How To Make A Full-Time Income Online
by Damon G. Zahariades
Last week, I returned home from a week-long trip to Washington D.C. In this
Report, I'm going to share with you a startling revelation I learned there.
Then, I'm going to tell you how to apply it to your own
business.
Whether you're just getting started online and want
to make some extra cash each month or you want to seriously crush it and make a
full-time income online for you and your family, this Report
will describe what you need to do in order to make it happen.
Let's get
started.
As you probably know, I was in Washington D.C. for a seminar.
In truth, I wasn't really there to attend the seminar. I was
there to see old friends and meet new ones. In fact, I only attended 2 of the
nearly 17 presentations given at the seminar.
Why in the world would I I
travel across the country to attend a big-ticket seminar only
to miss nearly all of the presentations?!
One reason.
Because, I
was saving my energy for what I was about to face in the bar.
How A Casual Drink With Friends Ultimately Led To An Eye-Popping,
Business-Changing Revelation
Prior to attending the seminar, I
already knew people were doing big things online. I knew some
folks were bringing in major income each month.
But, I had no idea
things had blown up this big.
While strolling through
the bar, drinking my admittedly "girly drinks" (as one of my friends gently put
it), I met.
-
a guy bringing in low-to-mid 8 figures. per month!
-
a lady who built and sold her company for a healthy mid-8-figure sum. And
she did it while being mom to her three kids!
-
a man who was planning to sell his portfolio of online assets for a
9-figure sum!
And the cast of characters went on and
on. I met.
-
two 7-figure Adsense earners
-
a fun-loving snowboarder who traveled wherever the best slopes were, while
allowing his affiliate business to automatically generate more income each month
than most families make in a year
-
a man who had decided to take his page-generation business to the next level
by hiring a huge staff (not independent contractors. real staff) of folks who
did most of the work for him while he lived like a king in a foreign land
These folks weren't the usual suspects. They weren't the ones you hear
being interviewed on teleseminars. They weren't the ones making gigantic waves
in the internet marketing space.
And they weren't the ones speaking at
the seminars.
They were the folks who were sitting in the audience,
taking notes. They were regular people doing huge things with
their online businesses.
And I noticed one common trait in all of them.
The One Common Trait
They are doers. Each and every one of them.
They get off their respective butts and actually take action on
a regular basis. Plain and simple.
If they know how to do something that
works, they do it.
If they don't know how to do
something that works, they learn how to do it. And then they do
it.
If they want to know if something works, they test
it.
And here's the most important piece of the puzzle.
These folks are not rocket scientists. They're
not armed with PhD's. They're normal folks who take
action on a regular basis.
And if they can do it, you can do
it, too.
Let's Talk About You
Right now, as you're reading this, are you
making a full-time income online?
If not, why not? The
fact that you're reading this Report means you're at least
interested in making that kind of money. What's holding you
back?
I'm going to say something that you're not gonna like. But, if
you're struggling to grow your business online, you need to hear it.
(If
you're already doing $100,000+ per year online, this isn't specifically for you.
You should read the rest of this Report because it can help propel your business
even further, but I'm really speaking to the folks who want to
make a full-time income, but are not doing so right now.)
Aside from health issues, there are only 2 reasons why you're not
currently making a full-time income online. Here they are.
-
You lack the marketing eduction you need in order to take
action.
-
You lack the willpower and discipline necessary to take
action on a consistent basis.
Every other reason I've heard (and I've
heard a ton of 'em) is simply noise. They're excuses. And excuses hold you back
from achieving the success you want. From earning the income
you want!
It's time for you to identify and kill those excuses. It's
time to start taking action to build your business, grow it, improve it and
finally make the kind of money you've been struggling to make.
So, let's
look at 3 proven ways to get you from where you are today to finally making your
full-time income online.
1. Educate Yourself
We all started from the same place. At one
time, I didn't know how to do the things I currently do.
When I first
started building my business, I didn't know how to do anything.
I didn't know how to work autoresponders. I didn't know html. I
didn't even know how to turn a Microsoft Word document into a PDF. And I sure as
heck didn't know anything about search engine optimization or
how to make money from pay-per-click traffic.
The list
of stuff I was clueless about goes on and on. Again, I didn't know how to do
anything when I first started.
But, I learned.
And then I applied what I learned.
And then I made
money from applying what I learned.
And I make money
today from applying what I learned on a regular basis.
So, what will it take for you to learn a new skill that
you can apply profitably in your online business? Learning something new will
either cost you time, money, or both.
I'll give you an example.
Let's say you want to learn how to get a ton of free targetted traffic
coming to your site on a regular basis from Google, Yahoo and MSN. In a
nutshell, you want to learn search engine optimization.
You have some options.
Option 1. you can find most of the
SEO information you need for free. How? You
can dig through forums, discussion boards, free articles and free ebooks. The
information is there for the taking.
The problem is, it takes a lot of
time to find the good, reliable information. Plus, it takes a
lot of time to filter out the crap (that is, bad, unreliable information).
It won't cost you any money, but it'll still cost you lots of
time.
Or, option 2. you can buy a couple of ebooks.
Finding good ones that'll teach you SEO isn't hard. You'll have
to pony up a few bucks (usually under $100) and you'll need to spend time
reading the books.
So, it'll cost you a little money and a little time.
Or, option 3. you can hire an expert to teach you SEO.
Experts are expensive. You'll pay a lot of money to have that expert personally
coach you, but you'll save yourself heaps of time.
Here's the bottom
line.
If you don't know how to do something, learn how to do
it! Plain and simple.
How you go about getting the
information you need is just a matter of deciding what is currently
worth more to you. your money or your time.
2. Start Small And Build Consistently
I realize you're being
pulled in a million different directions. You're starting to recognize that
there are tons of ways to make a full-time income (and then
some) online. So, naturally, you want to attack them all.
You want to
build content sites for Adsense and affiliate revenue.
You want to build
datafeed sites.
You want to build spam sites.
You want to build
lists.
You want to learn how to communicate to your lists.
You
want to build Underachiever sites.
You want to learn SEO.
You
want to learn PPC.
You want to create your own products.
You
want to learn click arbitrage.
You want to create membership sites.
You want to learn how to blog profitably.
You want to create
blog farms.
And on and on and on.
STOP! Take a breath.
You need to focus on one thing. Only one. Learn that
one task. Master it. Figure out how to use it to bring in revenue. If possible,
automate it.
Once you have mastered the first task, move to the second
task. While you're learning the second task, continue to work on the first task.
Once you have mastered the second task, work on the third task.
Here's
an example.
Let's say you have never built a list before. You don't know
how. So, first, learn how to do it. That's your first task. There are lots of
places to learn how to build a big, responsive list. (I suggest learning at http://www.WebBusinessToday.com/list-building/.
I consider it the best and most affordable, but it's not the only resource out
there.) Master the list-building process. Then, start building your list. Learn
by doing.
Next, learn how to
communicate with your list (this can be your second task).
Start trying different things. Try short messages. Try long messages. Change
your tone of writing. Watch what makes your particular audience respond. While
you're testing, continue to build your list.
Next,
learn how to build a content site. It's not hard. Especially with some of the
tools available today. But, if you don't know how to do it, you need to educate
yourself. Master the site-building process while building and communicating with
your list.
Notice how your momentum is building.
Next, learn how
to do SEO. There are plenty of forums, ebooks and membership
sites to teach this stuff to you. Educate yourself. Implement what you have
learned. Do this while you continue to build your content site. Do this while
you continue to build and talk to your list.
Now, take a look at what's
happening. Your site is growing, your list is growing, you're getting your
audience to respond to your e-mails and soon, you'll start getting some free
traffic from the search engines. More momentum.
Next, learn how to drive
traffic to your content site with Adwords. Learn to improve
your Adwords skills. Master these skills. Do this while continuing the
other tasks.
Now, look at what you have accomplished! You have
a naturally-growing content site, a growing and responsive list, free traffic
from the search engines and paid traffic from Adwords (which is adding to your
growing list).
Talk about momentum!!
After you
have learned, mastered and applied your new list-building, site-building, SEO
and Adwords skills to your first content site, begin working on
your second content site. Then, work on a third site. Then, a
fourth. And so on.
Eventually, you can outsource most
of the work.
-
Hire someone to create your site's content.
-
Hire someone to FTP the new content to your site on a regular schedule.
-
Hire someone to get quality links (with great anchor text) coming to your
site.
-
Hire someone to blog about your site's new content on a regular basis (this
will get the search engine spiders crawling your site's content).
Put
your e-mails into a 6-month autoresponder sequence instead of manually
broadcasting them.
See how this works? Start small and build
consistently. That's how empires are built!
Yes, it takes time. In the
beginning it takes a lot of time. But, you're building a
portfolio of assets. And your assets include not only your sites and your lists,
but your new site-building and list-building skills, too!
Remember. consistent, incremental building of your portfolio is key
here.
So, what task should you start with? What should be your first
task?
Ultimately, that's up to you. If it were me and I
was starting over, I'd definitely learn how to build lists
first. And then, I'd learn how to communicate with my audience. I want them
looking forward to getting an e-mail from me. As I mentioned earlier, the best
resource I've ever found that teaches how to do this stuff is at http://www.WebBusinessToday.com/list-building/.
But, you don't have to start with list-building if you
don't want to. You can learn Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing first.
The important thing is. make a decision to start. And then, start!
3. Track The ROI Of Everything You Do
Most folks usually think of
ROI as either positive or negative. If it's positive, they're happy. If it's
negative, they're not.
I think that's an oversimplication.
ROI
should be a factor of how much of your time, money and effort
you spend to achieve a goal. Your time is worth something. Your
money is obviously worth something. And the
effort you put into something has a value, too. The goal you
achieve has to be worth the time, money and effort you spend to achieve it.
It's not enough that a task simply yields a positive ROI. The ROI has to
be worthwhile to you.
Here's an example.
A 200%
ROI on a $100 spend isn't worthwhile if you had to spend a week to create it.
But, a 100% ROI on a $100 spend is worthwhile if you
can create it in 10 minutes. (Especially if you can automate it to occur
repeatedly!)
You first have to define what an "acceptable" ROI is to you
personally. What is your goal? And what are you willing to accept for the time,
money and effort you spend?
Don't just think of your goal in terms of
immediate profits. Your goal could be.
-
acquiring subscribers
-
landing major joint venture partners to promote your latest
product
-
selling your entire portfolio of spam sites
-
getting your free ebook into the hands of a targeted
audience
-
creating an information product for a niche market
Once you know what your true goal is (and how much time, effort and
money you're willing to spend to achieve it), you can track your efforts to
figure out if your ROI is "acceptable" to you.
For example.
Let's say you're running an Adwords campaign. You're
driving people to your site to buy your ebook. In this case, your goal is sales.
You're willing to spend $0.50 to acquire each customer. That's your "acceptable
ROI."
Let's further assume you have 2,000 keywords spread across
multiple Ad groups. You need to know which keywords in your Adwords campaign are
converting to sales at the rate of $0.50 per customer.
You'll need to
use a tracking application to do this. Google provides one with
Google Analytics). There are other good options. Just choose
one and get started. If you don't know how to use these options, learn how.
Then, apply it. That's the only way you'll know if the money you're spending on
the keywords in your Adwords campaign are yielding an "acceptable ROI."
Another example.
Let's say you have a landing page that captures
visitors' e-mail addresses. Once your visitor opts-in on your
landing page, you send them to your sales page to buy your ebook. In this case,
you establish your goal as "converting opt-ins to sales." You want to convert at
least 13% of the people who opt-in to immediate sales. That's your "acceptable
ROI." Anything less is "unacceptable" to you.
Again, you need to use a
tracking application to track your ROI from this project. If you don't track it,
you'll never know if what you're doing is meeting your personal expectations.
Another example.
Let's say you have a new product and want to
recruit some joint venture partners to help you promote it.
Your goal is to recruit as many partners as possible.
Figuring out your
"acceptable ROI" is more difficult here. You need to add the true
costs of the project. How much time will it
take to e-mail, call or have lunch with each potential partner? How much
money will it cost to produce and ship them a copy of your
product for them to review? How much effort is necessary to
motivate them?
Ultimately, you'll need to ask yourself, "how much
time, effort and money am I willing to spend to acquire each
joint venture partner?"
Everything I have mentioned here is a part of
tracking the ROI of every task and project you do. This is how
empires are built. This is how many of the biggest players
online are building their businesses.
Slowly, consistently and
methodically.
Last Thoughts
If you want to make a full-time income
online, it's time for you to make the decision to take action.
Maybe a "full-time income" to you means $3,000 per month. Maybe it means
$20,000 per month. Whatever the case, you can achieve it. Every
piece of information you need to build your business into a full-time venture is
available to you. Every tool you need is available to you. Whether you're
building sites, building lists, sending pay-per-click traffic to review pages
for affiliate income.
Everything you need to make a full-time income is
available to you!
If you don't know how to do something, you can
learn how.
If you don't know how to use a tool effectively,
you can learn how.
If you already know how to do
something, but you want to do it more effectively, you can learn
how!
Buy a ebook tutorial. Hire a coach. Join a membership site
that teaches the skill you want to learn.
Once you learn that skill,
apply it. Nothing happens without taking action.
And your business can
explode when you begin to take action on a regular
basis.
Start small and build consistently.
Improve consistently. Incremental growth and improvement in
your business can help you build an empire. Have you ever wondered how some
people can bring in $50,000 per month (after expenses)? I'll tell you how. they
started taking action on a regular basis, making mistakes and
improving along the way.
Finally, figure out what an "acceptable ROI"
means to you personally for each task and project you pursue. For each site you
build. For each e-mail capture page you create. For each list you build. For
each e-mail sequence you create.
Improve what works. Trash what doesn't.
Marketing has never been rocket science. And the most successful
marketers on the planet have never needed to be brilliant.
They simply
do one thing that others aren't motivated to do: they take
action over and over.
Sometimes, that means learning a new skill.
Sometimes, it means applying that skill. And sometimes, it
means tracking the results of applying that skill.
In the end,
successful marketers simply take action.
Are you
willing to take action? Are you willing to do it on a regular
basis?
Remember, small steps over time can create an empire for
you.
Thanks for reading this. I hope you've enjoyed it. Most
importantly, I hope this Report will spur you and motivate you to take
action to build your business into a full-time income
online.
Get started today!
Damon G. Zahariades
WebBusinessToday.com
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