Is IM Worth It?

Since your seg says you are earning over $100/hr from writing, wouldn't you say that its worth it? That's $4k a week if you do the classic 40 hour model.

More to the point, if you wanted to own your own business, but don't have the money/ideas to go the classic brick and mortar route, than IM is definitely worth it in my opinion. Where else can you start with literally nothing and be able to work up to a full time income (or more) without ever leaving your house? That's the dream of pretty much everyone in my opinion.

And yes, your success depends a lot on outside entities, that's true in any business though. Your success depends on how you deal with necessary partners/suppliers, and if they change you will have to adapt accordingly. Same thing with online. Google is no different than a supplier for a restaurant. They change their procedures, you have to adapt to remain viable and profitable. The successful businesses handle change.

So to sum up, if you want a business, and I mean really want a business, IM is worth it.

Well said Joe......but what I am after is "work once" then "earn many"

In a nutshell.........produce something of value then sell it many times....be it a service or a product.

Am I making sense?

I think I understand what you are getting at. You don't want another "job", you want a more passive income. It still boils down to a business though, as being at the head of your own brand is (in my opinion) the best way to get to a significant amount of passive income. I'll use what I'd like to build as an example.

I earn by offering services (content). I enjoy it (much more than selling products); but it is in essence another job. I do all of the leg work at the current time and it isn't helping me reach my end goal of a passive income. So what will I do? Well for the time being, I'm going to keep working and building my brand.

Over time though, I will train a personal team that will write for me, and I will move on to editing/running the team to ensure that the quality/speed my customers expect is maintained. After that, I'll find a protoge to train to run the day to day work for me.

At this point, I'll be making money off of my business without having to do much besides overwatch and learning to keep my business relevant. At that point the changes that you mention won't bother me much, since I can focus on adapting to those while my team continues normal operations.

So you see, with a plan to build a business, not just a job or a "magic money machine," IM is totally worth it.

Not all of us.

I am, to some extent, but I'm trying to correct that now, and make sure my business is much less dependent on Google (for all that it's been very good to me so far) and ClickBank (though that concerns me less, because the great attraction of affiliate marketing is that one can change products relatively easily without being dependent on the success/survival/longevity of any specific product).

I admit that if Aweber disappeared, it would be bad news for me and at least a huge inconvenience, but that's true for many (and a good deal more so for some, who choose to entrust the safe-keeping of their business's most valuable asset to "lesser companies" than Aweber).

Yes, IM is very clearly "worth it", but you wisely highlight the risks of being over-dependent on other people's businesses.

I think its a matter of risk mitigation.....don't rely on any company and understand the risks involved.

Not putting all your eggs in one basket... There are risks in any business, online or offline

Yep.

It's worth it.

Apart from using a 3rd party service to attract affiliates (which wasn't necessary anyway), and apart from using PayPal as a payment processor, I am not dependent on anything else.

You pretty much have to rely on some other entity, but it's all about how you do it.

Registering domains and hosting rely on 3rd parties, so I don't know how you would get away from them. What about WordPress, AWeber or even your ISP? Those types of things seem to be an exception.

The problem is relying on things like you said, such as Amazon and Google. I don't, and I do just fine.

Perhaps the difference is in using 3rd parties as tools and resources, or relying on them to generate a chunk of your income for you. If it's the former, you can always find options; if it's the latter, then some diversification would be a good idea.

But, to answer your question...

Yes! IM is worth it.

(Slow day?)

All the best,
Michael

Internet marketing is simple. Have a product, a funnel, and your copy down pat...

I do however plan on growing my business up to the point where I can invest in solid stuff which doesn't rely on other people or services. Just in case the internet ever goes down the crapper or somehow, some way we all get screwed.

Hopefully the "authorities" mind their own business and leave us alone, but as we've seen lately with all the jerk scammers I think that's where we're headed.

Ansar

its definitely worth it but its something you cant always rely on unless you have built a really profitable long term business.

It's worth it for me but not for most people it depends on you!

It's worth it but it takes time and dedication and a plan for long term.

Whether or not it's worth it -- I would say it depends a lot on your personality. If you have an aversion to risk (would rather have a regular and semi-dependable paycheck even it is very modest), if you are not particularly creative, have trouble being a self-starter and are quite comfortable answering to authority (a boss), then it may not be worth it for you.

If however, you are a self-starter, like to do things totally out of the box on occasion, think risks are part of growing and learning and get more than a little bit fed up from time to time about not being your own boss, then IM is most definitely worth it.

Of course your personality is not the only point to be made, but a very important one.

My 2 cents anyway.