My tips to MAKE IT online - taking action, providing value, building your list of assets
It's time for me to finally say "Hi, dear Warriors!"
I've been reading this forum for more than a year now and it has helped me on my journey from being a confused beginner in this complex online business to the state where I've always wanted to be - I am doing what I enjoy and I am making good money with it.
I've been soaking up the knowledge about internet marketing and online business in general from you, fellow Warriors, for long enough now, and I think it's time for me to give something back. No, I am not saying I know everything now, far from that - I just know enough that I feel I can be a helpful member of this society.
So, today I'd like to tell you a few things that I have learned from my own experience and are therefore really meaningful to me ... and if I can help at least one of you guys to see this business in a different perspective, then it's definitely worth the effort.
A year ago I was a bachelor of Computer Science - book smart, if you will. And the time has come for me to finally start contributing something to the real world, i.e. to start my business. I have always known that I wanted to work with the internet and everything it has to offer, and before obtaining my degree I had been a web developer for 5 years. The problem was, while I did know how to make websites (which is not much different than being any other hourly-paid worker really), I had no idea how to make a profitable online business.
So I began reading this forum and soon enough I got caught in this "get rich quick" mindset. I've tried some things probably every IM beginner tries out (selling products as an affiliate, playing with AdSense and AdWords, ...) but honestly said I wasn't really providing much value. And the results of my work were appropriate - I made next to nothing in the first couple of months.
But I didn't give up and I have realized the next three insanely important aspects of doing an online business:
1. TAKING ACTION
Yes, I know, everybody has been talking about that recently, so I will be as brief as possible. But the fact remains - just like I started thinking only about those "get rich quick" attempts and was spending countless hours reading and thinking about my "next big thing", you can do the same mistake as well! The point is - get an idea, write down a two-page business plan (!) and TAKE ACTION without hesitation. Start building the website (if you need it), start promoting your product or service beforehand, start exploring what your potential customers really want, start building relations with the right people - and this will give you at least a CHANCE of success, even though it needs to be said that this step alone is unfortunately not enough.
2. PROVIDING VALUE
This is maybe the most dangerous trap on the path of "making it online". A large percentage of people are dragged into the internet marketing business by promises of getting insanely rich without much effort, without much invested time and with no invested money. And sooner or later those people start producing worthless products - writing books like "Earn $5000 in the Next 24 Hours" while living on $20 a day, recording clips like "How to Have a Threesome Tonight" even though their closest contact with a woman is at the post office and copying content from their competitors and publishing it on obscure websites.
Well, this doesn't work. People are not stupid. If you want to make it (online or in any other business), you need to scratch someone (preferably someone with money) where they want to be scratched. You need to PROVIDE REAL VALUE and people will want to pay you for it. They will find you and you won't need to send out 3'000 spam mails to get 3 (untargeted = worthless) visitors to your website.
And another thing - even once I have learned that I need to provide real value, I have spent way too much time thinking about what amazing new service should I provide to people. It took me a couple of months to find out - you don't need to create something that has never been seen before - if anything, you will have to create a market for your service first instead of using a powerful existing market. So don't put all your efforts into making something new - you can take a great, useful service as your model, invest a lot of your time and effort and make sure to make it even better. You will have a great service, a ready market and ... need I say more?
3. BUILDING ASSETS
And now it's time to crush many dreams out there. No, you will not earn $10'000 in your first month. Better said, that's highly unlikely. What's worse - you probably won't even earn $1'000. Maybe not even $100. But this is what separates our beloved online business from a more traditional approach - getting a job and working your ass off for the same amount of money every month.
In our business, you need to constantly work on building the list of your assets - as you have probably read in Robert Kiyosaki's book "Rich Dad Poor Dad". You won't get paid immediately for pretty much all of the work you do, but all of this work will pay off eventualy. So, in the first month you will work hard and get only $500 for it. And the next month you will work just as hard and you will get $500 from previous month's work and $500 from this month's work. You see where I am going? And the light at the end of the tunnel - after 12 months of hard work you will take a month off and still make $6000 in that month.
So, I hate to break it to you, but online business just as any other business takes a lot of hard work and effort if you want to be successful. Maybe it was easier to succeed 10 years ago - I don't know and I don't want to guess. But now it is just as saturated as any other business and you need to stand out with both your approach and the quality of your product or service to get the ball rolling.
This is getting a bit (a bit?!) too long ... but for those who have managed to read all the way through, my final advice is this: Find something you know that you are good at and be ready to invest a lot of your effort in it (take action, provide value, build your list of assets!) - and the results will come sooner or later.
What was it for me? In my (fairly unsuccessful) attempts as an internet marketer I have at least learned what internet marketers need - and because I have been a web developer for so many years, I now have a group of great developers and we work really hard to provide good IM services that we really believe in. And it pays off.
This is my experience and I wanted to share it with you. Bottom line, I just wanted to tell everyone that:
a) no, you probably won't get rich overnight on the internet and
b) yes, if you put some real effort in your online business, you WILL reap the rewards.
Thank you once again, all my fellow Warriors, I wish you all the best -
and don't forget to enjoy this great place as much as I do,
Aaron Sustar
I've been reading this forum for more than a year now and it has helped me on my journey from being a confused beginner in this complex online business to the state where I've always wanted to be - I am doing what I enjoy and I am making good money with it.
I've been soaking up the knowledge about internet marketing and online business in general from you, fellow Warriors, for long enough now, and I think it's time for me to give something back. No, I am not saying I know everything now, far from that - I just know enough that I feel I can be a helpful member of this society.
So, today I'd like to tell you a few things that I have learned from my own experience and are therefore really meaningful to me ... and if I can help at least one of you guys to see this business in a different perspective, then it's definitely worth the effort.
A year ago I was a bachelor of Computer Science - book smart, if you will. And the time has come for me to finally start contributing something to the real world, i.e. to start my business. I have always known that I wanted to work with the internet and everything it has to offer, and before obtaining my degree I had been a web developer for 5 years. The problem was, while I did know how to make websites (which is not much different than being any other hourly-paid worker really), I had no idea how to make a profitable online business.
So I began reading this forum and soon enough I got caught in this "get rich quick" mindset. I've tried some things probably every IM beginner tries out (selling products as an affiliate, playing with AdSense and AdWords, ...) but honestly said I wasn't really providing much value. And the results of my work were appropriate - I made next to nothing in the first couple of months.
But I didn't give up and I have realized the next three insanely important aspects of doing an online business:
1. TAKING ACTION
Yes, I know, everybody has been talking about that recently, so I will be as brief as possible. But the fact remains - just like I started thinking only about those "get rich quick" attempts and was spending countless hours reading and thinking about my "next big thing", you can do the same mistake as well! The point is - get an idea, write down a two-page business plan (!) and TAKE ACTION without hesitation. Start building the website (if you need it), start promoting your product or service beforehand, start exploring what your potential customers really want, start building relations with the right people - and this will give you at least a CHANCE of success, even though it needs to be said that this step alone is unfortunately not enough.
2. PROVIDING VALUE
This is maybe the most dangerous trap on the path of "making it online". A large percentage of people are dragged into the internet marketing business by promises of getting insanely rich without much effort, without much invested time and with no invested money. And sooner or later those people start producing worthless products - writing books like "Earn $5000 in the Next 24 Hours" while living on $20 a day, recording clips like "How to Have a Threesome Tonight" even though their closest contact with a woman is at the post office and copying content from their competitors and publishing it on obscure websites.
Well, this doesn't work. People are not stupid. If you want to make it (online or in any other business), you need to scratch someone (preferably someone with money) where they want to be scratched. You need to PROVIDE REAL VALUE and people will want to pay you for it. They will find you and you won't need to send out 3'000 spam mails to get 3 (untargeted = worthless) visitors to your website.
And another thing - even once I have learned that I need to provide real value, I have spent way too much time thinking about what amazing new service should I provide to people. It took me a couple of months to find out - you don't need to create something that has never been seen before - if anything, you will have to create a market for your service first instead of using a powerful existing market. So don't put all your efforts into making something new - you can take a great, useful service as your model, invest a lot of your time and effort and make sure to make it even better. You will have a great service, a ready market and ... need I say more?
3. BUILDING ASSETS
And now it's time to crush many dreams out there. No, you will not earn $10'000 in your first month. Better said, that's highly unlikely. What's worse - you probably won't even earn $1'000. Maybe not even $100. But this is what separates our beloved online business from a more traditional approach - getting a job and working your ass off for the same amount of money every month.
In our business, you need to constantly work on building the list of your assets - as you have probably read in Robert Kiyosaki's book "Rich Dad Poor Dad". You won't get paid immediately for pretty much all of the work you do, but all of this work will pay off eventualy. So, in the first month you will work hard and get only $500 for it. And the next month you will work just as hard and you will get $500 from previous month's work and $500 from this month's work. You see where I am going? And the light at the end of the tunnel - after 12 months of hard work you will take a month off and still make $6000 in that month.
So, I hate to break it to you, but online business just as any other business takes a lot of hard work and effort if you want to be successful. Maybe it was easier to succeed 10 years ago - I don't know and I don't want to guess. But now it is just as saturated as any other business and you need to stand out with both your approach and the quality of your product or service to get the ball rolling.
This is getting a bit (a bit?!) too long ... but for those who have managed to read all the way through, my final advice is this: Find something you know that you are good at and be ready to invest a lot of your effort in it (take action, provide value, build your list of assets!) - and the results will come sooner or later.
What was it for me? In my (fairly unsuccessful) attempts as an internet marketer I have at least learned what internet marketers need - and because I have been a web developer for so many years, I now have a group of great developers and we work really hard to provide good IM services that we really believe in. And it pays off.
This is my experience and I wanted to share it with you. Bottom line, I just wanted to tell everyone that:
a) no, you probably won't get rich overnight on the internet and
b) yes, if you put some real effort in your online business, you WILL reap the rewards.
Thank you once again, all my fellow Warriors, I wish you all the best -
and don't forget to enjoy this great place as much as I do,
Aaron Sustar
WSO - 98% of IM'ers are NOT using this "SECRET" Technique - My 20 page Secret Press Release Strategies report reveals all!!