What are you guys doing?

Actually, I think this is the problem. Most of the people that start in internet marketing are sucked in because of promises of it being easy to make money online, not because they have an entrepreneurial spirit. They are looking for handouts and easy money.

Ok, how about this...

I think internet marketing attracts the lazy more than the hard-working. And that is why most people fail at it.

I failed for a year before I got anywhere. And here's why:

People claim to make thousands with Adsense & Amazon, so I tried. I made one website, wrote 50 posts, got nowhere.. Wondered why I failed. I discovered Fiverr, bought Scrapebox and blasted links at my site. Kept writing posts & failed. My site then got deindexed.

After reading more, I took a slow approach. Still failed. Made $0. I have never bought a "make money online" program because I'm never sucked into them (I prefer to learn from doing, and not being taught).

In the end, I made it all after developing my own strategies. And, I think that's the point you're trying to make. People need to stop buying saturated products that expose weak business models & start developing their own businesses.

There's a reason people sell products, and it's mostly because there's more money to be made selling the product than there is keeping the business to yourself.

If I went out and sold my own custom-made Amazon theme, amazon product review template, my Wordpress plugins for high clickthroughs to Amazon etc.. My profits would TANK in 3-months, because readers would be used to where the ad placements are and so forth.

It's always best to build your own business - and don't worry if you TRY and FAIL. Richard Branson, one of the richest men in the UK, tried & failed for years before he made his first dime. Now, he's a billionaire. (In fact, he failed to make a penny for 5-years).

You mean to tell me that if I just turn my computer on and click my mouse a few times like all those sales videos tell me, $100 bills won't come spitting out of my cd slot?

I feel duped...

Anyways back to being kinda serious.

I have a particular model I'm profiting from and I shared bits and pieces with people Im in masterminds with (well mostly noobs in there). Part of model was using paid traffic.

So when I said I didn't expect to be in profit until almost 2 months in, it got really quiet in there. lol

People don't get that true success comes when you treat it like a real business. And most times you have to invest (lose) money in the early going before you start seeing profits.

Just like real businesses. Only the best part about what we do online is the investment is nowhere near what it would be for a regular brick and mortar business.

Try opening up a franchise and let me know the costs are.

Mate, you're absolutely, positively 100 % right!

Think of it: what aren't we doing in online marketing?

The key to success is quite often what we're not doing!

Don't follow the crowd, don't doe what everyone else is doing.

I also think that Google is well aware of the typical patterns. If you have the exact same patterns as everyone else, then you are less likely to succeed!

Good luck everyone in starting to do what you haven't been doing!

Be original, unique, fresh, new!

I cant be bothered to have this argument, i gave up reading...

You don't have to lose money before you start making money. If someone knows how to write articles, and the person is hard working, the person can start writing and submitting articles to revenue sharing sites like Hubpages, squidoo, or Wizzely. If you check some people that post their monthly income, you would see that.

The only thing they have to learn is keyword research which is free on the internet to find. Then when they start making money, they can outsource the article writing. I don't know their history, but I think Erica Stone or Pot pie Girl didn't fail.

The lazy statement is a touchy issue. I do feel like there are a lot of lazy people who come on this forum, but I think there are a lot of lazy people everywhere.

Take for instance my brother. Many people think he's a hard worker because he works 9 hour days 6 days a week. But they don't understand how lazy he actually is.

Then I have another brother who works 4 hour days, 3-4 days a week doing sales, and is NOT what I would call lazy. Because when he's not working, he's always busy/being productive.

So laziness is sometimes really hard to define. Theres been times in my life where I was lazy because I couldn't accept the fact that I hated my job. In fact, marketing is probably the only thing I'm passionate about when it comes to work. Which is probably why I'm always working. I think a lot of people on here just don't want to be honest with themselves. They love money more than they love marketing, and ironically, they wind up making less money because of that.