I'm new to IM, help!!

If you check out some of the users who posted in this thread, you'll see "War Room Member" in red under their names.

You'll want to become one of those too. It's probably the best place to learn really useful information if you don't know what is it exactly that you want to do yet. This is because its houses a wealth of information on many different topics. And once you're inside, everything is free (no pesky upsells :-P).

The War Room is definitely one of the best purchases I made for my online business. I doubt you'd regret it. If you do (which you won't), go ahead and hunt me down so you can exact your vengeance ;-)

Cheers,
-Adrian

PS: If you were totally serious about the $0 bank account.. anothe great resource is the "All-In-One" threads at the top of this forum. Lots of free info in there, too. Mind you some of them are old so don't be afraid to double check to make sure the info is still actionable.

Yep.

If you're a native English speaker, you are a better writer than most people on the internet. You can use that.

The most important thing is to just START MAKING MONEY ASAP. Once you have some cash, you can start buying sites and building lists and what not. Before you get cash, you can't really do much of anything, so I hope you like writing articles...

Oh and have a look at this post for some information about how to do it:

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...th-online.html

Go through this thread in WF and apply though you are late by 2 days.

http://www.warriorforum.com/wanted-m...programme.html

Yeah... Warriors... Go...Lol..

Nice tips and advice here.. You Warriors are great!

Keep it up

Just had a look at your sig, looking forward to some more info from you

Scott

Hi Scott,
if u have writing Skills, you can write articles for many sites. some sites pay good for writing articles. This help you to build capital for better start up!

IM CAN be very confusing and overwhelming. Believe me, I know! Been there, done that. And you're very smart to be asking questions like this.

Clarity is a HUGE part of IM success. I hope this post brings some clarity. It's so simple when you know it -- and darn difficult when you don't! I owe my mentors a world of thanks for bringing this clarity.

IM is actually pretty simple: you can sell only one of two things:

1. Products
2. Services

That's it!

And selling products or services online happens in the same basic way for everyone, no matter what they're selling:

Traffic > Opt-in page > Autoresponder series (or e-zine) > Sales page

That's it! It's just that simple. (We IMers tend to overcomplicate things.)

But no matter what your niche is, or whether you're selling a product or a service, do you know what your business model is?

A business model is the framework or skeleton of your business. Essentially there are three types of online business models:

1. Membership-based model

A membership-based business model allows you to build a community of people (your members) who are as passionate about your subject as you are. Your membership fees can be monthly or annual, but either way, you're building recurring, passive income.

There are a lot of resources and information out there to help you build a membership-based business if you're interested in doing this.

2. Product-based model

Selling products allows you to maximize your time and effort by selling items over and over again. This can be hard goods or it can be information products. Information marketing is it's own business model under the product-based model. Information marketing allows you to take your brain to the bank by creating a product ONCE based on what you know and selling it over and over again.

Affiliate marketing falls under both models. You can choose to market either products or services as an affiliate.

3. Service-based model

Selling services can be great for 1) generating quick cash (as in the case of article writing or video producing) and 2) establishing your expertise and getting testimonials.

However, in the long run, your goal should be to offer services at a PREMIUM. The biggest advantage of IM is LEVERAGE. You're able to leverage your time, money and expertise exponentially online. We all have just 24 hours each day. Time to get ruthless about what you expect for those hours you spend in IM each day. Expect more of yourself and more from your business friends, clients, partners, etc.

What results are you getting for those hours you spend online each day? Ultimately, your services should be at the bottom of your funnel and cost the most since they involve your time and personal attention. (We all have a limited amount of time each day.)

The fun (and confusion) comes in with all of the endless mix-and-match possibilities of the above models. If you're just starting or still struggling to make money, keep it simple:

Pick just ONE!

1. Pick ONE niche. (Something you're interested in and know something about.)

2. Pick ONE target market for your product or service. (Who will buy what you're offering? The more specific you are, the more you narrow it down, the more successful you'll be.)

3. Pick ONE business model.

Now that you're clear about what business you're in, FOCUS! (And stop buying any info not related to your niche and target market, period!)

F -- Follow
O -- One
C -- Course
U -- Until
S -- Successful

And remember: build a list, Build a List, BUILD A LIST!

In IM, it's easy to put the cart before the horse. Take a deep breath, step back and consider what type of business you're REALLY want. Don't worry about getting traffic or buying that expensive traffic product until you know 1) what your business model is, 2) what niche you're in and 3) WHO your target market is!

Successful business people will tell you that MARKETING is more than half the effort that's needed for success anyway. So pick a niche, target market and business model. Then spend most of your time and effort marketing it.

If you DON'T have a solid plan or system, THAT'S when it's hard. A good system will shave YEARS (and save you big $$$) off of your learning curve

That's why I recommend investing in at least one good, comprehensive IM course (or mentor who will give you such a system) instead of jumping from one $37 e-book to the next. A lot of people here complain about not being able to make any money. But neither are they willing to invest in their business. (Buying a random bunch of $37 e-books doesn't count.)

The best thing I ever did was invest in a comprehensive IM course aimed at REAL business owners, not just other IM wannabes. Yes it was $1500. (It's no longer available.) But it was truly some of the best A-Z IM info I ever bought. Everything else I've learned (from the $37 e-books) since has simply been plugged into this system.

Get a solid plan or system and then work the plan!

Hope this helps!

Michelle

In my opinion, it's almost impossible to actually start this with no funds whatsoever. Until you get some money you can read and learn all you can. Get a mentor to help you. You are only 19 and that is great that you want to get started in this. You can go very far if you take your time and really learn the business.

I like this... this is basically the road map everyone making a living online should follow.

We must be crossing over posts, I just asked you that question.

You are on the right track to start with a topic that you are interested in. It doesn't matter how many others are already in that area, it matters what you do with it and how you do it.

Right now big changes are occurring in the way that Google is ranking sites. More and more signals are being taken into consideration and high on the list is 'social signals' which at your age should be easy to get to grips with.

Do some brainstorming on the niche you mentioned. Health is massive, but you've chunked down into bodybuilding and fitness. So it would be a good idea to start your research in that area. What you are looking for is a subniche in the bodybuilding/fitness niche, that you can target.

For absolutely FREE, you can start getting the ball rolling by asking everyone on your FB a question about the topic. EG 'if you could achieve something with your health/fitness/body shape, what would you focus on and what do you wish you knew more about?'

You could then set up a Facebook Page, make it look good, start posting on it, do research on Google or use Google reader/Google alerts and keep up to date with the latest news in this niche, report on it in the FB page. Link FB to Twitter and tweet your posts, link to your FB (if your mates will be intested in your thread, if not you'll lose a lot of friends). Get a squidoo lense, blogger any other free blog set up and post randomly to those. They will become valuable links into your site when you get your hosting and site built. But meantime, they can start earning you money. I know a marketer who has a Squidoo lense that ranks very high for his search terms and he has his affiliate links on there and makes a decent income from that.

Its a good idea to 'cut your teeth' on the free blogs, get used to learning what and how to write about in your niche, market using the social networks and build a conversation on FB with those intersted in your topic. Once you've started getting noticed, you can then begin to promote products that relate to your topic. Truth About Abs is an obvious one but don't target that phrase as that is too difficult to rank for. Go for phrases that relate to the niche and those who you engage will then look at the products and when they buy through your link, you get commissions.

So, start with research. Your initial research is about as important as the type of foundations you would see support a building. If the foundations are not strong enough, the building can fall down or crumble. Your research can make your business.

Hope that helps

Larkrise aka Leah

I agree with you tristatemedia..

But Its nice to start maybe for free and learn before leaping..to IM

Though I started with some bucks but, I will recommend you start with the learning process..

I am sure we have capable warrios here to asist you!

Just make sure you follow this forum and ask question as you want..

All the best

Hi Scott

First of all, Welcome to IM!

Secondly, read this forum and make notes. Kinda brain storming type of notes.

You want to pick up a list of the main Business Models that are included in IM. eg

Affiliate Marketing - selling other people's stuff for commission - usually done by creating a website and writing related content, creating videos and doing general marketing

CPA - click per action, there are other programmes - these are basically earning commissions every time someone signs in and give their email to a company

Offline - offering services to Local business such as making them websites (you need this basic skill in IM), doing their SEO, running their campaigns, their social networking etc

Email Marketing and Video Marketing are tools aswell as specific systems for making money. They are all about getting peoples attention and directing them to buy something or pay for a service for which you earn commission

There are many versions of these and many ways to do them.

My top tips would be this:

Dont spend any money on anything until you have a plan. Your plan should have a set of steps that you will take to achieve a goal. Make sure you have all the resources in place to achieve that.

If you are tempted to buy anything on WF, eg WSO's, they are often absolute bargains but there are a lot of developers who just churn out products that they don't always follow up support for. Before you buy anything, first check to see if there is a free option anywhere online, do a google search for reviews but remember that many review sites want you to buy the product through them. So I'd check out the developer/marketer and see how long they've been around, how many successful products they have that they still attend to etc

Keep asking questions. I've been at this for a long time but I still ask questions, one to hear other's opinions and also cos you cannot know everything about everything in IM, no-one does no matter how long they've been around.

Sign up for all the newsletters as you'll learn a lot from reading the blog posts, watching videos and webinars. You don't have to buy their offering to learn.

There are soooo many terms in IM, and it can take a while to become familiar with them all. It's like learning a new language.

Anyway, here's a question for you Scott - what topics/subjects are you passionate about, what do you like doing/talking about/reading about?? Once we get that info, you'll probably get some more specific suggestions about how to start a money making business.

When you get your redundancy cheque, see that as an investment. You could do with setting a budget for what you will spend in IM.

Stuff that's handy for a start out would be webhosting, don't go with GoDaddy. I recommend Host Monster or Bolt. These are both compatible with Wordpress and have the required configuration to suit a WP site. You can start out with free themes.

Anyway, for now, let us know your interests and we can provide more feedback

PS, I wish I'd started at your age

Best of luck
Larkrise

I'll give it a once over Scott, just let me know when its ready - best if you email me leahbutlersmith{at}gmail{dot}com

When writing an ebook its a good idea to consider what you've enjoyed reading and how you like to see things set out. Start with a few categories then drill down into each. You can quote people you've read as long as you follow the basic rules of adding a link/reference to them at the end of/or within the ebook.

Enjoy your writing