When do You Say "Enough is Enough"??

Contrary to popular belief, "making money online" is NOT hard.

The best piece of advice I can give is to get out there in the trenches and test, test, test.

Find out what works for you (personally) then scale.

Not hard.

Also, I run a strictly 'affiliate' based business model and pull in multiple six figures.
I know other people doing even better - just from affiliate marketing.

So no, you don't need to be a product creator - however, using the product as a way of building a buyers list does speed up the process.

I disagree ... Affiliate marketing is a great income generator and is probably the best way to get started if you are new.

Eventually you will probably want to move to creating your own stuff so affiliates promote you, but it's not a must

-Shawn

It's actually a really good question. Has to be completely demoralizing trying, failing, trying failing and being kicked by the tyrany that is the empty paypal account.

Ask yourself a fcouple of Qs before giving up:

1. Do I have a legitimate marketable business or skill or am I going from one system to another. Ultimately, you make money when you have a product, service or skill that people will buy. That takes time to develop and market. What's your unique selling point?

2. What's actually stopping me from seeing ROI? Do I suck at product creation? Marketing? Etc.

3. What skills or products out there can I offer that fit my existing capacity that are also in demand? Can I cobble together a site, drive some traffic to it and then make an affiliate income with an intention to sell it for a payday in one/two years? Can I build a list and perhaps tempt them with solid offers that they'll want to buy? Find a way of merging your skills with demand.

4. Think outside of the box. Put together different methods to create your own income stream. You know sites sell on Flippa - so develop site building skills but don't stop there. Hop into Fiverr and switch on some cheap marketing services to build your sites PR and traffic (or learn how to do so yourself). Add in Analytics to show buyers you're giving them a real web asset. And don't limit yourself to just affiliate marketing - there are MANY ways to generate online income. Two things I do - I trade forex (simpler than it sounds) and I write articles to generate cashflow which I can pump into growing my main business.

Really hope it works out for you

Most people do not make money online.
The reason they do not make money online is because 99% of their time is NOT spent specifically at the task of making money.
Instead 99% of their time is spent doing the following:
- Posting and chatting on forums
- Reading all the emails they receive on how to make money online
- Buying courses and engaging in perpetual learning
- Spending their time fiddling with articles, wordpress, vids and every dumb piece of software being pushed at us.
- Logging in to their Clickbank account 27 times a day hoping there was a sale
- Not recognizing real online money making opportunities because they believe the there is some hidden secret the gurus know that can make them 100k this month with 4 hours work.

I can tell you honestly that 95% of the money I have made online is taking care of the online stuff for business. I did this because it worked for me, I am direct and into immediate gratification.

Do you have any GOALS set up and written down?

Any REAL PASSION DRIVEN GOALS?

Once you know what YOU actually want in life you'll never
even think of quitting as even being an option.

It all starts with your mindset, your psychology!

Know what you want and you'll never go back to thinking that
it's all just a waste of time.

You will drive yourself through all the obstacles, you will push on
despite what your friends or family say.

This online marketing thing does work, just look around you.

Push on my friend, the banquet hall of life is awaiting you.

Hope this helps.

Gavin

Having your own product to sell isn't the only successful way, don't know what made you think like it. You can still earn good full time income by selling other's products. It's just a matter of understanding the essentials that makes you a successful affiliate marketer.

If you are willing to get a good career as an affiliate marketer, buy a good course and learn every thing about email marketing and then try your best to implement what you learn.

You can only not succeed if you quit. It is up to you. As Heney Ford said," If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right". So believe you can, and do not quit and you will succeed.

You don't have to sell someone else's product, but if you believe that to be true, then research and write a product (not in the IM market) and go out and sell it. You seem to indicate you don't have the talent to write it, you and me both, so go out and outsource it. There are many on this forum who will write it for you, you can go to any of the freelance sites or iwriter.com is one of my favorites for getting my writing done.

Once you have it written, then list it on Clickbank or if you want to write something for Kindle, that can be lucrative.

There are lots of ways to do this, pick one and go for it. Quit crying in your beer and just do it. It is tough for all of us when we get started. I find it tough every day when I get up. such is life. Don't let that get in your way or you will never succeed. You just have to be determined and don't give up.

Note: I broke your OP into paragraphs so it's easier to read.

When does one say "enough is enough"?

That answer is different for every person. "IM", as many people like to call marketing using the Internet as a medium, is extremely vast. It's so much more than just marketers who people call "gurus" sometimes. It's beyond affiliate marketing, marketing your own products and services, etc.

Only the individual person can decide when it's time to quit. Some people just aren't cut out for this sort of thing (the reasons behind this are many).

For the sake of keeping things simple: there are 3 basic types of people who get into marketing products or services online (or those who engage in arbitrage, licensing, affiliate marketing, etc.):

1. Dreamers, Procrastinators, etc. - These people sometimes struggle with IM for months or even years for a wide variety of reasons. Sometimes it's because they don't have the right skillset. Sometimes it's their attitude (whining, blaming others, etc.).

In my 14 years of doing this and dealing with other marketers from all walks of life, most of it boils down to mindset. If a person views the world with a dirty pair of glasses, they are not going to:

a. See the abundant opportunities that are out there.

b. Aren't going to have the motivation necessary to keep on going when things get difficult.

c. Won't have the ability to FOCUS on the necessary daily activities one has to do in order to make money.

2. Money Seekers - These types of marketers aren't really interesting in starting a real business because their main focus is to find shortcuts that will make them money.

So they create one or more money makers and they generally don't form an LLC, S-Corp, or whatever, they are happy making their 2k, 10k or even 100k per month.

I've met many successful money seekers but they rarely build a strong foundation to their ventures and they have to continually create new money makers to sustain their lifestyle.

3. Entrepreneurs - These types of marketers look for a specific need / want/ issue / problem within a certain niche under a specific market. They have a long-term mindset and aren't necessarily looking to make money right away because they know they have to build the right foundation.

These kinds of business owners and/or operators come in various shapes and sizes. Whether it's making the perfect potato chip bag, creating apps or other software for a specific industry, or taking a new scientific breakthrough to help people, these types of marketers are not as rare as you think, mostly because they rarely visit or stay in these types of forums.

They'd rather be 110% involved in their own ventures and networking with others who are like-minded like they are.

"Basically if you are not talented enough to create a product that people want you won't be successful in the making money online game. I know some or maybe many of you will disagree with me without offering any proof of the opposite. Of course why would you expose your making money recipe to everyone if it is working."

I am quoting this again because I wanted to highlight it. This is scarcity-thinking at it's worst. The Make-Money-Online niche (MMO) is such a small drop in the overall Internet Marketing world bucket that it's not even funny.

There are plenty of good-natured, well-meaning marketers who genuinely want to help others and it's too bad that they are over shadowed by the creeps and the charlatans out there.

You're limiting yourself greatly with this kind of thinking. I strongly recommend reading a book of real-life short stories called Unstoppable by Cynthia Kersey. The lessons in that book are incredible.

In a nutshell, take 100% ownership of all your successes and all of your failures, and you'll achieve greatness a whole lot faster.

RoD

There are two ways to look at everything. Every sentence in your post is either true (your reality) or it's false. Take the first one. "only a few excel"

Why do you care what anyone else is doing? Then you mention successful gurus. Ugh. I've been doing this since 1997 and still don't know what a guru is and don't care. "talented enough' More nonsense. It takes no talent at all. There are a few skills required to make it work but you can hire those out. Talent might be helpful but it's not necessary.

People forget that IM isn't even a business. Internet marketing is the act of selling products and services over the Internet. In other words, it's a marketing venue, nothing more. Years ago there was this crazy perception that mail order was the magic pill. It was built up the way IM is now. But it still came down to being a business. Most people coming here make things way harder than they have to be. They aren't even asking the right questions. If I see another post about spammed backlinks and spun articles I'm going to puke.

It's always going to come back to providing a product or service people want and are willing to pay for. The rest is commentary. Forget what the gurus say. There's a very disturbing thing new people coming here believe. That is, the goal is to do as little as possible for your customers, cutting corners, stretching the truth and somehow, coming out ahead on the other side. I'm not saying that's your thing but if you have even a trace of that belief mixed with your efforts you are DOOMED!

Here's a gift for you or anyone willing to quit whining and just freakin' do it. If I didn't have a half dozen things going this is what I'd do to get started. I'd go over to fiverr and identify a half dozen or more people selling video or white board video services. That's about the only thing I've found on that site worth anything at all. There are some really excellent short videos getting turned out at $5, $10. Many of these can be sold for $150 or more. I shouldn't have to go much further as it's pretty obvious where the opportunity is here and with that kind of margin it would be nearly impossible to screw up. Just do some simple math. Good luck.

Hey,

I'm not guru by any means... And I don't want to be like one Fcuk this s***! Actually run away from guys who call themselves gurus. Those are just plain idiots.

I have been questioning myself a lot of times...

Is it right? Should I keep going? Am I living in the dream world? How will I endup? Am I naive? Am I stupid?...?!!

Believe me... Still I have times when I have doubts, but hey! I know my vision and targets, and these are the only things I keep my FOCUS on.

So, when you have a hard day... Just focus on your vision and do SOMETHING to move forward. Something that will move you closer to the goal. It could be something as easy as changing headlines on your sites (Turn H tags into questions...)

As soon as you do SOMETHING, you will feel better and right on track.

If you have no money to live, just get some job to support your basic needs and decent internet connection.

You need to focus MORE on the PROCESS itself and not on the money... I know it sound s*** and strange but that's the only way to BIG bucks.

You have made some really good job already, a lot of people will never get to the stage where you are at this moment. So, quitting is not an option for you.

You have to move forward.

PS Focus on thinking about delivering VALUE for your audience. If you do, they will pay you more than you are able to imagine at this moment

Internet marketing is just what it says... marketing on the Internet. If you're not educated in marketing tactics - and I mean through college, your career, or self educating yourself, you're going to fail. People don't come to the Internet to spend their money; you have to give them a reason to spend and that only comes with good marketing.

Even if I have the product they are looking for, if I don't hit their buttons, they will move on to the next product.

So the question is - how MUCH do you want the "work in your PJs" lifestyle and how much are you willing to sacrifice? Fail now or fail later, it's your choice. It's not "them" holding you back; it's you. This applies to ANY business you start; not just the Internet.

try-fail-adjust- retry -fail, learn, adjust.......either die or succeed.

See all those billionaires......it didn't fall into their laps on their 1st attempt (despite what many wso's say..) They are human as well. Every multi-millionaire has a tale of failure/hard work, etc.

Focus in industries where the ceiling is high.....become a pioneer in it.

All this jumping around doesn't work!

oh i am talking about business not I.M.

It's only over when you say it's over.

I've said "It's over" so many times, but always had a reason to pick it back up. Now it's my full time income and I'm glad I never gave up.

Affiliate marketing is definitely really hard at first. It does take some time and effort. You just need to find a way to get targeted traffic. If you could find a way to get 100 hits a day that is targeted towards your niche you will definitely make money. There are so many different ways that you could get free traffic. Classified Ads, Facebook, and Twitter are great places to start off. Your goal should be to get consist traffic everyday. If you get traffic you will definitely eventually start making sales. Don't give up.

A picture is worth a thousand words

I agree that taking action (trying) is very important. But there's something even more important: Taking the right action.

Knowing when to say 'Enough is enough' can be a sign of wisdom, not necessarily giving up. The gauge is different for everyone and I think it is dependent on what prompted you to try making money online in the first place.

Making money online sure seems easy to do but when you really think of it, it is as difficult and time-consuming as an offline business in the beginning, especially if you start with zero knowledge.

Most offline small businesses fail and I think most online businesses fail, too. But both have the potential for success. However, not everyone is cut out to run their own business, either on or off line.

Only you can set the limits for yourself as far as how much is enough. Perhaps you are really seeking a truthful answer to "Is it possible to make money online and, if so, how."

Personally, I would love to see verified proof of the net income of anyone claiming to make 6 figure incomes. I don't even need to see how they are making it (well, ok, that would be my next request) but actual proof that they are earning what they claim.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I do believe people are making it. But I think that is more of the exception than the norm.

Technically speaking, if you tried a 100 different ways to do something before you
succeeded, then you gave up on 99 different ways. So it is a legitimate question
about how do you know when a particular strategy, technique, market doesn't
work for you. The answer would be different for different people.

Most people have dreams in life but also have a back up plan. The majority
of people are living on their backup plans because they were sure that
their "dream plan" would not come true. People who are very successful
are those who don't have a backup plan.

-Ray Edwards

You say „enough is enough” when you have exhausted your options with no result.
I do not give up easy. And I know that if I put my brains to it I can actually succeed in IM.