It's YOUR Business.

Mike said:
Okay, this is sort of a rant so feel free to bounce at

1. Mistakes and losing money

I believe this is the biggest fear new business owners have (read new internet marketers). Losing money is not a bad thing. Let me repeat: Losing money is not a bad thing. What is bad: spending money recklessly that you can not afford to lose. Do NOT spend your rent check. Do NOT spend your electric bill payment. Do NOT spend your internet bill payment. DO NOT spend money that you can not afford to lose.

If money is so tight that you won't be able to pay bills, don't spend it on a new business venture like PPC. Stick to SEO and other free ($-wise, not time-wise) methods. Here's a short list (very short, there are thousands of ways to build a business with $0.00):

  • Free blogs - blogger, Wordpress.com, etc. Use them for your landing pages
  • Yahoo! answers. Yes Virginia, there is still money on Y! answers
  • Craigslist - :uhoh2: Oh noes, you didn't just go there! Yep, I did. It's free and as long as you're not a prostitute or selling drugs, it's not illegal to advertise on CL
  • Other classified ad sites: Kajiji, Gumtree, etc.
  • Web 2.0 sites - there are dozens out there that will let you create a site for free
If you can afford to lose some money and want to try PPC, that's great, just keep in mind that you WILL lose money in the beginning. Think of it as paying for your education. If you want to be a doctor and make $100,000 a year, you'll need to spend 11 years in college / training and it will cost you at least $100,000 in tuition / books / etc. You can make so much more than any doctor or lawyer as an online marketer and there is no tuition requirement. Sure it's frustrating to put hours and hours into building a landing page, getting keywords together, creating ads, finally launching it and then losing $100 because there were no conversions. Be frustrated, that's fine, but bear in mind that you now have data to analyze and hopefully get you closer to the golden egg. The only time that a losing campaign is a true loser is when you learn absolutely nothing from the data.
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So true, esp in IM.

Expressions like "free traffic" (good SEO is expensive) and "no setup costs" possibly attract the wrong crowd. I think the issue is that to get to a stage in this game where you are doing reasonably well you need to seemingly go through the grinder and get screwed over a few times! Its breed skepticism and makes you think everyone who wants paying is out to screw you
 


very good information. I would also add that once you decide to venture into a business, don't give up too early. There are many opening stages your business will go through and while it is getting to the point of making profit, stay calm and do not bail early.
 
Yes. I have to agree what Mike say in this thread. It is important to learn from our mistakes.
Knowing our budgets and try not to overspend especially when we first started. There are many free methods to get started. Like mike mention wordpress, blogger, free classified sites, yahoo answers, squidoo to get our feet wet in the marketing industry.
 
Thanks for the advice OP. The main things that have been holding me back is being afraid to lose money and reading too much. I spent months reading IM forums to learn PPC, PPV and SEO but have not taken action yet. I made a full time income writing for websites over the past several years before it all came crashing down on me recently; so I already know what's it like to grind and make a lot of money online. I just need to be inspired again.
 
Good stuff Mike! One thing I like to remind myself is when I take action, sometimes I will fail, and sometimes I will succeed. The more action I take the more I fail, but also the more I will succeed. The trick to any success is to make sure you stay focused on the big goal and not give up when short term challenges hit you square in the face.
 
sometimes my business conversion can be easy to achieve but for other business, it's hard as hell especially when you have to pay the bills. My advice is to work from 6 am til 10-11 pm and you will get results.
 
I appreciate sharing this with us, Mike.
Let me add and confirm that establishing a firm network with a real good brand takes time. Those who start aggressively working doing their best in the first week then stop will fail. Any internet business needs patience and long-lasting activity.
 
What you give is what you get. Excellent motivational rant that made me write two articles in two hours. Never stop learning - that's my motto.
 
Great article for newbie.Specially for me.I appreciate to you.Good to know about this.So i think now i'm able to earn some money about that.Really this is very helpful.
Thank you Mike..
 
As someone who just started MMO for 5 months so far with no achievements, I really appreciate this post.

I did not realize the important of data actually, but going to look deeper and deeper at it.

Thank you very much for this !
 
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