How would you raise $25,000 in one year with IM

Why do you need to raise the money through IM? You don't start a business for short term gain. And regardless of what all the easy-money MMO ads tell you to do IM right, you're need to treat it as a business -- and for a business a one year timeframe is very much short term. Investors in established businesses are interested in maximizing profits. Entrepreneurs in new businesses should be interested in maximizing growth. And that's a huge difference.

So sure you might be able to follow some of the advice above, muck around and make a few bucks here or there. But to earn even a relatively small sum like $25,000 without already having significant systems or resources in place isn't an easy feat. And if you look at the best advice above, you'll notice it's mostly geared towards building these systems -- systems that might not pay out during your first year -- but might pay off handsomely in year three or five.

So like someone said above, if you're going to go through the effort of building a business that makes $25,000/year, you might as well make the effort to scale it up to $50,000, $100,000 or more a year. After all, it's usually true that the first $25,000 is going to be a lot harder to make than the second $25,000 -- so why throw it all your work away?

If you really need $25,000 in a year, you're far better off getting a job (or a second job) or getting a loan from friends, family or a bank. You wouldn't open a bricks and mortar store with the idea of closing it down in a year just to get some extra cash to start a completely different business, so why would you do the exact same thing with an online store?

The logic above is completely fallacious. Sure, it's probably easier to sell 50 things than 840 things -- if the prices are equal. But it is not at all true that selling 50 expensive items for $500 is easier than selling 840 $30 items. Who do you think makes more money Ferrari or Toyota? Ruth's Chris Steakhouse or Five Guys Burgers? Coca-Cola or Moet et Chandon? How often do you shell out $500 on a whim? Probably never. Now how many times to you drop $20 without thinking about it? Probably over and over and over again.

If you're an MLM marketer, I can definitely see why you'd want people to think high ticket, recurring revenue is the way to go. But low ticket, repeat buyers is usually -- though not always -- just as good, if not better. It really depends on who you're marketing to and how you're doing it. Absolutely if all your customers are multimillionaires selling high-ticket items makes a lot of sense. But if you're trying to sell to the rest of us, my guess is that won't be a very successful strategy.

Ok,

It is pretty hard to find a good PPL in the IM niche that accepts some newbie wanting to throw PPC sadly.

The only luck I had getting accepted into PPL is for porn related things, and "you won $10,000" scams.

Maybe you can suggest a way for approval?

Nice little list there. And in theory, not a bad list to follow. But for the OP's sake let's take a closer look to determine just how "easy" this is...

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1. Determine a market - cool. How do we do that? Are there tools I can use? Free preferably? How do I know if it's a desperate market? Do I need to know anything about this market? If so, how do I do that? What metrics or guidelines do I use to know if I hit a market worth pursuing?

2. Wow, ok, like how to I re-engineer the competition? In fact, how can I find my competition? How do I know they even make money or drive traffic? Are there tools I can use? Preferably free ones? How can I tell if the competition is worth re-engineering? Can I just call them? Do you think they'd just show me everything?

3. Explore what offers? You mean find even more competition and see what they got? Do I need to buy their products to do this? Do you think I could get them for free? How do I analyze what they are doing and HOW they are doing?

4. Squeeze - should I use one of those monthly squeeze/landing page services? What if I can't afford that? Are there GREAT FREE templates I can use? I don't know how to edit one of those templates though - what tools do I need for that? Can I get free ones? How do I know if my squeeze page will convert? I guess I should test them - but how do I do that? Do I need money to test my page using PPL, etc.? Jeez, this is getting expensive now...

5. How do I get started in PPL. How do I know what offers to put behind my awesome squeeze page I just tested? Do I need to test more on what converts best or just look at the stats? How do I interpret those stats? And what do you mean by instant marketing and re-marketing? I'm confused...

6. Ah - a blog! I know what THAT is! Ok, so what do I put on this blog? Should I use blogger or host my own? Where do I buy a domain? What hosting should I use? Do I need a template for the blog? Where can I get free ones that convert like wildfire? What do I put on the blog? Articles around that awesome market I discovered in step 1? Do I have to write them myself? How much does an article writer costs? Think I can get free quality articles?

7. Article syndication - ok, assuming I can get these articles written, how do I syndicate them? Just repost? Share them on FB, etc.? How do I get others to syndicate for me? Didn't I just read somewhere that Google doesn't particularly care for syndicated content these days? Are there any services that would syndicate - preferably for free? (I just can't believe how much money I need to do all this stuff!!!)

8. So, assuming I have these really cool articles written around the really awesome market I discovered in step 1, where do I get the traffic from to get people to opt in to that spectacular squeeze page? Better yet - where do I get free traffic? I used all my budget on the other stuff... And when I get them to opt in, then what? Do I need a free ebook to entice them? Do I need follow up messages pre-loaded to my autoresponder? In fact, where do I get an autoresponder for free? How do I get the code on to my squeeze page? Do I put offers in the follow up emails for a product to sell? What product should I sell? Do I need to make one?

9. Ok, I am so confused after all this, I don't even want to tackle what a "traffic platofrm" is, much less how the heck to build one...I will return to this one later

10. Paid traffic. More money. Ok, fine - but even this traffic needs some compelling ad writing, no? I don't know how to write ad copy. Where can I get this done - preferably for free? How do I test my ads? How much traffic do I need to determine of an ad is a good one? How do I tweak and test even more ads?

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Truly, I am not trying to be obtuse. All of those things I mention were actual questions I got over and over from people just starting out. And there are a ton more that I didn't even touch on. We see these "simple" lists of things needed to build a successful IM biz over and over, but rarely do we expand on what is REALLY involved.

Truth is, there is a LOT that you either need to learn and do yourself, or be prepared to pay for others to do it. Either way CAN work - one is faster than the other. When I started out I had to take the slow route...back in a time where there were not as many resources and tools as today...but the simple truth here is that not everyone is cut out to do this. It's NOT easy. At all.

So, OP, do you STILL think it's possible to just whip up an IM biz to raise that 25K? Maybe - if that franchise thing is so good - you should explore the business loan world...

Good luck.

I began in IM when I was 19. I turned 40 last Thursday. IM is dynamic, but most assuredly not something capable of only working for you in the short-term. I will say this, though, if you're of the short-term mindset, IM is definitely not for you. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't waste so much as one dollar on anything IM-related. 100 cents, maybe. But still money down the drain. Being successful in IM does involve cows, but not necessarily milking them and moving out of IM. It involves creating cash cows and, yes indeed, it often does involve milking some (usually traffic sources) until they have no more milk left to give.

For what it's worth, my advice: hold off on investing in IM. You can blow so much money on different things (and I'm often one of the people who ends up with that money), but without a strong commitment to an equally strong plan, you'll be wasting money and - worse - time. None of us have that much of it.

Spend time wisely, just like your dollars.

Tom