"I wish someone told me that when I was starting out"

Matt, I know many newbies probably dismiss this as elementary and unnecessary, but knowing what I know now I think one of the most important things you need to have in the beginning is the right mindset. You have to treat this as a business right from the very start, and not a game or some part-time venture; you have to be determined to succeed no matter what.

There is nothing guaranteed in IM (i.e. there is no "sure thing"), and sometimes you have to fail many times before you succeed. I know that part of the fault lies with the crazy salesletters you've probably read that promise untold riches just by pressing a few buttons and playing around with the computer, but nothing could be further from the truth. Succeeding in IM requires focus, determination and a very clear vision of what you want to achieve, because there will be many things along the way that will try their hardest to distract you from it!

Paul

Focus on ONE THING.. Find a niche...Learn how to set up wordpress...

And choose 1 marketing tactic and work it...get good at it...

FOCUS Is the biggest issue of why people lack success. This must be overcome. You must log onto the computer with a game plan, or it will game plan you.

DId I mention to FOCUS?

DR NET

The trick is no on told me to FOCUS! All you have to do is focus and ignore all the rest. Get good at one thing and move on. Scale up if you succeed. Build up your small empires into larger ones then move into Larger Empires. Focus, focus, focus!

It's not as easy as it looks.

And you have to have some perseverance. You have to keep going. Don't give up.

And find something that interests you, at least even a little. If it interests you, you are more likely to keep doing it. Money can be a motivator but it really isn't the best one.

Apart from technical stuff to keep your self motivated always remember if you are willing there is a mountain of wealth with your name on it. you just have to find it. so good lucky

I agree with redice. Maybe if you are almost at the point of giving up...shift your marketing/IM ideas onto one of your hobbies. Maybe then you will have more interests and motivation to continue your push.

Be serious. Dont play around when you're trying to work or do anything productive. Its like the snowball effect and the more you mess around the less you work until a few weeks in your not even working at all.

Then you can become discouraged with the results. I think a good technique is too record somewhere maybe daily or weekly your accomplishments and what you can do better next time or ways to improve. This will give you some drive to keep going and work harder the next week and monitor your progression.

Just jumping into it with no direction will never get you where you want to be

As they have said above that Focus is your main key for success, but of course before reaching such goal you have to be more patience and be more serious to achieve it!

I would suggest you keep on at it despite the failures. You said you had one false start already, which is similar to myself back in 2005. I built a few sites and didn't think it was working out so gave up for a while. Looking back now I should have kept at it and kept going perfecting my technique and learning more.

Also don't waste loads of money on ebooks. I think once you have bought one well respected ebook that covers a certain technique then you should just stick at that for a while and then just learn more through forums.

I never struggled with any of the Get rich quick stuff as a newbie because I came into it believing it would be a huge amount of work. (it is less work than I thought) But I have always been an extremely hard worker .... I think if you come into this thinking YAY easy money over night; this could get very difficult.

P.s. Also what Paulie said

Since you are not a War Room member, I'm posting a link here to a work of mine called,

BEFORE YOU BUY ANYTHING (Its' been posted in War Room for some time along with a couple of other of my reports).

http://www.angelfire.com/biz/gjbiz/byba2010a.pdf This opens the report up in the browser.

In it you will find my TRIAD of "success"...Foundation, Framework and Focus.

The problem, which is seen everyday here at WF, is this: too many people are trying to build their Internet Marketing cash flow from a house built on beach sand...and when the tide comes and goes, they get washed out. OR, they have a false start or 20, and get frustrated and discouraged.

I'm going to share my absolute GUARANTEED PLAN with you, a plan which will take you where you are today to where you want to go tomorrow. It works. But,

it also is WORK. Do the hard THINKING upfront and save months and even years of time and money and needless frustration.

In my coaching program everyone starts out by writing a one page "mission statement'.

I make them write out, on one piece of paper, a statement something like;

In one year from today, I want to have____________________ AND I want to BE____________

And I will be earing $________________ per month.

NOT Rocket Surgery yet.

Then they must write a four page WHITE PAPER on how they THINK they will get to this point.

THEN, the hard mental work, they write out a 10 page fully fleshed out report, a detailed description of what they want and how they "hope" to achieve it.

IF they get to the 10 pages, then we formulate a step-by-step PLAN of ACTION and I provide the tools to these people which will

KEEP THEM FOCUSED for the one year.

Gives them a FOUNDATION of understanding how goal setting and goal achieving really works.

And provides a flexible FRAMEWORK around which they can build their futures.

NO two are the same. This sounds easy, but trust me, THINKING is the hardest thing you can do, but if you spend the time upfront to get your head around the reasons why you are making the effort...have a clearly defined payoff...have the tools to keep you on the path...

then SUCCESS,

is guaranteed. It is like walking up a building's fire escape ladder...if you start from the ground and simply take the steps, you'll get to the top. What happens to so many people, they get up the ladder a little ways and they SEE

something better. It appears easier. FASTER. Simpler. I call these distractions the "Sparkly, Shiny" things of IM, which include Guru Launches, simple WSO's with wild claims, sales letters superbly written for BS strategies (we are living in the age of the "Copywriter Rules")...

And having dealt with hundreds of people, both newbs and seasoned marketers, FAILURE almost always come down to a faulty PLAN, OR half baked thinking...

in the BEGINNING.

I can lead you to the water which quenches the thirst (PLANNING and EXECUTION) but I can't make you drink it. Too many distractions at the watering hole.

Foundation. Framework. Focus. A simple ONE, TWO, THREE strategy which has withstood the test of time.

gjabiz

My mistakes:

1 - I constantly try to make my product 'perfect'. I kept on editing and adding stuff here and there until eventually I realized that I have been spending more time trying to perfect my product rather than doing marketing efforts.

2 - Trying to make a killing from compiling a huge collection of resale/master resale rights products. The initial profit was good but it did a huge damage to my business. Customers no longer trust me (as they can find the same products elsewhere at cheaper prices and they also realized that the products are just re-hashed and outdated) I lost trust and credibility by then.

3 - Didn't spend time on building a quality list. In fact I didn't even try to build a list! - MY BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER!!

"Tell me how to do this the best way!"

As a newbie I would love to follow a plan from experienced marketers. Like you I am willing to do the work. But, where would you find such people and why would they devote their time in helping newbies? They surely wouldn't do it for free?

Try to stick in a single system. Learn to have faith on what you do. If plan A fails always have a plan B. Focus in one plan but always be ready with a back-up.

I had problems with focusing and now I hope I wont be distracted in any way now that I want to learn and step big as I learn affiliate marketing myself. Im still a newbie but I think others are kinda more clueless than me.

Andrea

Here's one.

Stop buying products.

Test the ones that you know.

Once it works.

Repeat it over and over again!

Thanks for the responses so far, I really appreciate them! Some good stuff in here so far.

Focus. Yes, I know it has been said a hundred times, but lack of focus really is the number one reason people don't make money.

Finish stuff. Unfinished products and unread/unfollowed programs make you no money.

Perfection is way overrated. Work, refine, test, all that stuff. But don't let that stop you from moving forward. Do something every day to move forward, even if it is 10 minutes worth of work.

It depends also on what exact area you're focusing but some good tips here.

Hi, I'm also a newbie and am so grateful for all this advice; Focus is so important. Most of the time I feel so overwhelmed with everything. People giving different advice 'You need a million backlinks' 'yeah, but they have to be from high PR sites' 'PR doesn't matter' 'PR is the only thing that matters' 'Got to have great content' 'Got to be readable by humans' 'Got to be crawlable' 'whats more important?' 'humans' 'spiders' 'social media is the most important' 'social bookmarking is the only way forward' 'Use PPC' 'Never use PPC'....seriously overwhelming!! Where does one start? The warrior forum by any chance

I wish someone would have told me to spend more time building my own business instead of others. For instance, marketing other people's products (i.e. affiliate marketing, etc) definitely has its place and I still do a lot of it but it should be a catalyst to help you build something of your own. The problem is affiliate programs can close overnight, products can be discontinued, etc. leaving you with a bunch of work for nothing. Doing things such as adding opt ins, capturing subscribers, rss readers, and other stuff gives me leverage and allows for a larger cut of the profits. Not to mention I am in total control of it as opposed to being at the mercy of others.

Focus on one thing and one thing only.

Read more here: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...t-started.html

-Shaun

I always say 'It's easy to start any kind of online business, but not easy to make it successful'.

I think the easy possibilities to start without any kind of investment etc. make millions of people try to earn money online, but many withdraw quick as they realize it's actually not easy.

You can "cure" all those typical problems when you do anything that makes fun AND cash in with it.

TK

PS: No matter what you do it's always about long term focus, REPEATING a certain process and system and that's what many people don't like as they think it's all an adventure and fun.

As much as an experienced surfer and marketing strategist I am, the combination of both that's takes time and dedication to bring these two powerful tools together, to make a living. One that I aim to exploit.

I want to be, all that I can be.

Focus on 1 project at a time.

Don't get distracted and try 5 different money-making systems, blueprints, trainings, courses, programs, ebooks, memberships.

You'll get overwhelmed quickly.

Once you decide on 1 system you like the most, remove all the distractions and for the next few months follow it. Find answers if needed, but only related to your project. Get in a state on mind that 'you'll FIGURE IT OUT', no matter what!'. It's really powerful. Once you get in this state, the sky is the limit.

Take action! Focus on what you want. Find a system. Follow the plan. Remove distractions. Enjoy the process! See the money coming in your bank account.

I wish someone told me to embrace niches with competition. The reason those niches have competition is because there is money in it. I listened to those who said find a gold nugget keyword in an unsaturated niche. If no one is buying in the niche, it does not matter how many times that keyword gets searched a month. I feel like I wasted a lot of time. Once I entered popular markets, I started making money without even ranking on the first page.

My 2 cents:

Identify your "strength" or "cash cow" and focus on that. I wasted way too much time on side projects when I could have been making money off the stuff that was already working for me.