You screwed up bigtime. Congratulations.

Experience is always the more valuable of the two options.

Learn, then do.

AGREED!

"OWN IT" - Do it like you've been doing it for all your life, put your everything into it. If your not willing to commit 100% into it, don't do it at all. Because if it's not your BEST, it won't be profitable or fun, and if you're not in it for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing here?

...and, of course learn from your fellow warrior members!

Hope my little rant helps,

Colin

Live. Love. Laugh.

I think the main response, people asking these question want is whether methods really work?

With emails such as "99.7% of marketers will fail", it's disheartening to those who want to step into the market.

It's a sad fact, making money "online" is still seen as some oasis that never can be reached and if you actually tell people you make money online - the usual response is "Is it Legit?".

For anyone who really wants to know whether method a or method b will work? Maybe or Maybe Not.

Are there people making money online? Yes

Although I agree with Steve, that you need to actually DO SOMETHING, to get results.

Cheers

Great my good buddy Steve

So true.

You learn a lot more by actually taking action versus talking about taking action.

Experience is indeed the best teacher.

Fail hard, succeed easy.

I agree with this concept to a certain degree. I've heard that the only stupid question is the one that people don't ask. I asked a lot of questions to a particular marketer and I felt that by me asking those questions, I avoided a lot of pitfalls where I could have possibly lost money. Sometimes I think it's good to pick at the brain of experts so you don't make the same mistake they may have made in the past. Learning from your own mistakes is beneficial though for future business practices.

As the saying goes,"Learn from other people's mistakes, you don't have time to make all of them yourself" I can't say the same when you are talking about IM. Even case studies can't really give you the full picture.

Yup, a lot of people succumb to "analysis paralysis". They tend to analyze and plan a lot without acting on it. They need to realize that in IM, there is no single course of action that truly works for everyone. A successful strategy for one could be a failure for another.
So the best thing to do is "just do it" and find out what works for you.

I learned a long time ago that its sink or swim. Throw yourself out into the water and no matter what DO NOT sink. If that means you make a ton of mistakes and make it harder on yourself... well, the next time you toss yourself into the water your going to know what to do.

How does this apply to IM? Keyword research. Niche research. Market research. Site building. List building. A/B Testing. Product Launches. WSO creation(?). SEO. SEM. PPC. CPA. CPV. And even learning how to write great sales copy!

These are all things that you can only "learn" so much by reading and trying to understand concepts from other people's experiences. You know how much money I blew on Facebook before I learned how to properly target an audience? My credit card is still pissed off at me.

My first website I ever built. I thought I had the keyword research down pat! It was supposed to be an easy keyword. Boy was I wrong. It was brutal. My first list building extravaganza was a disaster for the ages. Even better my first broadcast was to be filled with affiliate links and I just included regular ones. Guess how much money I made THAT day. haha.

Just jump in and do it. Who cares if you don't know what the hell your doing. That is why your doing it. To Learn. To Experience. And to eventually grasp the concepts that have eluded you for so long.

So many are afraid of making mistakes because they still view failures as a personal shortcoming and haven't learned to view them as learning bridges.

Fail fast to succeed faster.

I'd never be this successful if I weren't such a huge failure.

I agree somewhat. A healthy combination of learning by instruction and learning by experience is essential to success.

I believe failure is the best teacher and you can't fail unless you try something on your own. It's good to use others experience as a starting point and then gather data by testing things out yourself.

Great thread...

Process towards success is more valuable than success itself

Point well taken. Well its how you stand up after failing would define your character. :-)

Sorry Steve - please tell me what mistakes should I make first?

(runs and hides)

Great points. Unfortunately, most of the beginning IMers ask questions because they're overwhelmed. Then again; it could be due to a need for money fast. I blame this on the hype that most people succumb to when they're just getting started.

I will say, it's definitely best to get in there and get dirty!

well said Steve

some people here need to work more and talk less :S

Experience is always the greatest teacher.
People will have to experience something like making some mistakes in order to learn its lesson. As we go along in our decision, it is not always that everything we do is on the positive outcome. There are also some negatives in our decision that will really teach us on how to do better and to improve on what we do.
I could remember that at some point, I was reading something like, "What do you want, fail fast or learn slowly?" Some people choose the first one since if they will fail or commit some mistakes and errors, it should be as early as possible since they can learn what to improve on their work as quickly as possible. Some people, who are fewer than the first, would want to learn slowly but surely. They want to make their first project or work to be carefully and perfectly done rather than experiencing too many setbacks and try to learn from it. To them, things should be learned surely and not in the quickest time as possible.

Experience IS the best teacher - as long as it's somebody else's experience.

There is a lot to be said about failing fast and falling forward, just getting on with it. It's also to your advantage to model people who are already successful or already have the results you want to achieve. You can leverage another person's experiences and end results to get you where you want to be all that much faster.

First go out and DO. Then learn as you go along. If you come into the WF not even having an idea of what you want to do you WILL get action paralysis.

Don't see what others are doing, see what you can do.

If you don't DO something yourself you will never benefit from learning from it. It is perfectly fine to fail - just make sure you learn from it. We have all done this all of our lives. Can you imagine being able to talk when you was a baby, before you could walk, and asking your mum n dad how to walk. Yeah, sure, they could have told you HOW to do it "you just put one foot in front of the other" but actually doing it is a totally different learning experience.

And after you learn who to walk you will progress to learning how to run.

I embrace failure for each failure steers me closer to success. Each failure proves I have taken some action and tried something. If I do not learn from my mistakes, shame on me!

I agree that there are no stupid questions... but there are an awful lot of inquisitive idiots. Ask questions about how to perform a certain task but, when it comes to creativity, you're on your own!

Great post.

For the longest time, I did the read and inaction tango...an IM dance for paralysis by analysis. But prior business experience taught me that what works for person A may not for person B.

Like so many others, I'm sure, I read and bought tons of systems and decided to go my own way. Find where MY money is rather than chase the buck...

Often it is easier to ask a question here at Warrior Forum than to even plug it into Google and try to find the answer. I find that I even do that myself.

I agree with what you're saying, but sometimes I actually ask if a method works to get other's experience as well as my own. Also it helps when someone's been experimenting with something much longer than you have since they have the long term data that you don't. For example, I started a thread a week ago asking about if the left or right sidebar would get a better CTR. I only recently thought of the test so my data was limited, while others had a much better idea of what was better since they had experience.

But if you're talking about those threads where people say "how do I make money", "how can I make $1000 this month", etc, I understand where you're coming from. I really don't like those threads and think it comes from the surge of the "entitled" generation that believe they deserve everything. Although that's just a generalization.

This is an interesting thread. I too believe that jumping in at the deep end is one of the best ways to get started online. But you also need education at the same time as experience.

I got started working as a freelancer VA for a client through oDesk. I learnt so much from working for him that it inspired me to do my own thing and start my own ventures I then delved more into the world of internet marketing and tried and failed a few things until I found the thing that was right for me.

I do believe you need a bit of help from someone as this really helps but don't believe in being spoon fed!

thanks steve, very insipirational. Making mistakes and learning from them is the only way to success.