Dan C. Rinnert I have a lame list. War Room Member



Join Date: 2008 Location: One Second into the Future Posts: 4,473 Thanks: 889 Thanked 2,717 Times in 1,144 Posts Blog Entries: 1

Re: What to do if you're desperate Share on: The first thing you need to do is create a plan.



Start by figuring out your budget. How much do you currently make? How much do you currently spend? Where can you reduce or eliminate expenses?



Too often, people just say they "need more money" but without a budget, they don't have a plan for the money they do get in. So, any extra money may not go to where it gives them the best bang for the buck. By having a budget set up, you can better figure out where to spend any extra income you get. And, when starting out online, for most people, any income they get is going to be spotty at best. So, figuring out where to utilize that money--whether it is $20 or $200--is very important. You want to make sure you use that money where it will help you the most.



Once you have a budget, then you can develop a plan. This is where you'll figure out how much more money you need to make and how much more money you want to make. Do you need $50 more per week? $500? Do you need another $5000 a month? How much is long term? How much do you need in the short term? Once you've determined your needs, then you can start a plan of attack.



Your plan may be finding work locally, providing services online, selling stuff on eBay, etc.--the things others have mentioned. And you have to break down your plan into short term and long term objectives. You might take a job temporarily at a fast food joint to help until you can get your online business going, for example.



Hand-in-hand with your plan is a daily schedule. If you want to make money at IM, you are going to have to work at it on a regular basis. You can't just do stuff here and there. That will just lead to spotty results and you probably won't be able to earn a decent income with intermittent efforts. So, create a schedule that works around your regular job (if you have one), your temporary job (if you have one), and whatever else may be going on in your life (taking kids to soccer practice, for example). Make sure you create time to work on your Internet marketing business on a regular basis. Daily, if possible. If not, then make it as many times a week as you can. If you can only do it on weekends, then plan around that too. Bear in mind that software like WordPress allows you to schedule posts, so you create posts on weekends and schedule them to appear throughout the week so that your blog is updated daily. If you are blogging, of course. That's just one example. Some article directories let you schedule things to a degree, so take advantage of that where possible, etc. There are workarounds for many things, so don't let stumbling blocks steer you off-course.



Consistency is what you really need to achieve results. So, create a plan and a schedule that will allow you to do that. Treat your IM efforts as a business not a hobby.



Once you have your plan and your schedule, you're going to have to figure out what you're going to do when you're sitting at your computer ready to do your Internet marketing work.



So, the first thing you'll need to do is find a niche. You'll want to choose a niche where there are hungry buyers to make it easier on yourself to sell something. You might choose multiple niches as well, but just stick with one thing until you get it going. You should diversify, but don't do it so quickly that none of your "diversifications" ever gets off the ground! There are plenty of threads around here for choosing niches, so I won't get into that here.



Once you have a niche, then you have to find a product. You have several options. You could be an affiliate for an existing product. Look at places like ClickBank, Commission Junction, PayDotCom, LinkShare, ShareASale, etc. for products you may be able to promote as an affiliate. Another option is to create your own product and sell it. Another option is to purchase a product with Master Resale Rights or Resale Rights and sell it. Yet another option, if it is a physical product you are looking at, is to become a reseller for that product. This can be expensive and is not going to be a practical option if you are desperate. In that case, you'll want to look at dropshipping, where the manufacturer or seller will dropship a product for you so that you don't have to stock anything and you only pay for the product when you have a sale. So, there are lots of options. In most cases, however, going with a digital product is going to be the most effective for the desperate Internet marketer that's just starting out.



After you have a niche and a product to promote or sell, then you need to promote it. You may be able to do this simply through article marketing and social networking, but it will be highly advantageous, especially for long term growth, if you create your own website. The ideal is to have your own domain name and hosting. If you cannot afford that, at least find a way to get $10 to register your own domain name. Then, you can start at a service like Blogger for free and point your domain name to it. That way, any marketing you do can utilize your domain name rather than a Blogger Blogspot URL. Then, when you can afford hosting, you can find a way to move your content to your own hosted blog and retain your incoming links.



The next thing is going to be payments. If you are an affiliate, you don't need to worry about this but if you are selling your own product, you will need to have a way for people to pay you. For most new Internet marketers, this will probably mean something like PayPal. If you have a digital product, you can sell through ClickBank, and then they'll provide you with payment links and such. The disadvantage here is that you'll need to come up with $49.95 to open your ClickBank account as a vendor, which is $49.95 you may not have! so, PayPal becomes a more attractive option here. You might also consider 2Checkout and various other payment services.



There's a lot to do, and it's easy to got confused or distracted and head off in different directions, which usually results in not succeeding in Internet marketing. That's why it is important to develop a plan and stick with it. You can keep reading things, but when scheduling your computer time, keep your "research" time and your "work" time separate. You don't want "research" (i.e., reading forums, reading eBooks, hanging out on Facebook, etc.) to cut into or reduce your "work" time. You have to work at Internet marketing to make it, um, work. So, don't allow distractions to throw you off-course. Develop a schedule and stick to it. If it helps, find a picture of some mean looking guy and put it next to your computer or use it as your desktop background and pretend that's your boss looking over your shoulder every time you're at the computer. Do whatever it takes to do the actual work of Internet marketing.



Again, consistency is very important! As is just getting it done! A half-finished project will never make you money if it just sits on your hard drive and you never go anywhere with it.



And, again, remember that Internet marketing will not likely be a short term fix. Short term Internet marketing successes are few and far between. Most success in Internet marketing comes from the long term. So, when you are in a bind, realize that, in all likelihood, Internet marketing is not going to help you. If you're only interest in Internet marketing is getting X amount of dollars by such and such a date so that you can get back to your "regular" life after that, Internet marketing is probably not for you. If you realize that Internet marketing is a business, if you are looking at Internet marketing as a long term solution to supplement or replace a current (or lost) income, then realize that you will need to find a temporary solution while you work at building your business.



On the other hand, if you have existing skills that can be offered online (such as writing, researching and other things people have mentioned in this thread), then you may be able to get yourself out of a bind by offering such services. But, if you don't possess any such skills, then you are not likely to be able to use Internet marketing as a short term fix.