Treat It Like A Business

[Vagabond 007]

Below is something I originally had as part of my 12 day free
course on laying the groundwork of internet marketing. I created
everything up until day 7 and then kind of put the rest on the back
burner.

I decided to share day 1 here. I hope you find some value in it. If you
want a pdf version of this article, I attached it to this post.


Treat It Like A Business

If you are looking for an easy way to make a lot of money, go
buy a lottery ticket. A common theme that I keep seeing people
ask about is “How can I make easy money online?” Or some
very close variation of that. Keyword being “easy”.

Look, there is work involved in this business. If I told you how
many hours I’ve spent learning about marketing you probably
wouldn’t believe me. And with the amount of money I’ve spent to
learn marketing, I could have bought a brand new 5 series BMW.

Internet Marketing is serious stuff. If you are going to half
ass everything you can expect half ass results. If you want to
make serious money in IM then you need to treat it like a business.

I want to also point out that there is a difference between
doing business and playing business. So many people play
business and yet in their mind they are doing business. When I
say “doing business”, I mean actual work that gets done.

And when I say work, I mean work that is part of the overall big
picture. Work that will put money in your pocket. I do not mean
spending 2 days trying to make a header for your website. Or
spending weeks trying to come up with some clever logo. That is
playing business.

Stop Playing Business!

So many people think they can just spend a few hours online and
make $100,000 a year. Is it possible? Absolutely! Will it happen
if you are completely new to marketing, selling, getting traffic
to your website, and all of the other things involved in
internet marketing? No. In fact, this type of mentality, to me,
is insulting to the people that have put in the time and effort
to learn what it takes to be successful online.

This goes for any area of your life. You wouldn’t walk into a
job interview with no experience and tell the interviewer that
you want to be the CEO and you aren’t looking to put in the
time and effort to learn the company. What do you think would
happen if you tried that? You’d get laughed at.

If you play sports, you don’t go to your first practice ever
and tell the coach you want to be on the first line. Again,
you’d get laughed at. And told to take a hike.

Life Doesn’t Work That Way

In most cases you have to put in the time and the effort. You
just don’t wake up successful at something. Sure, you may end
up being a natural and it may come easy to you. But, you will
still have a learning curve. Even if it does come natural,
again, you won’t wake up an expert. You won’t wake up with
$100,000 sitting in your account.

Look, I’m not saying you can’t make a lot of money fast.
After all, who the hell wants to make slow money. But the fact
of the matter is, in order to build a long term income, it is
going to take some time.

There are certain habits you need to acquire. Habits that will
be conducive to you succeeding online. You are not going to make
$100,000 with $20,000 a year habits. Please remember that. Just
like any other area of your life, you need to work at it to be
successful. So thinking IM is any different is just plain
wrong.

There are many different areas of IM that you will either need
to learn yourself or outsource. In the grand scheme of things it
all comes down to getting traffic. Converting that traffic.
Then testing to raise your conversions.

Later, Rinse, Repeat.

But, if you were to zoom in and look into those 3 words, there
is so much more going on. There are so many ways to get traffic.
So many ways to test different things to increase your
conversions.

To learn all of those things takes time. Or, you can pay someone
to do it for you. But there is two problems with that. First,
you may not have any extra money to outsource. Second, if you
outsource everything you won’t have a finger on the pulse of
your business. You’ll be flying in the dark. Without
instruments.

So it’s in your best interest to know a little bit about
everything. Enough to keep things in check. Enough to have an
idea of what’s going on. Enough that you don’t get screwed
over.

Again, this all takes time. It takes….

Dare I Say, Work

So if you have this vision of sitting around hitting a few
buttons on your keyboard and then counting all of the money
you make, stop right now. Don’t even bother.

Succeeding online takes time. It takes commitment. It takes
focus. You will have to learn new things. You will get
frustrated. Hell, you’ll probably want to give up at some
point.

But if you stick with it and keep on plugging away and learn
from your mistakes, you will succeed.

[Kelsey A. Helm]

Thank you thank you. . I completely agree. . .way too often do people get knocked down and give up - determining that it was a "sign" that they move on. . .Get up, tie your shoes, and keep running - only then will you ensure to reach your intended destination.

[highrider21]

That was a good post. I think the main reason so many people think it is easy to make money online is because of all the sales pages claiming that you can make $10k per month working 2 hours per day.

[JMPruitt]

I agree completely. If you run it like a business, you will be more likely to succeed long term. You have to learn how to do it. it is true some people can get lucky and make a profit quickly, but most people take a while. Took me over 4 months to get my first sale. Even after that, it took a while for it to be consistent.

Work every day, be organized, and eventually you can get the lifestyle you want. but it does take time to get there. How long depends on how many mistakes you make, and how well you learn from them.

[Kevin Regier]

Great view more people need to hear this kind of information.

[uncle randy 71]

Awwww man, I thought you were going to show me a GURANTEED way to make $10,000 by the end of the week! (Just kidding)

Seriously, I like your post. Reminds me of the book by Larry Winget "It's Called Work for a REASON!"

[stefanjames]

Great post. I think more and more people that are trying to make money online understand this concept.

[John Romaine]

I recall attending an IM seminar last year and one of the attendees got up and asked a question to the speaker. In front of approximately 3,000 people he asked a question that suggested how he could "easily" find niche markets and "easily" sell products, and so on.

The speaker stopped momentarily and asked "Are you going to run a business or just play around?"

There was an eerie silence that fell over the room, to which the attendee appeared dumb founded and quickly sat back down.

Ill never forget that moment. I now do projected planning, forecasting, and outsource as much as I need to do in order to "run this as a business".

[Vagabond 007]

Originally Posted by Kelsey A. Helm

Thank you thank you. . I completely agree. . .way too often do people get knocked down and give up - determining that it was a "sign" that they move on. . .Get up, tie your shoes, and keep running - only then will you ensure to reach your intended destination.

Exactly. Failure is the key to success.

Originally Posted by highrider21

That was a good post. I think the main reason so many people think it is easy to make money online is because of all the sales pages claiming that you can make $10k per month working 2 hours per day.

I agree. Those certainly are not helping things.

The thing is though, that is what sells. It's a conversation I've been having with myself recently...I for one can't stand hype and feel dirty anytime I use it. But if you don't use it, your bank account may suffer. So I'm trying to find the balance.

I think it comes down to "sell them what they want, give them what they need."

Originally Posted by JMPruitt

I agree completely. If you run it like a business, you will be more likely to succeed long term. You have to learn how to do it. it is true some people can get lucky and make a profit quickly, but most people take a while. Took me over 4 months to get my first sale. Even after that, it took a while for it to be consistent.

Work every day, be organized, and eventually you can get the lifestyle you want. but it does take time to get there. How long depends on how many mistakes you make, and how well you learn from them.

Great little summary. Thanks.

"It took me 10 years to be an overnight success."

Originally Posted by Kevin Regier

Great view more people need to hear this kind of information.

Exactly. I've noticed though, threads like these don't get the attention they deserve. But other threads, ones that are nothing but a b**ch fest, those gets tons of views and tons of replies.

That's interesting to me. And it's a good little peak into the psychology of a lot of people.

Originally Posted by Cecille20

And also, you need to be updated for any changes with the field of your work. Because work is evolving like earth.

Good point.

"Change, before you have to."

Originally Posted by uncle randy 71

Awwww man, I thought you were going to show me a GURANTEED way to make $10,000 by the end of the week! (Just kidding)

Seriously, I like your post. Reminds me of the book by Larry Winget "It's Called Work for a REASON!"

That post is being saved for next week. And it's $12,386.94 to be exact. Oh wait, it should end in a 7.

Originally Posted by stefanjames

Great post. I think more and more people that are trying to make money online understand this concept.

I agree. Like I said above, I wish these kind of threads got more attention.

Originally Posted by Paul McQuillan

Vagabond- I like your posts. I think you add value to the forum

I will even 'thank you' for it

Great, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. And...

Thank you for thanking me.

Originally Posted by ramone_johnny

The speaker stopped momentarily and asked "Are you going to run a business or just play around?"

There was an eerie silence that fell over the room, to which the attendee appeared dumb founded and quickly sat back down.

Ill never forget that moment. I now do projected planning, forecasting, and outsource as much as I need to do in order to "run this as a business".

Hah, classic!! Thanks for sharing.

I used to play business for years. Even worse, I knew I was playing business. And yet I still did nothing to change that.

The mind is a funny thing.

[aboutalhah]

Thank you. If more people could understand this instead of 'making money'.

[adriant]

Great post, thank you.

[Vagabond 007]

Originally Posted by aboutalhah

Thank you. If more people could understand this instead of 'making money'.

Originally Posted by adriant

Great post, thank you.

You're welcome.

[mattlloyd]

I agree. You ought to be serious in what you do, not only in internet marketing, especially if you consider it your bread and butter.

[LesleyJohnston]

Thank you for this post. I realised a while ago that I wasn't treating my business as a business, more like something to fill the hours in the day! Now that I've started treating it like a real business I realised where I was going wrong - giving everything away for free and not charging for anything among other things - yep I should have had charity on my business cards instead of business owner!

The sad thing is that I thought I WAS running a business and would argue til I was blue in the face that it was a real business I was running and I've come across many others who are like how I was, and they can't see that there is any other way. I'm just glad I saw the light before it was too late.

[Jobe4212]

Excellent post!
I give you credit for leading off a course this way.
It's a favor to new (or struggling intermediate), entrepreneurs
to hear it straight - as early as possible.

[Prestigio]

You've hit the nail on the head.

You need a strategy to be successful.

You need a workable "System" to be successful.

[Vagabond 007]

Originally Posted by LesleyJohnston

The sad thing is that I thought I WAS running a business and would argue til I was blue in the face that it was a real business I was running and I've come across many others who are like how I was, and they can't see that there is any other way. I'm just glad I saw the light before it was too late.

I actually had another thread about this topic a few days ago. It was along the lines of this post, but with other tips thrown in and a bit more harsh. I'm a tell it like it is kind of guy. So I don't like sugar coating things.

But, the first person who posted in that thread started defending the opposite mindset I was talking about. He was in a different world. I replied back to his post.

But then the thread was deleted.

It's amazing how many people don't "get it". And if you attempt to show them the light, THEY get mad at YOU.

Ok buddy, you keep plugging away at those business cards. Hmm, I think the arial font is a much better choice. Why don't you think it over for another 2 weeks.

[Vagabond 007]

Originally Posted by Jobe4212

Excellent post!
I give you credit for leading off a course this way.
It's a favor to new (or struggling intermediate), entrepreneurs
to hear it straight - as early as possible.

Exactly. Better to learn the reality early on instead of struggling, getting frustrated, struggling some more. And then getting bitter.

The money is there. No question about that. But you can't just walk up and take it. You've got to give to get.

It's like a lot of people are trying to beat the system. That may work. But it will never last. Instead, learn the rules of the game and then just play along.

Originally Posted by Prestigio

You've hit the nail on the head.

You need a strategy to be successful.

You need a workable "System" to be successful.

Ahh, systems. That, my friend, is a whole other post. Perhaps I'll write about it sometime.

But yes, having systems in place makes it a whole lot easier.

[Jon Tees]

I really couldn’t agree more. My primary source of online income comes from a network/affiliate marketing business that I built over a number of years. It took me a long time to see any money as I wasn’t really taking it seriously. It was just something I did for something to do when I wasn’t in class. When I started treating it more like a business and taking it more seriously, everything turned around.
Believe you me, I wanted to quit and thought about quitting many a time but I stuck with it and the persistence is starting to pay off with dividends.

[Vagabond 007]

Originally Posted by Jon Tees

Believe you me, I wanted to quit and thought about quitting many a time but I stuck with it and the persistence is starting to pay off with dividends.

Glad to hear. That's usually when things start to pick up...right after you want to quit but keep pressing forward.

It's like one last challenge to see if you want it bad enough. Then again, new challenges are always waiting.