re: Why Aren't You Making Money?

RJ
Whats with the thread header "

re: Why Aren't You Making Money?"
Jason

The question that should be asked by non-earners is "Do you know how to make money offline?"

As an entrepreneur, Internet Marketing just poses one challenge: learning the skills to conduct business online.

The problem that many face is that they do not know how to make money - period! They are looking for a quick path to income in the Internet universe while they can't even get a decent job on Earth!

All the classes and webinars in the world could never help such a person - they are their own worse enemy. You'll spend and spend and never realize that making money is as easy as spending money - you're just on the wrong side.

Are you offering or are you looking? Everyone has something to offer right now - do it! Experience exchanging value for cash. Appreciate the attitude and the process - repeat it. Slowly learn Internet skills in order to translate your real world experience into the Internet universe.

The reason most people are not making money because they are not patient enough. Too many people never settle on one thing long enough to see if it works.

Another problem that I see is that people are focusing on the wrong thing. You will find it's a lot easier to make money online, when you focus on the process and not focus on the money!

You need to focus on the process and it right, the money will come.

The spammy title reminds me of the emails I get from WarriorForum. They love using the "re:" subject line.

The reason why most people are not making anything online is they have been conditioned to be dreamers, instead of creators. Anybody who has attained any level of financial success has created something. It might be a book, a CD, an invention, or a website. Look around you. Everything you see was originally just an idea in someone's head. It took vision, determination, and action to turn those ideas into what you see today.

I think it's a lack of persistence. So often, the stories that we're told (classes, podcasts, etc.) are quick success stories. Think of Pat Flynn's story... He made a product for himself to help himself study for the LEET exam, then he stuck it online and left it alone. When he got laid off, he went ahead and monetized it and it was an overnight hit. So many of the stories we see and hear are of someone who was an immediate success in the very first thing they tried. But in the real world, it seldom works out like that.

My very, very first venture into this Internet business thing was a niche site. It got great traffic and I had a very engaged audience, so I tried to monetize. Affiliate marketing went nowhere. Drop shipping never sold a thing. My own informational products never sold. I tried doing some Kindle books in the same niche, and to this day I earn about $20 a month from them and that's it. Truth is, it was a bad niche. I could get plenty of traffic and engagement, but nobody in that niche had any money.

So my next venture was a drop shipping business for discount fashion. Again, good traffic, but not as much engagement from the audience. My problem there was that my drop shipping partners SUCKED! My fault, of course, for not doing my due diligence, but it was a pain in the butt and I'm not really a fashionista anyway, so I dropped it.

My next venture was a directory site for online and telephone psychics. We had a ton of requests for it and very favorable timing on it, but frankly, it was too large a project. For that type of project, the psychics (members) will come if the customers show up, but the customers won't show up unless/until there are plenty of members. You have to really PUSH to get two different audiences engaged - it's like starting two sites at the same time. So that one was a bust.

There have been other failures, and what I'm working on now is pretty successful (and shows the potential to continue growing). But with each failure, I was able to learn. My first project taught me Joomla and WordPress, Kindle publishing, affiliate marketing, SEO, keyword research, and drop shipping. My second project taught me how to properly vet and select drop shippers, and I learned WordPress (much better on this one), graphic design, social media marketing, and HTML/CSS. My third project taught me about doing WordPress multi-site, running a membership site, dealing with subscriptions, more advanced graphic design, and copywriting.

The truth is that most of us are going to fail in the first (or second or third!) thing we try, but we can still learn from our failures. The problem is that so many people will give up after the first (or second or third!) failure and never try it again.

Lack of focus is one of the main causes. People start and abandon sites each week or month so there is no wonder why they won't make momey online.