Make Money Online – Don’t Do What I Do, Do What I Say!
I heard that you are looking for online systems to make money. Yeah, that’s right, I can see you… I’m just kidding, Google actually told me.
Well you’re not the only one, let me tell you what I did!
You see, I discovered the internet about nine or ten years ago and was overwhelmed and I guess excited by the flood of emails I was getting telling me how I could make money online, thousands of dollars in fact, in all sorts of fantastic ways.
I was particularly excited about one email in particular. Who wouldn’t want people to send him money when all he had to do was send them an email with the information on how to get people to send him money…
It sounded like a winner to me (I admit, all I was thinking about was making money online). Legislation in the US put that project in the dustbin.
I was then introduced to what was in fact a pyramid scheme, where you deposit money to read ads and your account balance increases with the number of ads you see. So you would deposit more money and see more ads. Do you think I made money from it?
Yes, I am a slow learner, but after that episode I moved away from pyramid schemes and looked for legitimate shows.
It was a matter of good timing when I saw an email about the World Internet Summit. It was just what I needed at the time. Tom and Brett are experts in running reputable internet businesses to make money online and use various methods to teach others the same.
However, looking back on it, he wasn’t ready to take in the information at the moment. I still want to make quick money.
But I digress, back to the World Internet Summit. At the summit I was taught that a few basic things are needed to run a successful Internet business: ‘A hungry market’, a ‘Solution to your problem’ and a way to give it to them.
Some technical knowledge is needed, such as creating a website, getting traffic and a payment system.
With my new knowledge, I turned a camcorder tutorial program I had into a digital product and used AdWords to drive traffic to my website – simple!
That’s not what I expected. My knowledge of AdWords was very limited and I couldn’t make it work the way I had envisioned, so I dumped that campaign feeling like I was losing money when I was supposed to be making money online.
Free traffic! The Holy Grail.
Sitebuildit was the hot program at the time. Optimized pages that would rank well in search engines, which means free traffic. I got it, it worked as promised but…
PGI Insider was the next big thing. The same, but it’s supposed to be better.
Affiliate links and AdSense was the way I made my money, but I was impatient and building one page at a time was slow, so…
New day, new program, SEO Site Builder. All you had to do was give it a bunch of keywords (thousands of words if it had any) and it would automatically create web pages optimized for each keyword. But you know me, it’s time to try a new program called easy web page builder. The money made online with these programs was mostly made with AdSense (faster and easier, another bad habit).
Somewhere I tried a program called I-rater. You looked at people’s photos and gave them a rating. I was looking for the viral traffic element (I heard later that a site called ‘facesmash’ did much better!) once again this was monetized with AdSense.
Do you see a pattern forming? What’s the next show? Then came the ‘Underachiever’ system by Frank Kern and Ed Dales. Survey customers and create an eBook answering their questions. Sell the book by placing the sales copy on the page where the survey was. I liked that system and stuck with it longer than most.
This was a good online way to make money, but… So I needed to know more, more about internet marketing in general.
I purchased Corey Rudl’s Internet Marketing Course from the Internet Marketing Center. ‘Butterfly marketing’, a program by Mike Filsaime and Warrior Forum, are other ways I learned more.
I listened to a John Reese webinar and started publishing books online with Amazon Kindle and was able to earn some money there.
Even though they were working, something was wrong.
You could see it? Did you realize what he was doing there? How many shows in that time period? I’m not very good at following a project.
The bad clothes made me lose concentration before I could win any real money.
If making money online is your goal, but you’re running around chasing the next big thing or every “shiny thing” that catches your eye, you’re diluting your effectiveness in getting where you really want to be. It can also be a habit in all areas of your life.
And what did I learn from all this ‘chasing my own tail’ thing…
First of all, responsibility, you have to recognize that everything you do, everything that happens to you in any way, you played a part in it. So if something didn’t work out the way you wanted it to, ask yourself “what role did I play in this event and what can I do differently to make sure the outcome is different and better?
Second – Learning, everything you do, whether you see it as good or bad, is an accumulation of knowledge. And at every opportunity, you should strive to expand your knowledge, whether through books, audio, courses, training, or just trying a project and seeing what comes of it.
Finally the concept of focus. To put it another way, you have to take the pony, train it well, and then it can win some races for you!
It’s not about working harder, it’s about working smarter!
A goal is great, but you need to plan the steps toward your goal so you can stay on track.
Steps to achieve the goal
After making sure you have the right frame of mind, it’s time to set out practical steps that will be simple and easy to follow.
Step 1 – Set a goal. You need something to love for. A goal of making money online that is both achievable and practical and, at the same time, a bit over the top or a bit out of your comfort zone. Something like “I’ll make $200 a month with my online business by next June.” Remember that along with a monetary figure it is important to assign a date to its completion.
Step 2 – Make a plan. If you were planning a trip from Los Angeles to New York, your goal in Step 1 would be your destination, the plan you made in Step 2 is like your road map.
An example of your plan could be presented in a format like this: “I will make one web page per day, one blog per day, and upload one article online per day. I will add targeted videos to YouTube and one post to my Facebook fan page every two days to gain 500 subscribers in two weeks”.
Step 3 – Act on your plan!
Step 4 – Review your progress, thoughts, summaries, etc. every day/afternoon
Step 5 – Go back to Step 1 and repeat.
Making money online is all about listing these steps and taking responsibility for their achievement. Something I took note of the second time I went to the World Internet Summit!
“Don’t do what I do, do what I say!” That’s what my dad would say. So now it’s my turn to say “don’t do what I did, take steps, follow these steps to your goal and do what I tell you!”
