is it important to have focus on IM?

Yes, focus on one otherwise you fall into the trap where you spread your time to thin and don't really accomplish anything. Id recommend finding one you really enjoy and going 100% at it. Once you get it figured out and can start to automate it a bit or free up some time then start moving into another area which you find interesting.

I agree with Sean... Try this trick on your mind... Do the one thing that you dread the least. Most folks say do what you enjoy and that works well for some, but if you have trouble with that, do what you dread the least... It all comes down to persistence.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit."
Aristotle

I think at first it is perfectly fine to explore and not necessarily focus on one thing. The exception being if you already know how to do one thing really well, you should focus on that to get to an expert level, because then you can make bank based on that specialty and afford to develop your skills in other areas later.

Personally, I never focused on one thing and I'm glad I did not, because I can do a lot on my own right now. But my weakness is that I'm not an expert at any of them, so the many things I can do results in making a mediocre impression sometimes, which means mediocre success.

I struggle hard to be better than good in all things, but my results are mixed and inconsistent.

Absolutely, focus is critical. In my early days of affiliate marketing I was buying every WSO out there! Not that they're bad, infact I recommend a few... it's just that people get caught up in the 'next shiny object'. The best way to succeed is to build connections with people and be mentored. This is the only way you can keep a strong focus. I just finished building a team of students that I am training up to prepare for the next big launch.

If your new, I recommend you getting your hands dirty with offline CPA methods. Actually, Kenster had a great book up here called 'Rags to Riches' if you are looking for somewhere to start.

All the best mate,

I think it's more important to focus on one or a few niches rather than monetization strategies. The beauty about gaining momentum within a niche is that you can monetize many ways ... affiliate marketing, Adsense, selling ads, product creation, services, consulting, etc.

I think you are looking at it the wrong way round Work out your niche as in cats, dogs, shoes, horses. blog in your niche, build a following of people in your niche and then think about monetizing your site. It is easier to sell affiliate products relevant to your niche and once you know your market you can create products around that niche. Once you have a list you can introduce anything at a later date, so long as they know like and trust you.

I think it's better to focus completely on one niche but it's perfectly okay in my opinion to focus on different monetization strategies.

Learn a little about everything. Focus and master one thing. Keep in mind that the one thing you master could be managing outsourcers, which puts you in as many different sectors as you want, without having to master any of the skills.

You're going to get a wide variety of answers here.

The best investors in the world, are usually focused on 1,000 different things at once. Its called diversifying your investments, and its the only way to lower risk.

I believe this same exact rule should apply to internet marketing. As marketing is essentially an investment of time and money.

Also, one of the fastest ways to success, is to test lots of little ideas as fast as possible. This is called "microtesting". You will notice that most ideas fail, then 1 or 2 succeed, so you should capitalize on those ideas, and for the ones that failed, find new ideas to test.

There is a big HOWEVER involved with this though.

If you are NEW, your productivity levels will most likely suck.
What it takes a newbie IM'r 6 months to do, can take an experienced IM'r 6 days to do.

Because of this, as a newbie, you are usually better off just focusing on 1-2 things at most. And what you really need to learn, is how to become more productive during this period. How to automate certain processes, tools you may want to buy, shortcuts you can learn, new ways of doing things to become faster etc etc.

When I look back at when I was a newbie, it would take me FOREVER to do certain things. So having a narrow focus back then was smart, otherwise it was too easy to become overwhelmed.

Thats why if you lack experience, your goal should be like I said, focus on 1-2 things and JUST DO THEM. Don't even worry about results so much but the SYSTEM OR PROCESS and how you can speed it up.

Eventually you will reach a point where you can get a lot of things done in a short period of time. That is when you need to transition and widen your focus more. During this time you will also learn how to calibrate things much better. So you will actually increase the number of things your focused on, and you will learn how to focus on each thing much more efficiently.

Also, the more money you make, the more you'll be able to outsource things too. So it will reach a point where your productivity levels should explode exponentially, along with your earnings.

But the most important thing like I said. When you're a newbie, you can NOT get greedy. Swallow your ego and take baby steps at first. Learn the systems and processes one by one. You will instinctively reach a place where doing a lot of things at once no long overwhelms you, and that is when you can broaden your focus.

Good luck!

-Red

You focus on your business design. What do you want your business to do, how will you shape it to do that. Once you have decided what you want to be the function of your business you will be focusing on other elements now and again. Your business may be product creation, but at some point you might want to add some affiliate products as well. You might not be a graphic designer, but when building a website, you need to focus on it - whether indirectly via outsourcing it, or directly by doing it yourself.

Any business will take multiple areas of focus. As far as the question if you have to focus on IM -- um.......if you are marketing your business on the Internet, then yeah, you're going to focus on IM, too. Your business, services, and/or products might not target IMers, but you still need to know something about selling online.

You don't HAVE TO but the likely hood of your chances to succeed increase greatly when you focus on one method.

this goes for everything else such as traffic generating, how you run your business, to the daily task you do every day.

Focus is how you avoid the shiny objects, and actually make money online ;-)

No doubt you have to focus on one thing and work on it and it only until you have created an income for yourself that is satisfying. It's easy to try this and that but never really follow anything through and that;s probably the most common form of failure in IM.

My advice: pick a certain business and model (not copy) the best in that industry, and then work toward making money with that business as quick as possible. Think about what steps you can take each day that will get you closer to making money. That;s the fastest way to start making an income online.

To succeed, it is very important to focus on what you are doing. When you are just starting with IM, you have to focus on just one area. Learn everything you can about it. Make money. Afterwards, you can learn another area and have an additional source of income. And so on and so forth.

How many top IM people can you name who do not do Product Creation, Affiliate Marketing, and Blogging as pieces of their marketing puzzle?

I would guess very few of them do their own graphic design.

You need to focus on the tools that require your time and effort to make money. You will probably end up with blogging, video marketing, list building, and product creation as pieces of your marketing game plan, but they are all part of a single business plan.