Entries from February 2008 ↓

I am not sure if people are really interested in how much I earn. For those of you are I have included a brief look at my income for this month (not including today obviously).

Gross Income: $4,332.46
Pay Per Click Costs: $2,231.56
Other Costs (Web hosting, Domain names, subscriptions etc.): $70.17

Net Monthly Income For February: $2,030.73

This falls within the range I have been experiencing lately. Obviously, I still have along way to go until I reach $10,000 a month but at least I am about 1/5 of the way there.

This could not have come at a more perfect time. Less than an hour after I finished my post on Why Internet marketing products suck I get an e-mail about a brand new FREE report about a new project called Affiliate X Factor.

Essentially the free report is nothing more than sales hype for Affiliate X Factor, which looks like it will be an expensive coaching program. The site is run by Andrew Fox who I have heard about before but have never bought anything from. Now, I have no idea if he is as successful as he claims but I can guarantee this will not be the last you will hear of Affiliate X Factor.

This is the perfect example of the hype that generally surrounds the launch of new Internet marking product. And I know the program is going to expensive because he is offering $1 to every person who downloads the report. The only way he could possibly recoup that money, is to charge a lot for the coaching program when it is launched.

I am actually impressed with the Affiliate X Factor pre-launch because it is such a perfect example of what I just posted about. Anyway if you are curious about the free report and want to see an example of pure Internet marketing hype by all means click here to register and download it.

I can tell you right now that I won’t be joining but hey if you want to pay $97 a month (my guess as to how much it will cost) to get personalized coaching be my guest. If nothing else, the free report shows you the sort of tactics Internet marketers use to separate you from your money.

Once you know their tricks and tactics to manipulate you, you will be much more resistant to their sales pitches in the future. Remember these two things: if it sounds too good to be true it is and the only people who get rich from get rich quick schemes are the one selling them.

I have been earning some money online, for a long time now. I think I made my first website over 10 years ago and ever since then I have manged to earn a little something online. As I mentioned in the Q&A I did with myself I don’t earn huge money online but it is enough to live on.

However, for a long time I kept spending some of my money on various get rich quick Internet marketing miracles. I loved the promises of earning tons of money without any real work. Turns out the only people who got rich were the ones selling the ebooks, software etc. that I was buying.

My Conclusion: Internet Marketing Products Suck

This is true for nearly every product that gets released on the market these days. For every truly great product that can honestly help people looking to start an Internet business (like Site Build It), there are probably thousands of worthless or even pure scam alternatives.

So, I will say it again Internet marketing products suck. Moreover, you have to be really careful about any so-called “reviews” you read about any new product. The fact is that most of them are written by people who want you to buy it, so they can earn their affiliate commission. Worse still, most of them have probably not even seen or tried the product themselves.

For example, take the review I did of Jermaine Griggs’ Nitty Gritty Marketing back in October. If you go to Google and do a search today you will find roughly 230,000 results when you search for ‘Nitty Gritty Marketing Review.’ I guarantee you virtually all the reviews will be positive. Now it could be great product or there could be other things at work.

For about a week and half before it was released it was the only thing anybody in the Internet Marketing community was talking about. Yet, within days of it being released nobody was talking about it anymore. A little suspicious I think?
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This is part two of a question and answer session I am doing with myself. Look at yesterdays post for questions 1-5. Here are questions 6-10.

6. Why am I keeping my new project a secret?

I think I have already addressed this in my previous two posts. I don’t want any competition and I don’t want to influence the result. Beyond this, I want to prove to myself that I can actually build a successful Internet business from scratch not based on PPC.

However, just because I am keeping the overall project a secret does not mean that I won’t post updates on how its doing. Moreover, I plan to tell you about which tools I am using and how well they are working for me.

Nonetheless, for the time being I do not plan to reveal any specifics about my project any time in the future.

7. What things stand in my way?

My main obstacle in this new project, as with all my projects in the past, will be me. I am going to have to overcome some of my laziness and my tendency to procrastinate. To help me I have outsourced some of the work (I will explain more in a future post).

At the end of the day though, I will still have to put in a fairly substantial amount of work to get the kind of results I want. It is going to be a long term project, so it is going to require a sustained effort, something I am terrible at.

I will post updates on my progress here as well as my setbacks in terms of both laziness and procrastination.

8. What are my goals?

Obviously, I want my new project to be a success. For me that means that I would like to have net earnings of $10,000 US a month or more. If you read yesterdays post you will see that this is substantially higher than my current income.

I plan on saving the vast majority of this extra income and investing it. Ultimately, I hope this will give me total financial freedom. This will only be achieved, if I continue to live somewhat frugally. What really matters in terms of long term financial success is not how much you earn but how much you keep (both savings and investments).
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As I am sure you can tell yesterday’s post was the first in a long time. However, reading it again I felt that it was not as clear as I would have liked it to be. The overall tone was correct but I think it could have been a bit more straightforward.

So, today and tomorrow I am asking and answering a total of 10 questions to myself. Hopefully you will find them interesting but if not, they should at least serve as an outline to where I am coming from and where I hope to go in the future in terms of my own Internet business.

1. Do I make enough money online, to live on?

The short answer is yes I do. However, as you will see below, many people will probably think that I what I earn would be enough for them.

2. So how much money do I make?

This varies a fair bit from month to month but recently my net monthly online income has been between $1,600 US and $3,200 US. Both my revenue and expenses can change dramatically from month to month so there is not as much stability as I would like.

However, that being said, my non-Internet related expenses are usually less than $1,000 a month (including rent, food, booze etc.). So even in bad months I am able to save some money. I live very frugally, but that is not to say I would not be happy earning more money. I will elaborate more on this point tomorrow.

I am sure many people reading this, think $1,600 US a month is too little to live on; but the fact is that I can work (almost) whenever and wherever I want. This independence for me is the most important thing for me at this stage of my life. If I had a family this arrangement would probably have to change, or I would have to start earning more.

3. How many hours a week do I work?

Again this varies widely from week to week depending on what I want to get done and what needs to get done. For example, last week I took a short trip and I think I probably only worked about 5 hours. And to be honest I never work more than about 30 hours a week due to my laziness.
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