Is that your IM story? I have just found it on the street...

Like 8 or 9 years ago, I bought an affiliate poker chips site from site point for about 80-90 dollars. It was my last $100 at the time, and I got so excited that I thought I would be rich. Only one problem, I didn't know I had to add affiliates links, and the guy who sold me the site didn't tell me there was a back end to the site. I thought I made a great investment and I never signed up for anything.

It was a great investment because it got me interested in IM, but a waste of money in reality. After alot of reading, I found out what a cpanel was, and asked the seller to give me the logins, and the rest was history. I spent about a year messing with the cpanel, and about 4 years of making no money, but I felt like I hit the lottery when I learned about IM

The site was called pokersboy.com, it was like getting my first piece of woman pie

I used to own an offline business and needed a website.

I paid $3K for a site, but I didn't know it needed SEO and that I needed to buy SEO.

I started learning SEO, built additional sites for my biz with WordPress and along the way found out about affiliate marketing.

I started ranking my local biz site really well and business was great. I applied what I learned to 3 blogs I created and in time I had also built up an online biz. I decided to sell the offline biz and do the online thing full time.

Like Alex Blades, I too felt like I hit the lotto with IM, first with being able to build up an offline biz and then with affiliate marketing.

Now part of my business is combining affiliate marketing with promoting local businesses. The perks and income of IM are great, but the fact I enjoy what I do each day is the real goldmine.

My best advice.

Don't wait until you are backed into a corner to take the appropriate action.

Many of us don't make changes unless they are forced upon us. That's why you often see some of the worlds most successful people coming from the hardest stories and backgrounds.

It's hard to motivate yourself and make changes and take action when it's optional. But you won't get anywhere unless you do.

I quit my job and that forced me into more action than I had taken the few years before. it was a good thing for me. I'm not saying to go and quit your job but if you are just being passive about this whole IM thing, you won't get anywhere fast.

In spring of 2010, I was working as a freelance video editor in the film industry and opportunities were beginning to run out. I found IM when I was looking up work at home jobs.

I started off with article marketing in the wood shed and weight loss niches and didn't earn a dime, but I learned a lot about copywriting and SEO. I ended up getting an office job to pay the bills and took a few months off IM.

I picked up IM again at the end of 2011 and made my first dollar using adsense and autoblogs in different niches. Sadly, my adsense account was banned for clickbombing and I switched to List Building in the IM niche at the start of 2012.

6 months later, I was already earning more than what I got at my job and the job was considered my "secondary income". I was earning more than enough to quit but didn't have the courage to think up what I would say if I were to actually quit. However, I was always hoping that I would get laid off because I really wanted out.

Luckily, I was laid off due to some bad financial problems in the company and have been living happily for the past 9 months ever since.

I was a hip hop artist.. touring all over. On top of the world. life was good.
Got caught up with some of the wrong people.. got robbed. Was out in the streets.

Started looking for other ways to make money. My dad took me out to a real estate seminar. Someone their pitched a course to me. Told me you could make money online with some brand new thing called affiliate marketing.

I was hooked. My dad loaned me his last money so I could get it. I bought it.
And she want missing. never to be seen again. lol. So I got scammed in IM from day 1.

Knew there had to be a better way. came across forums. Wasted a few months jumping from one technique to the next.

The real breakthrough was when I stopped reading and just started DOING. you don't get paid for ideas, thoughts, and knowledge..

you get paid for action.

So get off your ass and take lots of action and watch the money pile up ;p

I started reading about IM in 2007 or thereabouts, bought some of Dan Kennedy's stuff, some of Yannik Silver's stuff, some Ryan Lee, some Mike Filsame, a boatload of free stuff, yada yada yada. Probably spent about a thousand dollars in all. But when I finally decided that I was going to do it, I was pretty well prepped. So when I put my first site up in December 2009, I started making money in January 2010. And since then it's just been adding sites, tweaking things for better conversions, etc.

I think that the lesson in my case is that even though I started making money right off the bat, there was still a couple of years that I put in learning about IM (not to mention the six months or so that I took to develop my first product). It can happen, and it can happen fast, but for most people there's going to be a learning curve that will take a few months or years.

I bought one of my first IM products 10 years ago and 2 days later the guru called me to ask me about the program etc. I told him I hadn't even looked at yet and I was pretty much left alone. I came to realize that I was being sized up for an upsell though, I didnt even think about it at the time.

P.S. That guru is still in business and everyone knows his name, if i mentioned it

My true story:

I am based in Singapore, where education is the key way to stable job.
Entrepreneurship is virtually zero here as we are pretty taken care of
by our government.

The sad part is I am not so good in my studies, especially my language, English,
as you all can tell from my posts.

End up with a typical job that pays okay but definitely nothing to be proud of.
I took up lots of courses such as forex trading, property investments and internet marketing.

I achieve substantial results for most of them except internet marketing.
Can you believe that I spent the most money on IM but yet I failed miserably?

My character is one that take NO for an answer.
The more I failed, the more I will try.
I took up even more courses (more expensive).
But the results is still not good.

Until I met my mentor in Sept 2012 (after 3 years of failure)
He realigned my expectations about internet marketing.

It is not the amount of works you do but the amount of testing
you make.
Focus on the one that works for you and simply scale it up.

It is actually that simple.
I took 3 months to test out which method serve me well.

Nowadays, I only focus on two tasks: listbuilding and email marketing.
Will probably re-start my blog in the near future.

What I would like to emphasize is:
You need to understand yourself and
What you are doing!!

You don't just follow the latest trend..
You stick to your game plan, both
long-term and short-term.

Hope this help!!


.

I am working in a sales job and I want to look for a 2nd income online. So I was just searching around and I get attracted by all the hype. Haha I simply just bought those high hype products which promises quick money without much effort and I end buying products after another products.

It is only when I start to calculate the amount of money that I have spent then I realized that I have spend thousands of dollars without any returns in. Then I just wonder how does the real marketers make money from the internet?

It is then when I realized that I should treat it like a business then I start to get results.

Focus on ONE system and just take massive action.

That is the only way forward

What mistake i did last time is just spending money on ads without tracking on the conversion rate . Until I knew some of of the total ads i spend to work but i din utilize it and just double up the expenses and hope to get double return .

Until i learn up how to utilize the ads and i start delete those ads which do not have conversion rate and spend the money to utilize the ads, i actually save lot on it and get higher ROI with lower marketing cost.

When I started out I didn't lose a lot money...mainly because
I didn't have any money to lose.

When I first got active I was looking for offline magazines with
online sites that I could sell articles to.


The first significant money I made was writing a report and a
couple of online press releases for an old friend who had a
brick and mortar real estate business.

I'd picked up a lot of free internet marketing tips and one was
that you could submit online press releases free.

I did a few of those and found...at the time...that many of
those online press releases went straight to the top of the
google rankings.

It still took me a long time to realize how much money there
is in helping regular brick and mortar businesses use the internet
and other marketing methods to make more sales and profits.


Probably the most important I had to learn (and am still learning)
is to apply what I know rather than just learning new things.

My own sites still only use a tiny percentage of the strategies etc
that I know work to make sales.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

I've written mine up lots, will do the short version here.

In one form or another, I have been running companies since I mowed yards in the neighborhood at 13 - that was my first taste of the entrepreneurial way (30 years later, I'm still at it).

1999, I formed an IT security company, and we trained people about computer and network security. Loved that gig, brought me lots of wealth and was fun. I made lots of mistakes though, and ended up paying for it dearly - get back to that in a moment.

In 2006, I started my first 100% online company, in a hobby niche (unrelated in any way to IM/MMO/etc), and started selling there. I went to a Dave Dee and Yanik Silver event, and knew this would be a space I would enjoy getting involved with. The freedom angle was a very big motivator to me.

The IT/training industry started slowing around that same time, but I was stubbornly holding onto the existing business model. We were dependent on training centers around the world. In good times, this was great; but now when times were getting tight and those centers started closing the income we were generating started shrinking quickly.

I had financed the company (partly) with a home equity loan on my McMansion, and had employed my wife in the company. She was qualified, it wasn't one of those 'employee wife' deals. But, the risk is now obvious, both our incomes were the same company.

Within a six month period we both had zero income, and had to short sale our dream house. We moved into a small rental home. At that point, the only income I had was from my online company, so I had to focus and crank that up. I have four kids, private school costs, etc...

It worked ok, but we went through some really hard times. In an ironic twist, I'm 100% grateful for those hard times; that knowledge I now use when helping others. We learn the most during the hard times and from our mistakes, and I made plenty.

Working online is great, but it isn't for everyone. There are great rewards, but the challenges are also real.

Well having owned several offline business and having been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug at an early age, I did quite well making low 6 figure incomes for nearly 20 years, mainly in the swimming pool, spa, and waterfall trade. It was a 80/20 thing. Basically, 80% labor, and 20% brains. While I was smarter than the average bear in my trade, I wasn't exactly prepared when the bottom dropped out, and the housing market and construction industry crashed in a hurry.

Being stubborn, I tried to ride it out... and lost everything.

When I started online I had no computer skills whatsoever, I was working a miserable gig as a maintenance man for lousy pay, and had been writing as a hobby for years prior, even when I was sub-contracting the pool gig. I never even thought about making money writing, it was therapeutic and a hobby, that was all.

Several people or at least the few who happened to read some of my utter mutterings, insisted I had a gift. So, I got a free blog and started writing away. I laugh just thinking about it. I had no targeted audience, no structured plan, or online marketing know how to actually make any money, I was just happy to write, and write I did.

Any way, I started taking notice to banner ads, and the links everyone had plastered all over their blogs, and stumbled upon affiliate marketing. What a great concept, get paid to advertise for someone else, using their creatives, their website... oh, I was gonna be rich, lol.

So now, I continued writing, only now... I had links everywhere, and I was building blogs just to put more links out there. Before you know it I was signed up for every affiliate marketing platform I could find... and promoting (or so I thought 1,000's of products) across several crappy blogs.

Naturally, I started getting serious and bought a domain and hosting. With my hosting came a $100 FREE AdWords credit... oh yeah boy, I can write some ads, surely I'll be rich, paid targeted traffic baby... now we're talking.

My first test run with AdWords was to a ClickBank offer... OOPS, big mistake, didn't know what TOS was, let alone read em, BOOM... suspended for life from AdWords. :p

So, I focused on writing reviews for products and started exploring SEO, and ranking sites on Google. I was getting pretty good at it.

Honestly, I made some sales, and those were probably pure luck, even still as I was still a total newbie.

I found this forum roughly 2 years ago, and have expanded my knowledge 1000%, and have taken great pleasure (and an incurable interest) in learning several technical aspects, marketing strategies, sales funnels, squeeze pages, copywriting, SEO, back linking, web design, WordPress... the list is endless, trust me, I could easily go on for at least 20 more minutes just writing all that I have learned.

But, 2 years later, I am armed with knowledge and just now refining a blueprint to create my own products, and finally in the process of laying that foundation for my future business model.

In having a few niche sites up and running, a few more on hold, I have had some success with affiliate marketing since joining this forum. I constantly explore into the business models of successful marketers and companies online alike, and I feel fortunate to recognize a good affiliate set up, a well written sales page, and the importance of list building and the art of email marketing, as it's all coming together nicely, finally.

Basically, I have all the pieces to the puzzle, and be it a strange approach perhaps, but I chose to learn a little about everything first, so I could understand enough to outsource effectively, and focus on doing the stuff I enjoy.

Here's the kicker... the reason I got online was to (hopefully) publish my writings, write books, etc...

Ha, the punishment of IM had me doing everything but writing. I still write, I respond to posts, write an article or two per week for my niche sites, but ultimately, in learning IM, reading, and learning how to set everything up has nearly consumed me, until recently.

I finally feel it's time to unleash my inner 'IM' beast and start writing with a purpose, and 90% of my future business model will rely heavily upon writing content, reports, ebooks, sales copy, copywriting, and cross promoting through effective email campaigns. How ironic... two years later I'm finally getting to do what I love to do, which is write.

Meanwhile, my wife and kids think I'm nuts, they have no real knowledge of what I am planning, they don't understand the language, and though they are supportive, I sense they think I'm full of it when the excitement takes hold, and I start explaining how multidimensional my blueprint is for this as a business.

Little do they know it, but their lack of understanding IM is my greatest motivator, as it leads me to believe there are millions out there who do not see the potential the internet offers. I have mastered several tools offline, and have known no greater challenge than to to truly become a webmaster.

Lastly, this forum has helped me in ways I will remain indebted to for years to come, as I can only hope to give back some of what it has taught me. That said, delivering value, prioritizing the emphasis on integrity and honest business practices remains the long term vision. That, and inspiring and encouraging others to find solutions, reach success, and free themselves from the slavery so many suffer unto (as once did I), that is the true reward.

All I can say to anyone just getting started is do not quit. Each day you apply action to what you've learned is putting you one step closer to reaching success. Even if you are intimidated by all that's involved, I am an 8th grade drop-out who has earned roughly 2.5 million dollars offline in my working lifetime, I lost everything, and am grateful for it.

Had I not suffered great losses, I would not be here, I'd probably be out in the hot Florida sun, killing my body to make a few hundred dollars per day still (miserable)... all the while knowing; I was far more intelligent than that all along.

IM is 80/20 alright... 80% brains, and 20% labor... once you connect the dots, it's an endless opportunity, and I aim to prove it!

If I can do it...anyone can.

All the Best,

Art

After leaving school I went to work for a finance company, which was absolutely dire. The conditions were terrible, it was a very stressful job and I ended up spiraling into chronic, major depression and had to quit. That experience really darkened my view of working for a boss ever again and I was determined that somehow, some day, I was going to be successful working for myself. I then worked as a window cleaner but was still suffering from depression and wasn't able to handle it.

Once back on my feet I trained as a sound engineer in a recording studio in Manchester and then switched my focus to the IT industry, gaining a qualification in PC Installation and Support and then started work as a computer engineer. It was around this time that I started to have some health issues and wasn't able to continue in work. Again, but for different reasons, I started thinking again about working for myself. Getting online I soon discovered the 'make money online' niche and thought that this was the answer I was searching for. Having spent money and years on various systems, schemes and courses, I was no further along, nothing I'd bought into really teaching me anything of real value. Every so often I'd try something else but it was always the same story.

In 2011 I discovered the Warrior Forum and was able to discover like-minded people in similar situations, but also people who actually provided helpful information. I bought a couple of WSOs that for the first time opened my eyes to the real possibilities of making money online but then it all had to take a backseat as my mother became seriously ill and for the next few months I had to care for her until she passed away in May 2012.

Once I'd sorted out things that needed dealing with and life started to more or less return to normal, I returned my attention to making money on the Internet. I then came across a fellow Brit who'd I'd not heard of before by the name of Lee McIntyre. Although I didn't buy anything from him at the time, I was intrigued by his approach and ethos, but kept waiting for the 'punchline' I'd become so used to over the years of being let down by so many supposed 'experts' online. No punchline came. Was it actually possible that there existed an honest, decent Internet Marketer? I turned out that yes, there did. I then came across Alex Jeffreys and, in turn, Dean Holland and it's primarily due to both these guys that I have actually got started properly in IM, have an understanding of how things work, have a clear plan and set of goals, have gained real traction in moving forward and, for the first time, have made money. So while I'm not yet a full-time Internet Marketer and am still very much a newbie, I know where I'm headed and have more of an idea as to how I'll get there :-)

Nice thread,
my story is a little bit different; I'm not an "older" peron in IM but I have found quickly a plan that made me money and still,
I didn't loose much money in investing to reach it but time was the only investement I made
now I will scale up everything, maybe outsourcec most of my work and maybe I will start some new methods, but right now I will stick to MY method and let's hope It will not be saturated
yucef

Sadly my story is not that grand yet, seeing as i have pretty much just started it.
I am still studying, will most likely major in computer software or something similar. I do enjoy maths and physics!

I managed to build a quite successful neobux account that generated $50 per month in pure profit. Insane, right?
I am currently just hanging in there to squeeze the most out of that website before my account is dead, seeing as i can't be bothered to log in and click advertisements every day.
I am interested in, and exploring niche sites right now. I have earned around $1.5 from an ad i placed at the side so yea, not that successful yet.
The hard part for me is to choose a niche really, i can't seem to find out which ones to throw myself into.

Threads like these are great motivators Too bad there's not too many internet marketers in Sweden, i'd love to go to a monthly meeting like the Manchester guys!

I started by reading the Tim Ferris gem, The Four Hour Workweek. I never even thought to start my own business before that book.

In 2008 I launched an information product that didn't sell very well (I had no idea what I was doing). Although amazingly, it did sell a hundred copies or so.

Then I came here when niche/MFA sites were all the rage. I launched 150+ tiny one pagers right before Panda. Some of them made it through, but they eventually died off from lack of attention.

I supported myself freelance writing for a while. I was actually ranked #7 in the "Writing and Translation" category on Elance for a few months...even ranking higher than huge content firms.

Eventually I switched to writing almost full-time for Demand Media (Livestrong.com) they paid $25/article. And because they had almost no standards, I was banging out 10+ per day.

But the 2nd wave of Panda refreshes killed them and they laid almost everybody off literally overnight.

That was when I decided to get serious about SEO. I knew my stuff but never really tried to make a true authority site. Fortunately, that site is doing great (5-figures/month).

I've also done some offline SEO for clients. And recently I launched Backlinko, my link building site.

Like you said in the OP, it's been a bumpy ride...but I'm proud that I "made it"