I decided to build a website on tinnitus.

The goal for my site was to help others who are suffering from tinnitus. I saw it as an opportunity to integrate my pharmacy knowledge and offer my expertise and advice.

The next step, is to partner up with an affiliate merchant. I signed with the Amazon and the eBay affiliate network.

These affiliate networks are the ones who are going to pay you, for promoting their products. Signing up with affiliate networks is free.

The last part, is to get traffic or visitors to your website. This part will take some time. It's all about writing quality and helpful content on a consistent basis. 

So, that's what I did.

When someone is interested in purchasing a product, they will simply click on the affiliate link embedded within your site.

This link will take them to the official Amazon page to complete the transaction. For each successful transaction, you get paid a commission.

That is how affiliate marketing works.

HOW CAN AFFILIATE MARKETING HELP PHARMACISTS TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE?

If you were to look at it closely, you would notice that affiliate marketing is not a foreign concept.

If you are within the retail sector of pharmacy, you are already an experienced 'affiliate marketer'.

Allow me to explain.

Let's say that someone comes up to you needing help for a runny tummy.You would probably advise them to take an anti-diarrhoeal, with some oral hydration sachets. If they are having cramps as well, then you'd probably sell them an antispasmodic too.

In exchange for your knowledge and expertise, you earn a commission or profit on the products that you've sold to them.

The principal is the same with affiliate marketing.

All you have to do, is chose a topic that you are passionate about for your website. Learn the process of writing content, and help people all over the world.This is a formula for online pharmacy jobs.

My site, Deal With Tinnitus.com talks about various medications and their associated side effects that can aggravate tinnitus. I promote certain exercise programs that can help to ease the ringing noises. I write about medical devices that can act as tinnitus maskers. I also recommend vitamin supplementation that I have personally found to be beneficial.

You as a pharmacist, can talk about a range of topics.

You can choose to build your online business on;

• a certain health condition that may be close to your heart,
• or have a site dedicated to vitamins, or a certain vitamin (I have a friend who has build a site, talking purely about Magnesium),
• talking about health and fitness from a pharmacists point of view,
• getting folks to register with other online pharmacies - these pharmacy networks have their own affiliate program,
• medical devices- have a site reviewing new medical innovations,
• weight loss and lifestyle modifications to achieving optimal health, and
• building a site on complementary medication products.
  

There are so many avenues that you can take. If you're short on ideas, just Google "pharmacy affiliate programs," and see what comes up.

In fact, here is a neat little trick that I learned. Let's say that you want to build a site to help people with erectile dysfunction. Just type in "erectile dysfunction + affiliate program." into the search bar.

This will allow you to see all the affiliate programs that are available and what their commission payouts are and so forth.

Bottom Line: As a pharmacist you can build an online business. If I can do it, then you can too.

THE CHALLENGES OF STARTING AN AFFILIATE MARKETING BUSINESS

No doubt, when you are starting a new venture, it can be exciting and overwhelming, with some challenges along the way as well.

I would like to share with you 5 challenges that I faced along my journey of becoming an affiliate marketer.

Challenge One: Getting Over The Technical Aspects

At first the thought of physically building a website, registering a domain name and adding content felt a bit intimidating. 

I was a complete newbie at starting my first pharmacy online job and had no idea what a plugin does or how to create menus and so forth. 

Thankfully, the awesome teaching platform that I registered with, had a powerful and easy to use site builder that made the process really simple.

You will have the framework for your website built in under 30 seconds. Check out my YouTube video below.

Challenge Two : Time Management

I think that this was my biggest challenge of them all. I had to juggle between working for a pharmacy, family life and putting time into my online business.

We all know how long pharmacy hours can be. The cool part about having an affiliate marketing business, is that it's a flexible business model. You can work on it in your own free time.

I used to put in an hour or two when I got back from work.Then wake up a bit earlier and write some content. The important thing to understand is that you are building a business that will have passive income potential.

Don't rush it.

Challenge Three : Waiting For That First Sale

I am not sure if you could classify this as a challenge. Nevertheless, it's a normal feeling to want to know when that first sale is going to happen. I remember checking my stats on a regular basis.

At some point, I wondered if perhaps I am doing the right thing or maybe people did not like my site. These kind of thoughts drove me a bit batty at times.

Then I starting getting organic comments and eventually that sale happened. That was an awesome feeling! 

So, trust the process. It works.

Challenge Four : Avoiding The Shiny Object Syndrome(SOS)

Shiny object syndrome is where you fall for programs or systems that promise you overnight fortunes. Some of them are scams and some of them pay pennies in exchange for your precious time.

I fell into the SOS trap.Thankfully I did not lose that much of my money. In fact, if you were to browse this website, you will notice that I exposed many of these programs.

So stay focused and you will be fine.

Challenge Five: Learning SEO

One of the main techniques that I learned to get my content ranked onto Google and other search engines, is SEO or search engine optimization. It's basically a way of optimizing your content by using keywords and other ranking metrics to ensure that people visit your site and your business gets exposure.

Over time, I learned what works and what doesn't. In fact the amazing teaching platform called Wealthy Affiliate taught me everything I know.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF AFFILIATE MARKETING? - FROM A PHARMACISTS POINT OF VIEW

How will you benefit from having your own affiliate marketing business?

BENEFIT ONE: It Does Not Have To Be Pharmacy Related

You can build a niche on any topic that you like. It does not have to be related to the medical field. You can build an online business on drones, cat toys, collectibles, music, football snack helmets, etc.

The choices are literally endless. Wealthy Affiliate helps you to select a niche if you have no idea as to where to get started.

BENEFIT TWO: You're going to be learning new skills

Knowledge gained is never lost. You will be learning about, SEO, local marketing, video marketing, PPC , e-commerce, Youtube marketing, and so much more.

You can help other folks to build their own website. You can help brick and mortar enterprises to promote their businesses online. You can even start your own online consultancy business. You can build yourself more than one website business too.

Once you know what works, it's simply a matter of duplicating the process. For instance, I have this website passive income for all and built an eCommerce site selling personalized storybooks.

The choice is yours.

BENEFIT THREE: Your business is open 24 hours a day and is mobile.

You can work from anywhere in the world. All you need is an internet connection and a computer. 

Your business is open for worldwide trade, 24 hours a day.

BENEFIT FOUR: It's Cheaper than a Traditional business.

Compared to your normal brick and mortar enterprise, it's much cheaper to start an online business. You do not have overheads such as rent, salaries, stock outlay or marketing expenses (For marketing, you can get free traffic just by implementing SEO).

You probably have to pay for a domain name which is $14 a year. The other big expense is the training. As far as this training is concerned, you can get started for as little as a price of a cup of coffee a day!

Your biggest expense will be your time. Trust me, if you stick with it, it will be well worth it.

BENEFIT FIVE:  It's Got Huge Passive Income Potential

As time goes on, your site will start to gain authority. Your content will be trusted by search engines.

This means that the earning potential from content that you've written earlier on, will be able to make you money on an ongoing basis.

That is the power of leveraging off quality content. That is passive income.

That means, in time, you can have both time and location freedom.

HOW CAN YOU START AFFILIATE MARKETING?

At this point, you have a pretty good idea of what affiliate marketing is. 

The next question is, how can you start your own pharmacy affiliate marketing business?

I mentioned earlier on, about an online teaching platform called Wealthy Affiliate. They are the ones who have helped me to get started and are still assisting me to this day.  

Wealthy Affiliate started 14 years ago, so it's not something that is a run off the mill. They have top notch training, support and every single tool that you need to make money online.

The best part is that they have a free trial membership which you can join.

>>>Check out what their full course entails and real verified testimonials of Wealthy Affiliate, CLICK HERE<<<

CONCLUSION- THERE IS HOPE FOR PHARMACISTS, WE JUST NEED TO THINK OUT OF THE BOX

How can pharmacists work from home? Now you know of a way.

I know that it's different. All the great minds of today and of the past have one thing in common. They went against the norm. They tried things differently. They thought out of the box.

“Thinking outside of the box allows you to get rewards outside of your reach.” 
― Matshona Dhliwayo 

It starts with a first step. I know it can be scary, but you will never know until you try. 

By the way, my username is RoopeshG within the Wealthy Affiliate platform. 

I will be there to welcome you to WA. >>Sign up here<<

Looking forward to helping you become an online entrepreneur.

Thanks for your time.

I hope that this article has helped you out.

Is there still something that you are not sure about? No problem. Leave your question or comments below.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards and Take Care

Roopesh