Worst Mistake I Have Ever Made

Well it's not the worst mistake I made in my life overall, but the worst mistake in my IM career:

Following too many shiny objects. For a very long time I would be looking for the magic bullet to make money online. I was doing multiple courses and reading multiple e-books, all of which promised me mega bucks! The worst thing was that with the majority of them I never did the most important thing: TAKE ACTION!

This happened for almost a year, until I got a mentor. He helped me clear my mind and get focused. I began actually implementing, and things changed from there. I lost a whole year, and that was by far my worst mistake.

My worst mistake was thinking other people knew the business better than me. I now realise I had that the wrong way round.

Will

The biggest mistake I think is having to many irons in the fire. Focus on one thing and master that before you move on. Do one thing and do it well because the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. If you try to spread the heat across to many branding irons none of them will get hot enough to leave a mark. So I suggest to everyone that they hyper focus their resources.

Agreed with Sara 100%

I went through a stage where I would be concentrating on doing a project, I would look something up related to that project (like how to do a certain task), by accident find something interesting, then start on that - completley forgetting what I was searching for in the first place!

So my biggest mistake was focus - I think now I have trained myself to focus on one project, and block everything else out until I have completed the project and have had some success with it.

I think most people here will agree that having too many projects on the go at once (leading to poor results from all of them) is probably the biggest mistake many people make when they're new to IM.

The 'worst mistake' I've made regarding IM would have to be convincing myself (some years ago) that there was indeed information/methods that successful people had been hiding.

I spent a bit of time searching for things that didn't exist and now understand that success is quite a simple formula.

I ate sofa pizza once. Bad, bad idea. Oh, my biggest business mistake? Chasing silly dreams when I already knew what I was supposed to do. Pretty generic, yes. I've been lucky though to avoid any huge f**k-ups so far.

My worst mistake is a combination of what's already been mentioned. Too many shiny objects, not sticking to one thing, and not capitalizing on my successes. I went to Big Seminar 3 in Orlando about 10 years ago and met a lot of you who were really supportive of a couple of ideas that I had. I've seen one or 2 implemented by others.

Another mistake was that I partnered with someone who wasn't the most ethical person around. Actually put together a product and made a little bit of money, but the experience with this partner was not a fun thing when it should have been.

Now I've signed up for a mentoring program that I really feel will get me back on the right track. I've heard the phrase "Take Massive Action" and now I'm in a position to do just that.

The biggest mistake I ever made had nothing to do with IM. I've related a few times before how I used to run a successful retail franchise, and I kept it up for over 5 years. I made mistake after mistake after mistake with that franchise, but somehow I kept it going the entire time.

My biggest regret, though, was that I never put back the money I was making. It was the first time in my life I'd ever had money, and I did whatever I wanted to do with no regard for tomorrow. Had I paid a little more attention to the books, I probably could doubled my profit and sank a lot of money into stocks and a retirement fund, and I could've walked away from the business when it started to go downhill instead of sinking all that I had left into it.

The TLDR version: I had no exit strategy.

-- j

Mine was paying to much for an event and hiring the wrong people paying up front.

my worst mistake: buying a WSO, and then buying another one without COMPLETELY putting the previous one to action till the end and till it worked.

(SEVERAL TIMES!)

I've made a TON - but probably relying on Google and spending all my time trying to build a "business" around Google traffic was my biggest mistake.

My worst mistake was probably postponing and thinking that it's too hard, so I wouldn't know where to begin etc., and thus never really begining.

Once I began, things just started rolling and I realized it wasn't that hard, small baby steps gets you all the way!

My worst mistake was probably postponing and thinking that it's too hard, so I wouldn't know where to begin etc., and thus never really begining.

Once I began, things just started rolling and I realized it wasn't that hard, small baby steps gets you all the way!

just the ONE worse mistake in IM? Mine would have to be lack of focus and it's friend lack of persistence

My worst mistake is when i start my home biz i didn't use e-marketing for it and end up wasting over 6 month of my time and money.

My worst mistake was sticking with my first site to the end.

We all start with a site and a keyword. I started with a terrible one.

Difficult to monetize, few relevant ads, and extremely competitive.

I should have scrapped it and moved on, but I was determined to make it to the first page.

I eventually did, but it was not the Promised Land I expected it to be.

Not outsourcing from the word go. OS takes a whole load of your chest.

The worst thing I ever made is subscrribing to the dropship that I thought I can be successful without even bearing in mind that I must have an internet marketing knowledge.

My worst mistake was, after learning all the processes of online money making I was running after adsense earning. Not in white hat way, but the black hat way. After working few days, I was thinking it is not the right way to earn money. Black hat earnings may be easy but there are possibilities that they might get seized. Now I am working white hat only and it has not yet bring me a lot of money but it brought peace of Mind.

I guess my biggest mistake in the IM career was thinking about the money and not about the value!

1. Not building a list from the very beginning (could also be 2. and 3.).
2. Too many irons in the fire.
3. Chasing every next-big-shiny-object-thing out there.

Remedies:
To 1. Whatever you do, look for list building opportunities.
To 2 and 3 combined. FOCUS! Do one thing at a time, and do it consistently.

To put things in right perspective:
Would you quit/change your day job after six months because it hasn't made your rich yet?

My mistake was the though that I could earn much money with little effort and a few hours of working. Now I realized that IM needs to work daily and keep your self up to date for new methods of making your business more successful.

Well the worst mistake I made, so far, is not starting out early and letting some opportunity to pass. I was able to realize that I cannot achieve my dream by being an employee who works for 8 hours a day, 3 years ago. But i did nothing, I have already some leads as to what to do, but also my fear of losing a permanent job held me back. it was just a bout 3 months ago when I took some action and made a decision. and it is all worth it.

The worst mistake I made was thinking I could just 'go it alone' and become successful by myself... This is how I see it now:

Before any kind of income, we all get an education (taught by others), then we go on to put that into action, and we make money.

Why should it be any different online? I know you can 'self teach' but is that the most effective way to learn? What if you're teaching yourself the wrong things, in the wrong way?

The point I'm making is that everyone starting out or with little online success should look to find someone who has become successful online, learn all about them, get them to be your mentor... you will progress at light-speed. This is what I have recently done and 3 days ago I made my first money online

With the right direction and plan you get the focus to find success.

Other people have said it but I'll add my voice to FOCUS, or the lack thereof being my worst mistake to date. Also, giving up too easily when not seeing instant results.

My mistake was to run behind money instead of making good reputation on web.

Don't this thread give you a little bit of comfort knowing that you are not alone and that almost everybody made a mistake before they started earning income?

My worst mistake was not doing backend marketing for over a year. I would get alot of frontend customers and then look for MORE frontend customers... instead of selling more to the ones that i already had.

Well, I've been around doing this since 1998, so I have quite a few mistakes

1. Doing what I wanted to do instead of what my market was asking for. Even though I have had many successes doing this, I probably could have had even more if I was paying attention to my market's needs.

2. Letting an enormous amount of momentum die off on 3 different occasions. Once you have an offer that gets momentum, keep it going!

3. Not speaking at the Internet marketing seminars that I was asked to. I just don't want to work weekends But it would be a great networking experience..

4. Not delegating/being a control freak about my business. Still working on this one, but I'm getting better. I just hate that it usually takes me longer to explain what I want done then to just do it myself. Or waiting 3 days and getting something back and it is nothing like I wanted. I should probably hire an actual team instead of contracting out to new people.

5. Procrastinating, regularly. In fact, I am here writing this because I am procrastinating instead of finishing up my presentation for my new product. :|

6. Not making enough friends online. It's amazing how helpful a network of friends to talk to regularly is on here. Anybody wanna be my friend? ha

7. Quitting drums for 10 years. Okay, this has nothing to do with Internet marketing. And even though it wasn't a complete musical loss as I learned how to play guitar in those 10 years, I am still kicking myself for quitting- But I play now daily!

This certainly isn't all, but it's a good start

Wes Blaylock

...I feel like I should keep going as writing this stuff down seems to be helping me

8. Saving things for later- Like "Oh I'll add that idea to my next product"..Problem is..80% of the time that next product doesn't get created, or the idea that I saved for it will no longer fit. I have over 100 pages of ideas and outlines from the last decade that never happened! Which is just sad to me (30 pages of ideas in the last 3 months which I am trying to make happen lol). Ideas are nothing if you do not use them, so don't have anything for later. "Later" is like a fart in the wind!

9. Not realizing how important enthusiasm is. When you are enthusiastic about something now, DO IT NOW. Once the enthusiasm wears off, you won't strive for excellence with it so much. So these days, whenever I come up with a new idea that I am pumped about, I try to knock it out as quickly as possible. You can always add to it later, but capturing that enthusiasm when it happens is key.

10. Forgetting the basics. Sometimes the most basic, simplistic view is the answer. Happens to me all the time.

11. Not getting myself out more. People don't want to buy from text or flashy videos, they want a personality, a relationship, an actual human being. Show yourself, tell stories about you, let people know you are real.

Blah blah..we are students forever!

Wes Blaylock

For me is... reading this forum all the time and take no action. LOL.

My worst mistake would be spending all my money on new training courses and not having anything left to spend on my marketing--the part of IM that would actually bring in the money. Always learning and not doing...

My first worst mistake was trying to take too many online courses at one time. They other mistake I made was not starting a business sooner.

I am a pure newbie haha and right now my blog about making money online and the program I am following it is the main source of my action... its either gonna make me lots of money or probably be a mistake... guess theres only one way to find out and thats by doing it
and i so agree on the gimmicks part... ebooks (no offense) but i have seen some real crap lately... to the point where I want to make a REAL ebook full of content and value and show how it's done

The worst mistake for me is to not get into IM simply because I'm afraid of hard work and I have no plans. Good thing this didn't happen to me yet.