Would you quit your job before making the money online?

My Philosophy on the matter is that no source of income gives you the right amount of focus you need to get moving in the right direction.

Having a job to fall back on can in fact hold you back or even distract you from completing your desired goals. The job is a comfort zone and to make progress one must be willing to step out of it entirely.

I have been on both sides of the fence. Trying to make money while holding a job and trying while unemployed. I made a ton more while unemployed than I did working. The mindset you have is completely different, while working I had the "If it works it works" attitude, and while unemployed I had the "It has to work and if it doesn't I will make it work" attitude.

I am sure those on either side of the spectrum can verify this.

I'll keep an eye on this thread.

I'm thinking about doing this just now because I hate my job.

I was thinking about doing it in 3 weeks. I have some some cash saved up and little bills + I can start my own PT business next spring when the fitness rush happens if my sites don't work out.

I'd have to pospone travel plans I have for next year but do I really want to be working outside this winter when I don't need to? Plus I think working full time for 3 months on the sites might be a good thing. If I can only make some, I can work part-time till I bring it up to full time earnings.

Oh decisions:confused: 3 weeks work or a soul destroying winter?

I'd probably hold onto the day job until you were making enough to cover that. Yeah you'd have a lot of free time to work on your projects, but it is a heck of a lot different than working for someone else. Time management and money management becomes a huge deal.

Also without an job and income it puts a lot of stress on a person and it is very possible to make some rash decisions. For some people the do or die thing works, but for others the stress of having to make it work keeps things from actually working.

I agree with most of the comments above, since starting IM it's been a bit of a 'fantasy' to be able to leave all other work related commitments behind, and concentrate on a successful online business model (that you hear so many stories about).

The first step I've taken is moderate outsourcing without the return to cover it all yet, investing into my aspiration (at a minimum it gives me the drive to keep pushing it, as my money is tied up in it).

I would like to be able to do IM online, but realistically it would be years from now before I could even think about it.

I guess I'll just enjoy the ride, at work and online

MZ

Huge mistake in my opinion.

Lack of cash flow places undue stress and expectations. Not to mention financial stress. If I had my time over, I would have stayed employed for 12 months and reinvested sales into the business instead of using them to fund my life.

In a word...



Sal

Well Chase I think you answered your own question in the downside part, cause even if your lucky enough to have some money set aside like Shannon (which few of us are) I still think it's a bad idea to walk away from steady income, sure you'll have more time to work on your sites but that'll be little of comfert if its not making you any money, Plus you don't want to burn yourself out, put in so many hours so fast that you give up, which happens alot faster when your not seeing any results. Of course everyone's situation is different, but for the most part its probily not a good idea.

That has nothing to do with your ability to earn online. I think many new IMers use internet marketing as an excuse to quit a job they don't like in the first place.

The theory proposed is often "I'll HAVE to do something then" - but what if you don't? What if you freeze up due to financial stress or the money doesn't start coming in?

You can do IM you can start earning working on it part-time and then quit a job to move ahead. If you can't get anything to work now - there's no magic that will happen when you quit a job.

Look at the worst that can happen if you quit. Can you live with that? If not, don't quit.

kay

Very well put my friend.

SELF DOUBT! Along with internal negative influences are Huge road blocks

In the beginning of ones online adventure.

Speaking from experience.

That article by Steve Pavlina is useless for people that NEED a job to survive. A lot of the article is PURE opinion and fantasy. If you were making 40K + a month (that's what he claims to make), could you write an article like that? Sure you could.

I've recently been in this situation, but not by choice.

In short, "NO!" Do NOT quit your day job to do IM full time until/unless your current IM income at least matches your day job income -- CONSISTENTLY.

The stress of no income will be detrimental to your business-building efforts, even if it doesn't hit you right away. Sometimes, the best thing you can do in launching/building a business is to get a JOB.

I lost my job of 7 years in Feb. 2010. I loved the company I worked for and the people I worked with, but HATED the job itself. (I worked in an in-house call center for a large, local utility, doing customer service.) I worked a lot of overtime, plus was going to school part-time. I was burned out and exhausted.

It wasn't completely unexpected, but I was still completely unprepared. (I'd kept hoping I'd get promoted OUT of that position into another one, but it didn't happen.) I had NO savings and had just one paycheck in the bank. Yikes!

I'm single with no kids. Plus, my dad is my landlord, so I'm in a better position than a lot of people. I'm responsible only for myself and I'll never be homeless.

But I still have to pay my bills and eat.

I'd always contributed to my 401(k), but I deliberately never looked at it. (I'm a buy-and-hold kind of girl.) But when I checked it (in desperation) after losing my job, I had a whopping $20,000 in there, plus another $10,000 in my pension. Total: $30,000. Wow!

I'd been dabbling in IM for a long time, but never gone "big' with it or done it "for real" as I hadn't yet found exactly what I wanted to do online.

At the same time that I discovered that I had all that money, the opportunity to mentor with the perfect mentor (my current mentor) dropped into my lap and I also found the publisher for my first book. And exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it crystallized. I truly believe none of it was an accident.

Within three weeks of losing my job, I had a signed book contract and had signed up for a full year's coaching with my current mentor -- which included a 1-day workshop and a 3-day conference.

I dove into writing my book and set the pub date for my book at Sept. 2010. It took a couple more months than that, but the book was published Nov. 2010.

I was still looking for a job during this time, but only half-heartedly. I was burned out with the job and desperately needed some time off. I really didn't WANT a job. I also wanted to finish my book, the book I'd been wanting to write for so long but never had the time to do.

As 2010 ended, the book was done (a lifetime dream of mine) and I'd completed a year of coaching/mentoring and had set up my business, ready to launch.

And that's when I ran out of money. I wasn't able to launch because I had NO money -- I struggled to even buy groceries or put gas in my car. I don't care what anyone says: it's nearly impossible to launch a business (even a cheap IM business) if you can't buy gas or groceries, much less pay your hosting bill or phone bill.

Yes, I went through $30,000 in one year flat. I knew that money wouldn't last forever. (Even if you have a financial cushion, the money won't last forever.) Maybe some people would see it as foolish to spend all of my retirement money setting up a business when I was unemployed. But I KNEW this is what I wanted to do and I made a long-term commitment to it. I didn't do that just because I was unemployed and it sounded good at the time.

But I struggled. I'd had some temp jobs, but still nothing permanent. While I'm in no danger of being homeless, the stress was still incredible. My parents don't pay my bills.

I applied for dozens of interviews, got some and even got a few temp jobs. But they were VERY temporary and none of them were right for me. The stress and discouragement is soul-crushing. Your self-worth and mindset take a real beating.

And then I found my current job. I just hit the 90-day mark now and I'm quite happy in my new position, primarily because I work at home!. I do tech support for Verizon. It's more nasty call center work, but it's such a blessing to have work I CAN do (I have some unusual physical problems which inhibit my mobility and make a lot of jobs very difficult or impossible for me to do) and to work at home.

Working at home shaves 5 (FIVE!) hours off my day, EVERY DAY. (No 1-hr commute each way, no getting ready time in the morning (2 hours because of my physical problems) and no lunch hour.) And my mobility problems become a virtual non-issue because I work at home.

Believe me, having your days completely free doesn't necessarily make you more productive in IM. It just means you waste more time. Sometimes, having TOO much freedom in your schedule is detrimental. I don't know why this is. It seems counter intuitive. But it's absolutely true. I'm more productive now than when I had every day, all day to myself.

I'm in an ideal position now to launch my business and make it work. I still little/no money to invest in marketing my biz. (I took a hefty pay cut and make not much more than minimum wage in my current job.) But at least my basic, bare necessities are taken care of, which is a HUGE help to allowing me to focus on my business.

Bottom line: do NOT quit your day job before you have another income to replace it.

If you're dissatisfied with your current job, use that as motivation to build your business. The limited amount of time you have to work on your business should drive you to get ruthless about what your expect of yourself and from the hours you put into IM each day. Start demanding ROI from the time you spend in IM (i.e. stop dallying on the WF if you're still not making any money!).

Hope that helps!

Michelle

Yeah I'd definitely say try to chug away at making your online business a success while holding down a job. And when you start to see success with your online venture, I'd def. say leave your job and go for it...

I know personally that it could be hard though tryna hold down a job and then have to come home to deal with two(2) kids...and then having to find time to build your business online...That takes committment...It is in those times I wish to quit my job just to have enough time to develop my thing online...but I have to think about my family and not just me...

Anyway...Good luck with that!!

John,

I completely agree. Offline is probably the only real way someone can make "job quitting" income in a short while. Chasing online riches will leave virtually everyone making a few dollars a month at best.

Brian

Some of us have found ourselves in the unfortunate situation of losing our job and struggling to find a new one after almost 20 years with the same employer.

I did leave with about 16 months of money, but it is still really stressful trying to find your way in IM.

The problem is that little periods of desperation creep in and your mind goes to the next big money maker, and then nothing ever gets finished, so you are back to where you started but less money.

My advice is to start a single project at a time, finish it regardless of how long it takes and then move to the next, but do it whilst you are still in employment if you can and keep that safety net behind you.

If you are new to IM I would highly recommend keeping your job. The reason for this is that IM takes time. Even if you are doing everything PERFECTLY, it is going to take time to see the results. And if you are like the rest of us, it is going to take you a long time to do everything perfectly. For me the time is not about earning potential but rather about how long it will take you to learn what you are doing.

Wow I just read the post..........lol nice teaser

Everyone knows a rocket scientist would not quit their job

I would never quit my job to do this starting up. I'm probably too conservative in that I would have to be making quite a bit of money to even consider quitting once my project got rolling.

However my case is a little different in that I have a job I love doing and offers me a lot of free time to work on my project.

Personally, you want something consistent and predictable before you quit your day job. With everything going on right now all over the world, quitting a job better mean you've got some seriously good IM money coming in.

In these hard times it is best to get prepared when you change jobs. Like they have been saying in the posts above don't quit your day job before you try im. However if you are already out of work. Do what you can until im starts working.

A lot of responsible suggestions from members on this thread

I also would not recommend giving up the day job until you have proven to YOURSELF that you can earn as much as your monthly expenditure via IM.

I based my decision on the fact that I have been able to reach this figure before I decided to quit my job so I have the confidence and belief I can do better if I commit myself full time.

I'm going to throw a spanner in the works here and say that if you're TOO responsible and TOO cautious then you won't get far.

I'm a typical "steady Eddie" character. I'm careful with my money and don't take many risks but I realised that if I continued doing IM in my spare evenings and weekends then the reality was I would only every really have a part time income from it.

Every situation is different and you need to weigh up your own circumstances