I would have saved up some money first and then looked for a decent coach or mentor.

I would have learned earlier how important it is to FINISH a product before starting a new one.

I would have spent my initial money on a great mentor from the start - instead of buying different products and jumping around trying to figure out what was the best way to go.

But - I guess when you are just starting it would be difficult to know who the best mentor is without seeing some of their products. That is how I eventually found a great mentor - but I spent money on other products that I see now that they were not right for me.

I wouldn't change a lot. Maybe I would try more things to learn faster and also try to be focused on one thing and not 100s.

I would never had gone into blackhat or made software for blackhat. I still make software but I do not use it. I have other people test it.

I would of did it the right way, I mean the sweat and tear way.
I would of put aside about fifty percent of all the money I earned.

But it's good I didn't do those things. I wouldn't of learned near as much as I have.

I would of build my lists sooner.

James Scholes

I would have concentrated on the two most important areas that I surround everything I do with: growing a list and converting.

Maybe you're running PPC on facebook and found a good niche where you can spend $10 on ads and get $60 in CPA commissions for a $50 profit. The beginner in me says "sweet I made money, what next"..but the veteran in me says "sweet I made $50, now I can make $500. Maybe now I should capture people's emails somehow..."

Honestly, I am still learning. I began back in November but I definitely did start buying everything under the sun and now I have about $2000 worth of products and tools on my computer. I started Jeff Dedrick and Liz Tomey's 12 month training program in December and am still working on it.

John

Three things guys.

Build a list.

Build a list of buyers (big tip here )

Offer value.


No other way to do it. Yah baby!

1. I would have spent at least 2 to 3 months studying and researching, taking lots of notes (written and voice) before starting my first project.

2. I would have contacted more people to ask them about their opinions and experiences (there are a lot of helpful people who are happy to answer those types of questions).

3. Armed with #1 and #2, I would have come up with a basic business plan so I could effectively plan out my days / weeks/ months / etc. and adjust accordingly.

4. I would have joined an action-minded mastermind a lot sooner. Not the kind where people pop into a chat room and talk about random stuff and some marketing. I'm talking about one where people actually talk about marketing, the tests they've done, projects they're working on and finding ways to help one another.

And in the abscence of finding one, I would have founded one myself.

5. I would have created my own products sooner.

6. I would have built more meaningful business relationships a lot sooner.

7. I would have built a list(s) a lot sooner.

8. I would have focused on building a whole line of products instead of just one.

9. I would have obtained a copy of the Writer's Marketer a lot sooner.

10. I would have studied how to use free publicity a lot sooner.

11. I would have attended an IM seminar a lot sooner (after asking people about their experiences, of course).

12. I would have set aside specific hours for my business a lot sooner.

13. I would have planned out my days the night before, which would have been based around my business plan. This would have quadrupled my results during my first year.

14. I would not have bought any new course, software, etc. for my business unless it absolutely warranted it and wouldn't do so until my business started earning some income.

15. I would have made my tin foil hat a lot sooner so I could block out all the noise.

There's a lot more, but that's the gist of it. It's time for my mid-afternoon nap. lol

RoD

Blogging is a great idea but not everyone has something to say or wishes to say it if they do.

I would try to keep a better record of all my passwords and log in names.

I wouldn't have registered 75 domains with a prefix that was as long as the keyword phrase I was targeting....

But hey, I meant I had to push harder and found some good techniques

Well, I thank I would spend more time workin and less time drinkin shine... awww shucks, who am I kiddin? Folks got to decide whether it is more important to make a livin or drink shine... and THAT is why I ain't makin a livin!!!

'sides, I inherited enough that I could afford to live the lifestyle of which I had become accustomed. I was left five pigs, four chickins, two goats, six sheeps and the best dadgum recipe for Armadillo Scrapins that most folks would kill for!

Problem was that I had Kevin Riley, Thomas Belknap, John Schwartz, Ken Strong, Dennis Gaskill and Rod Cortez over for vittles one night and, by coincidence, all my sheeps disappeared! Never have figgered out what happened to them dadgum thangs!

I would cut the time I spent reading what i should do and started "doing" earlier. Also I would of taken my planning phase for a project much much MUCH more seriously. These two things would place me miles ahead of where i am today!

I would have started backlinking my sites sooner and ....

Not much. I'd have avoided some of the distracting projects that were duds. However, I learned from those and what not to do.

I earn a full time living from online marketing and did so in a few years, so I can't complain. I doubt there's an offline business I could have started that would:

Generate the income I have as quickly as it did
Require very little start-up cash
Require very little ovehead.

I don't like overhead. I had an offline business bursting with overhead. None of that now.

Perhaps I'd focus more on list building earlier, but then I'd have foregone other methods that proved lucrative.

Sure, I bought some lousy products, wasted time reading / using those lousy products, and getting side-tracked, but who among us hasn't done the same. It's par for the course.

I'm just grateful I scaled up the few things I did that worked.

I will do the AdWords for Adsense as soon as possible, also for autoblog. And hire as many as workers as I can to do these repeatedly.

Started building an online biz earlier.

I would set parameters around how much time/money I am willing to spend to pursue an idea.

I would NOT try to scale everything so big so fast. All that happens is 50 open projects, nothing finished, seo that cannot possibly be accomplished etc. I created a few sites, ranked them started making money. Then the old "greed" factor kicked in and I figured if 3 is good, why not 30?? I soon found out why not 30 lol.

Hindsight is 20/20 but often useless. I would love to say that I would have done X, Y, or Z differently, but it's a learning curve. It's kind of like dating before you get married.

I spent too much money on useless stuff and very little time doing necessary stuff. And like so many others have stated, I would have followed one program/idea before jumping onto the next shiny ball.

Take all the money I spent on crappy products and go back and put every penny back into building my list and paid traffic sources.

The biggest thing would be to build my list from the beginning, I didn't focus on that from the start like I should have.

Other than that, the biggest would be to stay focused and stick with projects like mentioned above. Just finish, get it out there and move on to the next. It's way too easy to jump when a new idea comes along.

I spent over a year just blogging and writing posts every second day for my blogs. I did not monetize my blog or even look at the internet as a source of income. Looking back, I wish I had considered monetizing my blogs and building a customer base from day one because if I had done so I would have been sitting on a good source of income.

I would start by building a bigger list ..........

And i would not waste my time promoting junk products from Clickbank ..

Getting things down a little better and understanding certain concepts faster.

. purchased a war room membership day one
. studied the war room and absorb forum posts for 6 months or as long as needed
. continue on a well researched and planned path

I would have learned marketing and would have hired people to write articles for me instead of writing it by myself.

Probably hire a mentor.. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on useless ebooks and softwares!

I will completely change the branch, I will invest all that I have in the food industry.

Well, am still in the reading phase, and all what people said here is very helpful to me to take the right direction.
Thanks all

I would have picked a course that's recognized for giving the information required to be successful. I then would dedicate all my efforts to the steps required in the course until I achieved success.

Once I discovered Google Sniper 2.0 my life has never been the same.

I would have taken action earlier.

99% of the reason why people don't make money is because they don't take action.

If I had been working, the way I'm working now, when I got into it years ago - I would have been a millionaire!

NO DOUBT.

I would have started building my list from day 1 instead of messing around going off in a dozen different directions.

I will start all over again.

I'd like to have realized sooner I could make a decent amount of money by applying my skills to other peoples' projects and getting paid, rather than relying on my own projects to be successful.

FOCUS on one market, and FOCUS on strategies that are proven to work.

Eliminate the rest.

I would have not started with AdSense and gone directly with list building and product /services creation / promotion.

I would first save all the money which I have spended on buying different products and softwares.
And to start doing an online biz!

Thank you for all the replies.. Awesome!
One thing I also would have done differently was to discover Warrior Forum sooner!

there is nothing more except panda update, we have consider panda update algorithm, we have have to use unique content for link building, use all same activity link directory submission, article submission, forum posting etc... nothing more...

I wouldn't change a thing - through every mistake I made I learned what to do and not do - it seemed that for me every "ah hah" moment came at exactly the right time I needed it to , no regrets at all

Although I say that now...at time it was a different story - ha ha

I would have definitely started outsourcing right away instead of trying to learn every single thing myself and I would have started building a list from the beginning.

Built a list sooner and started to build relationships sooner also.

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I would take lots of action before I knew every single step along the way.
Would learn more from experience than from others.

I would most likely change things and kept (or enhanced) the best parts.

If you don't give something a go in the first place, you'd never know if you should've done it differently. Taking the first step to success is better than pondering about it and wondering if things would work out.

Don't wait for something to happen, make the required changes as you continually learn in order to have success in what you do.

I would built a Blogger blog, threw Adsense and Clickbank on it, market the blog like a champ, and drove mad traffic to it. But i'm on to bigger and better things now.

I would have sacrificed a bit of reading and done more work instead.

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backup my sites better. thats not a joke most people reading this willl pass it off .>>> DON"T <<<

They keep saying the money is in the list and it's true, so I would get myself a mentor to teach me the right way to build my list from the outset instead of paying out all that money on hyped-up trype we all buy.

Building my list has been my biggest asset but I didn't start until like a year after starting my business, So if I was to start over it would be building my list from the word go.

Its interesting to see how many people said they would "get a mentor" ....yet it seems most here are still reluctant to do so, and will probably continue to buy BSO $3 WSO's.

I would avoid the "Shiny Object Syndrome" and focus on one thing that fits my style. The amount of WSOs I bought 2 years ago all telling me different things is staggering..

Oh, and doing proper keyword research.

I would focus on one main site rather than focusing on several different sites. And i would make more use of social media and content marketing.

Me too! If I had just started blogging first, and then worried about learning IM as I went along...id be so much further ahead than I am now. =/

on that note, it seems like blogging is becoming more like a requirement or prerequisite to someone's online biz.