Mentor?

Hi Jay,

Help me out - which direction within IM are you looking to succeed at?

* Affiliate marketing
* Info-Product marketing (your own digital product)
* Amazon Kindle eBooks
* Offline marketing (helping small businesses)
* eBay selling
* Standard eCommerce website

I can point you in some good directions, but would need to know specifics.

Dave

If you have the time this is a very good watch. It changed the way I tackled my business This is How Derek Halpern Grew a 17,000 Subscriber Blog in 11 Months…

Also, two great people to follow IMO are:

The Lifestyle Business Podcast Great on the philosophical side of business.

Online Marketing Strategy – Social Triggers Great on implementation.

They aren't MMO gurus if that's the path you want to follow. It's real business.

Just curious why so many people recommend finding one then when asking for help getting into IM. Most referred them not having success til having one.

Hi Jay,

Sounds like you're in a tough position.

Learning Internet Marketing takes time - there's a learning curve - and it also takes money. (not nearly as much as traditional business, of course, but around $50 to $100 a mo. to start with for hosting, autoresponder, and other ancillary expenses)

It is the rare bird who can come in here and hit it out of the park, immediately, without having paid some dues in terms of trial and error or just flat-out cash expended.

This might sound harsh, but if you are not in a position to afford an autoresponder, (did I read this correctly?) then you should seriously be looking at something other than Affiliate Marketing or IM (at least in the short term) as a way to make an income. I think most seasoned Affiliate Marketers would agree with me here.

And, although it sounds like you've sworn off of eBay, I believe that it is one of the easiest ways to get your feet wet in the world of online marketing and develop an online income.

And, you could sell other people's products / items (on consignment) for companies / individuals without any investment on your part, since your consignor will provide the product and you charge a commission off the top.

The reason I believe eBay is the best way to get started is because eBay provides the TRAFFIC and the CUSTOMERS - two things you are fighting tooth and nail to get as a beginning affiliate / internet marketer.

In the IM world, you will either have to pay for your traffic / customers in cash or in sweat, (time / work invested to generate free traffic) but your customers don't come cheap, either way.

The other way to go is to be an offline marketer, but that requires a whole 'nother set of skills, including salesmanship, which not many people possess naturally.

As far as finding a Mentor.

Mentors can be either paid or free, but you will typically get what you "pay" for.

If you can't afford a mentor, then I would definitely recommend joining the War Room (on this forum) and getting your WSOs for free (many War Room members, including myself, give away our WSOs to members on that forum.)

And continue to do what you're doing here - ask tons of questions.

When I first got started here (in 2001) I was creating my very first eBook. (Beyond eBay)

I didn't know what FTP was, I didn't know how to build a website, I didn't know what format to put my eBook in, I didn't know which autoresponder to use.

I didn't know JACK!

But every time I had a question, I came here and got some great answers.

The help I got here was extremely valuable to me and that's one of the reasons I plan to help others the way Veteran Warriors helped me.

My eBay teaching business was eventually catapulted to a National Infomercial that ran for 11 years - but it all started here on the Warrior Forum.

BUT, that success took lots of time, lots of learning, lots of expenses and lots of sacrifice to get there.

While I didn't have / get a mentor, I have self-mentored through books, the Warrior Forum, Seminars, Webinars, etc. and it has worked out great. But it took time and a lot of trial and error.

Had I had a mentor, I now know that I would've cut that learning curve by thousands of percent!

I wish you success Jay, and please know that this post is meant to speak the truth rather than try to sugar coat the truth for you.

Dave

Hit me up on skype and we'll talk. BTW I won't sell you anything even though I could charge a "consulting" fee. Just a warrior helping warrior.

That is a tough situation.

The next idea might be offline marketing to local businesses.

But even that form of business will probably cost you something, unless you can get paid up front.

In this case, I would focus on generating some website-building gigs. You don't necessarily have to build the site. (if you're not up to speed on that) You can have someone on Fiverr build it for you / your clients. (or check the Warrior Classifieds for a web-building partner - someone who will pay you a commission to generate sales)

You might check out Fiverr to see which other "offline" gigs you can sell to your local market and just mark them up.

Another idea is to search the local classifieds for P/T "social media" jobs which will allow you to get paid to further your IM knowledge / experience on someone else's dime.

It's pretty hard to start with no money, but not impossible.

If you've never done sales, the offline thing will require getting out of your comfort zone, but that's what success requires anyway.

Hope this helps, Jay!

Dave

Over the past 2 years, I've helped facilitate 20 in-person mentorship experiences-- the hardest part about having a mentor is that you need to put in a ton of work in order to reap the benefits. Successful people won't consistently help you unless you provide them with some value, and that generally comes in the form of you doing a lot of work for them (there are other ways, like sharing interests, and hanging out over a 3rd type and shared interest) but generally it'll come from you doing hard work for them. It's worth it. Check out Charlie Hoehn's video about the topic, it's one of the best things on the web:


I would be remiss if I didn't mention my own in-person training seminars. They kick ass and are absolutely the cheapest way on the planet to get the kind of guidance you are asking about :

Building A Successful Business Is The Best Way To Create More Personal Freedom And Opportunity

Feel free to drop me an email if I can help you out with finding a mentor in some other way.