As soon as your family and friends find out that you are trying to make some money online, hopefully even a good living, they will start asking you just about every time they see you, "So, are you making any money yet?"
Don't let that scare you, or send you into hiding. Instead, learn to toss off quick answers like;
"I'm still in the research and learning stage."
Or, "You'd be amazed at how many options there are! And how many of those already doing very well,
are willing to teach and guide me."
Remember; they are probably jealous, but just not brave enough to get started as you are. In fact, they are watching you and listening for clues as to how they could quickly get on the same bandwagon. Be friendly instead of getting defensive, because once you start making good money, you may want to recruit and train them for the commissions that will give you! {GRIN}
Allow me to show you the following dimensions of marketing stuff on the net. I'll expand on each below.
1. Tremendous opportunities for sole proprietors!
2. A steep learning curve to take full advantage of them
3. Effective marketing takes WORK - see what I've done already!
4. My publishing goals in perspective
5. The Balancing Challenge
6. My Invitation or Dare to YOU!
The Internet is truly a great, growing web that is making the world one global village, even if not all have computers yet the numbers coming online is larger every time you hear any STATS about it.
It is an Information-hungry world out there, and information or info-products (ebooks and courses), are the BEST selling of anything. As soon as the newcomers (known as Newbies) get comfortable they start buying and selling, which makes the internet a huge, multi-linked networked marketplace.
This is very different than standing at a street corner with a cardboard sign up, advertising your garage sale. There is much to learn about building a website, (or having one built and paid for), then how to get more visitors to your website, and persuading them to buy what you are selling. Still, it boils down to connecting with people one on one, showing them that you have something to solve their problem, and that you care about them. The entrepreneurs that learn to market this way and how to use social media to their advantage, are the ones that are soon making the largest incomes!
Also, these one-person entrepreneurships are able to stop and change approaches very abruptly when they must. Something the big Dot.com companies couldn't, so when trends shifted, they collapsed.
The biggest successes on the Internet today started as one-person offices in a home. They turn over thousands and millions of dollars, and some have only just lately started hiring help. :) Here's something that makes me smile; the biggest names are Canadians! Eh?!
I came online very naive about the Internet at the end of January 1999, but in these 23plus years, I first devoted myself to learning to market my novel. I got a print-on-demand contract, but discovered that I was suppose to build a website to market it. I taught myself to build my website, and then others, from what information I found online. I've constantly astonished myself with what I could learn. Now, in 2022 I'm learning to set up an eCommerce site - with a shopping cart, no less! Also, copywriting, and making my mailing lists more profitable. I'm hoping to learn to make good videos too! Probably next year.
Some folks give up, feeling overwhelmed. You need the persistance to keep learning. Never give up!
Sometimes we learn something that seems quite simple, and rush to do that (thinking this is the goose's golden egg). Like we sign up for a free affiliate program that promises us lots of money; all we have to do is to paste a coded link or banner on our website, which should take our site visitors to their site, where - if they buy their products - will give us some great commissions. I tell you from personal experience, that is hogwash! People don't like to be sold to, and they recognize an ad from a mile back!
You need to learn those one-on-one marketing skills, and make friends - as many as possible - and give them good reasons to trust your judgment and recommendations. This works best if you have a large mailing list, and your subscribers like your style and panache. One woman, Diane, writes her mailing list when she wants to go on a trip and recommends a product that she knows will earn her commissions. Within a day or two she has the 2 or 3 thousand dollars she needs for her trip. Her readers rush to click the link and go buy whatever she raves about. But she didn't get to this point over-night.
A few of us have taken courses in the School of Hard-Knocks, or have a stiff dose of stubborn perserverance. Those who last a year usually prove to be of that sort. We keep trying, searching, reading, trying this, trying that, and talking with others by email, until gradually we get acultured to this life.
Utlimately, it is best to design or write one's own niche blog or website, with at least 30-100 articles with great problem-solving information. Then weave in subtle text links to certain affiliate products that are part of the solution. Then our site visitors, because of the quality of our information will want to check out those products. They buy and you get your steady commissions. The visitor never thought of the link as an ad.
If you start to watch the videos of the people at "Income School" channel, you will see that they recommend this pattern to their students, and can almost guarantee that within 24 months they will be making easily $5,000 to $10,000 or more a month!
So, if someone is mocking you, because it seems to take you a long time to make enough money to impress them, you can answer; "Marketing is hard work, and I'm putting in kind of effort that will pay off best in the end."
There are some time-costly methods online that you should avoid. If you get sucked into those, your are wasting
your energy, even if they are free. Take a wide detour around any of these;
Free-For-ALL (FFAs) sites are passe, and classfieds ads are limited in effectiveness now.
Free ezine ads have passed their crest in popularlity. Paid solo and sponsor ads are close behind.
With terrific spam problemd and the fight-back with filters killing even the ezine emails you want, that's a dead end
too.
A few years ago I saw a convincing ad for joining and being able to send out my ads on various lists, if I subscribed to them too. If I took a paid membership I could send out my ads to those lists even more. I tried - I REALLY tried! But all my hours of effort each day, made me not a single sale, or commission! Instead I spent hours deleting the hundreds of emails that I didn't care to read any more. Now I'm embittered againist that idea!
Your smartest moves by far, are to learn to design your own website (paying others will be expensive!), and then to edit and write your own emails to your mailing lists, and to build up your list of subscribers by offering a free ebooklet on the page where you want them to subscribe. That free ebook should solve a problem that your potential subscribers are bound to have.
Those are two basic skills that have to be learned for a solid groundwork. Even ezines, however, as I just said, are under attack from the new spam filters that throw them out with the junk mail. Of course, you can learn to write excellent emails that are personalized, and waited for by your subscribers.
Lastly, writing good sales copy and great video scripts is imperative, especially if your words help you come up with interesting ways to attract attention to yourself - or your site and products.
Me? Yes, I edit/publish three ezines now, (though I've put two on hold while I rebuild some older websites to be Responsive, meaning they adapt to the size of device the visitors comes to see my sites on. I find my ezines to be tremendously fulfilling as I win friends and influence people. They like to learn from my successes and failures, and if I announce a new page or offer on one of my websites, a good number will click the link to have a look. Building websites around my various interst themes, and writing in my ezines are my most useful skills!
Did you know that there is a Youtube tutorial on just about anything you want to learn? There's your free education. However, if would like to learn from experts and don't mind paying for it, I can introduce you to the best of the best!
Actually, I wrote a novel long before I knew of the internet, and have long dreamed of an outlet for the prolific writing that I know can pour forth from me. So God created me for this work! I love people, I love writing, I love creative ideas and web design, and I wrote pen pal letters for years and wondered whatever that might be training for. Nor am I afraid of learning new things and work. All these apptitudes are met in internet work.
Other factors are, that while I had no other income, I got food and shelter for looking after my elderly father. He was easy to look after so I had a generous window of free time to do all early learning work online. (He passed away February 24, 2007, so my situation has changed since then).
My novel is up on my site, ready for sale as an e-book, and I've got a print-on-demand contract with Booklocker.com, so it is available as a softcover in print too. Meantime, I've used my web-design skills to build some other sites, including some for non-profit missions and ministries.
This year, 2022, I'm shifting into learning how to build and run eCommerce sites. (A long story, but if you subscribe to my eAction LIST, you are likely to read it there). Plus, I have a lists of 50 ebook ideas that I'm starting to work on. I may not finish them all in my lifetime, but I'll never be out of projects to work on. Because these will be digital products I will never need to worry about running out of stock, or having shipping problems.
Meantime, I've found an online community that teaches its members how to do online marketing with modern methods that are much moe effective than the old-fashioned multi-level-marketing (MLM) methods. I suggest you join too, and watch for the exciting interviews with those who are hitting it BIG with these "Attraction Marketing Techniques" which save us all so much embarrassment and shame, and bring financial success much sooner!
Would you like to check it out for yourself? Okay. Take this link: About MLSP. If you should like to attend some of the free Wednesday night webinars at 8 pm EST, go sign up here for free: Weekly Marketing Webinars. See you there!
I especially look forward to helping out my friends, and creating spin-off jobs and businesses to give them employment with dignity. Perhaps you will be one of them?
This is the hardest thing to learn; to balance my time so that I accomplish the most the quickest. I may struggle with it for a long time yet. I bet you will too.
If you think you are up for the challenge of this lifestyle and work, jump on in! The water's fine! There's room for you too.
If you can see you are not the right type of person, then for your own sake and happiness - don't get into internet marketing. You'll only make yourself very unhappy, perhaps bitter, and probably bring down some loved ones with you.
If you'd like a routine, small-task job, let it be known. All these idea people will sooner or later realize that they NEED you, and offer you a job. Someone has to do the maintanence work, or keying data into huge databases. Make yourself a loyal, faithful detail-person, and latch onto a good boss. One who will look after well you well. Then you've got it made too!
If you have questions, don't hesitate to write me. Go to my Contact Page for ways to reach me.
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©2001-2022 Ruth Marlene Friesen
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
