For All Starters - Are You Building a Business or NOT?

Hello fellow Warriors. We need to help the new warriors. So I need your help.

Lately I have been watching many people stumble upon this forum with some of the basic questions related to making money on the internet aka internet marketing. They are clueless where to start. They are inundated with so much information from left right and center, these poor folks don't know where to start.

I have been recommending that they should focus on building a business rather than looking at one off opportunities.

It's amazing to me that people think that things like search engine optimization, blogging, content writing, article writing and paid advertising are the only way to generate traffic. This is what the new guys hear and they stick to it. Then slave away all their free time!

Really?!

Is this where we want the new warriors to start off?

If you are still thinking about it, the answer is NO! We don't want them to start off at ground zero.

I think as established warriors we can help guide them to start off in a good footing so they don't slave away hours after hours, days after days, weeks after week, months after months and years after years without making a penny.

Therefore I started this thread where each of the established warriors can share one of their lesson learned in "internet marketing" so the new guys don't have to spend years figuring it out.

I am going to start off with my one piece of advice. If you guys are going to share, just post it below in similar fashion (Your advice and why).

1) Don't just build a blog or a website or anything, build a business. If you don't plan to build a business, don't bother!

Think of yourself as setting up a business from day one. Arrange yourself to act as a business owner from day one. Ask all of the hard questions such as:

a) income
b) expense
c) time commitments
d) strategy
e) vision
f) overall goals and objectives
g) sales funnel
h) sales goal
i) and other core business objectives

Nail down a business plan early on. Stay focused and get it done. Consistency is important.

Here is why:

But just think about it for a second. What is your time worth to you?

$15 an hour? $20 an hour? $100 an hour? $500 an hour?

If you earn just $15 an hour at your job, on a 40 hour week, that's
$600 per week.

Are you confident that every 40 hours you put into an unfocused online activity that you'll get more than $600 back?

PROBABLY NOT!

So do your math. Figure out what your time is worth. Find one idea and build your business around it. Stick to it and get it done. Once done, you can automate it or sell it and then move on to the next.