Is IM success more from Skill, or Luck?

13 years ago

I would replace luck with being at the right place at the right time.

For instance if you were doing something that worked for years and all of a sudden it longer worked, hopefully, you would have by then made money. On the other hand if someone was doing exactly the same as the other person but started years later, he or she may not have benefited as much.

Take article marketing through the likes of Ezine Articles, something which is not effective as before. If someone had been doing that for the last 5 years, they could have made more of it then someone who has been doing it for the last few months.

But persistance over-rides everything else. If someone does not give up and believes in themselves, there is a good chance of success.

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Jeremy Barker

13 years ago

I believe that there is a certain element of being at the right place at the right time. And adding to that there is a sense of research involved and daily duty. You must brand yourself first. I believe that without getting yourself out there on as many fronts as possible you will not be as successful. If you don't do this will it barr you from being successful? Definetely not but it helps the process.

Persistence and dedication are a must and no amount of luck can make that happen.

To answer your question and go with your post: I don't know what the percentage would be?

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RustyF

13 years ago

Without some skill, the luck is very unlikely to ever come.

It is skill though and not magic. In the long run, skill is far more likely to pay off. Luck? It is like the lotto, it can happen but not likely. If it does it can pay off big time. I play chess because I have only bad luck.

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goharnett

13 years ago

Originally Posted by RustyF

Without some skill, the luck is very unlikely to ever come.

It is skill though and not magic. In the long run, skill is far more likely to pay off. Luck? It is like the lotto, it can happen but not likely. If it does it can pay off big time. I play chess because I have only bad luck.

hmmm... right oh! i like this... "skill is more likely to pay off"

skill comes first... just when does the luck come?

you and i can play chess, we'd be even.

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Casper C

13 years ago

We all need a bit of luck I think, but the harder you work the luckier you get.

However, I don't think people should be discouraged from getting into Internet marketing when they hear that they're going to need luck. Work hard and learn from your errors, and you will get there.

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Rukshan

13 years ago

Luck is the main factor. Anyone can improve skills after spending much time on methods. But we need luck to find the correct path

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Devid Farah

13 years ago

Originally Posted by blog8491

Luck is the main factor. Anyone can improve skills after spending much time on methods. But we need luck to find the correct path

Luck as the main factor?

I'm sorry but i have to disagree with that.

I have always been a STRONG believer that nothing in life happens "for luck",but on the contrary, i like to believe that am i to build my future,fate doesn't exist.

YOU with your courage,passion,perseverance,determination and STRONG beliefs can achieve everything in life,you just need to TAKE ACTION to realize your dreams.

Knowledge is POWER.

Of course,luck is important and i don't deny it,but personally i don't put it as "the main factor".

All the best,
Devid

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Rukshan

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Devid Farah

Luck as the main factor?

I'm sorry but i have to disagree with that.

I have always been a STRONG believer that nothing in life happens "for luck",but on the contrary, i like to believe that am i to build my future,fate doesn't exist.

YOU with your courage,passion,perseverance,determination and STRONG beliefs can achieve everything in life,you just need to TAKE ACTION to realize your dreams.

Knowledge is POWER.

Of course,luck is important and i don't deny it,but personally i don't put it as "the main factor".

All the best,
Devid

Hey Devid

That's my personal experience. I choose it as main factor, because I was lucky to find some working methods. That's the trick. Everyday we learn many stuff and improve skills. But getting a steady income is a difficult task for everyone.

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Devid Farah

13 years ago

Originally Posted by blog8491

Hey Devid

That's my personal experience. I choose it as main factor, because I was lucky to find some working methods. That's the trick. Everyday we learn many stuff and improve skills. But getting a steady income is a difficult task for everyone.

I agree with you,everyone has personal experiences.

Was just sharing my thoughts,

All the best,
Devid

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Dean Jackson

13 years ago

LUCK!?

I once heard that luck occurs when...

PREPARATION MEETS OPPORTUNITY!

I can understand why some people think it's all "luck". After all, some people just seem to "have it together", right?

But what about the countless hours they spent researching, testing, IMPLEMENTING, and taking action?? Where did that go? It didn't happen by "luck".

You're creating your own future NOW. What you do today impacts tomorrow! If you're in a situation you don't like, you can bet your ass you put yourself there. Take some responsibility for your actions if you want to succeed.

I'm not getting all new-age on anyone here, but I think it's just common sense

- Dean

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CyberSorcerer

13 years ago

Well "luck" has played a part of SOME businesses, but for the most part, if you're going to succeed in business your pretty much going to have to depend on your knowledge, skill, will to succeed, determination to never give up, and most importantly, to get something started to begin with.

Remember, even if you could get lucky, if will never happen if you never start anything to get lucky at!

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Monta

13 years ago

I'm a firm believer that people make their own luck. The more methods you try the more likely it is you will receive that "break" you've been waiting for.

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TrekkieGrrrl 13 years ago

I would say it is Option C.

Work.
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iAmNameLess

13 years ago

I don't think it is more about luck, nor about skill.

I think success has everything to do with your drive and motivation, the amount of persistence you have.

If you have persistence and you learn from mistakes, you will obtain skill, and cross paths with lady luck. To get there, you need persistence though.

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goharnett

13 years ago

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

I don't think it is more about luck, nor about skill.

I think success has everything to do with your drive and motivation, the amount of persistence you have.

If you have persistence and you learn from mistakes, you will obtain skill, and cross paths with lady luck. To get there, you need persistence though.

Hi Nameless,

I was thinking about the "skills" after I posted this, and was surmising to myself what those skills really might be...

I would be putting "drive and motivation and persistence" in the mix of skills. what do you think? can we do that?

maybe it'd reframe the question

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Gaz Cooper

13 years ago

Most people dont have the PERSEVERANCE to gain the skill and wait for the luck they give up to early.

PERSEVERANCE is the key to success you will gain the skill and the luck along the way.

Gaz Cooper

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Mike McAleer

13 years ago

I'd say a combination of the two simply because you can not have pure luck! You have to do something first and get a little lucky along the way.

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oneplusone

13 years ago

Experience plays a big part.

I like the concept of the 10,000 hour rule by Malcolm Gladwell in the "Outliers" book.

Some people take longer than others to master things, but ultimately one has to be prepared to put the hours in regardless of how long it takes.

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goharnett

13 years ago

Originally Posted by oneplusone

Experience plays a big part.

I like the concept of the 10,000 hour rule by Malcolm Gladwell in the "Outliers" book.

Some people take longer than others to master things, but ultimately one has to be prepared to put the hours in regardless of how long it takes.

thanks for reminding me of the 10,000 rule... i remember that... so true

and so opportune!

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Marx Vergel Melencio

13 years ago

Hi Eugene... In my opinion:

A lucky situation is one where everything falls into place as a
new set of beneficial opportunities...

Necessary in these situations is to have the ability to differentiate actual
lucky situations from seemingly lucky situations...

Also necessary is the ability to take the right immediate actions to
quickly gain the benefits offered by those new opportunities...

These abilities can turn into skills when honed properly...
More lucky situations can be pinpointed with these skills...

More benefits can be gained by taking the right set of immediate
actions upon spotting these new beneficial opportunities brought by more of these
lucky situations...

So for me: Luck can't go well without these skills, and I believe:

Honing one's ability to turn adversities into beneficial opportunities greatly helps...

So I always make it a point to add that skill to
the other skills mentioned above...

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goharnett

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Marx Vergel Melencio

Hi Eugene... In my opinion:

A lucky situation is one where everything falls into place as a
new set of beneficial opportunities...

Necessary in these situations is to have the ability to differentiate actual
lucky situations from seemingly lucky situations...

Also necessary is the ability to take the right immediate actions to
quickly gain the benefits offered by those new opportunities...

These abilities can turn into skills when honed properly...
More lucky situations can be pinpointed with these skills...

More benefits can be gained by taking the right set of immediate
actions upon spotting these new beneficial opportunities brought by more of these
lucky situations...

So for me: Luck can't go well without these skills, and I believe:

Honing one's ability to turn adversities into beneficial opportunities greatly helps...

So I always make it a point to add that skill to
the other skills mentioned above...

woh, Marx... you are good ... you mean, as waht I've gathered:

"be smart enough (a skill) to know how to recognize and take advantage of an opportune moment (luck)..." then repeat it...

or "luck follows the skill and then helps it along" like in evenly matched football superbowls

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O0o0O

13 years ago

In Internet Marketing, there's the tried and true way of making money, and there's the cutting edge risk taking way. The tried and true way of doing it is building a website and outsourcing your SEO to bring it to the top of the search engines, then repeating the process until you reach your desired income. The cutting edge way is when you try new things where the rewards may be bigger and faster, but the downfalls can be costlier. The main risky ways are pay per click and social media. Pay per click is risky because you have to do a lot of costly split testing before you're able to eek out a profit. And when you do make a profitable campaign, new competitors can come in anytime and knock you out of the way. Social media is risky because the codes and terms are changing monthly. It can be costly and risky to keep up with that.

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niffybranco

13 years ago

Success depends on
1. A willingness to learn and acquire new skills .
2. Ability to focus (this is the most important factor)
3. Determination to succeed
4. The not so common......common sense

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Kierkegaard

13 years ago

Readers in a hurry can skip straight to the answer at end!

Luck is about things falling in the right place at the right time for your current needs. If I arrive on the station platform just when the train is pulling in - then I'm lucky. But if I arrive just when the train is pulling away - then I'm unlucky. However, if the train I missed crashes then I was really lucky.

The question is how far in the chain of events do we need to go?

Let's say the 1st train didn't crash and I catch it. When I get home and open the front door my happens to be standing there and on impulse I give her a kiss (I'm a romantic guy). She rewards me by offering to make a coffee. Whilst drinking the coffee the handle of the cup snapped and the hot coffee pours all over my shirt.

Was catching the first train now unlucky?
But what if when I'm out buying a new shirt I bump into an old friend I wouldn't have ordinarily met? Was catching the train now lucky?

And when we talk about it being or not being lucky do we mean it was always lucky or unlucky or it was sometimes lucky and sometimes unlucky depending on where I am in time.

Finally, why are we concentrating on catching the train? Why not go further back and say that events preceding me arriving on the platform were lucky or lucky. Lucky I didn't get stuck in traffic on the way to the station but when I link the train to my ruined shirt unlucky that the coffee shop was closed (or I would have gone inside, missed the first train, not kissed my wife, she wouldn't have made me a coffee, I wouldn't have spilled it...)

A common question on GCSE History exams is Was Hitler's rise to power due more to luck or judgement? The answer they want is 'a bit of both' and not talk about trains and coffee and ruined shirts. The same is probably true of this question about IM.

the answer: It's a bit of both.

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goharnett 13 years ago

Originally Posted by Kierkegaard

the answer: It's a bit of both.

the percentage on each side?
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FernandoAlvan

13 years ago

I know that Skill and Luck are 2 important factors to succeed, but from my point of view IM success has to do more with motivation. As David said all you need to do is TAKE ACTION!. I just started my IM journey ... I took action and is working for me .

Its unbelievable how much you can achieve once you are focus on one thing.

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johnsonf5

13 years ago

I had to add my 2 cents when I saw you were in Alaska. Although I now live in lower 48 in St. Louis, Mo, I was born in Homer, Alaska. I LOVE Alaska and miss it.

Now back to the subject at hand. I do not feel that luck has much to do with it, IM is not a casino or lottery.

I have found that by being thorough in the preliminary research stage of a is key. Once I decide a market has good potential then taking persistent action to meet my goals is key. I will not stop untill I have exhausted all possible avenues to get the results I am looking for. Then after time (usually at least a month) I just kick back and track my results. If I do not feel there enough money in the niche I move on to the next niche. Sometimes when I come back a few months later and do more tracking research I find a fresh state of mind allows me to see angles I did not see before and I will pick up the niche and try again. Skill and speed in IM comes with experience. No course you can buy will give you the skill that good old experience can. For me, I have purchased many great courses and they are great for pointing me in the right direction but you have to decide on a course of action and then be PERSISTANT and hit it hard from all angles. Just don't give up!

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goharnett

13 years ago

Originally Posted by johnsonf5

I had to add my 2 cents when I saw you were in Alaska. Although I now live in lower 48 in St. Louis, Mo, I was born in Homer, Alaska. I LOVE Alaska and miss it.

thanks for sharing.. resonance

then back to Homer... love it too... will be visitng next weekend too, freind has a minivilla looking over the water

btw, i used to live in St Louis, went to Wash U. has memories for me

all the best...

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liza86

13 years ago

Skill is more important than luck, I think success depends 80% on your skill and 20% on your luck.

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mel guard

13 years ago

I think the harder you work the luckier you get so skill outways luck

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JustinDupre

13 years ago

success in IM definitely has many factors in it. I also think skill is more important than luck! better for the long run anyhow.

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Avesel

13 years ago

Someone said that:
1) If you fail early on, it was a skill issue (e.g. upgrade your skills and don't make the same mistake again).
2) If you fail later on, luck could have played a role (e..g if you ran out of money during the recession and couldn't raise more).

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garben2011

13 years ago

It's a good question.

Personally, I think it is all down to perseverance. Basically we all have to fail our way to success. If you look back through history you can see that the way any of us actually succeed is by simply failing over and over and over again and then finally after trying dozens, hundreds or even thousands of ways that do not work... we find one way that does indeed work.

Now... I think skill definitely plays a part in how quickly we reach success. Skill can help someone to possibly make less mistakes, to experience less failures on their road to success.

Skill can also cause people to make more mistakes and experience more failures on their road to success. An example of this is people who are technical by nature and into programming, databases etc (like myself) and seem to possibly have a more difficult time in IM than someone who is not technically minded. I think it is because IT people spend more time on the tech side of things, over-complicating things and basically doing more work than we really need to. We also tend to be perfectionists. Which means we slow down the rate at which we can fail which slows down the rate at which we can ultimately succeed.

Luck... I think this certainly plays a part too. Each time we try something there is a chance that everything will line up right and this attempt will work. Perhaps a person will come along and be a tremendous help offering the final missing piece of the puzzle. For one person, they may meet this solution carrying person on attempt #3 and another person may meet this solution carrying person on attempt #300.

So, ultimately it all comes down to perseverance. Failing enough times (while continually adjusting and improving what you are doing) until you finally succeed.

And your skills will either help or hinder you. And your luck (in this case meaning changes in a market or a person coming into your sphere who has just the right view or just the right information you need to finally complete the puzzle) will either help or hinder you (you may find yourself continually getting bad information that keeps you struggling and failing many times more than you would have otherwise).

So, it is a delicate balance really. But ultimately, if a person tries this IM thing 1,000 times I'd say the odds are extremely high they will succeed.

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Antonio J.

13 years ago

Originally Posted by garben2011

It's a good question.

Personally, I think it is all down to perseverance. Basically we all have to fail our way to success. If you look back through history you can see that the way any of us actually succeed is by simply failing over and over and over again and then finally after trying dozens, hundreds or even thousands of ways that do not work... we find one way that does indeed work.

Now... I think skill definitely plays a part in how quickly we reach success. Skill can help someone to possibly make less mistakes, to experience less failures on their road to success.

Skill can also cause people to make more mistakes and experience more failures on their road to success. An example of this is people who are technical by nature and into programming, databases etc (like myself) and seem to possibly have a more difficult time in IM than someone who is not technically minded. I think it is because IT people spend more time on the tech side of things, over-complicating things and basically doing more work than we really need to. We also tend to be perfectionists. Which means we slow down the rate at which we can fail which slows down the rate at which we can ultimately succeed.

Luck... I think this certainly plays a part too. Each time we try something there is a chance that everything will line up right and this attempt will work. Perhaps a person will come along and be a tremendous help offering the final missing piece of the puzzle. For one person, they may meet this solution carrying person on attempt #3 and another person may meet this solution carrying person on attempt #300.

So, ultimately it all comes down to perseverance. Failing enough times (while continually adjusting and improving what you are doing) until you finally succeed.

And your skills will either help or hinder you. And your luck (in this case meaning changes in a market or a person coming into your sphere who has just the right view or just the right information you need to finally complete the puzzle) will either help or hinder you (you may find yourself continually getting bad information that keeps you struggling and failing many times more than you would have otherwise).

So, it is a delicate balance really. But ultimately, if a person tries this IM thing 1,000 times I'd say the odds are extremely high they will succeed.

I totally agree with you. The most common reason of failure in Internet marketing business is the lack of persistence and belief and that is why most of the people in this business give up after some time. Those who think that they can't make it and want to give up should work on self improvement first and then gaining actual Internet marketing skills.

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Is IM success more from Skill, or Luck?

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