I wrote this on the Warrior forum and decided it would be great here as well: I've been involved in internet marketing off and on for a few years now. I wanted to give a small list of things to do and not to do when getting started. 1. Stick to 1 thing - I jumped around again and again, trying to find something that would work almost instantaneously. I even ended up trying Mechanical Turk (which still takes a little time to get the privileges to work on better jobs) to no avail, but I found out that my number one problem wasn't that I was doing something wrong, but that I didn't stick with it long enough. IM takes time, and when I say time, I mean months to years, but it's completely worth it in the end. And if you keep switching to something else, you will never be able to make the money you want. 2. Gain friends - It's good to have friends that know what they're doing that can help. Not financially or even giving you some type of advertisement, but knowledge wise. What you're doing has probably been done before. Someone can help you from making terrible mistakes or "learning the hard way". Not only should you gain friends to obtain their knowledge or benefit, but also try and make sure you are kind simply to be kind. This world can always use more kindness. 3. Don't make enemies - Though I've said to make friends, it's still important to note that you want to avoid making enemies. It's unwise to make enemies when first starting out or even as an avid internet marketer. It doesn't benefit you in any way. Try as hard as you can to avoid making them (even though sometimes it's unavoidable). 4. You can't always reinvent the wheel - I'm not saying that you shouldn't come up with a new idea (a lot of money is involved in new ideas), I'm just saying that everything doesn't have to be new. There are tried and true ways to do things. Don't just think you have thought of a new idea before researching it. Make sure it's actually a new idea, and if it isn't, learn from those who have done it before. 5. Learn, learn and learn some more - I made the mistake many times of just jumping into something the second I heard of it. It's not smart to make a leap into a field you know nothing about. It usually doesn't work out. It's best to back up and spend a ton of time researching and finding out the best way to do it. IM is a lot to do with knowledge. If you take action with no knowledge backing your actions, it won't work. I hope you guys enjoyed what I had to say. I'm no expert, but felt I needed to say a little from my experiences. Thanks for reading.
Very good advice, many newbies will find this helpful. However sometimes you make enemies just by entering into a market that other "established" folks think is theirs by right. You sometimes have to fight for your place in the sun.
"1. Stick to 1 thing" You got that right brother. If I only did that three years ago when I started - I would be making a lot more $$$ now. keyword is persistance.
This is so like a "Desiderata" on Internet using. Great post, Ttdub. I like the 5th pointer: "Learn, learn, and learn some more." One doesn't even have to rely on previous knowledge as the internet is fast-changing and fast-developing, thus we need to keep up and "learn some more."