5 years and still confused

Therein lies the core of your problem.

And unfortunately no mentor can give you passion.

You can do another work because you do not have a passion about IM.

If you want to success, you will find the best way to success.

A pseudonym may solve part of the problem. The rest (and biggest part) of the problem is a needed change in mindset. That will hold people back every time.

Mark

Do you still have the learn Spanish site?

What, if anything, has changed the last 5 years if I may ask when you posted this: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...help-fast.html

Mark

You should be the one selling the "How to be a successful IM" stuff. the ones who buy it are the ones keeping them rich.

They don't even own the content.

It's easy.

Find something here BigProductStore | 8000+ Resell Rights, PLR, MRR Products & Growing Everyday!

Make a landing page and sell it on sites like https://warriorplus.com/

All these chumps do is buy content that they can get the rights to then put their own name on it and sell it to the people who fall for it all.

Welcome

To answer your question "...I don't even have a passion really. Other than I want to be successful.
Is that enough?"

No. Sorry. You almost certainly don't want to hear that, but you need to.

What you need is a real INTEREST and SKILL set in a particular area. Also, whatever area you choose it must be of real VALUE to a community of people. Finally, not only must it be of value, people must be willing to PAY their hard earned money for it.

The bad news is that not many people think of it in this way. The good news is that you now can.

I can tell you that it works. After many, many years of only mediocre success doing all sorts of IM stuff I now own and manage a very large ecommerce business based upon exactly these entrepreneurial principles.

By the way, anonymity is completely acceptable. For example, it may surprise you but i'm not really a zebra. Only a few people in the large ecommerce community that I am part of even know my real name. Just a very small handful even know what I do. Personal privacy is actually an important part of my whole set up. So, it's completely doable.

Go to it. Good luck with your adventures.

Hey buddy, 5 years is really a long time. Have you tried 'taking action' it seems that you have not take that much action within these 5 years. If you were to just learn and learn without applying it, then its as good as you are just nodding to without even understanding the rational behind things.

Here's my take, change your mentality and start comparing yourself and the successful marketers. You make too much observations. What you need is to compose yourself, get in the drive. Your PASSION will come slowly and hopefully later on. Once you have the drive, you will be able to kick some arse within the IM industry. Trust me!

All the best!

Like everyone I agree. In order to be trully successfull you need to be passionite, however tey gaining knowledge or using the knowledge you already learned and search gor joint ventures. In that way you do the work, the other promotes and uses his or her name. Good Luck &nd FIND YOUR PASSION !

The key is follow your passion maybe your pasion is out line

Hi mikeb222

Buy a video course on how to create a product and WSO. Then start by creating your own product and sell it here on the warrior forum as wso.


Regards
Amer

This is like an overweight person saying "I want to be skinny, but no diets work for me" With the exception of possibly those with a medical condition, there is always a way to lose weight if someone works at it with the right plan.
Who said someones name needs to be splashed all over websites? I buy all kinds of things online and have no idea who the top business owner is of the product I'm purchasing.

And who truly wants to grow rich slowly? I'd like to get there as quickly as possible myself - in an ethical way of course.
Then you are looking at the wrong courses. IM is not just about selling IM stuff you know.

You don't need a mentor yet. You need to get your head out of the sand first and do some solid research and reading first. I'll add to that - won't cost you anything but some TIME.

Define successful for YOU. It's not enough to just say "I want to be successful." You need to have a defined list of goals and a clear picture in your own head of what successful really looks like. And you have to fully realize everything has a cost - but that cost is dependent on what the end looks like.

Hopefully I've given you a shove with some things to think about. Finding a mentor is about finding someone who can best assist you with your end goals and we have no idea what those are.

For example, if my end goal (or one of them) is to become a tennis pro, I'm going to look for someone who has a clue about tennis and is good at it.

It's like you are looking for a mentor for "sports" when you need to refine that down quite a bit. Pick a specific topic - not the category.

This is absolutely horrid advice for someone who wants to really remain anonymous, and a disservice to those he'd be selling to.

You can easily do IM with a pen name and literally no one will ever bother whether that name is whats written on your birth certificate. Don't apply the concept of real life jobs onto the internet because most of them are not carried on here.

Five years is a really long period of time to be banging around and not finding anything which works for you. How long do you run your projects and what kind of adjustments do you make to your plans?

I personally find focusing my effort into only one project and tweaking it till i receive my desired result a lot more fruitful than trying out multiple products for the "best" one. Make small changes each time compared to drastic changes so you know what produced the results. To me, IM is all about trial and error to find that correct recipe which works for you.

All the best!

5 years is a long time to still be confused! ... but I know it happens ....

And, well, you do need big passion to succeed here! ... because you will encounter road blocks and stuff like that - and your passion will help you persevere!

If you don't have it, then you will struggle and never really get far. And you are a clear proof, isn't that right?

You can make good money with affiliate marketing, and that does not require you to put your name all over anything. You just pick high converting offers, and drive targeted traffic to them, capture leads, build a list, and make affiliate commissions. It is not rocket science dude!

You need to really invest in your internet marketing education. Because if you did, you would not be thinking that you need to put your name on anything in order to make good money here.

You, saying that you think you have to put your name on things and all over, in order to make good money online, only shows that you have not really invested in your education here. Because that is not true at all!!

There are so many people online, earning a good income from affiliate marketing, and we have no clue who they are!!! ... so you need to really take this very seriously and STUDY the right knowledge!

Find a niche you are VERY passionate about and start working with it. Passion is a must if you want to create great things online.

You gotta love what you do, in order for you to do great things! .. you know what I mean?

I hope this helps!

Don't give up ... just keep learning from your failures and experiences, and IMPROVE!

If you want to work hard choose a niche open a blog connected with Adsense and write an article every day. This is the first alternative.

Second alternative
If you want to be a success IM focus on targetted traffic, so learn very well how to use AdWords and/or Facebook Ads and start build your list! After that you will sell affiliate products.

Hmmm, I guess that could be part of it too... Your succeeding by the sounds of it, whats up?

Find what what you love to do and what can bring value to the community!

No. In fact that's what's holding you back. Wanting to be successful is a pretty useless motivator. Success isn't a goal - it's a by-product of doing or providing something useful enough that people are willing to pay you for it.

You don't need to become famous, and you don't even need a blinding passion. But if you can't find a way to take some satisfaction in helping others get what they want, you'll still be floundering in another five years.

.

Nothing works because you are not creating a real business are you?
Let me guess, you have bought 30+ wso's or other gurus methods promising you $30k+ month no work, live in Thailanad etc. And to your surprised ( not mine( it doesn't do it.)

Listen, business is hard. Especially to get something that really works and to build it up. It takes smarts, time,effort. Now, sadly, most people shouldn't bother. They have no chance of success. But they keep dreaming. So the B*Sers keep peddling.

No-one is giving away their successful business module.
When the masses all start doing the same thing, on the same platform (think adsense, ebay, Amazon, cpa, ) it's over!!!

You simply HAVE TO...HAVE TO apply common sense to what you are being sold. Would you sell your successful business plan for $7,$17 or whatever ends in $7?

Most of the sellers here are scumbags. Desperate for money them-selves. So they have hit on the right formula to sell crap to people like you.

How you react to this reply will tell me if are learning or will keep being cannon fodder.

You need to grow up and get educated. 5 years is a long time not to progress and be so ignorant.Most people learn by now or give up. What will you do?

I expect some of the prolific wso sellers to give me a hard time on this one...

As Frank said, no.

But your problem (well, at least one of them) is that you think you have no passions. Unless you're in a coma, you have at least a few. You think you don't because you look around and you think a passion means something that's always exciting, thrilling and adventurous. That's because of how the self-help gurus portrait passions and how they talk about them. I'm here to tell you that a passion is just an activity you enjoy doing. You don't need to feel psyched up all the time you do it to consider it a passion.

So maybe you like jogging, cooking low-fat deserts, or reviewing movies. Those are all passions that can be monetized. And you know what? You can always find out new ones, but you need to try out a few of them. I never considered writing as a passion until I stumbled on Alexa Smith and her traffic-generation strategy that required writing articles. I gave it a shot, and low and behold, I'm pretty good at it. (At writing, that is - at generating traffic not so much.)

Hey...maybe this isn't for you. No passion...no real interest just want to be "successful"...

why not learn a skill? find a job you like?

The idea of "selling" so called "products" is just like a huge ponzi scheme....people buy these courses and pay "mentors" yet here they are. I do think some of the "sellers" use fake names. They also use fake voiceovers LOL.
And fake reviewers from fiverr sometimes LOL

sorry for your confusion, i have read this carefully, and there is a point that i must point out for you, this sentence you said "it seems you can only get rich if your willing to put your name to products or web sites."i wonder if you know the creator of Software Bill Gates, he also does not use his name to name his products, but he successes, why, because he makes great contribution to the country, so do you understand what i am talking about? if you are still confused, i aslo support you using your name to name your products.

sorry for your confusion, i have read this carefully, and there is a point that i must point out for you, this sentence you said "it seems you can only get rich if your willing to put your name to products or web sites."i wonder if you know the creator of Software Bill Gates, he also does not use his name to name his products, but he successes, why, because he makes great contribution to the country, so do you understand what i am talking about? if you are still confused, i aslo support you using your name to name your products.

You will get success in work when you will do that with full interest and hard work.

You need more than motivation. You should probably start with $7 ebook. Or go sell on fiverr or ebay. Money is money. No shame in being broke. Much shame in staying broke though.

Five years is a long time to be flailing around and not be able to make some headway in internet marketing.

My guess is that you probably got stuck in some form of "analysis paralysis" or shiny object syndrome. I cannot for the life of me fathom how you wouldn't be able to succeed in at least some area of internet marketing if you were focused enough on it.

There is absolutely no need to become a product creator in order to become successful in IM -- I know of at least several IM millionaires that have never created a product in their life.

Perhaps you would care to elaborate more on what your real issue is?

Hello!

If you are willing to work hard, that's all it takes really. Let me give you some actionable advice here instead of being theoretical like everyone else. Simply follow the below steps and you will see a real success in a very short period of time. Hopefully, in less than a year if you were dedicated enough.

Step 1: Specialize in something. Try to become an expert in at least one specific area. That can be link building, email marketing, facebook marketing, CPC, CPA...etc.

Step 2: Stop buying products and start selling! Once you specialize in something, you will need to start creating products. Start out with information products before getting into more complex types of products like programs or membership websites.

Notes:

1. You need to build your authority level step-by-step. In many cases, you either need to promote your brand under your own name or you need to hire a representative for your brand. I highly encourage you though to promote your brand under your own name.

2. Create a fully functional attractive website. Having a base for your online business is extremely important.

3. Keep learning and always learn from the best of the best. Follow the best 30+ internet marketers you can find and schedule few hours for learning every day. This is an essential step when starting out.

4. Stop working on short-term business plans. Think big from the beginning but start out with small baby steps. Always think of the future of your brand and what are you expecting from it. Stay reasonable and logical of course when planning up your long-term projects.

5. Build connections and interact with other marketers. Join affiliate networks, correspond with others and try to attend events if you ever have the chance to do so.

6. Get a job! if you are under some kind of financial pressure, simply get a job somewhere until you settle up your online work.

I hope that helps!

Good luck with your journey.

======================

Before you go to any IM coach or a mentor, I believe you should see some Life Coach or Psychiatrist.

Many of your ideas reveal that:

1) You are not clear about what you want in your life (remember Internet Marketing is just one aspect
of earning).

2) You say you want to "grow rich slowly". I ask WHY? maybe because you are afraid of losing/changing your current lifestyle!
It is a fear of getting rich. Yet it's another form of a fear of change. It is a subset of the fear of change. "Grow rich slowly" thinking tells that you want to remain stuck in your present life. .. You are compromising due to some reason(s). Now whatever that reason is, only you can figure it out. Ask yourself why you want to grow rich slowly. Exactly why you don't want to instantly become rich????
I have seen many people who unconsciously choose to remain stuck or remain poor because they are afraid of losing their friends, family and other aspects of their lives. They believe that with money in their hands, things will surely change. You need to figure out all such reasons which are holding you back. If you put family, friends (or other values) before money, then you don't ACTUALLY want money. If it is true, then it means your definition of being successful is hidden (or unclear to you) and it is not about having abundance of money.

3) It is not necessary to splash your name across products.

The bottom line is, I strongly recommend you to FIRST go to some Life Coach and figure out
your belief system. At present, you are not clear about your beliefs and values.

Think about the Internet Marketing or other business opportunities only after you will be free of any fears (especially the fear of change and the fear of getting rich). Otherwise you will always remain stuck in this vicious cycle

dont be scared homie

Like everybody I concur. With a specific end goal to be trully successfull you should be passionite, however tey picking up information or utilizing the information you officially learned and look gor joint endeavors.

I don't necessarily agree with everything everyone said here. You don't have to have a passion for something specific. Maybe an interest. Obviously if you'd have a passion you'd know what you wanted to do so you'd be less confused.

Also, you don't need a mentor. You need a training program. A legitimate training program that takes you by the hand and shows you step by step exactly what you need to do.

I understand the confusion you're feeling. You so badly want to be successful but haven't a clue where to start.

Sign up to a training course. (If you have any "interest" (note I didn't say passion) for a specific method, you should sign up to a training that teaches that.

In other words, if you think you like the idea of learning how to flip domains, or sell digital affiliate products via FB ads, or have Amazon review sites, or sell physical products via FBA, or build a list, or create your own info product, or build niche sites and monetize with adsense, or write books and sell them on Kindle....there are SO many different ways to make money. And I'm sure just as many training courses for each one.

Decide which one interests you and invest in a training course. You can totally do it. If you want to be successful badly enough you'll be able to follow the training and implement it.

Edited to Add: I just realized you said you've bought courses but have been disappointed. You must've bought the wrong ones. Hint: the right ones aren't sold on the Warrior Forum.

What's so bad about that?

And as they say, there's more than one way to skin a cat.

This was my first thought after reading what you wrote.

How long do you plan on going down the same path?

It's not as easy as "mentor me, please"

You've got to be willing to put in the elbow grease...

Alongside probably invest a pretty penny (you pay for what you get).

This is the real problem dear that you don't have passion for the I.M. No one can become successful if he is not passionate towards his/her work. If you really want to become successful then go for what you like and love.

you must concentrate into one thing not all

You don't need a passion, you need drive. If you can't "pedal to the metal" after 5 years with something, anything, then you need to quit.

Not everyone is cut out for this. Accept it and move on.

The anonymity hurts you in that IM is about building relationships and trust. Otherwise you could just be a scammer out there, and nobody wants to be taken.
Now that being said I am not here to tell you that you need to be giving your name rank and serial number to all that happen upon your stuff.
Build a brand like Coca Cola, McDonalds, Use your company name to solve the problem of your target audience because in the end, sorry to say, nobody cares about you the individual. They only care that their problem gets solved.....

So in other words, you've been taking advice from get rich quick scammers for the past five years. The truth is, you are stuck in the "internet marketing" bubble where everything is filtered to be just a certain way. The likelihood of you ever finding success at this stage is slim to none.

I had this same outlook recently -- lack of consistent drove me to work on my back up plan instead of starting new projects or expanding my previous projects. I got depressed and hurt and just plan sad.

I think taking a break is what you need ; back away from the computer and just find yourself again.

Everyone in the forum I posted in said the same thing. And it's been working.

Take the break you need and then determine the pathway that you want to follow and can dedicate your time to. It may or may not be online work... and that's okay.

Good luck.

I don't think anybody will come forward to help you in this case. Try to do this yourself. Good luck!

You are swimming in the wrong pool, get out from there and find your right one.

Five years you must have a load of experience on showing people what not to do... correct?

So that is an asset that you have right now. Many people go on for years trying to find the answers to online success... some find it some don't which is unfortunate.

But if you want it bad enough... you will find it.

Of course the answer is knowing what to do as well.

I spent my first 3 years online not making any money at all... doing alot of courses on how to do stuff.

But what I realised was that there were a few things missing.

1. Small front end offer
2. A good marketing funnel
3. A good sales funnel
4. Various points of contact for my list - yes even over the phone
5. High backend offers

So if you don't have those 5 elements in place and you are serious about making money online then you have to get to work on those 5 elements.

Send me a message if you want to talk more about it.

Cheers

Tiff

I can sympathize with the OP. I've been trying to figure out this IM game for almost 5 years on and off. I've gotten out of it and jumped back in several times.

First I tried mlm, that was a disaster, then micro niche marketing. I've been told that you should make a blog and build a list. But those things don't interest me at all. I have no desire to blog or build a list.

I've tried creating blogs and building a list, until I got half way through and started realizing that I wasn't passionate about it so I stopped.

I have interests, I wouldn't necessarily call them passions. Whether they're can be monetized or not is another story.

I think you should chill out, relax for 1 day and figure out what to do next.
Maybe being an IM is not what you want, try several jobs lying on your list and see what happens. I'm doing this right now and It seems to give me an answer
good luck!

I know a fellow warrior have denied this, but I still think that you need a mentor.

someone who can teach you what to do, why to do it and how to do it.

someone who can take you by hand and force you to take action, and once the money startes coming in you will automatically become passionate.

there's lots of different ways to make money. its upto you if you decide to do all the research your self or get someone to help you to take action on surefire ways.

Hey Mikeb,

It seems you are confused. You don't have passion and still you want to be successful, which is not at all possible. My friend, if you are really honest then first try to be honest with your work ( whatever you do ), success will follow automatically. Good luck.

You've let the issue of not wanting to use your real name set you back for five years?!

I hate to say it, but maybe owning a business isn't for you. Most business owners with drive and passion would have found a solution to that within a day... Five years ago. As Mike Singletary said, use a pen name. Or depending on your type of site, just use your first name. That's what I do.

Honestly, if it took five years to solve that problem, I don't see how you can be successful as a business owner or leader.

dude!

u have all the makings of an internet marketer. u got all of us talking about u and what u should do.

your thread title is a work of art! "5 years and still confused" its short, sweet and draws all kinds of empathy from us and most importantly, it leaves us wanting to click this tread to hear your story.



all you got do is build the same frenzy around a product or service with your content (videos, images, post)

as for passion, forget that, u can learn to love! im a 36 year old guy in the baby shower niche!

i dont do it for passion, i do it because i have something ppl want.

find a little niche and tell your story, like u did right here. u'll be ok.

best of luck,
Ike

"It's Dangerous to Go Alone! Take This..." - Legend of Zelda
PM me if you have any questions.

I have coached a few people that were in your shoes. Just want to do anything to make money. No passion or goal to actual help their customers in a specific niche... They just wanted someone to do all the heavy lifting. I hired teams to do all the work and also outsourcing folks to make life easier for them. But in the end they are just making another job and sooner or later they give up! You might as well just work for someone else then. Working for yourself and doing something you love isn't a job, it's a life choice and career; a career to help people and change their lives. To pass on your knowledge to help those who need your expertise. And when you love what you do and you enjoy helping people, that is when you make great money... more money that you ever dreamed. Because giving is receiving! But some IM's don't think that way...

I think you need to re-evaluate the past 5 years of your IM education and go a different direction. Try being an affiliate marketer; Most AM's simply learn how to find a good niche and drive traffic to it. They make good money but have no real goal to help someone. It's all about the fun in finding a hot niche, driving traffic, and making money. There is no passion on what they sell, its just the fun in research and making money. This sounds like an avenue for you. No product creation or branding of your name is needed. You need a real coach or mentor to teach you the steps:

1) how to find a profitable niche.
2) how to find a good converting offer in that niche.
3) how to drive quality traffic to that offer.

Once you make some money the passion of research and making money will set in. Then you will want to see how many more niches can you find and how much more money you can make. That's where your passion will be. (my opinion)

Once you learn those techniques, then you can learn how to list build and send additional offers to monetize your list and make even more money.

but with a mentor or coach the "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink" philosophy will appear to him if you don't show willingness to learn and follow direction... He will give up on you, guaranteed... So don't attempt to waste his time until you make a few life choices on what you really want in life.

Hope this helps and I wish you all the success - Pete

things change and evolve in the IM world quite fast,

you must take advantage of the trends.

For example few years ago Facebook ads was very profitable. While now, in 2015, it is one sure way to drive your business into bankruptcy fast

While others new tools and websites are bringing high value now, and many times a large influx of free vistors

Having a passion in what you do will help immensely but having a mentor is even more important. Their lot's of people that will coach you. Sounds like you haven't found the right coach yet. Wish you the best in what you do, man..

The internet is not the only place to be successful,5 years is quite some years wasted,participate in other things

Why don't you do something else? There are plenty of opportunities in the offline world. Maybe there are more there than ever before because so many marketing wannabes are just focusing on online stuff.

I would suggest you learn more about Google Adsense. You don't have to worry about showing your face and you don't even have to have a passion for a certain niche and still make money. However you will need the skills to setup a blog and generate consistent traffic to generate income daily.

Nothing works FOR you - YOU have to MAKE IT WORK for you! The reason may be that you're waiting for it instead of looking and modifying your strategies and offers, etc, until you find some combination and configuration of your sales funnel, landing pages, offer, content, follow-up, list building, up sells, etc., etc., that, once working, you still have to tweak it buddy! This is serious and professional work - it isn't push button!

There are a lot of oil rigs and mining operations that went dry years ago, but now, with new knowledge they've re-open ed and are making bank! it's never not working for you - you just need to find out how to get what you want out of the cold, hard, dead ground!

Form a corporation - now you are ABC Worldwide Holdings with affiliates around the globe serving clients worldwide!

I think someone mentioned that you had a website...and if it is correct, I know you can make that site make you bank. But you see, that is the issue. You have something already that can be made into your success, but it needs some modifications here and there. You have to make it work.

Again, about other people's advice and courses: understand that not everyone comes from the same background. Most IM "teachers" out there were just regular folks who wanted to make money online or had a passion that they developed into a successful online business. However, many have never run a brick & mortar business before. I have and do. What that gives me is a broader knowledge base of business solutions than the next "guru". My perspective of business comes from the offline arena before IM but others go to offline after trying or expanding from the online experience.

Bottom line is that you should not take courses or enter in Mentorships at this stage, why? Because you still don't know what or where you want to go. You need to first find a clear path before you qualify a mentor to take you there.

"Passionless" as you say you are, your only option is to restudy what you "think" you know about IM and rebuild what you have now (websites, funnels, etc.) incorporating it into a solid plan of revitalization and list building. Your site / offer needs to be "refashioned" and your marketing amplified through modification and adaptation to what is in high demand and "working" for others.

When you get these things "working" then you are ready to get a Mentor to take you to the next level!

Success and Self-Help are viable niches - so you "DO" have a passion! If this is truly your passion and desire - did you start building lists in this niche?

And now you see why you haven't obtained your success yet. People are trying to do everything else than what they are truly passionate about.

While everyone tells you that "success", "self-help", and "make money online" are over saturated and dead, these are they who look at a niche as an opportunity to make money instead of it being their passion. They're the ones who are the "fat" in any niche.

You need to be the lean and mean machine at the niche you are passionate about - regardless! You will always win any niche that you bring an educated personal passion to.

What product are you trying to market?

You mustn't have a passion directly to do internet marketing directly, you also could talk about your experiences. Maybe about your five years of failing, your ups and downs. You can tell the people what not to do while trying to make money in the internet. I think you can do a whole email follow up series only talking about what you sholdn't do if you dont want to fail.

Now your problem is you bought 5 years long any kind of ebook and you tought, this time i will give 200% and will succeed, but it never happened. I can tell you i walked through the same shit like you do, and i believe near everyone that tried to make money in the internet gone through this shit.
Sure there are tons of ebooks out there that don't want tell you the secret about making money, but i can say you, there is no kind of secret or magic or something like that. If you focus 100% on one method and forget every kind of ebook you have read, you will succeed.

In my opinion it's easy to learn how to make money, but you have to work hard on that. I mean this formula -> Traffic + Landing Page = Leads, Leads + Offers = Money is like count together 1+1. Theres no secret about this formula, this still makes money.

My recommendation to you is, search for these names -> Jimmy Kim, Dean Holland and Alex Jeffreys, watch out for their products, do kind of research about these products, which one could be the best for you. Get one of their products and focus 100%, because these 3 guys made me rich.

Cheers

If you don't want to create your own product, Get an other person and make it together or three people why not. Just when you create a product offer Value and help the community. don't make shit products.

One more Very important step Is take Massive action. without an action a dream remains a dream

Anonymity is not an issue at all, I've been using Google and YouTube for years and I didn't even know who created them and I didn't care. Brand, usability, and quality of products/service is the main thing.

In my opinion, I'm sorry but with your mindset, add another 5 years or more and I can say you're still not going anywhere. What you see is an event (internet marketing success) not a process (the long and rough road behind the success). Interest in singing plus singing the somewhere over the rainbow couple of times in your shower doesn't make you a professional singer but intense practice and lessons do... What you need is total commitment and the process leading to internet marketing success is dead hard, lots of stumbling blocks, disappointment in almost every corner, you may even find yourself on the brink of giving up along the way! This process most of the time requires sacrificing big chunks of your time that supposedly for your family, friends, or leisure. Here, you really need support and understanding of your family and friends. Only the IMs who have total commitment can make it. The likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Z didn't make their brands easily, all of them have their own part of hard and lengthy process.... Every single person in the internet world knows the events but very few know the process behind the events. Only when you know the process and committed to it, you will find success in internet marketing.

Five years is awhile to be at it. It's definitely challenging making it in the IM world but you really need to stay focus, put the time/effort in and not be distracted by the get rich quick schemes out there. All those do is typically take up your time..

I've put together an article about this and you can view it in my signature.

My suggestion is focus on something you can be passionate about. I know you said you don't have a passion but I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit. What would your family and friends say you enjoy?

I can guarantee you there are people on the "internet" who enjoy it as well. Find what that is and write about it in a blog. Why not? Think about if you started that blog 5 years ago. Sure it would have been slow at first but after a few months/years can you imagine how that level of persistence would have paid off?

Speedylikeskj on Skype

Seems like the problem here is you don't believe in yourself. You need to look deep within yourself and realize why you do what you do. Do you want to be successful so you can provide for your family? Do you want to be successful so you can help others? Do you want to be successful so finance can never be a problem again?, etc.

You've been 5 years in this game. Quitting should not be an option. Deep within you I know there's a real solid reason why you decided to stay that long. I respect that.

Also, you don't need your name plastered everywhere to be successful. I know some successful 6 figure I'Mers who are almost anonymous that it's crazy they're making that much. You don't need to have your name all over the internet if you don't want to. You just need to focus on 3 core things: traffic, leads and sales. That's really all of it.

If you ask me, re-position yourself, write down why you do this and shift your mindset...it's pulling you back. I can tell that whenever you do something, deep within your mind you just have a feeling it wont work. It's not your fault, that's how I started out as well. All it need was inspiration which is something you can get from books and videos. Always feed your mind with positive information and work on personal growth. You've lost passion because you stopped growing. When you create progress, even if the results are coming in extremely slow, you're still moving forward. That's still something to be proud about.

yes, some big bloggers are using their name as the brand,

but you should need to understand that a brand can be a name, a product, a business or even a PEN NAME.

i suppose why not you use a pen name to expand your internet marketing business, one you can hide your real name, two you can then sell this "brand name" to gain some profit after years.

Let's reduce this down to the basics...


Making money online is really three simple steps.


1) Find a problem that people are looking for help with
2) Create (or get created for you) a solution to that problem
3) Start learning how to get your solution in front of the people with the problem.


Problem identification? Look here inn the WF... or use Google Trends


Solution to the problem? Use your friend Google and do your research... You'll find some amazing info for free that other people will not spend the time looking for.


Get in front of the people with the problem? Start reading up on traffic generation... Both paid & free.


The quickest way is to use paid traffic... But it's not the only way. Forums, social like Twitter & Facebook, and other free traffic sources can start getting people to your solution; it will just take longer and require more effort.

You can start going about with pen name . However , if you want to really succeed in long run , you need to create lots of followers and share you own success stories with them . So, you need to establish yourself as a brand ...

From reading your brief posts, here is my opinion which is pure speculation like everyone else that has replied.

Quit IM completely.

Quit trying to run your own business.

You do not seem to have the entrepreneurial drive to succeed in IM or any other self-employed type of business. There is no shame in that. Some people have it or quickly develop it while others never will. Get a job or train for a career. In spite of what many here say there are lots of jobs and careers that are very fulfilling and many that are also very lucrative.

People that cannot work for themselves always have an excuse...

• I don't have enough money to get started.
• I lost all my money on paid traffic.
• My keywords won't rank.
• There is too much competition.
• Google changed their algorithm.
• Training products are scams.
• My mentor scammed me.
• People won't open my emails.
• FB won't approve my ads.
• No one will help me.
• I don't want to work more that 1 hour a day.
• The gurus are not telling their real secrets.
• I tried __________ and it did not work.
• Someone took the domain name I wanted.
• You have to market with your real name and I don't want to do that.

People with a real entrepreneurial drive do get frustrated and even ticked off sometimes but they work through it and still succeed somehow.

First, since you stated you want to be a successful IM but nothing seems to work, means you still want to be one. You stated that you wanted anonymity.

I totally understand where you are coming from. I was concerned about anonymity, too. Especially first starting out and not messing up so bad that I messed my reputation before I even got started.

Fortunately, I stuck it out and found a mentor that encouraged the use of a pen name if one chooses. He explained why so people would feel comfortable. Pen names are used all the time. Authors use them. Actors use them. Even some of the gurus in the Personal Development Space use them. Normal people have pen names aka nicknames. These all speak of the persona we would like people to identify one with, in addition to the marketing aspect of branding.

And the passion? Hey, I did not have a "passion". I needed to learn the system so I could my passion into it. This coach that I found recommended my niche, IM, so I could learn through this niche first, be successful and then use what I learn to go into any other niche/passion I choose. Made perfect sense to me.

In fact, he gives you options whereas the other gurus (I have spent tons on them and their courses) have you only doing what they recommend. I like that because it does not insult my intelligence whether I am a newbie or intermediate or advance (I wouldn't know about this.) He is very thorough and simple in getting me to understand.

Take this for example. I was listening to his webinar on Solo Ads. He states and I quote, "Traffic is important to your business. However, it is not the most crucial or the most important. It is part of the entire system." Get that!! Part of the System!!!

When you listen to some of these gurus, you'd think that Traffic was the only important part!! It's important, but it's part of the system. Don't you feel yourself sighing and letting the stress go?

He says some other cool things, too. And getting you to get started fast? He's been the fastest. Get your funnel up fast so you can start to help people and make money.

Stick with it. Don't second guess yourself and don't let anyone discourage you in any way. When you are thinking about success, how else can you not be that?

Best wishes on your journey.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share,

Leilani

I've seen some great advice here and some terrible advice.

Most people seem to have focused on a good point. In a perfect world, you have passion for something and know what it is.

The problem is, a lot of people have no idea what they're passionate about. That's not their fault. Life is busy. Stress makes things worse and more difficult to sort out. We don't seem to have dreams. Even if we do, we don't seem to be able to believe in them. Not for very long, anyway.

Everywhere, but especially in sales pages related to IM, people are told that there is a "secret" that the product seller knows. It's something that, almost overnight, pulled him out of a terrible situation, usually poverty or depression or both.

There is no secret. Not really. I suppose you could say it's "do what you love and the money will follow." That's only part of the formula, but it's a good place to start. Author Barbara Sher wrote in a different era, and much of her audience were women, but she had some good advice in her book, "I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was."

Mostly, you're looking for that passion others are talking about. Finding it can take time.

When you look at your Netflix queue, or the stack of books you keep buying and don't always find time to read, what do they have in common? Your "passion" may be hidden in there, somewhere.

Or, here's another way to look at it. In the past, when you've been doing something that seemed like fun and you felt like you were accomplishing something, what was it? Write down everything related to that memory. Then look for another time you felt like you were accomplishing something. And another time or two.

What do those memories have in common? In them, you may find your passion. It might be a topic, or a kind of work, or something you're an expert in (even if it's not your "passion").

Start there. Then look for a way to build on that with a product or service.

You may not be able to earn money doing exactly what you love, but you'll probably find something related to it that has potential.

I think Barbara Sher's book talked about someone loving opera, but that person couldn't carry a tune and wasn't about to learn to play a musical instrument. Sher said the person could look into jobs at the opera house, or with a local opera group, even if it was an office job or giving tours of the opera house and explaining its history.

Take that same idea and look at what you love. Howard Thurman said, "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive."

People are attracted to that kind of energy. Once you've established what makes you feel truly alive, look at what you can do -- what expertise and insights you can share in books, courses, or products, or services you can provide. Do that.

IM is good at teaching you ways to package and market whatever-it-is you're selling. (It can be a mistake to limit yourself to the IM world, unless marketing is what makes you feel alive.) The Warrior Forum and WSOs can help you through the learning curve of marketing, but there's a great big world outside.

After five years, I'm sure you're worn down. You're tired. You might be feeling sad or even depressed that nothing has worked for you so far, or it only worked for a little while.

It may not be easy to look inside yourself for what makes you feel alive, or even find something that interests you.

The spark is still there, even if it's buried under a lot of what life has shoveled onto you.

Start jotting down ideas. Anything that seems like it might be a spark, or something that has been fun in the past.

After a week or so, or when you have a few lines, a page of notes, or lots of pages, take a break. Clear your mind. Do something completely different for a few days.

Then go back and look at your notes. See what stands out. See if there's a common thread through many of the things you listed.

That's your foundation. It may not be the One Great Idea that will change your life. (It might happen, but don't expect it.) In fact, when you finalize your business plan, it may be something very different. That's okay. Start with the spark of interest and see where it leads you, and where that takes you next, and so on.

Use that spark to set small goals.

The IM world is full of big goals. Too often, they're unrealistic to achieve as quickly as some sales letters suggest. So, you feel as if you failed the course or business plan.

Chances are, it failed you. Often, it never could deliver what it promised in the sales letter. That business plan worked once or twice as a fluke, or the time has passed when that business model could work well, straight out of the box. That's the story behind many WSOs.

After five years of thinking you'd failed, the most remarkable and incredibly valuable thing is your optimism. You're still at the Warrior Forum. You're still looking for the right answer. That shows some remarkable inner strength.

Congratulate yourself for that, because that is truly exceptional. That sets you high above hundreds, perhaps thousands of others. It's something essential to success, and it's something no report or course can teach you.

For now, forget about aiming for the stars or launching a business that will bring you a six-figure income the first year. Quick success could happen, but some of the most reliable businesses were built with a slower and steadier foundation.

Set goals you know you can reach. Pat yourself on the back when you reach them. Reward yourself with something specific, like a game of golf, an extra fancy cup of coffee, or a movie with your partner.

Then, after you're feeling more confident, set your goals a little higher.

The most important thing right now is to rebuild your sense of accomplishment, doing something (almost anything at all) related to an interest that makes you feel alive (or at least holds your interest).

It may take a few tries to identify something that makes you feel alive, even a little bit.

One thing is likely to lead to another as you refine this. Expect a few false starts and paths that don't take you anywhere. Backtrack to what you know you like doing, and try a different path.

Keep doing that until you start to get a clearer idea of what you enjoy, and enjoy developing expertise in.

Once you have a glimmer of an idea that seems to make sense, move forward with it. (The discovery process will continue, over time - years, not weeks or days. Expect that and remain flexible.)

For business models, stick with "plain vanilla" ideas. Offer to teach something you know through local adult ed classes, or a related club, or through a one-time (free) class at your church, to find out what questions people ask.

Then, develop a product (book, course, report) or service (consulting or classes, in real life or at Udemy, etc.) that answers those questions.

It starts with a tiny spark of interest, and that's something you'll find inside yourself.