I can't find a starting point!

Hello Westy,

I appreciate the issue you are facing. I started from scratch, and for a long while I couldn't even work out what the different avenues of internet marketing were available to me.

I have now worked that out, and have settled on learning how to utilize Amazon for affiliate marketing. For me, the best method is following someone's course, as I am then able to ask questions to the one promoting the course, and I have found nothing but excellent support from the provider, as well as having a step by step guide to follow. There are a number of people here providing such courses. For me I have found this is the best way to go.

I hope this helps.

Petula

Pick something that you are really interested in like a hobby etc. Then go to clickbank and find a like-minded info product. Then go ahead and create a mini-affiliate site. A five or six pager. Have a main sales page of 1,000 words or so reviewing the product. In the other pages, create informational articles of 500-750 words. Make sure these are different keywords in the same niche (long-----tail), and point all of those pages back to the sales pitch. Then social bookmark in a couple of the bigger sites and watch the money roll in! Or so you hope. Just make sure your product is something that people want and you can sell.

It could take you less than a day to set up a site like this and you could always advertise via ppc on Facebook. I am personally scared of Adwords due to their apparent hatred of clickbank.

Lutzi

I've been through EXACTLY the same thing you have.

There will probably be a point in your life where you'll be forced to make money no matter what.

So just pretend that it's happening right now and step out of your comfort zone. Do something that will instantly lead to money. And not only once, but stick to it and you'll be good.

I have sent you a PM, you can read this but you can't PM back yet so I will give may mail in there to and if you like you can click my Skype link to talk more about this

You can either pick something that you already know a lot about or something you find extremely interesting and have the desire to learn more.

Is there some subject that friends are always asking you about? How about your job--is there some facet that would translate into a niche? How about your hobbies?

You can always interview experts in an area to both create content and learn something interesting.

The key is to create a business--not just a website.

This is the problem with so many folks in the IM world. Especially in the beginning. I was the same way. Here's the advice that worked for me.

There are a lot of different paths to follow in IM, and a lot of marketer have different systems. You need to pick one and follow it to completion. Usually you'll make a few bucks. Following advice from too many people will end up in confusion and you won't take the right action.

You should also unsubscribe to 99% of the email lists you're on. (this made a huge difference for me) This will help to keep you focused and Kiel your inbox free of shiny new objects.

Approach IM as a business. You have to show up everyday and produce. It's the same principle as having a job. If you show up to work and do nothing you probably won't have a job for very long. Take the right action every day.

If I could give you a step-by-step that works for me everytime it would look like this: (at it's most basic)

• Keyword and Market Research
• Core Content Creation
• Money Site Creation
• Secondary Content Creation(for traffic and backlinks)
• Get Traffic and Backlinks
• Conversions and Testing
• More Core Content
• More Traffic
• More Testing

That's pretty much the basics for any business. There are other step that you can include depending on what you want to accomplish like product creation or selling the site. It's up to you.

I hope that helps.

i totally understand where you're at with this. like other's have said its very common. ive had the same thing too. i guess there comes a point when you just need to pick something to get yourself started. its only the beginning, you will definitely come across other points where its easy to get stuck.

keep motivated, you will find success and dont let minor set backs hold you down.

Westy,

I would recommend doing the 30 day challenge by Ed Dale (just google it) and then go with Amazon, its very easy to earn money with Amazon. There are some great Amazon courses on here (paid and for free).

best of luck buddy

Billy

Somehow I am not hearing what others are from your post.

A self defeating attitude can be hard to shake yet you need to get rid of it or it will completely inactivate you. These feelings are not natural, but are programmed into you by others. They are not truth - just an image that has been ingrained. I have a few tips for getting rid of them, if that will help.

First you must learn to visualize - you need to SEE what it is you want.
Go back to a niche you chose before that you really like but stopped working on because of the negative feelings.

Sit with your eyes closed and SEE the website as finished. See yourself writing in your blog and smiling. See your email filling up with customer responses and with paypal notices. Do this several times a day and whenever doubt seeps in.

Affirmation - you must also continue to affirm that you can do this. When you get up in the morning, and whenever you feel doubt - just tell yourself "It's a good day to create my life" - and "building my business is interesting and easy".

Clearing -- Sit down and make a list of every reason you can think of that making your own business might not work. Then go over the list one item at a time. Does what you have written FEEL like it applies to you? If it does - stop and think of why. Did a teacher tell you that you couldn't do something? Did your parents install the idea that you have to have a 9 - 5 job to make money? Did someone tell you that you aren't smart enough? Whatever you remember that someone said or did to you to shake your confidence - remove it. Tell yourself out loud - and that's important - out loud......that you are sorry for that person and hold nothing against them. They didn't mean to hurt you and did only because they have been fooled about their own ability. Let your own mind know that they put limits on you because they thought it would help you and just didn't understand they were wrong. Then re-affirm to yourself that you are over that feeling, it's in the past. You are ready to move ahead.

When you are done with the list - tear it up. You are done with it. The programming is no longer in effect in your mind - you know better now and forgive everyone for the harm they did - you have closure.

Now go build your business. Re-affirm to yourself several times a day that you are having fun and learning - that you are getting what you want. If you continue to slide back into the negativity, do the clearing again.

It took a lifetime to build that negativity, so it may not go away overnight. You may have to work on it a bit. Every time that you think you can't do it, though - stop and tell yourself how silly it is to think that. You are every bit as smart as many who have made it very big. They made it because they kept working no matter who told them what. And that is what YOU have to do -- just keep working and know that if you continue, you will complete your goal.

What's the worst that can happen? What if you don't make the money you want? You will learn how to build and learn what you did wrong so you can correct it. It's no different than a project that you do for a hobby - if you are interested, you will try, then correct what didn't go right. There are lots of people you have as a resource here that can help you find the right way to do something if you make a mistake. Lots of teachers.

Now.......go grab that old niche that you dropped just because you got haunted and get it done. Time's a wastin'.

Hi Westy,

Start formulating a plan and building the foundation of a profitable business based on this simple yet effective business model:

Helping Others Solve Urgent Problems and Satisfy Immediate Needs They Can't Solve Nor Satisfy On Their Own

Let me tell you my story. I was gunned down twice last November 2003 while my wife and I were buying fried rice. Chest. Head. Optic nerv, poof = Goodbye. Eyesight, goodbye, PERMANENTLY. Permanent total darkness, HELLO...

What happened next? I live in a third world country. I had no money. I had no assets and investments. I have a wife and four month old daughter I need to provide a decent life. I had a 50-year old mother and a fifteen year old sister to support. I had a 26-year old sister with two children at that time to help. Let's see... No, let's don't...

Nobody here wants to hire someone without eyesight. Too much of a problem. They could be always late to arrive at the office. They could slip, trip or have an accident at the office. They could damage expensive office equipment. They can't use those tools without accessibility technology which costs a fortune. What did I do?

I studied the market. Corporations, companies, businesses, home business owners and individual Internet marketers need cost-effective services. Most of them can't solve nor satisfy these problems and needs on their own. Too bad for them, perfect for me. What did I do next?

I cold contacted corporations in the IT and system security industry. Why the IT and system security industry? People with expertise in Information and Communications Technology are hard to find. They also ask higher wages for their specialized services. Perfect for them, perfect for me...

I set up a business offering ICT (Information and Communications Technology) services. I signed up three corporate clients during our first year. Three months after official business registration and operations:

We grew from four work at home moms and dads to two head offices here in Metro Manila, nine provincial city offices across the Philippines, ninety employees and thirty independent subcontractors, ten of whom registered their own businesses, set up their own offices and hired their own employees, with us as their main client...

People who make things happen... well... make things happen. People who don't make things happen... well... don't do anything for something to happen, since they just watch in the sidelines, hoping to get the big break they've been dreaming of for years, thinking they're entitled to the realization of that dream. I'm not saying this is you. I'm saying it is not our job to talk these people down. I'm saying our objective is to do something of great value, that the people talking down to that group of people doing nothing are too awed to speak...

Stop looking for the PERFECT starting point. You're hoping for something that has no possible problems and is guaranteed to work. BUT...that doesn't exist.

Pick a place to start (you've received many good ideas above) and just DO IT. It won't be perfect but you'll learn from everything you do.

I'm not saying go crazy and spend thousands of dollars. That's one of the great things about IM is you can start with a small amount of money and test the waters. Reinvest in the things that work.

It's easy to be overwhelmed with information but at some point you have to stop reading and start doing.

I'll try to simplify my suggestion
1.Pick one of IM product that got great review from this forum
2.shut yourself from any other IM products and information meaning do not open IM related email and do not go to any IM forum
3.do the IM product that you bought step by step, do NOT try to create your own wheel, just follow the instructions
4.do not try to perfect your every move because there is no such thing as perfect, no matter how bad your moves are, just do it because you will learn A LOT from your mistake
5.you may move to other IM product and open your self to IM information ONLY when you're done with that one product

Hi Westy,

I was the same way up until a few weeks ago. I have researched until my eyes crossed and still didn't know what to do. I finally decided I would do something in PLR writing - not because I'm brilliant - but because I write on a daily basis for personal reasons and I was still too unsure of Niche Marketing. I figured that if I failed, I would be no worse off than I was before I started. I did give myself a (very) small budget and have stuck to it.

There is a learning curve and because I'm actually doing something - I know what kinds of questions to ask and what I need to search for. I have loads of information from free ebooks and downloads - but it's information overload.

My site isn't pretty, and my product is still small - but I've leared more in 1 (almost 2) weeks than what I learned in 6 months of aimless research. I chose to purchase a course to show me what I needed to do to start and that was something I wanted to try not to do - but it saved me time and effort and gave me a place to start.

That might be a way to get going - just chose one of the low cost programs (review first) then see how far that gets you. If you fail, then at least you know what doesn't work and you can go on to find something that does instead of just wondering.

Good luck to you
~B

Hi Westy

I was literally just gearing up to post something very similar but thought I'd just check the forum first. I could have written this post. It describes my problem exactly!

In order to feel like I'm "doing something", I have become a victim of Shiny Object Syndrome. I've bought 2-3 WSOs a week for the past couple of months - and that is me being restrained! Every time it seems like something that I can't live without :rolleyes: But somehow I never put this stuff into action because I don't know where to start. My head feels ready to explode with information overload!

I'm just going round and round in circles. I make a decision on a direction to go in, then some "guru" informs me that my method is on the way out, or I'll realise I've made a fundamental mistake in my keyword research that means I probably won't be able to get my website anywhere near the top of google, so I abandon what I'm doing and cast around for another idea.

I feel like I have a reasonable grasp of IM basics. Having been a programmer in my early career I am tech-savvy and I am confident with putting a website together. I know I have the skills to write a blog entries and articles. And there's probably a course on my hard drive that will help me with anything I'm not too sure about, such as SEO and traffic generation. Yet the starting point still eludes me :confused:

Anyway, thanks to everyone who has made suggestions in this thread. Billy's 30 Day Challenge suggestion sounds intriguing - I'm definitely going to investigate that! And Marx's story is truly inspiring - if he can build a successful business from such dreadful circumstances, then I damn well ought to be able to get off my own butt and make things happen for myself!

Sally

I am going thru this too. I think the best thing is to find something you love or something you've always been interested in. Just know that there is no right way. It's all about taking action and sticking with it until it becomes profitable.

Ther key to success online and in any thing in life is Focused Action. You need to find a proven plan and put your everything into it until it becomes profitable.

The hard part is finding an action plan that actually works. Their are a lot of fakers out there, but there are also a ton of people that really know what they are doing.

Shannon

yea, it can be tough figuring out where to start.

here is one idea on creating a niche site:
Web Page Marketing Strategies | Aizaku

no opt-ins and completely free. It is a 2000 word post on how to create a niche site from start to finish = enjoy

The solution is actually very simple. Take at a look at these step.
1. Decide if you'll spend, time or both

This is step is important and you should also decide on how much money or time. If you do this, you will have a structured foundation to build your business on. Ofcourse the money and time allocation will change with time as your business grow however for the beginning stages, it is important to have set this up.

2. Be an affiliate

You can learn a lot while making money by being an affiliate. You can promote product and earn between 50 to 75 percent and even higher in some cases. Most product vendors will supply you with marketing materials and educate you in the process. You may get access to things like email, ebooks, and videos and all of these items will educate and prepare you for your ultimate move which is product creation.

Before long, you will gain confidence and begin creating your own products. I hope this helps and I wish you all the best.

Ken

I personally feel you are a perfectionist and that is the wrong state of mind.

To be successful you have to either face 10 failures to find out one HUGE success.

What I would advise you to do is get started ASAP. Select a niche or a topic you love and you are interested in and just get started. Don't think alot. Try doing IM as a hobby and don't take it seriously. What I mean is that to learn swimming you need to dive in the water and get wet. You just cannot stand out and keep thinking what will happen if you dive in and get wet. In short, get started, you will fail few times but finally you will succeed.

Here's the plan I have used to make around 25k from one of my sites, use it religiously and get started today...

1. Select a niche you love.
2. Create a free report to giveaway for free to your list.
3. Create a squeeze page.
4. Drive traffic to your squeeze page.
5. Build your list and build relationship with them.
6. Ask your list their most pressing problem
7. Either create products or promote affiliate products to solve their problems.
8. Rinse and repeat the above formula.

Forget everything, this is the foundation to start an online business. You can add other systems, tricks, tips and softwares later, but first master the foundation.

Also you have to cultivate your mindset. I would advise you to read 'Think and Grow Rich' and grab an ebook 'The Secret Behind Think and Grow Rich'. These 2 books have impacted my mindset to a solid level. Infact you should read these 2 books first before you start your online business, you will realise why you are failing miserably. It is all in the MIND...

Hi:

Shireen here :-)

I'm making consistent income from ebay.

Feel free to read my free ebook for some ideas.

Ask your self what do you want to do what you are good at and then start and stick with it..that's how I got started..hope that helps

I am a recovering perfectionist. I can identify with what you are going through, Westy. There is no easy fix for what you are experiencing. Just know that you are not alone.

I would look at a method and get all excited about. But as soon as I tried to work it, I would get bogged down in minutiae. I could find hundreds of problems and why it wouldn't work. So I would abandon the idea and start the cycle all over again with a new idea.

Eventually I felt paralyzed and I knew I had to change something or move away from IM. Turns out, the only thing I had to change was my thinking. I had to ask myself, "what is the very worst thing that will happen if I try 'x' and it fails.

Once I started asking myself that question, everything became easier. There was nothing to fear, even failure. Failure would be but a blip on my life. On the other hand, success could be life changing.

I would suggest that you make a list of all the methods that got you excited in the past. I did this on paper rather than the computer. Then try to narrow it down. I like 'x' better than 'y' because 'x' will require a smaller learning curve or smaller time or money investment.

When you have your list narrowed down to your top 2 or 3, pick one out of a hat. It doesn't really matter which you pick because you have already qualified these choices as good ones for you. And ultimately, as you build your empire, you will return to the list to select your next conquest.

For me the act of seeing it on paper and self talking myself off the ledge to the inaction abyss, set me off on my first income stream. I have had to repeat the process for every income stream I attempted to launch. Some have been successful, some were a waste of time.

This is fresh in my mind right now because I am in the process of launching a new income stream. Each time it gets a bit easier but I am never really completely cured. That is why I call myself a "recovering" perfectionist.

Westy - great post on how the mind is 90% of the battle when it comes to making money in any business (online or offline)

Here are a couple of principles we learned as we built our businesses:

1. Nobody gets this right on Day 1, or even Day 30 -- but what WILL rapidly increase your learning curve and earning capability is taking action. Nothing teaches you faster than trying something and taking that feedback to make progress...and guess what? You learn immensely valuable, hands-on knowledge along the way that you can also monetize. Look at ANY top earner in their field, the one thing that made them a top earner is that they are more active than the others, so that gives them the first-hand experience to charge more for what they know.

2. Look at each question, challenge, setback and failure as ESSENTIAL to making it in business -- because that IS the truth.

3. Go where the money is flowing -- the market does not lie to you. If you see something selling, then there is a reason why it is selling...with ebooks we look at top sellers, ask ourselves what problem or question is that ebook addressing and WHAM...we have a winning market.

4. Have the confidence that studying marketing, even a little bit, will help you rise above competition, even if there is lots of it. There is always a way to penetrate busy markets. Don't be afraid of them.

5. Match the business model to your strengths and desires. If you are good at communicating with people, then build platforms of communication (blogs, forums, teleclasses, social networking), build relationships and give them products they want. If you are better creator then focus on the creation type that you are best at (videos, content, infoproduct creation...and let others take your product to market through techniques like affiliate marketing)

Hope these help

Jeff

Pick one niche/idea and stick with it. Be determined and follow through and don't give up. You can choose from a wide variety of niches but the most important thing is to stick with your idea and follow through.

1. Keep learning and build your skills.
2. Get help and ask questions.
3. Take action and apply your training.

Good luck!

You could start by offering people a free course on internet marketing based on all those things that you have learned but have not implemented. You build a wordpress site and put an opt in box so people can opt in to receive your course. This way you can be building your list before you even start making money and that list will be your starting point to making some real money as you can either sell to them later or do list swaps.

@Westy: I find that I'm going through the same struggle you are. I've taken action before, gotten stuff done, and even made a bit of money. But I've always had to force myself to take action, and it took a herculean effort to do so. Even now though, I still struggle with it.

I've also tried to identify one of my interests and tried to get some help on the WF, but that didn't work out too well.

However, I have noticed that it's ten times easier for me to take action when there's someone else who's telling me what to do. Giving me the next step and not letting me see the whole picture until it's complete, so I'm not totally overwhelmed.

So maybe you need a mentor. In the IM world, they tend to be super expensive, and as someone who is pretty much broke, that isn't really an option for me.

Aside from the advice Sal gave, the only thing I can say is to never stop dreaming. As long as you honestly believe you can do this, one way or the other, you will find a way.

Drop the tissues and let's get down to business. The above post mentions how expensive a mentor is. Well looks to me you've just got a lot of free mentoring, wouldn't you agree?

Let's take a look at what I've been doing this past week:
1. performed keyword research
2. came up with and registered 6 domains
3. in process of designing some wordpress templates (can by these cheap everywhere)
4. writing some articles/reviews on hot products, which link back to amazon for a commission on a sale, throw a few affiliate links on there too
5. seo

5 simple steps to get you started. I'm also developing a killer WSO for local business marketing as well, soon to be released.

Look, put the kids to bed if you got any, kiss your significant other good night and get to work. Spend a few ours at night and you can get something going in a week. Turn off the tv, stop looking on craigslist and ebay. Time wasted is money lost. As I always say, time is money, no joke.

Good luck, and keep your eye on the prize!

Look if you are going to start and you are not able to even chose a niche......
Then I think so its a little problem with you.....You can chose whatever in start just give it a try and see what happens, Whatever thing you are interested in or you feel good in............Go A head and now think deeply for one hour and then you must know what you are going to do, I know it is very easy but some times it make so much confusion, get out of confusing thoughts and Start Right Now----And that is your starting point by the way

The two best products I have found for newbies are Easy Paycheck Formula - which helps you set up a business using free methods as an affiliate of Amazon. The woman who runs it is the most step by step I have ever found. Second, I am a member of Wealthy Affiliate. They send you an email series that will get your business started if you follow them. They are more inclined to be selling clickbank products. Both of these programs could have you on your way quickly and easily. Check them out!

Great thread ... lots of advice ... geez I love this forum, not just for the IM advice, but general comments about life ...

Thanks everyone, and thanks to the OP for starting a great thread ....

I hear ya, I suffered from the same thing for a long and I mean long time. I suffered from that info overload thing. They always say find a niche you like and are good at. This is true but it also has to be profitable. I just finally went into the IM niche because I learned so much about it while trying to figure out what I wanted to do.

One thing I would suggest is not doing too much because you'll go from thing to thing without being able to give it a fair shot. This is what I did. If I had to tell you one thing it's pick a profitable niche and build a list right away. A list is something a lot of people put off, but don't, start building a list asap.

If you only did one thing for now I'd say drive traffic to a squeeze page, build a great relationship with your list about a profitable niche you know something about (there are lots of niches within niches) and offer your list great info and related affiliate products.

One of my biggest problems happen to be the same thing people are suggesting to me as advice.

Picking a Niche you are passionate about.

I don't truly have a passion for anything. Well maybe one thing, but it's way over saturated with IM'er, and is also a really hard niche to make money in anyways (The gaming niche).

I wish there was an easy way to pick a niche, that way I could at least have some anchor point to get started at.

Don't think about a niche. Think about people. What people do you want to help. True success comes when connect real people with products that really help them.

Dude I was going through the exact same thing you are going through right now the best advice I could give you, Is to just do it. Don't freeze up because of "info overload" or being scared to get started. I would also recommend looking at Ed Dale's challenge and following it(free) It definitely helped me get pointed in the right direction. Also if you have any questions feel free to pm me

Lot of advice for you here ..

My question is ,
What are you good at ?
What is your interest ?
What brings you here ?

Answer these and you may find what you need to do .

I think most of us were in, or are in, a similar spot. The best piece of advice that I can give is to focus on one thing and try to master it. If you're marketing an affiliate product, try and do that one thing. If you're doing adsense, focus on getting traffic, etc.
Also, go into something that you have some familiarity with. You'll be able to market from experience.

Go look in the mirror and see where you are at. That is your starting point. The hardest part for many people is to just start. It doesn't really matter what you start with, anything that appeals to you. You can make money thousands of different ways, but every one of them requires you to get started.

You are going to make mistakes, just learn from them and keep on keeping on. Don't stop until you are making money. You will probably get a lot of varying advice in this thread. But the bottom line is to get started, doing something, almost anything. You will find your niche if you just get started.

I would definitely recommend a training coach to help get over the learning curve. But the key here is to focuc on a business plan that would help you focu on a strategy.

For example I focus on 3 topics that I want to excel in to help grown my business.
Product creation / Market Research
Copy writing
Email Marketing

The point here is to use this skill to select niches that have a need and create products around