I give up

Focus on making a passive, autopilot income. I make around $80-$100 a day which may be less than the best on here, but it is passive and really doesnt requie any work.

Making money online isn't easy. Sure it may have been in 2004 when you started but it still took work. There are ways to make money online and they can be quite profitable but the problem is many of them take time to develop and work. If you have web design skills then you already know how to set up a site and throw adsense/amazon/CPA/Affiliate links/ etc.. up. This may not make money short term but if you do it right it will make money. The problem most people have is they simply don't bother continuing the effort to actually make a profit. They download a new WSO and start trying it. Find a method and stick to it, then keep at it. It will take work but it will pay off later.

Why are you looking for a "program"?

(I'm not quite certain I know exactly what you mean by "program", to be honest ).

The people I know who are earning good livings as internet marketers are not doing so through a "program". At least, not the ones I can immediately think of, here.

"Programs" don't produce income. People set up businesses that produce income. You know this, because you've done that yourself, and are making a living from it (or nearly making a living from it?) at the moment?

Why do you care so much about Google?

Have you already decided that whatever you do, to make additional income online, it has to be something that depends on Google?

I do this, myself (I'm not suggesting that necessarily makes it suitable or ideal or even sensible for you to do the same), and I don't really care much about Google at all ... :confused:

Personally, I'd advise you - whatever you try next - not to put too much of your time and effort into trying to attract "organic SERP's" traffic, for two main reasons: first, it's very precarious and makes your business Google-dependent, and any business that's Google-dependent is no more than one algorithm-change away from a potential accident (or even a potential disaster), as so many Warriors have been finding out over the last year or two, some of them to their very great cost; secondly, for me, search engine traffic has been uniformly the worst-converting traffic out of everything I've ever tried in 8 entirely different niches over the whole of the last 4 years - search engine visitors to all my websites typically stay the least time, view the fewest pages, opt in the least often and actually buy anything by far the least often. I admit I do get tons of search engine traffic to all my main sites (because high rankings for multiple keywords happen to be a minor side-benefit of the main targeted traffic-generation method I use to build my business) but I'd certainly hate to have to make a living just from that traffic.

Color me confused. You make $3,000 to $4,000 every month, after expenses like rent, car, etc. How can $3,000 to $4,000 be considered not enough to live on?

Just pmed you my experience with one product. But i would like to add that making money online is NOT easy! Not impossible either.

@OP You've been online since 2004 (when it was easy as **** to make money) and you have a "Masters Degree" (from an uncredited institution no doubt), yet you don't know how to simplify and streamline your own efforts? AND you're asking for a "system" or "program" that works legitimately? WTF? What exactly did you study with this Masters program and what the hell have you been doing since 2004? I apologize for my tone but this is quite confusing.


PS. Dude, I love this signature. I wonder how many people "get" this, too.

I think this sentence sums up a flaw in your mindset that is preventing you from being as successful as you would like to be:

And I disagree about the "4 Hour Workweek" just being an idea to sell books. The 4 Hour Workweek (or at least major principles of it) is what I am striving for. My goal is to run my online ventures and generate adequate income from the comfort of my laptop while traveling.

The first step to getting to where it is that you want to be is to change your mindset.

JoeMack

You have to find something else you could do that would give you more money based on your skills and on the time you can dedicate to achieve this goal.

Perhaps you can post interesting Fiverr gigs that won't take time to be delivered, or write Kindle ebooks, or promote affiliate products… the list is huge.

You have to find out what you can do, and then spend some time building a new income stream.

Lol, is that even a real thing?

It wasn't accredited training via fiverr was it?

If you can't live off $3k - $4k per month after all expenses, somethings wrong & it doesn't have anything to do with IM.

I think giving up is not a good idea. Keep patience.

To everyone discussing the degree, he probably went to Full Sail or something where they have internet marketing degrees.

I would consider taking those classes too, just to see if there's anything I could pick up. Always like to learn something new. But thinking it impresses anyone, or that it's useful to display it, is a total waste of time.

Anyway - if you have $3,000 a month - AFTER EXPENSES - and that's not enough to live on, then why not? Is there an additional expense you forgot to mention?

On top of that, you've been to all these marketing classes and courses and programs, and you don't know how to reinvest your money, and sell an information product to leverage your time?

I don't think you're serious. Maybe you'll set the record straight.

Marc

Did you build a list at all during this time? You need to if not.
Are you trying to do everything yourself? (I can tell you are with the hours you work.) Time to outsource and scale-up.

No offense... You need to take a long hard look at your budget.. entire families live off only a few hundred dollars a month in the United States.. and they make it. There are people out there that wish they had $4,000 a month after expenses. You may consider moving to a less expensive area of the country if you are stretched and everything is excessively priced where you are.

Very strange that 3k a month isn't enough to at least feel comfortable. Its also very strange that you have an internet marketing degree but don't know how to make money online. I think what you need to realize is that you need to build an online business not follow any program. You need to create a business plan whether it involves affiliate sales, your own product etc... And after all this you still need to have the dedication, perseverance and ability to test and adapt your business before it even starts working, which can take a very long time.

Hire out some of your web design work to Malaysia/Philippines. Geo-Arbitrage in a sense. This should allow you to collect more clients, make more sales, and in general make your life a bit more simple.

The hardest part will be finding people you can outsource to that know what they are doing. I hire people based off of their work. I give a small project to anyone attempting to get a job. Just something quick like a 1 page landing page or banner. I take this over a basic application/CV. If the work is up to snuff, I might sign them on for 1 or 2 temp projects and if they perform those well I offer them a full time position on my team.

Other than that, stick to it. Scale your operations. You seem like you have something going for you, you are just handling too much of it on your own.

What I would say is that you're already successful, you just have to fine tune what you're already doing. If you already have the skills you mention you need to find a higher paying market for the same things you already know best. Any change in direction is going to involve a learning curve and a drop in income. The simplest way to to raise your income, when you already have a business that's operating, is to raise your prices. Granted that might need to be with new customers, but they're out there, you just have to find them.

Hi,
Congratulations on what have learned since 2004, and for coming back here for help.

You might consider setting up a coaching program to teach others what you have learned to make 3,000-4,000 per month. Many people would be willing to pay you to learn what you have already learned about making money online.

You could set-up a membership site with what you have already learned and have a passive ongoing income. You already have the proof of income that would be impressive to those who are struggling to make any money online.

Just a thought. ;>)

E

There are many things on the internet that are honest and worthwhile, but that really depends on you. Does that make sense? If you are honest and worthwhile... :rolleyes: (See the bold print) You answered your own question. What you don't know can be found on this forum, without buying anything else, but from learning who you need to learn from.


Are you really looking for easier? Or a better way to focus your skills and your time? You have two of the best, one online, the other offline, answering your thread. Again, there are many others here, but until you figure out what direction you want to go, you are never going to get the answers you want.

Something I learned from Nathan (IamNameless), when his back was up against the wall, he came out fighting, and won. He figured it out, he knew his skillset and made use of it. I would venture to guess that is the secret to every successful person on this forum.

Good luck to you!!

~ Theresa

Find better paying clients.

This is what I intend on doing over the next 12 months. I want the $50,000 web jobs, the $5,000 a month SEO campaigns, the $2,000 a month consulting clients.

They're out there.

Find them.

I think that problem comes when newbie or any internet marketer start thinking to earn full time income from the internet and leave their day time job. There are two possible ways, you have enough money to build and promote your business OR continue day job in parallel with online business. As soon as you establish a handsome income online to survive, replace your day job with full time online business.

You can put back end products for your clients like: hosting, monthly social follower services, monthly seo services, any tutorial affiliate course with recurring income, super charge more for your sales funnel, etc.

Why you give up? You have clients, payment proof, nice portfolio.

I think your journey on internet marketing just start here.

Not sure why anybody is judging him on whether he can get by. As far as I'm concerned, if he wants to earn more to have better vacations, that's his prerogative.

You have a masters in IM and you're asking us for help.. lol

I suggest increasing your prices.. You have a degree and many years of experience to back it up..

May you could build some courses to sell your knowledge?

Cheers,

Gary

Try outsourcing some of the work in your current business now you know it inside out. The beauty of being an IM'er is working less not more than a 'proper' job.

Forget looking for programs and systems.

I earn pretty close to what you earn every month, yet I have more than enough to live off on and have fun with.

You really don't need a fancy car, a big house, or expensive toys to live.

Maybe he has a totally different lifestyle from you and that isn't enough for him. Everyone has different levels of comfort and needs / wants different things.

To all my dear Warrior friends, thank you for your insight and interest in my plea for some assistance. I normally would get very involved in a post like this and I probably should have spoken up more because there are many misconceptions. Even though my original post was quite lengthy and detailed I can see that some people had some misunderstandings. Let me try to clarify some of the issues and get back on track here.

First of all I have not quit, I'm still moving ahead but I did want to allow this to be a very free-form forum and not get in the way, that is why I stayed out for a while. When I mentioned things about income and expenses, I was surprised at how far off many people had gotten. The business expenses were deducted leaving me with my personal income of about $3-$4000 a month. From that I needed to pay for house payments, car payments, insurance, food, and all the other typical household expenses to raise a family. I do have 5 children but only 2 of them are still living at home, even though I do feed the others quite often for several family dinners a week. I was surprised at the reaction of people claiming that they could live on a lot less. This is not a place to be judging my habits or monetary capabilities, this forum was supposed to help me move forward for a better life. Unless you're living in a tent or out of the back of a camper, I don't care where you live, it's pretty hard to live on $3-$4000 a month raising a family of any size living in a home in a suburb. My home is nothing fancy, my truck is 19 years old (I bought it new) and I haven't been on a vacation of any kind in 2 years. I have no bad habits to pay for and fortunately have been quite healthy.

I really want to thank IAmNameLess for some very insightful comments throughout this thread. He nailed it on the head in almost everything he said. Thank you so much for understanding the issue and dealing with it in a proper manner.

I guess it would've been easier if I would use that stated my goals in monetary terms to help you understand where I'm going. I am now 55 years old and I'm not looking for something to "just get by on" as I look down the years on the road toward my future. For many years in my life I did not care exactly how much money I made, but the older I get the more concerned I am for my financial future. I'm in those "sandwich years" where I will soon be trying to support an ailing mother (I hope to the heaven's she stays healthy) and 4 children all trying to attend college at the same time. I have no idea what I'll do 10 years from now when my youngest will be 20 at the time. Right now they are all trying to support themselves and consequently are not getting the education they need and this is more than disconcerting to me.

Maybe it's not wise to air all of my dirty laundry and personal issues in such a forum as this. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and try to deal with it on my own. Maybe I could try to seek financial counseling from people in my local area, and who says I haven't already? I am very perplexed as to how to reach my goals and the needs that I currently have and the ones heading toward me like an unstoppable freight train. I hate living paycheck-to-paycheck (like 75% of the population and will stop there with all the terrible details of my finances), and if there was a way to earn $20-$30,000 a month right now, I would jump at it as long as it was legal and ethical. Not too many years ago there were an awful lot of gurus claiming that those numbers were attainable online. I don't see that much anymore.

The idea of creating a website to train others in IM is a good one, except in my mind it is almost impossible because I can't keep up with all the changes. I couldn't have picked a worse degree to keep up with. I should have been a chiropractor or something (except I can't stand that industry). I just need to focus on one thing in this big world of internet marketing and become an expert at that. It's hard to make a choice as to which one because we never know what will work and how long it will be viable. Right now I have decided to focus on Reputation Management, but I have not done as well as I desired in closing the sales. I confess that I am not a very good sales person and really should hire someone that is. It is a lot easier to write out that suggestion than to make it work.

Maybe I am running on fear here and not faith and should do better. I was just hoping that someone on this forum might know of something that I am missing and could show me something they know about that has helped them. For those who sent me invitations to their "get-rich-quick-schemes" I am beyond that and you should have realized it.

So again I apologize for such an airing of real and personal issues. I hope it isn't taken advantage by someone and I hope that this will somehow help me find an answer.

With a Masters in Internet Marketing you should be giving us ideas of making money online than asking how. SMH!

Hardworker, I understand your frustrations. I had the good fortune to marry relatively late to a woman who knows how to manage her own finances, and we only have one child, so our family finances are relatively comfortable. But I've seen my share of business ups and downs and my personal income isn't much greater than yours.

Selling skills are undoubtedly important, but finding and retaining competent sales reps is a challenge for even the most successful businesses. My own company's best sales rep earns way more than me and I'm happy for his success.

So the track to solve the problem (or at least improve your circumstances) I think comes down to some time management, self-marketing and, yes, a bit of sales training. Layer on to this that magical thing called passion -- the aspect of the work you do (did) that you enjoy the most, and you may find the right formula to leverage your potential.

There are several sales training models and systems out there. You might want to call and interview the best sales reps in your community (Realtors, chamber of commerce types and so on) and ask for their recommendations. In the process, I think you might pick up a few clients -- double return for your efforts. Professional/technical services are often best sold by speaking and giving presentations to groups. Yes, you can learn this stuff too. (In my younger years, I transitioned from journalism to a government job, to my current vocation, publishing, by working as a Realtor for two years -- I was okay, not great, but I certainly learned something about selling.)

This leads to the second part of the puzzle, that concept called "passion". Back to the roots -- in my case, journalism. As a young adult, I set out to be successful and overcame some rather big odds and personality defects to master the craft. I ended up living through the end of the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe civil war as a sub-editor on a local newspaper there -- filing some stories back to Canadian wire services, and discovering the the "dream come true" experience. (I had to come back to reality with a thud, of course.) However, years later, I realize I still really enjoy the journalistic craft, and often find, when my business is "down" -- getting out and discovering some interesting things, and sharing the news -- ends up revitalizing things and restoring my business to its potential.

Now this advice is coming from someone who hasn't found the magic formula -- but I've had some fun debunking "magic formulas" through some investigation and research -- but nevertheless, the model has provided for sustainability and opportunity. Simply put: Do what you need to do to enhance your own selling skills, apply your basic marketing knowledge for your own business, and then focus the rest (bulk) of your time on the aspects of the work that really capture your heart/passion. Your income may increase somewhat, but your quality of life will increase exponentially, I believe.

Hi, I also think that 4000-5000$ is something you can live on. Of course, this depends on the state/country/region and yes, maybe a good idea is to live in an area where life is not that expensive, or travel to such countries. Then you'll probably know the difference.

If you are just getting started as an internet marketer, you would expect that everything is not going to be easy for you to make some money online. We will be experiencing some frustrations on not getting the results we want, lost money for a campaign that you want to run, etc., but this is just part of the learning experience.

Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail.....SUCCESS!!!!

The more we fail, the more we are learning how to become smarter. It's just like you practice basketball, shooting in a free throw line, you have missed so many attempts till you get one. The same thing goes to internet marketer, but in a different level. If others can do it, you can do it too!

Stay positive and get your game on!!!!

Lol ... all of these responses and not one of them answers your question. Definitely illustrates the true value of this forum ;-)

you already generate 7k-8k, you've got it down.
i dont think it's the program that you're looking for, it might be the system that you created for the business that you've already built.

i recommend "Work the System" by Sam Carpenter

hope this helps

OK, where I live there is an auction on every Friday and there are many items that come from overflow that are MIB - mint in box that you can get super cheap and then some. Like you can sell these on eBay and make some money. That will get you quick cash as well as experience. Selling is not easy. I believe you do not understand that amount of hard work that goes into it. Try to get a friend to help you load boxes and lend you his or her van. Get ready to fill up your garage. HARD WORK = success!

- Outsource your b.s. work

- Raise your prices

- Stop learning and start thinking.

- Box your knowledge and sell it.

- Take an inventory of what you learned over the past few years and put it on paper. That is the pile of gold you're sitting on. All you have to do say it's your gold, and you plan on spending it.

I can't live on $3-4000 a month either but I have a wife and 2 children to support. If I were on my own, then that figure would not be a problem.

Back to the OP's question. If he failed to find a good program in 2004, the chances are that he will not succeed this time either. In 2004, I would have recommended buying revenue generating websites. But now, there are just too many scams around that it is very difficult to judge.

Man, I still can't believe there are people harping on, saying "I could live on $500 per month so why can't you?"

OP: I feel your pain brother, you just gotta keep plugging away. Try to think of areas in your business where you can remove yourself from the day to day. Pay someone to free up your own time and then use that time to work on either expanding your core business or test out new ideas until you hit one that succeeds. You obviously know how to make money, it sounds like you just need to free up some of that precious time of yours. How much would it cost you to train and pay 1 or 2 people per year to do 80% of the work you're currently doing? And how much extra money could you bring into your business with all that free time you now have? Finding new clients, trying new business ideas (creating your own products etc (if you can run a business, then you have a skill that you can sell via info products to other people who would want to know how to do what you do)).

smedsribaka,

I'd like to have your problem of "only" making 3-4k/mo. Right now I have one client and it's a porn site. NO way in hell to get a referral worth anything.

If I was in your position, I would not think about raising prices for current clients. But I would definitely raise prices for new clients. I'd look at ways to add value to those existing clients by offering them services they are not currently using but need.

I'd get testimonials from them and use those in all of my marketing to leverage for new customers. I'd ask them if they know anyone who would like to benefit from your services. I could offer a finder's fee if they have trouble thinking of their contacts.

I'd look for reliable outsourcing because doing everything yourself will kill you.

Then I'd use some of the extra time I picked up from outsourcing and the extra income from new client(s) making some type of passive income training.

How to build up to 3-4k/mo+ would be a good seller here. Then if you detail you actions, a case study of how to take your business from x to y would be a great follow-up to the same list and the forum.

But what do I know? I'm just a newbie with one client.

smedsribaka,

you sound like you're having a rough time, but you're actually in a better position than most. There's already been some pretty good advice here. Just to recap:

1: Outsource. You can't do everything yourself. Find trusted people who can help you with your work. You'll free up time to expand your business or do things that are more important to you.

2: You've already acknowledged that the programs you've signed up for in the past haven't helped you much. You're not going to find anything that does. Focus on saving as much time and energy from your existing processes, then dedicate that time and energy to automating as much as you can.

3: Spend less.

It sounds like you have the passion and I hope you never let that die down. I would not buy anymore programs if I were you. Save your money and get yourself a good coach with great recommendations and let him teach you a system that works. After that everything will lend itself to being an open book to you.

60-80 hours, a week is way too much! Why not, work smarter and make more money?

I am impressed, this thread has covered so much and amazing variety of advices. The give up feeling is at times so ill, it almost feels like to puke. But when you think thorough, you don't know the other options of what you can do. You get calm again and compose yourself to face challenges. Job is difficult for me but I am doing it because I can't enough money doing any other thing. So in my current situation, it is important. Though I am a business-minded person. May I be successful too wish you best of luck dear!

I am very google dependent! I have several reseller sites and made EXTRA money after what I make at my 8-4 job. With another new google penguin update I AM FIGHTING MAKE ANYTHING. I think google does these updates to keep the small guys off the search engines. Its a big rich GOOGLE helping the other rich guy make more.

I need ideas for other resources of traffic?