here's the reason why 96.7% of internet marketers fail and only a few succeed

Yep, very well said. There's no point starting something if you don't enjoy it and don't see yourself still working on it for years to come.

People are always looking for that magic button, just click on it and money are coming non stop.

That's why when one thing don't start make money after a short time they start jumping from
one magic button to the next one,to the next one and so on.

Is it really only 96.7% Fail, Or did you just pull that number out of the air? I would have thought the percentage was much higher, like 99.999%.

oooo - I'm tempted to say that 96.7% fail because they simply make things up, pretend they know what they don't or just pull random numbers out of thin air. 3.3% succeed because they run a proper business and can produce evidence to support their claims.

FB ads are definitely dead - see this thread http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ng-income.html

Funny to realize that this is the first time I've seen this particular issue posted. The saying "do what you love" has always been around, but with "the next best thing" constantly hitting your inbox or being advertised it's easy to fall into the habit of not following through. Thanks for the post

This is true, you have to love whatever your doing. I guess it's related to a talent somehow.

This is true.

It all comes back to having the correct "mindset." People come into this business thinking just because it is the internet, they will make a lot of money, and make it fast.

The fact is it takes investing both time and money learning new skills, testing strategies, and paying for education and traffic to help grow your business.

So, when you treat internet marketing seriously, and find a topic you love -- you become successful and not another opportunity seeker.

But some people enjoy running around in circles, I think.

I am very new to internet marketing and have 2 sites up and running. Everybody seems to have the answer if you have a lot of $. Any and all information is appreciated

Well said, it puts it all in a nutshell really.

Love What You Do Man

Its funny i am seeing this topic for i recently wrote about this topic on my blog.But the main reason why the percentage that fail is so high is because of the initial mindset people have that Internet marketing is easy and that you can just make money by the push of a button.

i've been successfully making a living fulltime online since '99. the key is to become an actual genuine expert at something you're actually good at, then communicate and teach that to a broad audience of people who you earn the trust of. no shortcuts, genuine enthusiasm and knowledge and capability wins the day.

One thing to say: It simply doesn't work till you learn how to stick with it, and more specifically, how to stick with one step at a time.

I had to learn this the hard way and lost a lot of money and time.

Glad I'm not there anymore, but it's always pretty sad to see how this can happen to so many.

Thanks or sharing this sometime i feel pessimistic with method what i use that not make a lot of $$$ just likw what i want, maybe it's a process to mastered the method.. after mastered and perfecting the method i hope i will earn more $$$

For how I see it, most guru tell them do everything themselves. So newbie followed, but not all newbie alike. If you have some cash outsource it. For me, my salary a few thousand a month , so after expense still have some cash to outsource.

OK, Let me get this straight; according to the stats quoted here, between 97 and 99% of people that try IM are failing in Internet marketing. Statistically, that means that at least half of the people on this forum are giving advice that are failures. I would venture a guess that at least a quarter on this page are failures, unless there was some weird freak accident wherein the less than 1% successful happened to show up here. ( I would say these are very conservative figures, but I'm not a statistician.)

As far as doing what you love in business, I would say that you may love your subject, but you will always find some aspect of doing business that you won't like. You may love collecting comic books, but will you love writing about them or marketing them? I had an online embroidery business years ago. My niche was music instrument themed, high quality embroidery. There were certain aspects of the business that I loved and others were a real drag. I loved digitizing and creating the designed, but I hated sewing out the designs, because I had a one head machine and it frequently jammed. I wound up learning to build e commerce sites myself as well as setting up shops on eBay and a few other auction and sales sites. I did all of the marketing myself. The reason why I wound up doing much of this myself was because every time I tried to hire someone else to do them, IT WAS DONE WRONG. Yeah, it is very easy to tell someone to hire out the work, but a whole different thing to get someone that will do it right, make changes, etc. for you when you need them.

I personally think that if you have a lot of money and time to find the right people to do the work for you, than OK you can afford to do that. But, if you are just starting out, it is not easy. If you have never learned anything about HTML how in the heck are you going to tell a Web designer what you want? I also tried farming out the work of writing for my blog and other aspects only to find out eventually that finding people that I could afford at the time were marginal at best.

So, in my experience, unless you have a good amount of money to pay well versed, outstanding, writers, web designers, etc., you will need to do some of this stuff yourself.

God Bless!
ELMO

I love playing baseball, but I will never play in the major leagues... Just saying.

Takes a lot more than love of a subject to attain success.

As a new entrepreneur, I really experience this. I got stuck whenever I try to sell products just because I want to collect more money, but when I am passionate in making a product, I never find any major obstacle. The idea just flows like water.

You are most correct! Stick to one methodology and have some passion behind it and you will have a higher chance of success! This goes for just about everything in life. I know I have chased too many shiny objects in the past as well... and now I just enjoy my topic and have no problems staying the course as it is very enjoyable when not chasing the money or changing how I tackle my internet marketing business.

Wow. Thanks for the awesome comments on this thread!! Too many to answer them all.

Some funny, some cynical, and some serious - the usual spread of people!

Let's get more specific.

Everybody knows that you need some kind of a sales funnel to make money right? I'm sure there are loads of different ways to set up a funnel, but let's say it's a small content site with an email optin and then marketing affiliate products to your list.

Everybody can follow through an online course, or figure it out themsleves, and get to this point.

Most people fail at the next step because they can't generate the traffic to their funnel. And this is where you need to stick to the one method. If it's SEO, you need to commit to a few months following a particular strategy and not expect results too soon.

Too often the honeymoon period runs out too quick and we get scared that we are wasting our time on this method and everybody else has found some other amazing way of building their traffic.

It all comes down to one thing. Don't blame 'the guru' if you don't make money following their course. Blame yourself. Take responsibility.

The reason behind these huge number of failure is the "confusion". There are so many ways to make money online and newbies become confused with which one they will start. Most of them starts with too many and they fail miserably.

This, right here.

There's evidence of this all over this forum.

Yep, I only started making money once I started focussing on what I really like - and that's websites and technology... after that, the money soon followed - actually a bit too fast for me to keep up with at times! And surprise surprise, none of what I've picked up on the Warrior forum has gone to waste - still doing CTAs, still doing landing pages, but looking at client's sites with my IM hat on has definitely been a plus.

Great advice! I do think that most people in this industry are confused, they take on too much at the beginning and it all gets to much and becomes overwhelming.

I don't think all the so called 'gurus' help either, there are so many people claiming that you can build a list of thousands or earn $$$$ overnight when it's just not true.

The only difference between somebody who has succeeded and somebody who hasn't is the steps they have taken that others have failed to.
No Magic button and no luck involved. The person who succeeds just applied their knowledge rather than just keep acquiring more knowledge for the sake of learning.

I read a great thread on here about the 74 steps and one of them was that if you have 2-3 make money online products stored on your hard drive you could probably make 6 figures by next year if you actioned them

Have a great day,

Colin

I know my comments seemed a little harsh, and that was not my intention. If you can make a living and you absolutely love what you are doing, then go for it. My personal experience has taught me that the business world usually isn't that way.

Just sayin'.

ELMO

Thanks for the post, very good. Most of us jump to the next shiny thing over and over at first but that is only a dead end and very costly.

Best advice is do something you enjoy and stick with it...simple

Great information there...
I totally agree with ,most of the IM guys goes for it because they want to make some cash from it not because they enjoy doing it.
That is basically why they fail
Thanks for the information!

Yeah I think that most people who complain that they haven't earned anything have the same problem: instead of choosing one thing to do (and to do well), they try different methods at the same time without dedicating too much time to them. If they have no results in a couple of months, they just give up! What you need is consistency

I'm rather new in IM, but let me tell you, I’ve allways thought it’s all a scam before I was confirmed by my real life friend that it really works.
Want to know why I thought it's all a scam? Because, the most of so called “offers”, 97% of landing pages were always repulsive to me, instantly. Who wants to learn about bouncing rate? I am bouncing like crazy from every landing, squeeze page whatsoever, with testimonials and screen shots, and action button that scrolls down long like Homer’s Odisay. Like I'm bouncing lately from any video landing page. Video landing pages? C'mon! Who wants to listen to the guy in the living room's endless deadly boring fluff about been "just like you". "the guy who went from rugs to riches" Well, little fellow, If you were just like me and rich like you, I would have hired a camera student at least. And shorten your monologue a lot! Also I would deffinitely cut a number of poping up “wait, I’m desparate” pages.
Let's go further. Any newbie that has no clue whatsoever, is given an instruction to install a wordpress on hostgator or go daddy. Why on earth would a newbie do that!!??This alone immediately throws at a newbie a tons of frustration, not to mention a cost, which is not big, though, but ads up with every other cost that newbie will have if proceeds this murky route. When poor fellow is done with tricks and gimmicks on his server, he feels like climbed Mount Everest, and his task ceartnyl didn’t last any less.
While he’s still savouring his tremendeous success, he’s going to be told to get traffic. To get traffic to what?? And how’s he supposed to do that? Naah it’s easy. The “only” thing you have to do is set up your video channel, your facebook account, twitter, stumbleupon, yahoo, pintarest, do your guest blogging, rss feeds, write couple of thousands of articless, press releasess and make your list. As easy as that!!
Did you switch on your sarcasm detector yet??

The truth is – all the methods involved are irrelevant. You don’t mix method’s and tools in physical world. Worpress or Joomla, simple html or just blog without owning a domain, does it really matter? Those are just tools, and nothing else. If you would be opening a real life business, would you be doing all of this things alone??? No!! You wouldn’t. Hairdressers do not make combs and hairdryers themselves. They buy the tools. They concentrate on hair, and offering a good service to their customers., They also call proffessionals to fix and design their physicall places. The same goes with any other business or service. Why would web business be any different?

Most of the people failing in IM are failing because of a lack of action and a lack of understanding...

That's no different than any other endeavor.

Whether it's competitive frisbee or Internet Marketing.

[full time IMer since 2005]

Good point. Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. Instead of going with the flow, why not make your own trend.

By the way, isn't 3.3% a little bit to low.

And how do you measure success?
If you associate success with monetary value, then most likely you'll become part of the 97.6% who will fail.

Who made that 97.6% up? I think it would be extremely hard to tell how many IMers are successful vs. how many fail.

Despite what you say, billions are sold every year worth of products from people who don't love what they do and don't care about the products.

So it's still more complicated than the usual "do what you love".

Can it help? Yes. Is it the "magic button to wealth"? No.

The reason is that the most profitable markets seldom are related to what normal people like.

But for the beginners: yeah, stick to what you love.

Bran, I am a newbie and would like to thank you a zillion times for sharing this article...'Jack of All trades Master of None!' is the route cause of all our problems...I am grateful to have landed on this post as I now need to focus on just one thing

Great article. Thanks for the honest report. Focus is the key. Focus on one aspect of gaining traffic, and then, only then, move on to something else. Look for the little successes and build off of them.

that's right this is all i did

i worked on a couple of fast cash methods until i saw some money and results

i then got a bit more into adsense and just done adsense for 2 years and had lots of $100 days but i didn't hit those $100 days until i knew what worked and what didn't

paul

Good advice. Beginners should stick with one method until they succeed with it. Moving from one method to the next won't get you anywhere.

This applies to niches too... work in a niche you really love and you'll do way better. I feel like 80% of people who get great CRs from their web copy (without studying copywriting or hiring a pro) do it because their enthusiasm is so infectious.

Got to agree, when you enjoy something you want to learn and spend more time doing it.

Interesting post with which I totally agree ... Most people fail because they think that as it is the internet there is somewhere and some how a magic sauce - which does not exist - but what could be taken to be the magic sauce or ingredient is hard work, effort and focusing on one project at a time - no chasing of those shiny objects!

i've invested 12-16 hour days in my online business for over a decade and it feels like fun... yeah I'm a workaholic, but I absolutely have a passion and love for what I do and how I do it, and would never trade it for anything else... so I've got that extra energy, authenticity that my competitors don't, because a lot of them are just stupid marketer wannabes trying to make money in my niche. customers can smell the difference. that works for me. be authentic, do what you really love doing, and that's the foundation for success. good luck all

I think doing something you enjoy is good advice, but it's not actually applicable to me.

I enjoy blogging about making money online, but i don't make a full time income with it.

I make most (over 50%) of my full time income from online bingo affiliating. I have no interest in it whatsoever and my target market are women aged 40. I am a 25 year old male.

So to say its a topic that is interesting to me is an understatement. You need to be motivated. Personally making money actually motivates me. I want to be financially free and i am willing to work for it. I will spend my time doing what is most profitable.

Maybe i am a rare breed who can work diligently doing stuff i don't enjoy, maybe i just have more willpower than most :-/

I love this! It's something I believe in my heart and then unbelieve (I don't think that's a word but I like how it sounds!) when I feel that my money-making efforts are moving too slowly.

I started a new blog this week and I am always excited to work on it. I've also made some huge strides with it in a short period of time. So I see this principal in action. :-) Thanks for the reminder!

So true and that is why i plan to stick with internet marketing regardless how challenging it might be.

Totally agree with you Brannigans.
I would add a lack of dosis of patience, perseverance and consistency to reach your goals. Just work the extra mile.
Because like you stated : "Everything works. Nothing is dead. It doesn't matter what system you are following all though the more simple the better. Stick to your traffic strategy until you have MASTERED one of them. And then you can move on to something else. "
Inspiring----!
Thanks.

It is actually 96.6 now as google changed another algorithm.
Yes, agree with person before me just do not create problem (like those virus removers) then offer to solve!
You have to keep a sense of humor or go crazy. I think I am the latter!

I really believe this is right. This is the biggest reason. You have to like it enough to stick with it. Though, I do think that it's possible to still find something you enjoy that intersects with a much hotter market than you would have been in if you just went with something you love the most.

When you love what you do, you're going to stick with it, and sticking with it is the only way to see it through. So first you have to enjoy it because otherwise, it falls apart completely after a while.

Does it really matter who succeeds or fails online?
It would be better to show them how we all make $1000+ a day online.

I just have to wonder where the 96.7 number comes from?

I am not saying the thesis isn't wrong, but who in hell was able to calculate that number.

I think the advice is awesome. However, sometimes passion needs to lend way to objectivity and market validation.

Do what you love, prove it works, and the rest will come.

I totally agree that you have to enjoy what you are doing. If you hate what you do, it will definitely be easy to fall for the next shiny object that goes on sale.

Once know what you want to do, then you have to begin taking action. Taking action is one of the reasons that many people fail online as well.

Working online is a lot harder than most people think. It's not impossible, but it is going to take some work.

I never said you should only work in a niche that you are passionate about. You have to work where there is money to be made or you are wasting your time.

Pick the skill you love the most and concentrate on using it to MAKE MONEY not to tell every one about your favorite hobby.

great advice, everyone should read this before they start trying their luck at IM.

There have been times when I've found myself flitting from thing to thing instead of buckling down and sticking to just one method. It's a bad habit to get into, and leads to wasted time, frustration, and lack of success. With so many promises of big riches and easy success on this forum and elsewhere, it's easy to get distracted and lose focus on the things we need to do to really make it in this business.

It's true. Too many times we "run around" doing all the WRONG things (meaning the actions that won't actually bring us any income) - Like you said, focus on ONE THING and make sure that one thing is an income producing activity, not just something to make us think we're doing something.

Spreading yourself too thin and trying to do everything is definitely a huge mistake. Can cause too much stress to handle too... great advice, simple, but MUST FOLLOW for sure. Cheers

That's really awesome advice.

This is a myth constantly perpetuated and people believe that previous ways people made money on the internet no longer work. "Everything is dead." That you need something new and completely innovative from everyone else.

You hear this LOTS of times; "ebooks are dead", "internet marketing is dead", "social media is dead", "youtube is dead" ...and now the last one.."facebook ads are dead". Really?

The reality?

Some "systems" still work today. You just need to get to work.

Most people simply dont do the initial HARD WORK to get results!

Damn, If you actually LEARN a method for making money and follow through, you will make money!

Be self motivated. You have to have that burning desire to succeed inside you.

Turn off your fb, gmail, phone and get to work! Stop running in circles!

Every method for earning an online income takes time unless you have the money to hire others to do it for you. Some methods take more money to get started than others do. Some take more studying to nail down the method than others do.

Be prepared to fail multiple times before succeeding. Successful people failed after putting in countless hours but came back for more and more, time and time again.

Good advice. One should enjoy their work to have more success at it. There is a HUGE learning curve for IM and it takes a long time to get a good understanding of it all.

In my case, I am naturally curious and love to learn new things... so IM is never boring for me, especially when I learn something new and see the results from it (like more money in my Clickbank or Amazon affiliate earnings).

That is so true.

I feel like you are preaching to quire.

It's sad. And it is the reason most of us failed in the beginning.

If you focus on one thing, strive to accomplish it, you will end up making a TON of money.

The reason why most people fail is because they follow the wrong advice. Get the right advice , work on it and you will succeed, provided it is what you like to do.

Doing what you like does not guarantee success at all - imagine watching TV all day long and hoping to make a killing, LOL

You need to do what is likely to have a market value and make sure you like doing this thing.

If you can't do what you like, then like what you do

I think it's really hard not to get distracted with all those different guides, methods and blogs that are cluttered all over the Internet. I struggle myself from time to time because right now I have about ten different projects live and own twenty+ domains. I know to some of you this won't sound much, but for me it is. And I just recognized I should focus on only one or two, make them successful and then move on. Otherwise I will never get to those income Levels I would like to.

I find it interesting that there's a tendency to believe simply because someone successful says something is important to success that it must be right as opposed to rigorously challenging it to see if it's true or not. All too often those who succeed don't really know why they succeeded, they come up with an idea that makes sense to them that they've never tested and validated and start sharing it as though it's gospel. I know a ton of people who have done what they loved and failed, quit jobs to do it and had to go back to work after accumulating debt failing at it. Does this mean you shouldn't do something you enjoy? No, certainly not, it simply means that this isn't the whole equation, it might not even be part of the equation. Skipping through the arguments on either side here's an indisputable fact:

"If you aren't succeeding it's because you're not doing what works or haven't done it consistently or persistently enough" This is pretty self-evident because if what you were doing did work you'd by definition be successful at it. But what works isn't straight forward or simple, it's complex and multi-dimensional, some people happen upon it quickly, others struggle for years and never make it. At some people people fail because they give up...or is it that they give up because they failed? It is equally true that if people had continued on they might have succeeded but also that if they'd succeeded they might have carried on.

If you want to have predictable success the best way to do it is to understand what works in the field you're pursuing, once you've got this basic in place yes it helps for that something to be something you enjoy...though generally we tend to come to enjoy what we're good at so I'd start with mastery and commitment to the long term then worry about the rest as you go.

Thanks for this very informational post. I think every Internet marketer should first work out on a way of sticking to a single task before anything else. Learning every trick about everything (if it were remotely possible) will not count for much without the discipline to see one thing through to the very end.

I hate forums for the fundamentally flawed advice everyone pushes around as fact. This "advice" is 100% wrong.

"Do what you love
work harder
**** doesn't work.."

take all advice as really meaning "I think.."

Those are some WISE words right there. Thanks a bunch for sharing!

I think the main reason why internet marketers failing is because of marketing. SEO is too complicated and hard, other free marketing methods are ineffective and paid advertising is too expensive.

I hate to be contrarian here, but...

Since when does "succeeding" online make you an expert on the subject of "why do so many others fail"? While success certainly qualifies you to talk about the topic of why other fail, personally, I would give far more credence to someone who is having success teaching successful business strategies to large numbers of students who go on to either fail or (in most cases) succeed. Does that make sense?

Also, just b/c your interview candidate happens to enjoy his line of work immensely does not necessarily mean that the 3% of the other successful students (if we are to believe that number) also love the core product or subject of their business.

It may seem like a silly argument until you read the rest of what I have to say.

I could give you a list of dozens or even hundreds of names of people who have set up systems selling quite boring, random everyday items online...and they are making a KILLING. They don't love their "product", but they do please their customers, and they do have systems in place to make a great profit.

While I also do know many who are enjoying success playing in a niche they love, I certainly wouldn't want to allow this thread to do the disservice of limiting a newbie's view of success by allowing them the conclusion that they can ONLY "do what I love" as a formula for success. That's the same thing to me as telling a kid with a guitar and a love of music to "move to nashville - you'll do great".

Sure, some will make it big, but there's something to be said for doing "boring but profitable" stuff with pure excellence and commitment, hiring others to run the system, and using your free time and profits to do what you love (i.e. earn some cash and then strap your guitar to your back and move to nashville).

The vast majority of my successful students put a fair amount of work into perfecting a boring niche and turning that boring system into a profitable, automated system. Profits are a great motivator that make selling ANYTHING fun.

I hope I don't sound like I'm making a big deal over a minor point, but anytime I see the opportunities that we all have online being represented as something smaller than they really are I get a bit defensive...it comes from my love of entrepreneurs.

Great advice. One of my biggest mistakes early on was trying to do too much of everything. Once I narrowed my focus everything changed.

Where are you people getting all your numbers from? 96.7% fail, 99.999% fail ect.?

Always practice the 80/20 rule

Everything works?

Nothing is dead?

The more simple the better?

Stick with one traffic strategy until mastered?


Amazing how posts that contain this level of drivel get so many "thanks"

says a lot about most of the people here.... "clueless"!

still bet it makes them prime suckers to sell to???

s"

Very good advice, I know personally for a long time I was stuck in the trap of looking for the 'next big thing' and kept researching rather than actually seeing something through to the end. The one thing that I DID see through, actually ended up making some money (surprise surprise )

Problem with most of us is lack of "Focus". Jumping from one thing to another cannot make you successful. Having conviction with one thing and consistently working on that would make you successful.

It is true, the real thing that moves you is passion. If there is no passion in whatever is what you do there is no chance for success.

I think that the % may be a little higher than you quoted.

A major contributor to this is the fact that people just give up too early, instead of working to the end of their chosen project they get side tracked with a new magic button appearing in their inbox.

When you believe more on theory and forget the practical aspects of everything, it happens that you end up in failure.

Unrealistic expectations are another big reason people fail. Here is a real example that had me laughing for a long time:

I was on a freelance writing forum, and a woman was complaining that her best article had gotten ONLY 11,000 visitors, which is actually darn good for one article or Web page. Anyway, why was she actually failing? She had been on that site for over 2 years and had written 15 articles. Yes, 15 articles in 2 years. She apparently thought it was normal to get thousands and thousands of page views every time she writes one simple article.

People work 40 hours a week to earn a living when they have a job. It is not realistic to think you are going to start a business, work about 100 hours, and then you are suddenly rich or have a full-time income while drinking lemonade at the beach. It's still work, people. A lot of work.

Of course, having a passion for what you do is always helpful. I think that ultimately you have to hunker down and realize that regardless of the niche or the methodology, you're not going to love 100% of the entire process or system. Both Wayne Dyer and Stephen Covey talk about one of the keys to success as "Begin With The End In Mind".

The appeal of Internet Marketing is the early leverage component. There is no other business you can start out there where you can leverage so much with so little upfront cost. Therefore, focus on the rewards and the appeal of being able to build a business. Work at a system/method fully and not worry or focus on the tasks or not seeing any reward. Other people are succeeding so get pumped by their successes and know that you will eventually have the same success. You just need to give it your all and love what you're working TOWARDS and not working ON.

I think the primary reason is because nobody ever gives these people a solid idea as to how long they are going to need to wait before they make money online and the steps they should focus on weekly to get moving forward.

Making money online is incredibly simple, just invest. But it is when you tell them that they wont see a dollar until your 3rd month that makes the difference. Its this wait, that gets them to slow down and realize that they are not going to get rich for a while, so keep your job - that is when you stop running and start walking.

If people actually read to the end of sales pages the facts about how long it takes are normally all there but I think a lot of people when they first start out (I'll put my hand up here) can get so sucked into the hype in the first half of the sales letter that they are completely sold by the time they even read the finer print that it might actually take 3 months to make any decent money with that particular program.

Passion makes money. Period.

Do you think Bill Gates would have built his empire if he didn't have a passion for computers? No, No he wouldn't have.

I think people often over estimate how hard things are when it comes to the internet content department. If you're passionate about your niche then you'll want to write about it anyway and eveything will flow naturally.

Timing is a factor and so is skills.

The guy who made millions with plentyoffish.com was a coder or programmer who was just trying something out (I think it was a project) in asp and, because of his timing happened to make a lot of money. If he was born 7 years later and started his site then he wouldn't make 5% of what he did then and probably a lot less.

There are a lot of things I LOVE but know they won't make money so love is not enough.

Also, most people on this forum won't tell you what you really need to know to make it. I am grateful for the help and advice given and if you read long enough (years) you'll get lots of nuggets and a 'feel' for how to make money and what to do. Stay away from most WSOs. Their titles alone should be enough to have you steer clear.

It's not easy. You have to really really want it and even then there's no guarantee.

...

It's really hard to take anyone seriously when they make up (clearly false) facts for sensational headlines.

Has there ever been a peer-reviewed scientific study that proves that 96.7% of internet marketers fail? No. You're making those numbers up - obviously. How about YOUR real world experience? What stats have you collected personally and how many "internet Marketers" were interviewed?

Regarding this study you're quoting;

1) Can you please detail exactly what definition was used as "success"? Was it people who made any money at all (because that would clearly be a success) or was it measuring only how many people become millionaires? Or was there another measure of success that was used?

2) Over what period was the study conducted?

3) How many people participated in this study?

4) Did it include people from a variety of countries or just the US?

5) Who conducted this study?

6) Over what period was the study conducted?

7) Can you please link to the official results?

8) Did it rate people with pre-existing skills or only unskilled people?

8) Did you just make up this number yourself without any proof of it's accuracy or relevance just for sensation?

I get SO ****ing sick of people repeating these bullshit numbers that do so much harm to people by lowering the tone and dashing the hopes of thousands of people who are looking for a way to make money online. Next time you want to start sprouting off false unsubstantiated numbers to prove a non-existant unprovable point - don't. It's not helping anyone and perpetuates false-elitism.

I've said this many times but I talk to and interview Warriors every day (and have been doing so for years) - I speak to real warriors and from what I see, the exact opposite is true. EVERYONE who really wants to and puts in an effort WILL make money and THAT is a real and only possible measure of success. People come here to learn how to make money - they make money = 100% success. They wanted to make money and they did.

People who start and support these false threads should take a long hard look at themselves and be more careful what they buy into and spread and think about the consequences of doing so. If you wanted to discuss reasons how people could do better that's a good reason for a thread but to use a false statistic to bring attention to another negative thread is really not helping anyone.

Bill

Wow, amazing. Ken, I'm really surprised at that comment. So now it's ok to call us idiots because we want to learn new things? I expected more from someone of your immense standing in this community.

Bill

I've been a Warrior member since 2006 but I have not posted because I wanted to learn this stuff in my own way. I was worried of getting swamped in too much misinformation and not make any headway due to picking up unproductive belief systems and adopting philosophies from people who really don't know what they are talking about.

I'm back because I have finally put my ideas together in a unique way and I can't be swayed too much at this point and I'd like to help if I can.

For any of those whose only criteria for people to listen to is that they made money, this could be a bad move because people can make money and not know exactly how to tell anyone else how to do it. (People try to sell products that promise you don't need to know much and that almost anyone can do it - the reason? Because they sell better! - not because they work better!)

If someone focuses on being an educator to help people finally, once and for all, figure out this mess, get on the right track and get control of their life, income, future and prosperity would you want to hear what they say? This someone may have tried to narrow down all the sidetracked assumptions, misconceptions, false beliefs and more that are perpetuated to help IM people to continually sell to each other! Pretty much keeping the majority in a haze of confusion.. am I off track on this?

Advertising channels as a business? Selling low level tactics as a business? Yes they will be adopted by some but like me, in years past, I did not have a real feel for what the heck a business actually was... I just had some vague idea of what it seemed to be.

For me, the the most damaging aspect is a kind of addiction to the idea that easy money can be had.. I later wrote it off as a kind of sickness which completely blocks my thinking.

Saying to do something you love kind of heads in the right direction.. for me it's a closer step to the truth than most concepts. For me, the main problem with "IM" is the sidestepping of value exchange. Does the customer know if they are fully satisfied? Maybe, but if they are operating with a partial picture of what business is, they may be satisfied with a few extra dollars and call it a win.

I believe most people are smarter than they give themselves credit for, and the endless research and not taking action is a natural reaction to the problem of a huge gap of missing information. Why do I want to force sell questionable stuff that I wouldn't want someone to force sell to me? Something's missing in the equation?

For all those completely happy in what you are doing, congratulations and I'm sure everyone here could learn some things from you. But like I said before, you may not be able to nail down the idea of what the key part of that success is. But is it really 'success' in the big picture of your life? Or is it a kind of job which you can't really leave easily and you are too dependent on a fixed number Internet companies which could change their rules and block you out on any day of the week.

So doing what you love leads to being in flow and not having negativity about what you are doing and being able to speak freely in any circle of people proudly what you do for a living, make connections, seek out colleagues doing the same thing, and learning to exchange real value in people's lives.

The dream of an automated system that pumps out money from some anonymous 'customers' who you never really check to see if they are bettering their lives, is there something missing from that equation? If everyone did the same thing, is it one big IM Circle J.?

I'm really tired of seeing people dump their money in an idea that could very well be fundamentally flawed.. a few succeed while most fail.. Why can't a clear answer be made on what someone needs to do to get control of their income and their lives?

Well, it can be.. but the bad belief systems, unrealistic expectations, insistence that technology is the focal point to a solution (more exciting) among many other things makes it too hard to open the conversation to exactly HOW you can both take advantage of what's going on on the Internet AND make a good income in solid business which is hedged properly to succeed despite any changes in the industry or any one tech company or even a long power outage!

In all the time I've was seriously trying to learn how to make money in "Internet Marketing" almost every single task I read about seem way too low level for me to be doing and the thought of doing it indefinitely just to pay the bills seemed like a nightmare, especially if I did not have enough insight to grow into a better way of doing business. If I was too busy doing silly tasks, I might actually not have enough time to find the solution.. so I never went there. There had to be a better answer. Why are people so willing to do low level tasks just because they won't have a boss telling them to do it. If they had a boss to tell them to do those tasks repeatedly for years, you wouldn't resent it? But it's ok to do them because you are "making money"!! Yes, money is really important to pay the bills, help your family and stay off the street, but don't you want something with a little more leverage and solid foundation to secure and build something reliable and worth something over time?

I have a bit of a moral hesitation to try to sell something that I can't vouch for in everyday public, my ex work colleagues, my family etc.. Why do people have to join an underground society and sell pretty much anonymously to make money on the Internet?

I know some don't and are doing well... but perhaps they way the do it is less exciting because it doesn't seem like a clearly defined step by step system that anyone can do?

Actually, anyone can make money, but the "loving what you do" probably means more that you "care what you do" and you care who you are doing business with, who is benefiting, how you can improve, how you'll be growing yourself as a person over the upcoming years, how many MORE people you can help once you've grown more, learning how to have a good life AND have prosperity without being a slave to your business. etc.. It's all possible.. but it starts with a good mindset and then with good information and then with persistence, vision, desire to create value in everyone's life who has anything to do with you. etc..

I hope this helps someone, if you don't like this post.. just scroll.. fast!