I couldn't agree with you more Ron, no forum, book, seminar or DVD has ever made anyone any money except for the people who own and sell the forums, books, seminars and DVDs. The people who take action, pay attention to what works for them and make adjustments are the ones who truly make it.

Doug

Hi Ron,

You can defininitely be successful without buying any information products - especially IM ones, as most of them contain very basic marketing and business info at best.

The things that make you successful are not the things other people can give you.

Persistence, action, a purpose - these are the things that make the difference.

Whether you do that by selling stuff on ebay, running memberships, selling software, or whatever - the approach and mindset are what will make the difference ultimately.

It's as easy to earn $5k a month as it is to make $500 - the problem most people have is that they have such low expectations for their results that they choose models that live up to those expectations.

If you want to earn a million dollars a year, would you really start out with article marketing or adsense sites?

You can make money with almost every model - but some people are so desperate to earn 'anything' or 'something' that they'll listen to any advice and try anything - which results in 'some' results rather than something with the potential to get the results they truely want.

This forum and the information you have access to is more than enough for most people to have what they need information-wise.

Andy

I agree with you. It wasn't until I started investing in my business and stopped worrying about wasting money that I started making money and figuring this IM thing out. I don't know if it was a paradigm shift or if the courses opened my eyes, but there's something to be said about investing in your own business.

Ron,

What a fallacious post.

Yes- You can learn everything you need to know by searching through these forums. That is a simple fact.

Yes - You do need to take action but one has nothing to do with the other although you try to make it sound like an 'either or' proposition.

Learning all you need to know is necessary before you can take effective action but learning all you need to know does not imply that you WILL take action - it only implies that if you do, you will have a good idea of what you are up to.

Truthfully no-one should buy ANYTHING until they first...

Read ALL John Carlton's, Gary Halbert's, Gary Bencivenga's, Clayton Makepeace's, Ted Nicholas's, Bob Bly's free stuff and get a really good understanding of 'salesmanship in print'.

Then investing in a couple of course and software programs would be a good idea like Perry Marshall's Adwords Course and Aweber/Getresponse etc to get specific information and the tools necessary to implement the strategies which work.

After you've learned marketing and copywriting you should be making money and CAN invest in subsequent courses.

I DO agree entirely that most of the marketing stuff being sold in this niche is very poor and everyone is far better learning from the 'old school' guys almost every time.

Kenneth

I think it takes a combination of things. However, you can learn MOST of what you need to make a lot of money online right here on this forum, for free.

Actually I have spent a ton of money on ebooks, courses, videos, and everything else over the years... But almost everything that has truly helped me succeed online was free information I got from forums, blogs, and mentors. Go figure!

[DELETED]

There is probably sufficient useful information floating around this forum to equip someone for online success. The problem is, it's disjointed, jumbled and scattered all over the place, like pieces of a puzzle strewn on a table.

As a result, the complete novice who is attempting to make any sense of it all would more than likely give up prematurely out of frustration, for a variety of reasons:

1. she would have no clue about what the puzzle picture is supposed to look like.
2. there'd be no frame of reference against which to guage the accuracy of the disparate bits of information.
3. she wouldn't be able to determine how current or effective that information is.
4. she wouldn't necessarily know where one piece of information belongs in relation to other pieces.

And that's just for openers.

There is also a significant difference between theoretical knowledge and experiential knowledge. Having one without the other is like trying to clap with one hand. Plus the true benefit of acquiring knowledge is to apply it, otherwise what's the point?

And as far as "secrets" go, they are none! To the recipient it's simply "new" information that (hopefully) enhances what they've already got in their knowledge base. Quite often it's nothing more than a different way to perceive something they may have known all along. There's nothing wrong with paying for those "secrets" if they will fast track you to success.

Ebooks, courses and other teaching/learning tools are designed to accomodate the learning process by focusing on one discipline or system and providing a perspective of where it belongs in this fantastic puzzle. It decreases the learning curve.

The most important factor in all this is the person who is attempting to succeed online by reading posts in the Warrior Forum exclusively. Their passion, skills, ability, discipline, persistence, commitment, drive and all the qualities that support success have to be considered.

To my way of thinking, that is the wildcard element.

Hermas

I think that this a time vs money issue. If you have lots of money and no time then there are things that are worth paying for.

I had to vote "No".

Yes, the warrior forum is an extremely valuable resource but there is also loads of misleading information.

With that being said, do you really think people (including myself) share every single one of their most valuable secrets and also give away for free all their achievements which they had to learn the hard way through trial and error?

Don't get me wrong here, I'm a big fan of sharing value and giving quality back to the community, but I'm not going to post for free my entire business model, which would probably take about 500 pages if I were to explain it clearly.

I would much rather sell it for $2,000 a piece, considering the time and effort it would take me to put in paper so that everyone understands it, and also the thousands of dollars I spent on testing, tracking, failing, improving, tweaking etc...

I have to agree with Ron on this one, there is no better mentor than trial and error.

You could have Warren Buffet coaching you 24/7, but if you don't take action on it and also FAIL while you are at it, you will never gain the experience on how to improve and do things right in the first place.

There are no secrets BUT there ARE things you may not have learned yet.

Since internet technology is ever-evolving, you will never learn everything you should know but the WF does have the info that will enable anyone to make a living online.

Really, there are only two things that are stopping people from taking this info and becoming successful... doubt and a lack of action!

A lot of people doubt that the methods work so they only give a half-hearted attempt to make something work. You have to approach this as a business and work at it. You can't just make a stab at it and then go on to something else.

Without a doubt, inconsistency and a lack of action are two of the biggest hurdles to overcome. A lot of people are information junkies and they learn a lot but they don't apply it. Those that do apply it are inconsistent and abandon what they are doing when the next greatest money-maker comes down the pike.

There are a lot of threads on ways to make money online. Find one that you want to implement. Once you have it implemented, stick with it and work it like you would any business. Given time and effort, it will start making money. Once you have it growing, build another one in another niche... then build another one in another niche... then build another one in another niche, etc.

I agree with Ron,

The warrior forum is like a free college education. But just like when I got out of college, the real experience and education comes from "working" or taking action.

A good example is:
I've read on this forum and in many marketing books that a good or average conversion rate of a sales letter is 1%.

The problem is that this 1% is only an average. Once you set up a site with a sales letter, you'll see that sometimes your website will convert at 3% and sometime it'll convert at 0%.

So the only way you're going to see a real average is if you keep advertising your site and tweaking your sales letter.

Advertising, writing, and tweaking are all actions.

And yes, most of the people that are really successful have failed the most, that's why they're successful.

Most people that aren't making money just haven't failed enough yet, because failing causes us to learn from the "failed actions" that we have taken.

But just like the saying goes, "only a fool does the same thing over and over expecting a different result".

There is a vast wealth of information in this forum, and certainly people have become wildly successful who don't even know a fraction of it.

The problem is separating the wheat from the chaff. If you've never had success then there's no way to tell what is true is what is not. The majority of posts here are opinion or at least the view from one angle of success.

The more success I've had, the more I can instantly recognize the value to be found here. When I was a struggling beginner I couldn't tell you what was real and what was theory or opinion. That is the problem.

Everything you need to build a house is inside Home Depot. But you still have to know how to build a house.

It could be that Ron isn't familiar with enough (or maybe any) people who DID get their launch from the warrior forum.

I have seen them come in, and "want to know how do you upload a domain name to your email", and not much later give focused accurate answers about the information that they are using to bring income to their house hold.

Not everyone here wants to go full time, there are plenty of people here that have a nice part time spare cash business, and that is all they are looking for.

Not only can it be done, it has already happened and continues to happen with enough frequency that as you read the threads, you can watch people grow and develop, from reading the warrior forum.

I recommend anyone in doubt, to take a look at some of the warrior forum promotional videos that were created last year, and see that several entries talked about the warrior forum being not only the source of their information, but also an encouragement when the surroundings were less that optimist about this internet marketing "scam stuff".

For me the problem with labeling building success through the warrior forum a myth, is that it ties into the fears of the uninformed.

Myths are things that will never happen because they are not true,

Remember the Myth of being able to run a 4 minute mile?
Remember the Myth of putting a Man on the Moon?
Remember the Myth of an African American becoming President of the USA?


Mark

[DELETED]

I voted yes. What I've done is a perfect example of what a newbie goes through just from learning IM on the WF. If s/he applies action to what they learn!

A friend of mine was always talking at work about IM and how he was trying article marketing and PPC advertising (not making too much money, just a little bit here and there) and how he hung out here all the time and his family wasn't too supportive of him.

He and I always talked about it when we saw each other and last summer I joined the WF and bought my own domain, started article marketing (I was determined to not spend much to get started) and managed to make $10 in adsense from August 08 to January 09. Not a great start and I was an extreme victim of information overload. I took a month off due to family issues and decided to focus my efforts on affiliate marketing in February of this year. After some trial and error and learning ALOT here (Thanks Shannon for the resouce box idea!) I've made over $200 in sales in the last week and a half on clickbank. Now that money is going to be used to outsource things I'm not good at yet (keyword research, get MORE articles, etc) and make more money.

Not alot of money yet but I'm excited and I KNOW I can do this, thanks to the WF.

>>
[...] and never buying any courses or specialized training?
>>
the question is asked wrong.

It is not necessarily "buying"...but more about "acquiring knowledge."

Whether this happens by buying a course, or reading , or self-teaching via other means....the answer is:
Yes, its possible, as with any other profession or skill which can be learned.

You COULD hire someone and pay him good money to learn how to play tennis, or how to play the guitar, you could get training where you pay for. Or you can self teach and read up and trial/error on your own.

Is the forum enough to acquire all skills?

Probably. Its part of many other resources you have online, and a good one. Its more a matter of time and sorting all the wealth of information in your head

Hey there,

Although you can learn a very big percentage of how to succeed in a online business right here in the warrior forum, I have personally found that through all the years of just being "stuck" and just spending a lot of money on other products I didn't even really need because I had all the knowledge I needed to begin, was how I learned my lesson and kind of got a "slap in the face", especially when I was reaching close to $0 in my bank account and then seeing yours friends already with cars, expensive clothing, etc.

I do know how to explain this but when you truly reach rock bottom and you feel like sh*t ...you kind of build up an aggression and I don't know what happens in your head ...(or my head at least) but it makes you just say screw this I'm gonna give this my best shot now...

...That's at least what happened to me before I started getting real success online. But I truly know for a fact that if I would of kept in my wallet in my pocket and instead invested 2x more of my time here, I would of probably had much better results, because here you are truly surrounded by like minded individuals and it is very inspirational and motivating to see others succeed and give advice, sharing tips, etc.

Alex Kaplo

Though members of WF can give you several advices and tips, real learning comes from researching, critical thinking, and proper application.

Good debate overall. Nice to have one once in a while without it becoming personal.

Honestly, I think a good approach is to:

- Find a specific strategy to focus on based on your skills and goals
- Learn all you can about it from experts in the Warrior Forum
- Apply what you've learned and gain practical knowledge from experience
- Come back to the forum, ask questions, make contacts, and interact
- Keep taking action and fail quickly so that you can have your breakthrough sooner rather than later

When you're ready for more advanced information, consider the War Room and the Warrior Workshops.

Peace

I agree that you can learn a lot but with out your own "actual experience" it is just words.

The other thing is, it is easy to be mislead by someone with a lot of posts and consider them someone to listen to yet they may have a failing business and just spend all their time in forums. These people speak in "theory" because they have no idea what really works.

But all in all the warrior forum is certainly a place you can learn one heck of a lot.

I guess it would depend on your definition of "succeed". Some would be happy to get a method that makes $5 a day, and if this is all their goal was, well yes, they have succeeded.

However, if you are trying to build a complete business, with many methods to generate revenue from different sources, then I think it is necessary to look both here, and in other resources, such as other forums, coaching programs, guides, etc.

You don't necessarily have to buy expensive products to be successful IMO, there is a lot of free and low cost information available to those who search for it.

Well, I'm living proof that this forum alone can make you successful.

It has catered for every stage in my IM journey.

I voted yes. But, everyone has different views of being successful so I can't possible answer with a yes or no.

Great thread.

Louis

I agree warrior forum provides great value for newbies and advance IMers to make money online. What sets this forum apart from other ones is one word . . .value.

If people will take the time to use this forum and take advantage of what it has to offer people can make a great living off of it. The more the increase there knowledge the more money they will make. They can receive that here.

No It takes ACTION! Not just reading!

Gavin

as my mentor says the only thing wrong with any forum is that you can get lost in them so you must know when to stop and take a breath. there is alot to learn from many areas and you must explore

rich

Yes you can learn everything you need to know because there is a wealth of information here. The problem is, some of the learning curves are steep.

Example:

In my experience, grammatic expressions can sometimes be a problem in trying to understand what the writer means. Most times, this is because English might only be their second language.

Secondly, there is the technical terminologies to deal with and the know-how of the application of the instructions given in the particular content. It can be confusing sometimes, and I think that is where learning by trial and error comes in.

Lastly, the willingness to invest. There may be some investment involved which can be intimidating. Sometimes, people don't want to take the financial risks that follows in gaining the knowledge and experience.

If these can be overcome, Warrior Forum is good place to learn. The information here is overwhelming.

Ok I still consider myself a Newbie and I started out with IM in December. I learned about the Warrior forum in January and that's when I joined, so this is out of the perspective of a "Newbie".

The first 1,5 month I was only reading and reading and once I found the WSO section I bought report after report. Way too much information here for a newbie, pointing me in so many different directions that I didn't know where to start.
Once I started one project I got distracted by the next best thing.

There is so much great information in here but you forget about it because you'll read somebody elses' stuff and get distracted again. I haven't made any money by just being a member and reading posts.
Yes I've gotten great ideas, twists, views on things, techniques and tips, but they are wide spread and you have to spend lots of hours to find them.
Then they're still just posts and tips, no concentrated blueprint or detailed step by step plan.
I was about to give up because I couldn't make any money but had to listen to all the stories how much people make and how easy it is to succeed online.

I then joined the 30 day Challenge and went through the Article Marketing Bootcamp.

That's was when I finally made my first money online.
Why?

Because I received concentrated information in a step by step form.

And I think this is what this forum lacks, here you get information overload and as a newbie, if you have trouble to focus, you will end up being pointed in too many different directions.
That's exactly what happened to me and it stopped once I received the information in a concentrated manner and when I stopped reading the warrior forum.

Yes believe it or not, but I actually started making money when I stopped spending all time reading in the Warrior forum.

I forced myself to only spend 90 minutes a day in the Warrior forum, only following people who had a proven track record and who were very successful.
The rest of the time I actually started to implementing what I've learned.

I started to make my first clickbank sales and I made around 350 bucks a month using Article Marketing.

I then stumbled over one of Allen's reports in the War Room (yep, you have to pay to get that informaion, not free) and it totally changed my perspective. I finally understood how this game works and I have to agree that it's all about how scaleable your business model is.

We shouldn't be spending all day blogging, writing aritcles, managing PPC campaigns, building links, mass submitting, squidoo, hub pages, learning html, building lists and so on (but that's exaclty what newbies try to do, they try to learn all this at the same time) ..
We should have our own product and use the fact that thousands out there spend their time doing all that stuff helping you promote your product!

Leverage!

What are 90% of all the forums and membership sites all about? Right, Affiliate Marketing, teaching people blogging, bum marketing, ppc and all that stuff and every day there are hundreds more joining .... they all promote other people's products.

So we need to use this leverage having them promoting our own product. Using them and affiliate's lists to promote our product.

Allens' Post really changed everything for me.

I started to write my first report, I recorded my first video and a fellow warrior helped me setting everything up and I started my first WSO 5 days ago.

What happened then?

I made over 2k in 5 days.

So that's a jump from 350 a month to 2k in 5 days being a Newbie for 3,5 month now.
I see a lot of people here in the forum posting that they do IM for 1-2 years now and they still couldnt reach 50 bucks a month.

How can that be if the information here in the forum is so great?

Because reading alone doesn't help. Information overload doesn't help.

My answer to the main question is that yes you can start making money online by absorbging the information in the Warrior forum but you really have to focus and implement the things learned.

You need to find a step by step plan and follow that plan. Many reputable Warriors offer step by step plans for free.
Focus on successful Warriors and subscribe to their threads, join their blogs and newsletters.

The second part of my answer is that no I don't think that the free info in this forum can bring you to the next level, making serious money online.
It can definitely point you in the right direction but the info isn't concentrated enough.
At some point you'll need a paid program/mentor/course/seminar/workshop to teach you the nitty gritty.

I made my first money because I paid for a bootcamp which delivered a step by step plan, no information overload.

I made my first serious cash because I paid for the concentrated information in the form of a report in the War Room.

I know that there are thousands of struggling Newbies out there because I've been in the same boat just 1,5 months ago. I know exaclty how that feels because it's still fresh in my mind.

Here is what I did and it may help you as well.

Start with one method only and focus on it. That can either be Blogging, article marketing or what ever. Again, Focus just on that one thing!
(Yes I do recommend that you pay for a workshop/bootcamp to get the information in a step by step manner to shorten the learning curve)

This will help you to learn the basic rule, which is:

Product -> Traffic -> Conversion -> Money

Once you got that, start creating your own product.
(Yes I recommend that you do pay for a workshop/course, same reasons apply)

Start slow, start with your first WSO.

By now you should definitely make money online!

Now it's time to reach take the next logical step which is to launch your next product using Leverage (Affiliate's and their lists) launching on clickbank/paydotcom. (I'm not there yet, but soon)
Now you will have other people spend all their time blogging, writing articles and so on for you.

I guess the next step (And I'm not there yet) would be to stop working in your business and start working on your business.
By that I mean that you again use Leverage by outsourcing all the timeconsuming tasks in order to grow your business. By now you should make enough money to outsource.

Focus! Dedicate 2 hours a day for IM. In those 2 hours, shut down your cell phone, close all mesengers, get rid of ANY possible distraction.
Focus on your IM project alone.
Trust me, you wouldn't believe how much you can achieve in 2 hours without any disctraction at all.
Once you are done with your session you can hang out in the warrior forum if you feel like. But do the work first, then chill. Thats how I do it now.

Using this method I got my own product online in 7 days and I made a bit over 2k so far.
It works for me as a newbie, it might work for you as well.

I'm really sorry if I got too off topic here guys, it just came out like that.

To your success,
mario

The biggest myth about the WF is that everyone is making money, and as a result you have a bunch of people that don't make money teaching others how to do it. Then they go and make a WSO about it.

If you really want to make money online, it requires a series of well placed investments in information and in resources. You have to find a plan that works and stick with it. Honestly, once I found a plan, I'd stay away from here otherwise you are just going to become distracted.

@Dave Alexander

1. Yep you are wrong. Jeremy's course was a bootcamp that lasted 30 days, with sessions every day. Would be kinda hard to reword that, wouldn't it?

2. This thread isn't about my WSO, if you have questions regarding that subject click my sig to see the sales letter or send me a pm.

Still I want to answer your question as I feel as I have to defend myself, my WSO is about Article Marketing and driving that traffic to CPA e-mail submit offers.
Newbie friendly, hence CPA Newbie Blueprint.

I hope I could answer your question. If you have furhter concerns, feel free to pm me.

Cheers,
mario

Well, I think the poll speaks for itself.

If you want to learn how to become a 'professional', there's a whole world out there besides this lovely forum.

Fabian

Dave I totally agree.
I realized that as well, that's why I mentioned in my post that the next step is to use leverage (affiliates with their lists, cickbank/paydotcom).

Creating WSO after WSO isn't where I see myself, but it was a nice way to get my first experience creating a product and setting everything up to get it online.

Anyways, coming back to the main question, I still don't think that the forum can give you everything to succeed online (unless you're extremely focused), but yes it can definitely point you in the right direction and help you making your first money online.

Cheers,
mario

How would you know everything you need to know when you don't know everything you need to know?

10 times out of 10, any new development has already been discussed at length here, enough for anyone to dig deeper into acquiring/enhancing their education then applying it online for their business.

Success is a subjective term so the answer to the question is YES, you Can learn everything you need to know to succeed online by reading posts on the Warrior Forum.

The information you accrue when inexperienced should be used as a control against your own methods of implementation then shaped according to your results from ongoing testing.

Knowing what is possible provides one with hope; hope springs desire; desire drives action; action drives testing; testing drives progressive results = success.

How could anyone say NO?

If you did then, why are you here?

Oh, duh! To answer the OP question?

Yes, I think you can. But I don't think it's the fastest, most practical way.

Grant

@Mario - Brilliant post! Would you mind pointing out which report of Allen's is the one that inspired you? I've enjoyed everything in the War Room so much but I fear I may have missed that one ...

I was a bit surprised that you launched a WSO after such a short period of time, BUT one of the WSOs I bought ended up being entirely geared towards encouraging newbies to write WSOs to make money, which I found really surprising. I don't personally feel qualified enough to write or offer anything to WF members yet, but within a few months, you never know! Everyone learns at a different pace and their own level. Congratulations on coming so far so quickly!! :-)

Hi SavvyScarlett,

thank you for your feedback.
Here is where you'll find the report:
War Room -> My Ideas, Strategies & Plans -> Product Creator vs. Affiliate Marketer

I hope the Report will have the same impact on you.

It totally changed my perspective and I'm already working on my first Click Bank product.

Cheers,
mario

The main problem with saying that a person can learn anything they need from this forum, or any other forum, is that not everyone has the same disposition and ability to carry out someone else's philosophy and there are too many people posting who are faking it - My guess is they want to appear to be an expert and shine among peers. They are parrots who just repeat any old garbage they heard somewhere else just to show that they know and feel like that they can fit in.

They're like those kids that follow the group and imitate the perceived leader so that they can be cool, too but they usually only fool others who are on their level and look like idiots to others. I think most of us have done that at some time.

Also, too many people throw out their theories and ideas they just concocted out into the open as if they are fact instead of preempting by making it clear that something is just what they think.

Even people that aren't beginners are not going to know tell the difference between reliable and unreliable.

A lot of what is posted is garbage.

You can pick up useful stuff here and there but a person won't know what to accept and reject until they've fallen a few times. They haven't developed enough experience yet that will allow them to judge for themselves. Unless it's someone I've already come to trust I take whatever I read on forums with a grain of salt.

When it comes down to it I'd rather pay an expert who will gather everything in one place and teach it to me in a away that almost no one will in a forum.