What happens when you step out and try to make money online? You are instantly presented with a multitude of options.
You might enter though MLM, or because of an offer in a pop-up or email or article. No matter how you start, you came in through someone’s funnel.
And as you go through the funnel options for making money start to increase. You can become overwhelmed quickly, and it’s designed that way.
So stop. Put on the brakes, step back, and get an understanding of what it will really take for you to make a good, even astonishing, living online.
It’s simpler than you are lead to believe, but not as easy. You’ll find out what this means later in the series.
Keep yourself out of trouble. One way is to decide you want to earn while you learn, instead of paying to learn.
Should never by an Internet marketing education or service?
No, just don’t use any of your current income, assets or credit to do it.
You can find opportunities to learn, for free, how to make your first dollars online. One place is Travis Sago’s Bum Marketing Method.
Sign up for his free course, and it really is free.
But you be aware the thank you page is a video pitch for the Wealthy Affiliate, and that’s one of the reasons I chose this resource to share with. You’ll get the link in a minute.
This is your opportunity to prove to yourself you are not an IM information junkie.
Make the decision, right now, to not join until you earn enough money using the free information Travis and others provide to pay for the first month’s membership.
Your goal is to earn while you learn, and use only those earnings to make your IM purchases. So with firm resolve on that goal go getBum Marketing Method.
As an aside, get into the habit of not buying discretionary business items (i.e. an ebok or training course is discretionary, web hosting or your Internet connection is not) until you’ve measured your profits for the previous month. You will have a better idea of what your profit is and be able to make more accurate projections and plans.
Decide how much you need to be making to quit your job. Make it a firm decision. You need to write it down for it to be a commitment that will influence your behavior.
Only you can decide what standard of living you want to have when you go out on your own. The following is provided as possible model to start with. You will have to adjust it based on your current income and where you want to be when you actually quit.
1. Determine your mid point income goal. For example, continue the earn while you learn process until your income, after expenses, at the end of each month matches the current monthly income from your job.
Dump all of the profit back into the business until meet your income goal. Of course if you believe in gifting or tithing as a way to acknowledge abundance, increase prosperity and show gratefulness, by all means give the 10% (or whatever) put the rest back in the business.
2. When you reach your mid point goal start building your nest egg. Start putting any profits above the mid point level into savings or other low risk investment vehicles. There are actually two reasons to do this.
One is “just in case”, which really doesn’t need any explanation.
The other is to have opportunity money. If you come across a situation where your short term return on investment (ROI) is high this nest egg will give you leverage.
It’s distressing when lose out on profits, from say a successful Adwords campaign, just because you don’t have the capital to purchase all available traffic.
3. When you reach profits that double your current income tell your boss to take a leap (or sorry, better opportunity if you like him or her). At this point you get to keep your current standard of living and plenty of cash flow to grow your business.
It’s also time to hire professionals, like a tax accountant and a business consultant, to plan your to the next level.
The above is just a guideline, and you will need to have more, likely much more, revenue than twice your current income. There will be necessary, and considerable, expenses involved in growing your business to this size. Outsourcing of design, programming and content, just to name a few; not to mention the approximately 15% self employment tax you need to pay on top of all the other tax and insurance expenses.
But that’s in the future and you’ll know when it’s time to pay closer attention. For now just let it sit in the back of your mind and let’s concentrate on making money today.
You need to commit to taking action. You must to do it consistently. Strive for something, even if it’s just writing an article, every single day. This can’t be stressed enough. Momentum has power to accelerate the growth of your income that can’t be explained.
But what do you do? It’s a question that is repeated over and over again in the forums.
And again and again the answer is take action.
Of course you’re thinking, duh, but what action?
Consider what is not action. Reading an ebook is not action. Going to forums to ask and answer questions is not action. Complaining is not action.
These are all activities, but not action.
An activity becomes an action when it will directly impact your bottom line.
When you write an article, or blog post, with a link that leads a person on a path that could eventually put money in your pocket is taking action.
When you write a report that you can use to attract people to your list or an offer, where eventually you could get money from them is taking action.
When you create content that has the potential to show up in Google so people find you, and see your offers or paid links, is taking action.
Is your reading and learning good activity? Absolutely, just don’t confuse it with taking action.
And never allow it to be your excuse for not taking action.
Whatever you learn is useless until you implement it, put it out there in public, let it do it’s best to improve your bottom line.
A good habit to get into is to ask yourself on a regular basis if the activity you are doing, right now, is taking action?
If the answer is no then you need to ask yourself if it is the most effective activity you can be doing right now?
Is what you are doing right now an excuse for not taking action? Be honest and often you will find this is the case.
As you move through your online marketing venture you will learn when doing an activity that is not an action is appropriate. You’ll figure out how to calculate opportunity costs, the impact of lost momentum, and the real value the activity will hold.
For now just learn, take action and earn. Stay focused, rinse and repeat, and you’ll be on your way to a good living online.
June 26th, 2008
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