Explaining how steem works and how to earn from it is quite difficult. In Nigeria, every time I start talking about it to people, they become very defensive and think it's a ponzi scheme before I've even said anything.
That notwithstanding, I still make the effort and I've made minor successes in making people join the community. There's also the issue of sending their SMS code, steemit often takes a long time to send that SMS code, I don't know if its the same with every where else but it often makes people tired of the application process.