You guessed it, right?
And you’ve been there yourself, I’m sure. And have tried much of what I’ve tried.
In fact, if you haven’t, you should probably stop reading now.
Until you’ve tried, and failed, various “make money online” schemes, you will never be ready to do what it takes to actually make money online.
Read that again. It’s important.
Until you’ve tried, and failed, the various “make money online” schemes, you will never be ready to do what it takes to actually make money online.
In my case, I tried it all.
Note that these are all valid businesses, but until you’ve learned 3 key lessons, it doesn’t matter. You will fail miserably, just like I did.
Failure 1: Dropshipping
I bought a drop shipping course, which I promptly refunded, because it became clear very quickly that the drop shipping companies were only charging me slightly less than what their products were selling for on Amazon or eBay. There was no way to be profitable with those costs.
Failure 2: Quit Smoking E-book
I wrote an e-book on how to quit smoking. I made a hideous website to sell my e-book. Not a single person ever clicked on my buy button. No one could, because not a single person ever saw it.
Failure 3: Travel Blog
Next up was a travel blog. I put a lot of work into this one, writing a total of 275 posts over the course of two years. I did get a lot of visitors for a while, but I had no way to make money from them. Since its inception in 2012, that blog has made me about $100 total. It still exists, but I wrote the last post in 2015.
Failure 4 (eventually turned into a decent success): Affiliate Site
A few months after launching the travel blog, I also started an affiliate site. I wrote about coffee and linked out to products I mentioned. If people bought something after clicking on one of my links, I got a small commission.
It didn’t do much the first few years, but once I had those 3 insights (the keys to being successful at any of these ventures), it started to make money.
Today, it makes around $500 a month. It could make a few thousand, but my time is better spent on sites with more potential (i.e. higher value products that generate higher commissions).
Failures 5 and 6: Selling Clickbank Products
I created two animal-themed sites: one on dwarf hamsters and one on guinea pigs. I wrote a few articles and put up forms to get visitors onto my email list. I would follow up and recommend they buy an e-book I put on Clickbank for $19.95.
More accurately, I would have followed up, if anyone had ever signed up. I even bought Facebook ads to send people to the sites, but the few people who visited quickly left, because neither site offered anything of value.
Failure 7: Travel Booking Site
I paid someone to make a travel deals site for me. I presented good deals on trips and hotels and got a commission whenever someone booked using my links. I made a few sales, but paid way more in ads to get people to my site than I ever made in commissions.
Freelancing (not a failure, but I hated it)
Since none of my websites ever made much money, I also started freelancing.
Mainly I did translation work. This did not pay much, but it did pay for my living costs for the two years that I spent working on my online businesses full-time.
I hated freelancing. At times, I wasn’t sure I would be able to pay my rent. Once I had to withdraw cash on my credit card, because one of my translation clients waited two months to pay me the $2000 they owed me.
It was at that point, that I decided to go back to China.
I still really wanted to make this online thing work, but I realized I needed money to do it. I also needed enough free time to focus on my sites. My translation work wasn’t earning enough or leaving me enough free time.
I knew a public school job in China would give me both. I accepted a position that paid $2500 a month for 10 to 12 hours a week of work. Well, that’s what it paid at first.
Halfway through my contract, they actually lowered everyone’s salaries by 30%!
All while the cost of rent was skyrocketing (in Shenzhen), to the tune of far more than 30% per year.
Let me tell you, if I wasn’t already fed up with teaching in China, this DEFINITELY did it!
For now, I had plenty of income to pay the bills and to stick into my business. And plenty of free time, too.
Even so, it took me another 18 months to finally turn a profit. But the turning point came about 6 weeks before that.
That’s when I finally realized the 3 keys to making any business work.
Looking back, I’m kicking myself.
I started in 2012, but didn’t make any real money until 2015. It should have happened a lot faster.
All of the business models I tried could have easily been successful. They have all worked well for many people.
The problem was never the business model. It was always my mindset and my approach.
3 key insights changed everything.
And that’s what I can help you with. I can show you what I learned, so that you don’t have to wait three years to make money.
You can do it much faster. Within a few months.
But it won’t be easy. You’ll have to work and work hard.
If you’re not willing to that, if you’re looking for a simple way to make money, you’re in the wrong place.
You won’t find that here. Or anywhere else, to be honest.
But, as mentioned previously, that’s something you have to learn on your own.
You need to…
…Fail First
The first thing you need to do, if you ever want to make money online, is fail. You need to chase those “magic bullet” methods for making money and you need to fail.
Since you’re here, I’m assuming you’ve already been there. Like me, you tried a bunch of different methods. And like me, you failed at all of them.
That’s good.
More than good, it’s necessary.
If you haven’t experienced these failures and are making your first attempt at this, I can’t help you.
Not yet.
I know this, because I was where you are now.
And in that place, you’re not ready to accept that there is no quick and easy solution; that you’re going to have to work hard.
So go out there and listen to those sleazy gurus and give their get-rich-quick schemes a try. And fail. Several times. Then, when you’re ready to put in some real work, come back.
That’s the first key
We all need to learn the hard way that there’s no easy way to get rich, no matter how great some of the gurus’ schemes sound.
Once I learned that lesson, I was ready.
Since you’re still here, you’ve learned it, too.
That means you’re ready as well.
I can only help people who have gone through that.
If that’s you, enter your email below and I’ll send you the other two insights that changed everything.
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With those insights, you can take whatever business model you’re currently working on (blogging, drop-shipping, affiliate marketing, etc.) and turn it into a successful business.
If you’re not working on anything, I’ll also show you the business model that worked for me and give you all the info you need to be successful with it yourself.
There’s a ton of value here. So why am I giving it away for free?
Three reasons.
One, I may eventually turn it into a course (though probably not).
Before I do that, I need to fine tune all the info to make it as valuable as possible. For that, I hope to get some feedback from you.
So, if you have any suggestions for improvement, please let me know. I would greatly appreciate the help.
Two, I will offer some products of my own.
These will usually be short and to the point, and thus inexpensive. I always hate having to read through an entire book just to get at the one or two valuable nuggets of information (it’s rarely more than that).
Anything I offer will have only the valuable info and nothing else. That makes it easier for me to create and easier for you to consume. And also easier for you to buy, since the cost can be much lower.
Three, I hope to earn affiliate commissions.
I will also share with you the products, services, and training courses that helped me along the way.
You do not need any of them, but they do make things much easier and faster. If you buy any of them through the links I give you, i will receive a commission.
Eventually, I hope the combination of affiliate commissions and sales of my own products will add up to a solid income.
That’s why this information is all free. For now anyway.
Please remember what I said earlier. If you are not ready to work hard and if you have not tried and failed before, this is not right for you. Please do not waste your time, even if it is free.
Everyone else: welcome.
Let’s build a business.
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