What works for you? and how did you find out what works for you?

You can't know what will or won't work for you until you try. It's a case of trial and error. Even the greats such as Einstein, Edison, Newton, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson and many more all failed at things.
The only way is to try things and if they don't work for you, you know two things.
1. It doesn't work for you.
2. You have learned about something that doesn't work for you so you cross it off your list.

As for me, I'm a writer, editor and proofreader and have been doing it for well over 5 years now.
It seems much easier now than before because I have done so much. I improve as I go, thereby learning as I go.

I hope that all makes sense to you.

I spent well over a decade failing at IM.

By spend I mean spending years, and an embarrassing amount of money, buying countless IM courses. Spending a huge amount of time listening and re-listening to a wide range of IM 'gurus'. Spending enormous effort in endlessly trying to make those IM courses return a decent income.

Ironically it was only when i became totally cynical about the whole IM world that something happened, by chance, to change everything completely for me. I then went from being an addicted consumer of all things IM related to being a genuine entrepreneur.

Thankfully, I went from someone who sporadically earned a little money from IM to owning and managing a 6 figure a month, on average, ecommerce company.

I'm still almost totally dismissive of a lot of the crap that counts as IM. I estimate that accounts for about 90% of courses and 'gurus'. Finally I now see much more clearly and trust my own instincts.

Hope this helps anyone struggling to make IM work.

Good luck with your ventures.

thank you for your contribution ZanyZebra, it is all good now as long as its paying off!
so what is your advice to those who are just starting or are in their first years of IM.
and is taking too many courses a bad thing?

I posted this the other day and reposting, as it's the same answer.

What has worked for me for the past 15 years is Email -> CPA/Lead Generation.

These days I pretty much just buy data/generate co-reg...targeted real time / same day (exclusive/non exclusive). The key is to start small with any source and test to make sure you can break-even in a reasonable time frame(cost effective data). Once I break-even, then it's a matter of testing to see how aggressively I can promote other offers.

I favor generating leads (no credit card required), as they will typically have higher conversion rates. Mainly I look for leads that have a make, get, save money angle to them, as they typically perform the best for me. Not that I won't promote something that does require payment, just have to test to find what works(winners) with the data.

In the end though, I'm really just monetizing the data and taking the path of least resistance to do it.

Anyway, that's the short of the long.

I've always been lured to the *exotic* and *erotic* side of things, so my first success was a penis enlargement product i used to sell. Sold incredibly well, but i was a rookie and wanted to make $3,000/month after the first month. It was unrealistic for my advertising budget. Eventually i drove my own self out of the niche. Basically after that i learned to be patient and consistent, instead of brilliant. Now i'm doing good.

yeah I think that is open to each of us differently.

For me its about following what other successful people are doing and just copying what they are doing.

Thats why having mentorship is sooo important.

And tracking my work..

Without setting up tracking and seeing what is working and what is not your shooting in the dark each time.

I only spend my time on money making activities on networks that I currently see a positive results with.

I don't like sending 500 people to my website either for just a couple of leads. Very poor traffic and it builds up my server usage.

I like to be able to send just ten people to my website and get some to take action...

What WORKS is:

> picking a topic you know something about, or are going to learn about (this is called "competency," or "developing competency," an element most people here never develop, sad to say)

> finding an audience of people who have a problem THEY acknowledge as serious and need fixing, that matches up with your competency (this is called your "niche')

> developing or getting access to a solution to that problem (this is called the "product" and/or "affiliate marketing")

> creating a system to attract leads, qualify them, and sell to those who are qualified to buy your solution (this is called the "sales funnel.")

Most people are too unfocused, too lazy, and too easily distracted to complete these simple steps. Despite the fact that they typically take just a week or two, most people give up after about three days.

Three measly days.

Then the next Shiny Butterfly shoots by and our low-mentality friend--even if they've been "studying" IM for years and years--runs off after it.

Stick With Something.

That's What's Working.

One thing that has worked for me is a balanced, individual approach. What I mean is this: most everyone has their agenda and their reasons for recommending this or that and you have to understand this and be able to look at all sides of an argument and then make your own decisions.

For example, someone that has found success in dropshipping and sells a course on dropshipping (or is an affiliate for one) may go to all lengths to convince people that 90% of everything else is a scam. They will point out the big load of bucks they are supposedly making in a bunch of their posts. They want to show they fought through and won and the real riches isn't with X but with their Y.

Same goes for a guy selling a how to write ebooks course. He may talk about hands off income and selling ebooks all hours of the day and night while he's off partying and he did the work one time. He will emphasize how much he makes and how easy ebooks are but won't talk about the ongoing marketing that is required or other aspects that are definitely not "write it once and be set for life".

Meanwhile the ecommerce guy may deride the ebook business as being stuff the scammers made up but in fact, the same company that the dropshipping is happening through makes just as big a push and makes just as much or more money selling ebooks themselves.

Likewise, sometimes advice is situational. One guy I like had a PLR site where non money making topics were pushed. Instead of how to big it rich in email PLR they were selling how to train a parakeet PLR. Their argument was that the people using PLR in the make money business are using it because they probably have never made any. So it turns into kind of an infoproduct "incest". There's no purity - if a guy makes a bunch of money and then sells a course on how he did it is one thing but a guy that hasn't made a dime using PLR to sell a how to make money course is "wrong" and it's not good for anyone.

That was their argument then. Later, that site was sold and so what happened? He started selling how to make big money PLR for the exact same market he was against before. The situation and message changed. So for years now he's happily sold what was "wrong" before. Was it wrong before or was it just part of the marketing game?

My point here isn't to point fingers and say anyone is wrong or right. My point is that success is a very individual thing.

A long time ago, a guy I was well acquainted with on the forum (a "friend") made a statement in answer to someone complaining about guru's tactics. He said something along the lines of "if you want to make it big like the gurus, you'll do what the gurus do including what you are complaining about right now regardless of your "ethics" or how you feel about it. Do it and get rich. Don't do it and keep being a loser and a hater. But you can't do both." That's when I decided - about 12 years ago - I was going to pave my own road because I didn't like how that statement came across.

Get your inspiration and a sense of direction from a bunch of different sources. But then find what works for you and keep tweaking it and ensuring that you are headed the right general direction. There is a lot of great advice here and elsewhere regarding business - I give it out myself. And there is a lot of absolute, bona fide junk that will ruin your life and business too.

Mark

What has worked for me has been taking a topic I was sincerely interested in, learning more about it, becoming an expert at it, and then creating multiple but slightly different web sites that relate to that topic, each containing good solid authoritative content. The sites that worked best, I worked most heavily on improving and building on. The ones that were not so successful, I tried to improve based on what I had learned from the successful ones, although I found my efforts were not as productive as simply focusing on the successful sites. Once a site begins to get traction, it's much easier to build on that site than to attempt to revive sites that are essentially brain-dead.

The point of all this is to say that trial-and-error are the keys to success on the Internet. One can never predict what will be successful and what will not, even with all the mentoring, research, keyword analysis, and good SEO in the world. A person who will become discouraged after a failed attempt or two will likely never be successful.

There's no set definition of what works and what doesn't in any business...that is defined by the intelligence and the overall drive of the creator. If you want it bad enough and you dedicate enough time to making it work, then it will probably work.