In 2020 I wrote a blog post called Online Sellers: How to Deal with People Not Understanding Your Job, and it has since become one of our top-read pieces of content. In this post we discuss all of the super annoying questions people ask when they find out you are an online seller, so today I thought I could finally write a followup that tells you how to reply to this condescending and weird comments and questions. Lets begin:

ANNOYING QUESTION: "Do you even make money?"

This is such a weird question because if someone said they work as a plumber, a school teacher or a salesman they wouldn’t ask them if they make money. Additionally, it’s a pretty awkward to discuss your income, regardless of how much you earn. The easiest way to reply is to simply say “Yes”, unless you get the vibe that their followup question will be “Can I have some?” (Yep, I have actually had this happen! A relative who I am not very close to asked if I make money, I politely replied “yes” then she asked me if I could loan her $1,000!)

If you don’t want go down that strange path you can choose to smile, fake laugh and say “sometimes!” or reply with a totally ridiculous comment like “Does the Pope eat pizza?”.

That must be nice! I wish I could relax all day!

UGH. Any online seller understands that we work so hard because we don’t have one job, we have the work of 50 people to do! We don’t get to clock out at 5pm and put our phone up for the evening.

A simple response was “It’s hard to relax when your company is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year”

I wish I had the free time to do that!

These types of comments are so frustrating. An easy way out of the conversation is to force yourself to smile and change the subject. Alternatively you can respond “Maybe one day!”.

When are you planning to get a “real job”?

For these types of questions refer to Our blog post How to Respond to People Who Tell You to Give Up on Online Selling.

How do you get the stuff you sell?

Reality is the person is likely just trying to make small talk. I doubt they want you to explain the process from start to finish. The easiest way to deal with this question is to say “I order it from wholesale companies”.  

Next Read:

How to Respond to People Who Tell You to Give Up on Online Selling.

How to Deal with People Not Understanding Your Job.