To be successful at Internet Marketing- you need to be Greedy

That's simply not true.

IMO, that's something of a limiting belief that some "poor" people believe because it "justifies" why they're not wealthy and/or willing to work hard.


"All rich people are greedy" is a popular one.

Personally, I think that in order to be successful at IM, you have to provide your market with genuine value: Something that improves their lives in some way. I suppose you could call it "serving" your market …

And there's nothing greedy about doing that.

I don't think that's true. I think it has more to do with going into a profitable niche market and being passionate about the market you go into. When you're passionate about what you're doing, you're going to work your butt off. I think it's why celebrities continue to work when they don't have to. I've also heard some popular Youtubers say that once you get to a certain level, they feel like they have to "feed the beast" just so they don't let the followers down.

Joey

There are a lot of dishonest marketers out there who do what you are suggesting, and are greedy. There are also some really up front marketers that I have learned a great deal of. They have helped many people actually make money, and that is what earns them the money of others.

You are absolutely right. Because you have failed, it is inconceivable that an honest or decent person could possibly succeed.

Best to go back to service work. You are lucky... most people spend years failing before discovering that they don't have what it takes.

Your conclusion is probably because you have yet been able to provide value to your audience. Provide a service/product that will REALLY help people and you will accomplish two things:

1. Helping others
2. Helping yourself

These two things make up a successful Internet Marketer... not greed.

This is one of the most uninformed comments I have ever heard.

al

I wouldn't phrase it that way

Instead, I'd phrase it like this:

To get what YOU want, you have to get OTHERS what THEY want.

I don't think you actually understand what marketing is - helping your customer solve a problem. Please tell us where the "greed" is in that.

Greed is basically wanting more than what you already have so we are ALL guilty of that sin.


We ALL want more traffic to our websites.


We ALL want more business.


We ALL want more period.


But wanting something is different than actually having the DRIVE to get it. Greed, for some people, leads to ambition and without ambition you're not going to succeed.

It is easy to get confused with Internet Marketing with everybody saying one thing or another is the Golden key to riches. And in order to build a successful internet business you need to be consistent and do your daily action steps like clock work.

Well, I don't think that's right. To be a successful IMer we should be able to help others with our knowledge. Only then will they know the value of our products and become repeat customers. It is about building relationships and not being greedy at all.

Cheers,
Ron

Does this just apply to Internet Marketers? To be successful and climb the ladder in a job wouldn't this still be the case if your assumptions are correct?

Here's a book that I enjoyed from Dennis Becker that is a good read on the 'Abundance' subject

Amazon.com: Abundance Mindset: Quick Ways To...

What niches have you found this true in? If you only sell in the "internet marketing" or "make money online" niche, i can see how you can make a statement like that. But if you sell "crochet secrets"... you really think you have to be greedy?

Again that's a false statement. In fact the more you give the more success you have online. Sure there are some greedy people who make a buck or two but its the givers that succeed long term.

To be successful at Internet Marketing- you need to be "hungry".

I like to put it in another perspective.. you need to be greedy to learn, greedy to test it out, greedy to know what you customers actually wants. Of course, if the greed causes you to become "evil" or "unethical", then it is bad.

Everyone wants to be successful or earn a little more extra cash? Is that greed to begin with or just wanting to improve the current stage of life. Just my 2 cents~

I think you've been watching too much Wolf of Wall Street. Real entrepreneurs must be selfless and completely devote themselves to the needs and wants of others before they can achieve any personal gain. There's an endless number of people who have taken on insane amounts of personal risk so we can all enjoy the comfortable lives we've come to know. Thomas Edison failed over a thousand times so you can enjoy flicking on lights in your home.

I would say that greed is actually counter-productive to anyone with ethics who wants to earn a living online. Greed will only lead to frustration, unhappiness, etc., on both your part and your customers part.

Being rich would be great, but what I desire more than money is time. There's an infinite amount of money in the world, or at least more than any of us could ever spend in a lifetime, but we each have a finite amount of time. Heck, my time could run out as I'm typing this, albeit unlikely.

My goal is to have more time, which I suppose is greedy in and of itself. However, in order to get anything, time or money, you have to make yourself a servant to others.

When you do marketing the right way, you're helping others and money is just a side effect of that, and it's not wrong to receive payment in such a manner.

Doctors get paid quite well for helping others. Sure, there are always going to be the greedy doctors who misdiagnose so they can perform unnecessary procedures and get more money, or who give in the drug pushers knowing that they get extra money for prescribing certain pills, and there always will be greedy people in any profession.

However, greed comes with a price. In the case of both our hypothetical medical professionals, ourselves, plumbers, lawyers, roofers, and every other profession you can think of, greed will, at the very least, cause long-term harm. Once your reputation is shot, it's an uphill battle earning trust again. It takes a lifetime to build up trust and a good reputation, and one foul move to see it all come crashing down.

My advice is this:

Serve others. Put others before yourself, and be passionate about your niche, not just the money it can bring you.

My first site was about learning Japanese, since I love learning languages and am particularly good at that one. There were links, but I didn't really push products. All I did was blog about what helps me learn. I showed them tools that were free to use, and tools that have a cost with them, but I made certain that they knew that the tools I promoted were just supplemental materials and they were under no pressure to buy. Mindset is the most important part of learning a new language, and that's what I tried to hammer home. There's no product for that!

Sure, there's grammar and vocabulary and stuff, but the best way to learn that is through going over native material. No grammar book is going to get you to fluency.

And, you know what, despite the odds that site made money. It was because I was providing real value to others, not pushing product after product or hiding value behind a price tag. Greed would have been a death sentence for that little blog!

Seems like something is missing in that sentence.

What if we add following at the end of that sentence.

' to gain the knowledge and to make a good use of that knowledge'.

To be successful at Internet marketing you need to be hungry, passionate and tenacious. If you normally give up after one day don't go down this path, it needs a lot of perseverance and commitment. Best of luck

In a sense you may be greedy, beside the greed, you have to work. If you are a greedy person, but you do not work regularly, in this situation you will never be a successful person.

According to me you have to be expert, idol, patience, industries, to be a successful in any field.

That's an interesting point of view.

The biggest buzz for me personally is to become completely immersed in seeing how I can help other people succeed. This isn't because I am a particularly good person, or somebody who doesn't work on my own success.

But I find that when I adopt the attitude of giving out what I know, I start to build a trust with them. They see that I am helpful and what I say has value. In the long term they recommend other people to check my business. It certainly works that way for me.

In fact, I can honestly say that I didn't start making regular and consistent money online until I stopped chasing dollars. Now money chases me - as the saying goes. I hope the amount that chases me will grow much larger every month That's why I'm in business, but building stacks of money is not the goal.

Maybe like me, your experience online has been with greedy individuals who have taken money from you and given little or nothing back? I certainly met a few of them. That's part of the learning curve.

But I have also met many ethical and straightforward people who run their online businesses in an honest way and over-deliver on everything they do, They provide valuable products and, and I decided to adopt this mindset instead.

So do keep looking - they are out there

Question your statement some more. Don't become successful because you are greedy. There's plenty of them already. Become successful because you are real. I am sure there are many ways to market online, and greedy people do succeed. But I don't personally believe it's the only way.

Sorry to bang on with this post

You have cool people and corrupt bad people in general. That's life.

Jonathan and Big frank going at it as usual.

It's easy to be under the impression that financial success in online business requires being a sociopath, but that's only because this one corner of the internet has a thing for admiring scammers. Anytime "big" names get dropped in threads in "internet marketing" forums and blogs, those names are scammers almost 100% of the time. It's just so bizarre.

There's a whole other world out there. Open your eyes.

As Gordon Gecko once said, "Greed is good."

In a way, greed runs our world, but not the same greed you are thinking of. It's a terrible misconception that greed is evil - rather, the lust for greed is evil, and not the lust for money. The lust of the lust for money is where we begin to descend down the rabbit hole, where our conscience leaves us, and there's really no way out.

But I've gone too dark lol. Short and sweet: greed can be good if used in the right motivational context. And I do agree, no blunt sales letter has ever converted. That's not what people want to hear.

lolCashlol, I highly recommend you check out the book The Secret of Selling Anything by Harry Browne.

No need to be.. but must be！

Yes! and never lazy, always learning and pushing forward, I believe you need to work smarter and not harder but if you do both then there will be no limits.

As others have said in various ways, it's a matter of how you perceive things.

If you live in a '1st world' country, live in a moderately comfortable dwelling and have food on the table then you are super rich compared to some people on the planet and they might view you as lucky or even 'greedy'.

Having said that though, some sales copy I read does annoy me a bit and the bragging that is sometimes used (presumably in order to establish their expertise) borders on pure greed.

Greed has absolutely nothing to do with success. There are people that are extremely greedy and there are those that are not and you'll find that they can both be equally successful. Greed is simply a definition defined by one person looking at another or a situation. To say I want much, much, much more income from giving more value isn't greedy. The value given is like taxing that person. To want more than what we need isn't greed, surely when we take showers we don't need that much water but a person who's lacking it my look at you and say "look at this greedy person". It's more about defining the mindset.

You have a million dollars and won't spare $4 to feed someone, then you are greedy but if you are riding in a Bugatti and you're next to someone riding a bicycle, they may say you're greedy, "why does a man need such lavishly expensive toys? Yet, if he/she had McDonald's and the person walking next to her, has barely had a meal the whole week, he/she may look greedy as well. It's all about perspective or lack of. Who is to define what greed is? The same person who define's what beauty is?

If you're in a position to get MUCH more and it benefits others, then go for it, be as "greedy" as possible. Maybe your huge desire for more than the norm, will change the world.

We need greedy lions with big capabilities because when they feed everyone else eats (knowledge, food, ideas technologies etc.)

Lots of thoughts being tossed about and in numerous directions so far.

Here's my thoughts on some things that have been said:

At times the best thing for someone to do is to stop what they are doing, as the business they are in or trying to be in, will never succeed and start over.

1st there is nothing wrong with wanting more, that is not necessarily being greedy.

Marketing is not selling, it is the positioning of a company/brand/product in order to get ready for the sale.

Sales is getting the order/convedrsion/etc..

Passion: I know a number of broke passionate people, passion is not what makes a business successful, yet it does help to drive the business.

What does make for a successful business, hard work, dedication, support from others and most all perseverance.

You can only ever become as successful or as wealthy as you expect.

If you cannot see wealth or success as real possibilities then you should address your core beliefs and expectations using NLP or a similar method.

So you think guys like Frank Kern, John Reese, Neil Patel, Mike Filsaime, Rand Fishkin are greedy? If yes, good luck with that

Jokes aside, you really don't need to be greedy to be a successful internet marketer (unless you're thinking about becoming a Black Hat marketer, which sucks BIG TIME).

All you need to be is "honest"

Greed - noun

intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food.


Some people roll this way and others put other people before themselves.

For some it is a personal philosophy how they act and others its a requirement for thier particular business.

Different strokes for different folks.

That's probably the most untrue statement I've come across in a long time.

Making money in internet marketing is like making money in any industry. If you develop the right skill sets, and you've found the right formula, then you can make a nice amount of money.

Sorry, but I don't quite understand what greed has to do with it.

If it were easy there would be no profit.
When things are difficult, sell the "tools" that make it simpler to perform.

Sell the shovels, don't dig for the gold.

I understand the OP. When you start providing value and have a large following, you should be able to have the courage to ask for more, so as to have what you are really worth.

Well considering that greed comes from the fear that there isn't enough I have to diasgree with you. The truth is to be successful with an online business or anything else you simply need to have a clear goal with action steps and zero fear to achieving it.

The real problem is that most people don't realise that they're already conditioned for poverty which is why the failure rate starting an online or offline business is so high.

TD

as long as you put positive meaning of your 'greedy' terms , then it's fine.
Not all people is comfortable with that term, so the more positive way to say that is:
you need to be wanting of success and profit in online business and any businesses including to make money online, by giving away great value to people.

You don't have a business problem, you has a philosophical one. If you think screwing people over is the only way you can live, you are going to ruin people's lives.

I think there is also an element of luck or simply being in the right place at the right time. First mover advantage is huge online from what I have witnessed so far...

I've found the exact opposite to be true. I have found that when you help others and give your knowledge to those in need for free then your good karma comes back to you tenfold.

I happen to be a believer in helping others whenever possible. There have been many times that a subscriber has written me and told they wanted to buy one of my products but they just don't have all the money and could they send me $2 a week or so until it's paid for,etc. Those people usually get a free copy of the product.

Am I just being taken? I don't think so.

See, I honestly feel blessed that I can wake up any time I want and do as I please with my time. I love the fact that I can spend more time with friends and family.

I can't fault anyone else for wanting that too, and so if there is anything I can do to help someone achieve their dreams and it is within reason and within my power to do so, why wouldn't I help?

I don't think that you need to be greedy for success of your internet marketing.

What is greed? why it should be connected with only internet marketing?

Even a thief or robber will be greedy for money...that is why he/she commits crime.

Can we term this that you need to be greedy for success in crime.

To my mind GREED is a negative word, don't connect it with a positive thing like internet marketing.

I don't think this to be true. While you "might" make more money if you are greedy, you certainly do not have to be greedy to be a successful internet marketer.

No, I'm not GREEDY! I just want you to realize that it is possible to achieve exactly what you want out of Internet Marketing.

@ykm is on the right track IMO. To be successful your greed needs to be for success. No Olympian ever won gold by not wanting more; by not wanting to be better than all others in his or her sport. Yet we don't see that as greedy, we see it as driven, competitive, committed.

It's an attitude that leads to success regardless of whether you're an athlete or business owner and I don't think it's about want of possessions as much as it's about want of success. We all want to feel we've "won," That we've pushed through the roadblocks and reached a milestone, overcoming roadblocks, setbacks and negativity. And once that's done, well, the really successful ones aren't those that stop and settle. They're the ones that crank it back up and aim for the next goal.

Certainly GREED exists, but those who are in it for purely personal gain, in my opinion, miss the true payoff.

You forgot what Gordon said before he said that... "for the lack of better word".

So actually, I think what he really meant is either DESIRE or MOTIVATION.

Being in a state of great desire or motivated to get more knowledge, get love, get happiness and wealth.

I do not think that being greedy is the basis for success, the important thing is to handle it and work hard, and I think that there is most beautiful thing to share the success, and help people, especially those closest to you

I really think that to be successful in IM, you really need the right mindset. You need to be clear what it is you want and why you want it and what you will do to get it.

You might start off in the business because you want a better life, but you continue with it to help your family and others around you.

I think if you're greedy in IM you don't last because people see through it.

So I don't think greed has anything to do with success in IM, certainly not long term success.

Yes Echo what Andre Slater just said.

OP, you have an issue regarding money.

It's mostly a mental issue. GREED is Perceived as BAD right?

And if you think you need it (for your success), then why would you want to take part in this evil industry?

Yes I'm greedy, hungry even I'm feeling I'm nothing specially in internet marketing

There's an ocean of difference between greed and drive.

Drive is the key. Start, don't stop.

Driven people are successful, and some of them *are*
greedy.