20 years ago, I began with offline marketing and affiliate marketing. If I had to start again, knowing nothing at all, I'd do this:

- Devote myself to free education (locations like WF);
- Form a Business Plan
- Take Action
- Reinvest Profits into Education
- Expand into Better Areas
- Reinvest Profits
- Rinse, Repeat.

Tom

For me, authority is the biggest asset. It's a longer process, but essentially it's a long term strategy as opposed to going small. With regards to fast of how successful you can be with either one, it's going to depend on your budget and how well your build a relationship with people so that you can evidently build a loyal following who can resonate with you and will buy from you time and time again.


Yes. I incorporate my funnels within my blog to assist with my branding and reputation.


Yes.


Absolutely. You need someone who practices what they preach, who tells you how it is (straight up) and someone that you can resonate with. You need to get out of that habit of information overload, focus on building that structure and move forward and learn as you progress.

I find that people continue to buy this and that, but they never see it through to the end. Or they complain that this didn't work or this... without a structure, or system in place, it's never going to work and it's often something you can't rely on 100% because there are numerous components to building an online business.

Learning is one thing... taking action is another


I'd create my own but refer other useful products that people are going to need in order to get their business setup. But one of the biggest things I find is that... a lot of people would promote something they have never even purchased before. So it's kinda weak... it's just the wrong mindset. It shouldn't be about making money, it should be about "them" the people on your list and what you can do to help them.

• Learn It
• Do It
• Teach It

If it doesn't work for you, then don't bother promoting it to others just for the sake of money...

There's various income streams but ideally residual / recurring income and high ticket it going to be the biggest asset.

Does that help?

(i) I'd know more, avoid depending on "forum information" as I did in 2008, perhaps not waste most of my first four months without earning anything, and avoid all the silly mistakes I actually made through knowing no better at the time;

(ii) As so many now-successful Warriors say, every single time this question's asked, I'd start to build a list "on day one".

I'd know that that doesn't matter very much, and that my income is determined much more by my email marketing skills than by what sort of websites I use.

I'd still have some sort of little sites, like the ones I have now, which continue the process of establishing trust and credibility (from whatever brings visitors to my site in the first place) and which exist for the primary purpose of collecting the visitors' email addresses, without which there's no real income worth talking about.

About the same (i.e. not very important at all, as long it serves its primary purpose of collecting the visitors' email addresses).

No.

Diferent people learn in different ways, and that wouldn't suit me.

Especially having had so many messages from people who have bought various coaching services advertised in this forum, and with my hair still standing on end at some of the appalling nonsense they've been "taught" by people who can apparently earn money only from other newbie marketers by pretending to be "coaches" (because they certainly can't earn anything by actually doing the nonsense they're "teaching"! ).

No; definitely not. I'd just promote other people's products. I think for most marketers, most of the time, that's far more profitable, far more secure, and far more likely to turn into a realistic, product-flexible, asset-based business. Here are just 10 of my reasons for thinking this.


.

I'll spend more time developing skills in building sites and SEO.

I'm in this situation now.

I'm starting with a focus on freelance writing. I'm over at INeedArticles doing some easy work getting a cash flow going again, as well as getting back into the habit of writing every day. That's ridiculously small change though, and won't last forever.

My other writing focus is on Constant-Content, where well written pieces are valued more than in typical IM circles.

Finally, I have a personal blog that's covering a variety of topics. It enters around a comedic background for me and my friends and will largely use YouTube as a broadcasting platform. It'll go how it goes.

Great post! I would spend more time learning from people that have actually made money in the forum instead of trying to do it myself & wasting alot of time with traffic exchanges & guaranteed hits. I never had much luck with these & should have realized that I needed to at least make a squeeze page in order to keep in contact with them & build a list instead of losing them forever

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Hi Peter.

If I could start over again, knowing what I know now, the first thing that I would do is build or buy a membership website. Membership sites tackle the three biggest hurdles that new marketers face: driving traffic, building a mailing list and making money.

Driving Traffic: Your members become your affiliates.

List Building: Your members go onto your list.

Making Money: Your members are paying for membership and/or upgrades.

And, since your members are paying, you're not just building a list, you are building a buyers list right off the bat!

What I wouldn't give for a souped up DeLorean right now!

I've been in IM for almost 1 year now. Tried to do too much at once when starting out such as building a freebie list+affiliate marketing, Fiverr, CPA, etc. The things that make an online business work I've found out are the things we find ourselves putting off until "tomorrow". So if I were to start over, I would simply create a product, build relationships - build a buyer's list.

I would built ecommerce sites with tangible products and make them into an authority. This is of course if I could start back again in say 2008 :p

If I were starting over, I'd probably:

1. Find A Mentor
2. Pick A Marketing Approach
3. Learn How To Setup A Successful Business Model
4. Setup A Successful Business Model
5. Gather ALL Necessary Tools
6. Learn A Proven Strategy Within My Availability and Budget
7. Setup My VRE
8. Execute My Strategy
9. Keep 80% of Profits and Re-Invest 20%(into training, better tools, and paid advertising)

I'd start in 9th grade and wouldn't play any sports or anything. My grades would suck cause i'd do just enough to "get by", but i'd be making more than my idiot teachers'.

What would i do though? Probably same thing i'm doing now. Selling ebooks. Love this business.

Get my mind off women and Invest money in content and time on marketing.

Oh! and research my resources (writers and templates). Spent money on Sh$$ I could have gotten cheaper.

1. Get fast income to pay the bill.
2. Automated income sources for long term business
3. Outsource to save more time for my life.
4. Rinse & repeat.

When I started out I was into selling services and even though a lot has changed over the years, the service segment is still pretty much the same - tough, time consuming and highly profitable.

So, I'd probably be doing the same thing if I had to start over again.

Pick a market and niche to get involved in for the next 2 to 3 years. Would mean doing research and deciding on whether to get started.

Once I made the DECISION I then will go to work. Id have my own product whether I created it myself or outsourced it but the product would be mine. Then I would put that online as well as create a couple of other pages such as a contact page and an affiliates pages. I would also add a third page or a wordpress blog to the domain and start blogging as much as possible but being consistent.

Of course I would spend half hour or so per day doing some backlinking to my pages. Again, Id start right there and slowly build up my organic traffic. The fourth page would be my squeeze page but made in a way that I will stay listed and even that url will get indexed.

I then of course would work on adding a email sequence to my autoresponder.

Everyday take action and do something and try and forget about everything else.

Alexa Smith makes a ton of sense every time I read one of her replies to these type questions.

I also know, as Alexa mentioned above, people need to start building their "list" from the very beginning. Most people are not advised enough to do this. Having your own list is how you build a business and keep it going.

Programs you join will sometimes fail. Your list will be there. Your email list is not static either. You have to work and tweak your campaigns regularly.

If you have your own list that you are providing value to regularly, then you can monetize that list over time, and hopefully keep people who join you over the long term.

Your list is the core of your online business. You offer yourself and your knowledge as you invest in training and make yourself valuable.

Being successful online is very realistic and very possible. It just isn't easy. Many quit because it isn't easy and there is no real blueprint.

You have to make your own decisions and constantly reevaluate your status. A boss doesn't tell you every move to make.

That's the whole idea, though. We don't want a boss. We want to be on our own. Which means that we simply work to improve ourselves and our decision making abilities.

Anybody reading this needs to understand that it's ok to fail. Don't let any one failure or string of failures make you quit. Don't get down about any of that. Just get back to work.

Ask questions in this forum, work on your list, use your own voice and be yourself.

I would have started PL on Amazon 10 years ago, and I would probably have 1500 products by now!

I'm still a beginner but I would start on email marketing.

Anyone with regrets, good news! You can start over NOW. You can make the changes you would've made before now. You have a new day and a new year. Why not build the business you should have before starting now?

Mark

A blog is very important especially if you are building an email list and you need to keep
the subscribers engaged with useful information. However if i was to start over i would
forget those crappy CPA email submits which pays you just $1. I think i wasted too much time
on that when i began in the game. At that time the competition was very stiff, although
there were persons who were spending lots of money on PPC etc and where making some good money. Any CPA offer that pays you less than $30 an offer is a waste of time nowadays in my
opinion,

I would make sure I'm adding people to my list everyday.
Your list has to be GROWING every single day!

Happy New Years everyone.