How I Got Started Making Money Online...

First let's talk about the failures.

My first IM product was Ewin Chia's auto-pilot profits.

Looking back on that book years later I actually think it's quite good.

But then I had not idea how to use the information. I took a shortcut. Got all excited. Thought I knew better than the guru.

He told me about Clickbank. I knew there was such a thing as an Adblaster (aka SPAM) so I signed up and blasted out affiliate links. The copy SUCKED but I figured if even one out of 1,000 people buys....yadayadadayada....guess what? No sales!

I think this might be where a lot of newbies go wrong. They take some action, but try to find an easy way out instead of actually sticking to what the book told them to do. Then they just might blame the system or figure it doesn't work when they never did they system in the first place.

So I went back to the drawing board. Finding the WarriorForum was a great step forward.

I spied for months on what people were doing to get their sites ranked on Google. Something told me that was the key.

Next I was told I'd need a product. I didn't even buy...but just read the sales letter to "Desperate Buyers Only" advertised right here on the Warrior Forum. Believe it or not, that was enough to get me moving.

I started thinking about who is really desperate for a solution. I had a unique form of OCD (can't reveal the niche) that I battled and was quite successful dealing with it.

Being a descent writer I wrote down exactly what I thought the problem was all about...took some pictures of what I did and my results and my first ebook was borne.

Next problem. No clue how to sell the thing. No clue how to write a sales letter.

I happened to be a member of the Simpleology forum at the time (but I could've done the same thing over here) and mentioned this over there.

Within a day a certain Warrior who was scouting out clients (in retrospect) contacted me and offered to write the sales letter. I had nothing to pay him. He took a risk. He checked out my idea, and agreed to take 50% of the profit. He helped me set up my payment system and everything else (anyone else here could do a similar thing with the copywriters here)

The product was ready...I did whatever SEO I knew and what do you know! The darn thing sold!!!

It wasn't enough money...but enough to keep me motivated. I was just so happy with this notion of auto-pilot income.

Excited with that, I tried several other business ideas I'd picked up here and there and most landed in failure. Desperate to make enough money to do this full time I decided to start writing articles for people.

I started out at 5 bucks per article just to build up a bit of a reputation over at The Digital Point Forum. I was overqualified and people loved me. I jacked up my prices to $10.

I was soon making enough to do this full time!

Then I figured...why the hell should I get paid $12 per article when I can get paid much more for a sales letter. Being on many internet marketing lists at this point I had picked up lots of freebies about copywriting from Yanik Silver, Mike Morgan, Clayton Makepeace and others.

My first sales letter was quite crappy as I look back on it. But guess what. With each one I got a little better. And I started charging a little more.

Doing that copywriting work got me some really important contacts... I was able to build relationships with some mentors that took my game to the complete next level.

They told me "stop messing around with services" "there's more money in products!".

One guru actually was in a good mood and told me a step by step system he was using to flip websites for over 2,000 bucks in profit!!! When you hang around these folks long enough and become a friend you just pick up these gems.

I copied that system and did extremely well with it. Well enough to stop doing services and start dong products only full time. In the spirit of (learn it, do it, teach it)
that little lesson I got from that guru later became the Ultimate Site Flipping Guide which you now see in my signature.

I've developed a system now whereby I learn something...try it out...if it works...sell it as a WSO at a discount to get feedback and then release it on the open market at regular price.

The details of what I do now is for another thread...but I hope this inspires someone to follow in my footsteps and finally live the internet marketing lifestyle...because there truly is no greater blessing than to be able to set my own hours, and spend as much time as I want to with my two delicious little boys.