Making Money vs Following Your Passion

No, not all roads lead to IM. In fact my most successful offers are in the B2B niche. You wouldn't believe how profitable some of tiny B2B niches are ...

And also, you can build sites based off your passions and add Adsense or affiliate products related to your passion.

Hi dubhdara

I share some of these concerns. I am only making money outside of IM niche. I am following one of my passions and it is working for me.

What I am finding is that people who know me personally are very interested in how I market my product. When they find out how much work it is they say "well done" and leave me to it.

I think marketers are something of a separate breed. They have an entrepreneur inside them trying to get out.

I have already come up with a product idea that no one here seems to have covered. I am trying to resist getting into doing it because it is not really a passion. Just stuff I know about because I am a marketer.

No, I do not think ALL roads lead to IM...but it is a really good road for those who want to work at home, have their freedom, make money online and if they are lucky, be following a passion in doing so. What I see online is that the people who are successful in IM are truly passionate about making money. I doubt they started out that way, but once they crossed that threshold of persevering versus quitting, I think they realized they had to become passionate about it if they wanted to succeed. IM is definitely not for everyone...it's hard to manage the overwhelm, and find the niche online that you are good at doing. And I know people who want more money, but they wouldn't touch IM for anything.
I got into IM because I want to be more successful in the things I am already passionate about, and I see that IM can help me do that. In the process of learning IM, I have had to develop a passion for it in order to keep at it as it's a real different world from the art world, and has taken a lot from me to do this. But I see the great possibilities ahead of being able to take all this IM knowledge, and apply it to marketing my art websites, as well as creating a great blog on my site, that will all help me be more successful in my passion of art and many other things. I think there are a lot of IM people doing it just to make a living so they can pursue other passions when not working, and IM affords them the ability to do that. And I know many creative people who are truly following their passions, and that's all they do because they don't know how to make money following their passions. That was me. So I have taken the crazy leap into the world of IM with the hope of blending it with my passions so I can make a living doing what I love and promoting the things I am truly passionate about. I see how IM is going to give me the platform to be able to do this...and to help others who are following their bliss to make some money.
They say if you do what you love, the money will follow. Hmmm...I think it's true one needs to love what you are doing to feel fulfilled and on purpose, but I am not so sure the money following is a guarantee unless we have the right mindset. So many of us have hang ups around money. I have had to work hard to correct my attitude of lack in regards to making money, and find a real passion for expecting and deserving to make money.
I am part of a group of women we call "The Priestesses of Joy". Our mantra is "If it isn't fun, don't do it. But if you must do it, make it fun."
This is what works for me!

I think it's important to be passionate about what you are doing and if you can make money from it - even better!
I make money from my web design, graphic design and IM, these are my passions and I do think it's important to be happy with what you do because then you can give it your all and hopefully inspire others to do the same.

dubhdara, I don't think all roads lead to IM, BUT there are many general IM principles that can and should be applied to your niche marketing, for example squeeze pages, video, split testing, email marketing, etc. Until all this was popularized by internet marketing, the average dog training or acne site looked like something from 10 years ago, and probably had very poor conversion and sales rates. A lot of this stuff can be subtle if you don't examine it carefully, but it does make a huge difference to your bottomline, even when marketing in a non-IM niche.

To quote P. T. Barnum, "Without promotion, something terrible happens--nothing!"

hmmm my guess is most of the easy money was made sellnig I.M. info systems, products to the tens of thousands of desperate newbies who flooded into the market from mid 1990's to now... I suspect the market is maturing now. Newbies are not so gullible and realize the one getting rich were the ones selling the info systems not from doing it.

I think that a lot of the basic IM principals apply to any niche, but in the end it is all about "getting inside the head" of your target audience and I think the target audience for the "Make Money Online" products is a lot different than the "dog training" or "get your ex back" or any other niche.

The problem is that a lot of the courses that you take are specifically geared towards marketing to the MMO niche so some of the things you learn will not apply.

Lee