This post was inspired by a very frustrated, middle-age dreamer that wrote me desparate for a solution about how to make money online yesterday.
He has been working like a dog for 8-years (Yes, you are seeing correctly, 8-years) working a full-time job with frequent overtime, hating his job, bouncing from business opportunity to business opportunity, bootcamp to bootcamp and program to program yet has never made any more than a couple of hundred dollars online.
He wasn’t quite sure how much he had spent on different systems, but guessed that is was more than $10,000.
Frankly he was fed up, completely frustrated, at wits end because he had two kids with a third on the way and his only source of income (the job that he hates, yet has to work like a dog to pay the bills) is on thin ice and given the economy, he may not have that source of income for long.
At the same time he has become so jaded by the various guru’s, products and systems he’s bought into and for whatever reason, has not been able to make work. Yes, he had a dream to make money online, but…
There was an even bigger problem…
He was looking for a system that handed him a complete “business on a stick”. No wonder he hadn’t found the ideal system in over 8-years of looking, he was waiting for someone to hand him a market, idea, product, website, email campaign, source of traffic – it’s kind of like standing on a street corner expecting someone to just write you a check for $100,000 with no reason whatsoever!
Is that going to happen, hmmm….
But many of us fall into this trap of expecting others (guru’s, coaches, training systems, products…) to hand us a ready-made “business on a stick”.
Ain’t gonna happen my friend.
Not only that, but if marketing products and services on the internet is really a business that you will turn into a 6-7 figure venture, you wouldn’t want it too…because you will be passionate about the process of building your business.Â
Seriously,…the niche discovery, keyword research, market research, competitive analysis, content generation, and marketing are all part of building a business online and IF you want to succeed, then you need to enjoy this at some level rather than looking for someone to spoon feed you every answer.Â
The most successful students we have taught in our 30-Day InfoMarketer’s Quick-Start Program have been those that were passionate about building an information publishing business on the internet. They didn’t have experience, didn’t have technical know-how, didn’t have a product to start with – but took the information, tips and techniques included in the course and quickly devoured them putting them to immediate action and then refined the entire process to suit their own comfort zone and way of working.
Let me give you an example.
I was helping my son with his homework last night. It was basic math. He was struggling and I was so tempted to just give him the answer, but that wouldn’t really help him would it? Yes, I can give him successful tips, shortcuts and lessons on HOW to do it, but giving him THE answer doesn’t really help.
To be successful and make money online you need to…
1. Enjoy building your business on the internet
2. Learn the ropes so you can build bigger and better than your competition
Let’s look at some of the steps to successfully marketing online…
1. Uncovering niche markets
2. Discovering opportunities within those niche markets (Problems, challenges, desires)
3. Find solutions to these opportunities (existing products, your own system, licensed content, outsource content, etc…)
4. Organize the solutions into a workable, testable set of steps that will help your customers AND that you can PROVE will help them over time
5. Understand the different business models for monetizing your effort (free content + advertising and affiliate marketing or free content leading to your own products + upsell to higher-end and so on…)
6. Know how people search the web giving you insight into keyword phrases that you can test…turn the fuzziness of 100’s of keywords into a science so that you KNOW which keywords are most profitable)
7. Apply dozens of different traffic generation techniques targeting the keywords you discovered are most profitable in #6
These are the steps that will lead to success, the steps that will make money online…if you look at any successful internet marketer they have followed this plan in some shape or form.Â
Sure, in some cases, they already had their niche market because they were ahead of the game…but the steps remain the same.
Before you lament about your lack of progress, your setbacks, the money you have invested in help and coaching that you haven’t used and the amount of work that lies ahead, take a step back and look at make money online sequence I outlined above.Â
Do those steps excite you?
Are you chomping at the bit to get rolling on mastering these steps?
Are you willing to tackle each of these steps to accomplish your end goal?
If the answer is no, then re-visit your decision to build an internet business.
If the answer is yes, then jump in with both feet and get moving – this business will seem like a cakewalk to you because you will love doing it each and every moment.
If you don’t know, then dip your toe in the water, give it a real try and you’ll soon find out.Â
Those who make the most money online are passionate about the process, they are passionate about their business…nothing else will do.
