Do you have what it takes to become an online money maker? Before knowing the HOW-TO, here are some food for thoughts for rookies, those who are tempted to make money online, and those who are stuck somewhere. Before you start to make money online, you should know about these… 1. It’s not easy
Don’t fret, it’s not extraordinary tough either. My point is, making money online is not easier than making money offline. It’s probably easier to make the same amount of money flipping burgers at McD than working online; and working in traditional (offline) careers offers as much (if not more) opportunities to make huge $$$ as online business.
Despite the fact, there’s other reasons why it’s still worth it to make money online, which brings us to our second point…2. Know your reasons
Why do you want to make money online? Just like many aspects in real life, you need to understand your goal – what do you want to achieve, and why. It helps a lot to motivate yourself to overcome obstacles if you have a clear target in mind, and you’ll be more willing to go extra miles if you know what you are going to achieve when you make it to the end.Ask yourself, what do you want to achieve? Why do you need to work online to achieve that? Can it be done if you work on “conventional” offline methods? Which would be easier (offline vs online) to achieve your goal?
Personally I have two major reasons to work online…
(a) I’m an introvert. I’m not antisocial, I love to mingle with friends, but I prefer to WORK ALONE. I dislike crowdy places, I hate office politics, and I hate confrontations. Working online could offer what I want regarding this matter, not 100%, but pretty close.
(b) I love travelling. My goal is to travel to any places I want as long as there’s proper internet connection. There are a few other alternatives to achieve that (travelling & working at the same time), working online is a logical option nonetheless.
Hope you’ll find yours soon enough.
3. It takes plenty of time
I worked as a full timer from the very beginning (I saved enough survival cash before I resigned from my daytime job to pursue my online dream). For the first 18 months or so I worked for 12-14 hours a day, seven days a week, with very little leisure except festive seasons.My case is on extremity, and I know most people won’t have the luxury to go full time at starting point. Regardless, you need time for this; and frankly, I don’t think 1-2 hours a day would be sufficient… it would be more ideal if you can spend around four hours on daily average, which you can find by sacrificing your weekend and a bit your personal hobbies.
4. You need to make sacrifices
As said, you’ll need to make some sacrifices if you are serious about making money online – e.g. spending less time on TV, Facebook/Twitter and hanging out with friends etc.People tend to find excuses that they can’t do this, can’t do that, but reality is if you really want something that badly you’ll be willing to sacrifice a lot to achieve that (read #2 again if you don’t get it). So the question is, how much are you willing to sacrifice to achieve your goal(s)?
Note that I’m not saying that you should cut everything altogether like my case. Most people need to have a more balance work-life, which is fine. Just cut your “fun” time by 20%, 40%, 60%… to a level which you can still survive but not too comfortable with.
5. You need to invest a bit of money
If you see this as a business, starting an online venture probably requires the least amount of money as compared to most other conventional businesses.Less doesn’t equal zero though, you need to pay for domains and hosting – which cost about US$70-$100 per year for one website. And I would recommend starting a few sites (that’s another long story) instead of one at the beginning. And if you are heading to internet marketing (sales focused) you’ll need a lot more for advertising.
A few hundreds USD might not seem a lot to some people, but in some cases it’s months of savings for those who barely make ends meet; and there’s also those who don’t have a source of income to begin with.
Worst case scenario you can start out by using free services (blogging on Blogspot for example), but please do so because you seriously DON’T HAVE the money, and not because you ARE NOT WILLING to spend it.
6. WORK on the basics
Forget about digging the secrets from successful webmasters. Thing is, you have a good chance to make it to a decent level by working hard just on the basics – content management, SEO, traffic building etc.Lots of people make the mistakes that LEARNING is equal to WORKING. Yeah, you might have read tonnes of info about this and that, but have you put enough effort to work on it? Most people spent too much time talking instead of working.
A good example is a hot topic recently on this blog – Guest Blogging. We have some good tips on WHY you should do it and HOW you can do it… but seriously, how many of you have put in serious time and effort to reap the benefit from it?
7. People are not obligated to help you
I hate it when I read comments on blogs and forums that “nobody is willing to help me” and “nobody is willing to share their secret” blah blah. Here’s the fact, nobody is obligated to help you to succeed in your life. Most people won’t mind giving a helping hand because of goodwill, not responsibility; and there’s always a limit how much the person are willing to give.I find it ridiculous that some people are hoping others to spend hours (or even days) to coach them for free. And I find it funny that some people are constantly asking for the “secrets” while ignoring all the basic advices.
Be grateful if you can find people who are willing to do a favour (even if it’s a little one) for you without asking for anything. Don’t whine if you are not that lucky… it’s up to YOU to make things happen in your life. And this rule applies regardless if you are working online or anything else; don’t blame others for your own failure.
8. Don’t give up
If people are asking for ONE advice, this is always the one from me. It’s not as simple as it sounds. There must be over hundred of people who seek my advice about my “secret”, and I’ve always stressed to them about this point(s)… that they should expect nothing from the first few months, that they should never give up before doing all the right things.Most of them would answer that they understood that and would not give up easily, but the irony is that EVERY SINGLE ONE of them dropped out prematurely, most within six months.
There are cases where things become futile after you’ve done everything, there are times when people need to know to call it quits. But please, don’t give up until you have done yourself. 12 months seem like a reasonable cut off point, and I’m not saying 12 months of half-hearted effort… at least follow the few points mentioned above.
I’ll be sorry if you are one of the few unlucky bunch. But chances are, you’ll succeed if you…
(a) Have a clear goal in mind
(b) Willing to make sacrifices
(c) Put things into action and work hard, and
(d) Be persistent and never gave up easily.
If you find these too intimidating, perhaps making money online is not for you.