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A possible reason why you're not making money

by starmo
7 replies
This may come as common sense for the lot of you, but for the vast majority, it is not. There seems to be a lot of concern about making the buck, and not providing any real value.

Here is a simple formula: Value + Marketing = Profit.

First, you must have a product that is valuable to its audience. Far too many times, I've subscribed, or purchased an eBook which I paid my hard earned money for, only to receive garbage. It had no value, ton of fluff, and failed to justify its price. Look, if you are selling an eBook for 37 dollars, you better make sure what you are writing in there is WORTH 37 dollars. Attaching an audio book with poorly written/researched content doesn't make it any better either.

The second part; marketing, should be a concern AFTER you are hundred and ten percent sure that your product is top notch. I'm not going to get into the importance of marketing because I think we all know.

I love the advice from a lot of members on this forum that you must treat IM as a real business. If you had your own cleaning company and failed to clean properly, how long until you started losing clients? I bet you wouldn't be surprised why you were no longer making money, and were out of business. Apply the same mentality to IM. Your marketing could be on point, but the reason you are not making any serious money is because you are not providing real value to your clients.

We want to make sure that our hard earned money buys us quality. That is the number one rule, folks. Address that need, and I guarantee you everything else will fall into place.
#making #money #reason
  • Profile picture of the author King Shiloh
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    starmo, I agree with you. I have nothing to add except that apart from making sure that your product or service has real value, you have to sustain or increase that value in all your subsequent products or services.

    If you offer real value today and offer fluff tomorrow, you will still fail as if you have never offered valued all your life. Sustain it or increase it!
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  • Profile picture of the author cashcow
    You are quite right. There is a big difference between building a business and trying out a method to make a quick buck.

    I don't think there is anything wrong with making a quick buck but you need to recognize that for what it is and not bank on the money always coming in. Make some money and then move on to the next opportunity. This means that you have to be constantly looking for the next opportunity.

    Also, I don't think that it necessarily means that you aren't providing real value - certainly if you are selling a crappy product just to collect the money and dont care about the customer you are not providing value, but I think there could be other ways you make a quick buck and also provide value but perhaps they are not necessarily sustainable.

    But if you want to make a steady income that builds over time, you need to build a business that addresses a problem or provides a large number of people with something they are looking for. I think this usually involves a product, but it doesn't HAVE to - you could provide great info to a niche and make a living selling affiliate products.


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  • Profile picture of the author NicoleBeckett
    Originally Posted by starmo View Post

    I love the advice from a lot of members on this forum that you must treat IM as a real business. If you had your own cleaning company and failed to clean properly, how long until you started losing clients? I bet you wouldn't be surprised why you were no longer making money, and were out of business. Apply the same mentality to IM. Your marketing could be on point, but the reason you are not making any serious money is because you are not providing real value to your clients.
    Absolutely! There are far too many people who think that, just because they can work at home, or call their own hours, that IM isn't a real job. It takes WORK to succeed at anything - no matter the industry. You can't just sit back and relax, and wait for the profits to come rolling in; it just doesn't work like that.

    I think some of the slimier marketers (the wannabe "gurus") are to blame for this type of thinking, though. I laugh every time I get an email that has a subject line like "Wanna make $450,000? Find out how!". It's crazy, hyped-up promises like that, that give the IM industry a bad name.

    If you want to make a real living, you have to do real work. It's as simple as that!
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  • Profile picture of the author Rob Maggs
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    • Profile picture of the author starmo
      You guys have all brought up some excellent points.

      When you apply the principles of running a real business to your internet marketing system, you benefit greatly.

      Just because you're working from home, doesn't mean you shouldn't treat IM like a business. Far too many times I see people trying to get a quick buck off of mediocre material; rather then build up their business and its reputation.
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      • Profile picture of the author uncle randy 71
        [QUOTE=NicoleBeckett;2681369]Absolutely! There are far too many people who think that, just because they can work at home, or call their own hours, that IM isn't a real job. It takes WORK to succeed at anything - no matter the industry. QUOTE]

        [QUOTE=starmo;2715070]
        When you apply the principles of running a real business to your internet marketing system, you benefit greatly.

        QUOTE]

        It is nice to see some people still put VALUE on the merit of hard work.
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        • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
          If you had your own cleaning company and failed to clean properly, how long until you started losing clients? I bet you wouldn't be surprised why you were no longer making money, and were out of business.
          You wouldn't necessarily find yourself out of business. But you may find yourself spending a lot more time, money and effort looking for new customers than other similar companies in your market.

          There's a dental practice a few miles up the coast from me that advertises even more heavily than the PI lawyers. Everywhere you look, from billboards to full page ads in anything from penny shopper tabloids to slick lifestyle magazines, you'll see the smiling faces that staff this practice.

          They know their stuff - coupons for first time patients, special offers in the ads, you name it.

          I got curious why they needed to advertise that heavily, so I started poking around on some of the review sites. If you believe the reviews, the practice is rude, sloppy, distracted and careless. There was not even a single positive review, spread over several sources and many months, some going back a few years. The common factor was the comment "I'm never going back there again."

          Online, with the increasingly interconnected web of social sites and the ability to spread both good and bad news in a way that a wildfire would envy, your reputation for delivering value is even more important.
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  • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
    Originally Posted by starmo View Post

    Here is a simple formula: Value + Marketing = Profit.
    One thing that people will miss in this equation is that 'value' is often in the eye of the beholder, not in the eye of the marketer.

    For example, a client I do work for sometimes is a large discount store chain. If you walked in one of their stores you would probably recoil at the cheap, super low end, products being sold there. Their new stores aren't fancy and some of their older ones look downright dirty and rundown. They even make WalMart look upscale. Yet, their customers find considerable value in their rock bottom prices for very cheap goods.
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