Diorex

Just because I am tired of the same question every single day from people who heard about some guy making big money online and figured they could too...

This is not easy. There is not a magic formula. It takes hard work, risk taking, knowledge, intelligence and frankly a little bit of luck.

If you walk in to this forum without some capital to invest, turn around and leave. While a few might have made something out of nothing, the easy money is gone.

If you are looking for a way to work 1-2 hours a day and retire from your job, you are kidding yourself. That is the same bull spun at you by Amway and Carlton Sheets and other make money quick schemes.

I work 12-14 hours per day to make my damn good living. So does Andrew and Jon and I bet anyone else here doing it full time is the same way. How do you expect to compete with Experts who have been doing this for 5+ years, who have contacts and capital to invest and who do it all day every single day if you only have a few dollars, dont know shit, are working on standard commissions and only have a few hours a day to work on this.

If you heard there was good money in ringtones or porn or ________ then you are probably not the first to hear about it. Hundreds if not thousands of other people who know a lot more than you have already taken a shot at it, all but a few failed. Those who succeeded probably failed first, then tweaked, the failed again, then tweaked again, then maybe broke even. Just because they now make tens or hundreds of thousands every month does not mean they did so from the start. Exactly none of them would say "it was easy".

Coming here and expecting me to tell you how to do what I do is not very logical. If you saw a forum written by a stock market trader who said, I will teach you how I make millions for free you would be skeptical. If he tried to charge you $500 to learn then you would know it was bullshit. Same thing with real estate investment or currencies or arbitrage or gambling strategies.

If I had a magic forumla for any of these things, I would not give it away, I certainly would not sell it. If I had a work your ass off forumla, I would not give it away. I might, just maybe hire you and teach you how to make me more money, but I am not just gonna hand you the keys to the kingdom because I am a nice guy.

Get real. This is not easy. It takes money, knowledge, time, and hard work to make it work. If I am repeating myself, it is because it is true.

I may be coming off as an asshole, but I am trying to save you the time, money and hassle. Most of the people who get started in internet marketing never make a positive revenue dollar. If you are not bringing a good idea, some programming skills, some marketing knowledge or a lot of capital to the table, then you are probably going to be one of those masses.

The truth sometimes hurts, not trying to squash anyones dream, but hey you probably are not gonna play in the NBA, get a recording contract or win the lottery either...

Whoever told you life or internet marketing was fair or easy should get a hard kick in the nutz next time you see them.

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jened

that would make a great blog post!

geekcognito

Hahaha.

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illusion

Nice post Diorex

MyOwnDemon

Well said, Diorex. When I first started AM, I didn't make a single sale for like 2 months. That kind of opened my eyes to the nature of the business. It was a lot of trial and error, and this isn't something you can learn in a few weeks. I'm happy to know I've learned from my mistakes in the year I've been doing AM. And I'm still learning more everyday...

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Aequitas

haha I've been at this for two years straight, weekends = 16 to 18 hour work day, Friday nights, well fuck I cannot remember the last time I slept on a Friday night, during the week when I'm not working at a regular job my work hours on this are 16 to 18 hours per day, when I'm working at a regular job, every second until I've only got 5 hours left to sleep at night is how much I work on this.

You've got to ask yourself how bad do you really want it and are you willing to put in these kinds of hours?

I already know I'm capable and I already know that I want it enough to succeed with it and eventually I'll be able to cut it down to a standard 10 hour per day, 5 day a week job that I love but its getting to that point which requires a shit load of work.

+rep for your post because I too am tired of people coming to me and saying "Hey I heard you can make some decent money at this internet marketing thing", Internet Marketing THING?, hmm thats got newb written all over it......I'd hate to say it but as more time goes on and as I get more advanced in this is the less I won't even bother with newbies anymore.

The newbies who show me they are willing and want to learn, then yes I'll give them a shot but for the ones who are like "Hey I just read this eBook that said I can make a hundred grand by the end of this month, have you heard about it what do you think?".....those messages get a big old BLOCK now.

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halfpc

The first nutz would be Perry Marshall's... not for saying it is easy, but for sending people off in wrong directions by giving bad advice.

Aequitas

2003 Perry used to give out some good information. I don't know about recently because I stopped watching his conferences but he used to be alright.

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nmwando

This guy here is probably the only one who has a decent idea of wtf is he is doing with adwords adcenter and yahoo and all the information is free, free i tell you. Perry marshall knows a thing or two about how to use copy and direct mail. Thats the only thing now that i think any business can take from him. Otherwise when it comes to adwords its changing too fast for him to keep up. Especially him not being as technically savy as needed.

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halfpc

off the top of my head:

he includes prices in his campaigns to weed out "window shoppers" and bring the ROI up.
But when you go head on against people using this technique and you have NO PRICE then you get all the window shoppers and 10 times the clicks which will skyrocket your CTR.
Then your effective prices per click will go down.

Your ROI might not be as good as mr Perry but he's paying tons of money as his CTR sucks.
Soon if the market is a fat one I am getting most of the clicks and these fuckers pay top dollar for some great ROI that produces jack shit in real profit.

AND window shoppers are great at giving you an email address.

He has many other weak points, I see many successful marketers making a killer in dimensions he doesn't have a clue can even exist.

These people are running rings around me as they know adwords inside out but I am fighting back using common sense and techniques that to me seem easy but are apparently not used by anyone that I know and if they are then people aren't talking about them.
And I start running rings around them, till some human at adwords puts a MANUAL stop on it. That's when I start losing heart but it does alternate to anger and anger is my best motivator hence I am still here.
But yeah, it isn't easy... fools get eaten alive and so they should.

nmwando

Nicely put half "These people are running rings around me as they know adwords inside out but I am fighting back using common sense and techniques that to me seem easy but are apparently not used by anyone that I know and if they are then people aren't talking about them."

Human beings not robots or affiliates surf the web. There is an angle for any affiliate marketing or product out there that even a newbie can use and still cash out if they are not afraid of a little work.

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bricklayer

Diorex -- I am bummed your blog is gone, bud. The knowledge you were dropping was SICK. Please continue to rant here ... your thoughts are always welcome on my screen ... I know you guys are doing crazy volume for mutiple private-label offers ... I myself have been running overture and adwords proffesionally for the last three years, and I went out on my own successfully over a year ago now, and I am really inspired to ramp shit up and turn my $90k a year profit into $390k, or more. I am not worried about the risk and I have plenty high credit limit rewards cards to play with ... Dudes like you with obvious cred are pretty inspiring to me when you make so much sense on forums that are so often packed with newbies and noise. Keep pumpin' the juice, homeboy.

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Ma$e

Nice post Diorex, well said.

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Ibart

Keep up the work

ScottDaMan

Diorex, I don't know if you are aware but you are successfully creating a viral buzz on this forum about your blog...... that you took down. A little backwards but I like it.

Excellent post, though I do disagree with the time spent. Many hire the hours of work out and go on vacation for a month at a time. But yeah, that goes back to the investment capital statement.

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jened

wonder how many people would pay for a subscription or something.

alistdirector

really you need to start off small. One of the biggest problems with internet marketing is not knowledge or skill but it is motivation.

I know a hellova lot of guys and gals who stick pictures on thei walls of clickbank earnings and money etc. that puts you into a fantasy world and you end up pondering about what to do...

You need a big fat picture of that ugly boss, that ugly car and your sh*t life. That's what motivated me.

Now im earning high 5 figures a month. end of story.

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Diorex

LOL - First time I have made anything go viral...Kind of reverse of what the whole viral aim is...

And yes, I agree with the hiring out of the tedious tasks, but that is not something that people with a few hundred dollars getting started can do.

To your vacation point, I am leaving next week for 3 weeks in Brazil. Work hard, Play hard.

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Rasta_Cook

For sure its not easy, but the market is HUOOOOGE ( and still growing ) , so, there is place for alot more people...

Any chance you put that blog back online ? i would have love to read it

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pfgannon

Never thought of that.
I put up some pics around my desk of cars, houses, etc. And you're right, I ended up in a dream world. Pondering what I was gonna blow my next Millnic check on...

Gonna give this a try

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Hustle

I could not agree more. I remember back when I first realized that looking for the million dollar idea just kept me in La La land.

When I started getting pumped about fifty dollar ideas, I started seeing the money. Over time it started adding up fast.

If there is one thing that I wish someone had told me in the beginning it would be that I should be getting very excited about my first $30 Clickbank check even if it did take me 182 hours to make.

At that point, at least you're in the fucking game. That's a hell of a lot farther than the day dreamers get.

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Ruby

Sorry to bump this up, but it's the very first post every newbie should read.
Incredibly motivating and down-to-earth at the same time.
I hope that someday I'll be able to help others out, and talk about my five-figure income!

kathysisk

I came to forums looking for new or better ways to improve my chances, luck, whatever you wanna call it, and Finally found the truth. Thnks for the honesty. It is refreshing for a change. And I would kick someone in the balls if I could remember the first person who told me it was easy.

aeiouy

Really excellent post. I was sharing a similar sentiment with someone else recently. You really need to be prepared to work. You need to be prepared for failure. You actually need to embrace failure. I know when things go wrong for me, that is when I am at my best, and when I make my biggest strides moving forward.

Most people who try to make money with the internet, and online, give up long before it even gets difficult. It can be extremely hard getting started. From the time I actually focused on making money online, it was over a year before I started making a partial living, and 15 months before I really started making a lot of money. My initial focus was on building traditional websites. When I got into affiliate marketing, things popped for me, but all the knowledge I have gained over the years, and especially that knowledge I gained in the previous year has been invaluable in what I am doing now.

I would suggest people worry too much about money. You can get going and learn for virtually nothing. My affiliate marketing money making started with a $20.00 bill. I have never not had a profitable month, and after about 4 weeks I have never had a non-profitable day or even a day close to not being substantially profitable.

People need to focus more on what they are doing, rather then trying to brute force things with money. Because the reality is the online space is one massive money sink looking to suck up every possible dollar. If you are on a limited budget, there is almost NOTHING you need to spend money on besides the essentials. You don't need e-books, pay-for-use tools or the rest. Save that stuff for when you have money. (except the ebooks you will never need those.). There are some excellent online communities where you can get a lot of good information (such as this one.)

The one thing I love about this is the control I have. I work some stupid hours, and spend very little time enjoying myself, but I have the ability to do that much more than I did before, and I have the resources to do pretty much anything I want. I tend to obsess over things, but sometimes I have to force myself not to do spend every waking moment working.

I tell you though, I would much rather be where I am at then behind the desk at some normal job, where I am bored out of my mind 7.5 hours a day waiting to get home.

The funny thing is when I started, I never really expected to be having the kind of success I am having now. And when I was working 16 hours a day 7 days a week for what amounted to pretty much zero money, it was hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The funny part is, looking back ,never once did I question myself or consider bailing. I knew I had to figure things out and make things click. I think this moment takes different amounts of time. For some people it comes very quickly, and I consider them very lucky. For others it takes a longer period of time. As I said though, most people never even get to the part where things really get difficult.

So put in the time, learn as much as you can, and put in some more time and learn more. Do Do Do. You are never going to learn just by reading. You actually have to apply your knowledge. Fortunately this industry is prime for inexpensive mistakes. You can really do so much with so little it is amazing.

Will everyone who wants to succeed succeed? I think not. I think beyond all the things mentioned here, including luck, ridiculously long hours, fundamental understanding and more, it just won't work out for some people. Maybe it is a skill-set issue, or whatever. The unfortunate reality is not everyone is going to succeed. Heck sometimes I wonder if I will still be succeeding in 6 months time. But I can guarantee you that you will never get there without the effort, without the energy, without the work.

But if you want the feeling of having that money train roll in 24/7 non-stop whether you are asleep or awake then you got to work it. And you better love failure. I fail a lot more than I succeed at doing this. The successes are massive though, so you can afford a ridiculous number of failures. But you have to be willing to let it go and move on to the next failure and the next failure. Because when you find that next success, or in some cases that first success, it will all be worth it.

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Sands

Great post for us noobs.

Any one looking for the “get rich by tonight and work an hour a day” method should try AMWAY instead.

From poking around here it looks like a lot of knowledge ,long hours and a lot of trial and error is required .

It seems doable, to make a decent living doing this, but it’s not “easy”.

Reefer420

Good post -

I started out about a year ago thinking I could make money w/ domaining-- prior to that I had no knowledge of how to make money online, but I've always wanted to work for myself. That didn't work, and I wasted about 1k on stupid domains I had no idea what to do with, but it started me thinking about other ways to make money online...(wish I had thought of this back in the 90s when I was in HS..).

I then started to get into drop shipping, and after spending many hours building up sites only to have the drop shipping company tank or end up being shady as hell, started looking for other ways to make money online.

Then I came across WF and the way I viewed things changed completely. Adsense? Affiliate? these were new concepts to me and I spent the better part of a month reading every post and asking stupid questions on here before I started to understand what was going on.

I ended up realizing that my marketing degree, which I thought was not going to help me at all - really came in handy with these concepts.

I also realized after a month or so that I needed to stop reading here so much and actually do something. So I started w/ arb, since it was easy. I still make $30-50 a day w/ that, but I also realized something else- that I needed to focus on what my strengths are more, and keep to a minimum the time I spend on everything else.

I am an idea guy, and I am pretty good at design (not the actual graphic design, but I have a good feel of the way things should look) - so I sucked it up and took a small loan (prosper.com is great for this) out to hire a programming team to actually do one of my ideas. I knew I never will be as good of a programmer as many of you on here- and even if I were to spend my limited amount of time learning how to program PHP, ruby,etc it would just limit the amount of time (by years) that I would be spending and developing what my real strengths are.

I now have two sites in the works, on which I spend about 3-4 hours a day on. I would love to spend more, but there aren't more than one or two hours left in my day after I get home from work- and that includes gym and food time... not much wiggle room. I can't do much other than critique the programmers work anyway, which then takes time until they can work on my changes. I can't do anything on these when I'm at my job.

I still spend a little time on my arb and other little sites, which is more fun for me than anything else - and keeps me occupied in any spare time I have.

I also feel that you have to follow what feels 'right' to you. Designing landing pages for multiple ppc aff programs doesn't do it for me... what i enjoy most is taking a large concept from paper, and seeing it unfold as you manage the project. My sites are based around providing free services to users, and putting a social networking spin on them (while promoting aff programs and having targeted adsense places on hotspots within the pages). My business plans are long, they take a while to put together, and longer to develope - but I love the entire process and if I didn't have a full time job would probably never sleep!

What motivates me is my absolute hatred for my full time job - I literally hate waking up in the morning and going to work. I tried starting my own company when I graduated college, and after getting a taste of what it is like to work for yourself instead of being stuck in a cubicle doing menial work all day.. well I just can't imagine myself counting down the hours until the weekend year after year until I retire or am dead, you know?

How nice it would be to not live paycheck to paycheck!

Anyway, I'm certainly no success yet - but I thought it would be good to get what I've been doing out there. It hasn't been easy, its been a learning process - and you can't be afraid of making mistakes or spending money to learn. Hopefully things will start to work out for me - but there is no better motivator that coming into the office each day and knowing how much better I could do if I didn't have to be stuffed into a small cube all day doing menial tasks so that a large company can run.

I have this hanging on my desk at home...it reminds me of my job everytime I look at it... and then I get back to my 'real' work!

Worth

damn I just wrote a shitload...thats what happens when I'm sitting here w/ nothing to do. 5pm cannot come fast enough!

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