Define 'FREE' - how can it be if I have to pay?

My definition of free is no payment and as far as i am concerned giving someone my email address isn't a payment

Art,

That's not 'free'. That's a money back guarantee. You're never going to win the 'free' argument against a lot of marketers. I used to get pissed off with people who would send you an offer "Free xxx programme". Then it turns out it is not free. First you have to buy their product. Now, to me that makes it a bonus but most people don't see to care about the free/bonus distinction. But it's not worth losing sleep over.

FOCUS ON YOUR BUSINESS

And before people criticize my mentality, I wasn't pissed off because it wasn't free, I was pissed off because they were deliberately being misleading.

FOCUS ON YOUR BUSINESS

How many programmes do you need? Focus on the 2 or 3 you trust and ignore the rest.

Like most people trying to make money online, you probably have everything you need already in terms of tools, you are just not applying it in a profitable way.

FOCUS ON YOUR BUSINESS

Post 15 minutes a day to the Forum and spend the other 105 minutes linkbuilding/getting traffic/improving your sites/talking to Roger.

FOCUS ON YOUR BUSINESS

Martin

Hi Art,

Thanks for elaborating.

I just see it as a marketing ploy. I see them everywhere. But I have noticed over time that the very best products don't need to use them, whereas the other kind often do.

If you see any kind of 'hard marketing', or anything that 'the herd' is following - approach it with caution. But there are exceptions - and to find these you can only do it with experience.

What I mean by that is you need to get to a point where instead of the market and marketers leading you towards products, instead you know that you need a piece of your OWN jigsaw, and you go out and hunt it down (or have it created).

You approach the market, knowing what you need. You go looking for it - THAT'S how to build a system that will work for you for years. So (you ask) how does one get to that point? It takes time, commitment, being observant, rooting around and sticking your nose into things. Trying things out. Trial and error. Become an opportunity detective. Read a lot. Always check that you are not getting sloppy with your reading choices.

And there's another aspect to this that's important. You need to get it in your head that anything that's going to really produce for you ideally needs to be unique - you need to tweak it.

If something works well, many in the market will know. The large majority of these people don't have the ability to tweak things. It's not easy to learn how to do it, but it's not too difficult either.

Most of my successful systems are based on SEO. Not google page 1 top listing SEO. Just SEO that gets me traffic. If I can't get to number one on google then I get to wherever my system takes me and REPLICATE the system again.

This is something that experience has taught me. Sometimes it is just too difficult to top the search engines. So instead, once I find the kind of level that appears to be the 'peak' I instead expand sideways and do more of the same. There are many niches and domains available.

If I were to just stick to using the same system as anyone else, I would be at a disadvantage in the SERPS. By knowing how to make some important tweaks to my system I can do less donkey work (that the majority are doing in a competition to see who can do the most) and I can use my uniqueness to fly under the radar, while the SEs are zapping everyone else.

So the key is - once you examine a 'system' (I use that term broadly) the FIRST thing to do is ask how you can tweak it and differentiate.

Yep. Most of these programs for sale are padded out to give the impression of value, or dragged out and delivered on a drip-drip. So they are no good.

You'd be surprised how much more learning you can get done if you just get out there on the unlimited internet, and start sticking your nose into things and mooching around.

Keep these browser windows open while you're doing it -

Domain Tools: Whois Lookup and Domain Suggestions
Backlinks Checker Tool - Backlink Watch (most important)
Compete | Compete

Learn to use them properly. Use them in combination. Find more to add to these and make your *own* research/learning system. Work out EXACTLY how those sites you find have achieved what they have achieved.

Don't just count the backlinks. Look AT the backlinks. How did the person acquire them? Were they given or taken? WHY did they choose those backlinks on those type of sites - speed or quality?

And allow yourself to meander. If you see an interesting site that gives a backlink to a site you're examining, study THAT site. Just remember to take notes - tons of them. Not to keep in a useless pile, but to help you to learn to write ideas and notes down and compose plans. Brainstorm - paper is really cheap. Go through the notes, collate it into blueprints or action plans and put the crucial stuff into organised folders.

Whenever you do a task (EG setting up a blog) make a bulleted list of actions so that if you replicate it you are quicker next time. Once you have this mindset you are encouraging yourself to replicate (by making it simple) and will start looking for automation, and then (bingo) you find yourself in the position described above where -

a) you know what you want from the market (you have been using the bulleted list that you created - you want to automate this)

b) you go out and find it, ignoring all salesy BS on the way

c) you add it to your system, and you have just improved your system and your productivity

I've done the opposite too. When the automation is too time-consuming to understand/maintain, I let it go and pull out my bulleted list again (this has happened). Many solutions I have tested aren't ready for the market when they're released - some have a great concept but the seller just doesn't have the ability to make it a workable option. Be brutal - if it slows you down, bin it.

A part of the right mindset to do this is to forget about saturation, and realise that the internet is still a baby. There is opportunity everywhere. There are rankings available all over the place waiting to be grabbed.

You either -

a) learn how to use complicated tools to try and find these gaps

b) make so many (cheap) sites that you have your own data farm

I prefer b) but use a) too. Domains are only $8.88 and they get cheaper once you get your own discount code. Spend the money that previously went on ebooks on domains. THEY have REAL undeniable value. Each one is a little business, an opportunity, a seed of a money tree* (*borrowed from Robert G Allen.) Each one is an opportunity to learn REAL answers to questions - many of these questions you would never even think of until the answer you find causes you to know the question.

That can be a tough scenario - I sympathise. Not all vendors are honest. Not all systems work properly. I have found individual vendors that are completely honest, and many more who are not. Remember my first post? Don't trust anyone. Hedge your bets. Join a huge program with a good track record and so many affiliates that they MUST offer something worthwhile. Then learn the systems they use and DIFFERENTIATE and TWEAK.

I had the opposite experience early on. I wrote some stuff like I'm writing here on pages (of course, in line with my experience at the time) and added the products I was testing and using and made a sale the first day.

Perhaps you need to expand sideways - more sites, different niches, different type of selling. You're not going to find your groove without trying a few out and playing a numbers game - not EVERYTHING works.

There is always scrappage. Of the domains I develop, 30-50% fail. So I move on and try something slightly different.

Try and change your mindset a little to one that is -

a) you buy tools, software, automation - sometimes systems

b) you acquire information. You don't *often* buy it

You are in a market full of info sellers. Do you not think there's going to be a strong force trying to suggest that you should buy the info you need? Get out of that mindset. It's not easy. Part of the reason I got out of that mindset is only because I bought so much info-junk that the penny finally dropped.

Stop looking for complete systems. They aren't there. And if they are, they either don't work or they're ineffective for the reasons I gave above - everyone is using them so they need tweaking.

It's much easier to 'build your own.' And I really want to emphasize that I'm not talking 'complicated' systems. For example -

a) you find a market to go into that has the right 'signals'.

b) you decide on a monetisation method that has the right potential.

c) you do it

Now this could be 5-10 page minisites, slapped on a wp blog (slightly tweaked - EG - just using 'static' CMS style page setup - simple stuff) with adsense on it in a certain place. Or an amazon product.

And then you make five of those sites for that niche (for example).

Then you observe. If one outperforms the others find out why. Look for the answers. If you find them, you just learnt something that you didn't 'buy', that perhaps no-one else knows, that wasn't part of a 'complete system.' It's a nice feeling. You might see the question come up in the forum, decide you're NOT letting this one out of the bag, and smile to yourself as the answers come in and it becomes obvious that NO-ONE on the forum has worked it out and is doing it the same way as you. But then you have to get your arse into gear, act quick and capitalise on it.

It's up to you. If it works (financially AND it suits you) you could start a list, start making video, start making podcasts and submitting them all over etc etc...my point - it's up to you. The options are endless. But they won't seem like that if you are stuck in the 'I must find an ebook that gives me a complete system' syndrome.

Apart from the fact it will be a long, hard, expensive and probably pointless search, it's not the best way.

But the best way takes INITIATIVE. Do you have that? Of course you do. Fire it up.

If you only have two hours a day you can't afford to spend any of it griping. No more explanation needed. Do you want to succeed online and earn extra dough or do you want to put the world to rights?

I put the world to rights in my spare time because it gives me a break from the boring profitable stuff.
You're walking a thin line there Art. Reading this forum and participating can be very helpful but it won't solve your problems on it's own.

Plus, two hours, in little dribs and drabs is nothing. If you HONESTLY can't make any more time than that, then you are at an even bigger disadvantage when you come up against others who aren't. It will take you years to get up to speed, and the internet isn't going to hang around for you. It changes daily.

Are you SURE you can't squeeze more than two hours in? I'm not prying, but if you could share WHY you can't manage more time, I may be able to offer some advice. But there ARE people who do well with that amount of time when starting out. But they are either lucky or very smart. Which one are you?

The system you outlined above (whatever it is) is patently not working. At the least you have learnt something. You need to work out which part caused it to fail. Obviously it's that you didn't make sales, but I would look at the niche too and the system. Is everyone doing it the same way?

If not what are they doing? Go and answer that question and you're away with the mixer.

One last word on mindset. I felt the need to mention above about the lack of opportunities that other people have in the majority of the world. I made it my mission over time to become interested in studying these people and their lives, because I was aware that I had a lazy, entitlement, typically Western mindset by default. I have continued with this drive over many years now and I recommend it to anyone for a whole host of reasons.

If I DO put the TV on and relax, most of the time I'm watching something on DVD to do with people who have less choice than me, less opportunity, less available resources - yet they succeed in what they do AND they enjoy it AND they maintain a wholesome, enviable attitude. They HAVE to have initiative. And it puts what we call initiative to shame.

It may sound like a depressing pastime, but it's actually not. It's one of my personal keys to success and it has shaped many things, including the type of people that I have become friends with and the way that I consider others. And when I watch the appalling Western drivel that the majority of drones here are wasting their time watching, and allowing to screw up their attitude and motivation - my way makes even more sense. They laugh at those less fortunate than themselves on TV (as they are programmed to) and don't realise that the joke is on them. The answers they seek are right in front of them but they don't have the initiative to seek them and change channel or invest £12 on a life changing DVD set. So they gripe about everything around them instead and look for other people to blame for their failures.

Incidentally, one of my future goals is to live (or have access to a residence) in the country you live in. Think about that Art...

HTH