Entries Tagged 'Goals' ↓

It has been about a year and half since I wrote my last Site Build It (SBI) review, and a fair bit has changed. If anything, I have become an even bigger fan of Ken Evoy’s SBI system. I think if you want to start a viable internet business for 2010, 2011 and beyond you should at least take a look at Site Build It.

I have now owned and operated my own internet business for a little over 4 and a half years. During that time I have tried almost every make money online system you can imagine. From pay-per-click to social media to e-mail marketing and lots more. And the truth is while I did make money with a lot of these systems, I had to monitor them constantly.

They were not helping me create the lifestyle I wanted. My thinking was: “What’s the point in making money if you can never take time off to enjoy it?” I wanted a way to create what is known as passive income. Basically, this is just a fancy of saying I wanted to earn money while I slept or went on vacation.

Fortunately, one the early systems I tried was Ken Evoy’s Site Build It. Although he doesn’t market it directly as being a way to create passive income, I think SBI is a great way to do so. The simple reason why is because he teaches you how to create a viable, long-term web business.

However, his process does take time. If you want to make money fast other systems are probably better for quick cash. Site Build It is really designed for people who want to put the work in and see results for years to come.

So at this point you may be wondering how many Site Build It websites do I own? The surprising answer is that at the current time I continue to own only one SBI site. It was my first among my many dozens of other web properties.

Yet, as of right now my SBI website is still my number one income earner. In the first half of 2010 it has been averaging about a little over $600 a month, all on autopilot, all on its own. Now this may not sound like a huge amount on its own; but I have taken what I have learned with SBI to my other web properties and multiplied my results.

So, why do I only own one SBI site among so many others, if I think it is so great? The answer is that the value of Site Build It is in what it teaches you in terms of how to build a profitable web business. This is the key to long term success online.

If you have read any other Site Build It reviews you may have heard claims that Site Build It is too expensive or that the sites are ugly, etc. For some this may be true, for others not. If Site Build It was only a web host, its $299 annual fee would be high. You can get shared hosting accounts where you can host unlimited domains for less than $100 a year.

With these same web hosts you can create sites using any number of advanced content management solutions like WordPress or Joomla. They gives you a huge degree of flexibility, but require at least some technical knowledge. Moreover, these sites can look great or horrible depending on the designer.

Yet, all this misses the point. Site Build It’s value doesn’t come from being a fancy designer web hosting company. Its value comes from the complete process it offers people to create a profitable internet business. The web hosting and design tools are really just bonuses to make the whole process even easier.

Today, I use other web hosts with unlimited hosting plans to build websites in addition to my SBI site. I took what I learned from the Site Build It process and applied it to my other websites. I was willing to learn the technical side of things so I could do more on my own.

Yet, I was only able to do this after finding a system that worked for long run success. Again ,Site Build It is not a get rich quick scheme. You will have to put in some work to see results. The good news is that if you follow the system and put in the work you are almost guaranteed to succeed.

If you are new to building a web business you need to remember that you can’t run before you can walk. So please look at the following links to find out more about how you can create a profitable web business using SBI:

Site Build It Case Studies – Real stories of real people who have used SBI to succeed.

Sample SBI Sites – Real examples of sites created using the SBI process.

I Love SBI – Videos of people explaining why they love Site Build It.

SBI Order Page – If you want to try Site Build It Right Now!

Before I explain what I mean by this I will address a very obvious objection to my headline. Why am I telling you not to create webpages, blogs or products about making money online when I blog about making money online?

Very simply, I don’t make my money online through this blog. It currently represents only about 1-2% of my total online income. I assume that this proportion will rise somewhat as it becomes more popular, but I never expect it to be more than about 10% of my total online earnings.

I enjoy writing this blog because it helps me to think through my own ideas about Internet business and because I want to help people improve their lives by starting their own Internet business. Obviously, if I can make money from this blog so much the better, but the earnings from it could disappear tomorrow and I would hardly notice.

OK, enough about me for one post, what does this have to do with you? In fact, I think this point is extremely important, because it is the biggest single mistake I see people online making online.

Why Do People Think Writing or Even Creating Products About Making Money Online Will Make Them Money?

I think the simple answer is that they see other people doing it and decide to copy them and do it themselves. For example, they see supper bloggers like John Chow who report incomes as high as $30,000 a month, writing about making money online and think well that looks like a good idea, so they copy it.
Continue reading →

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).
Continue reading →

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.
Continue reading →

Well I know it has been a few months since I made my last post. I do apologize, but the fact is that I am extremely lazy when comes to doing almost anything. I must be among the world’s greatest procrastinators.

One of my goals for 2008 is to try and be better about all this but as you can see it is not off to a great start. Moreover, right now this blog is not a huge priority for me because I am working on a much bigger project.

Unfortunately, I don’t want to reveal what it is now or in the future. The reason being that I don’t need any competition in the niche I am targeting.

In fact, my main reason for restarting this blog is to try and keep myself motivated and focused on my big project. I figure that if I get into the habit of posting about how it is coming along, that this will in turn encourage me to keep at it (see laziness above).

This also means that the new version of the blog will be more focused on me personally and on how my project is going and less to do with the how to start your own business online. If you are still interested in that please read my previous posts since the information there is still good and relevant.

I intend to post the occasional review about upcoming Internet marketing products, but quite frankly I can tell you now that 99% of them are a waste of money. In a future post I will explain exactly what tools I am using to achieve my results and you can take it or leave it.

I hope you enjoy the new direction this blog takes but to be honest I am not too bothered if you aren’t. I hope it will prove to be an inspiration but I am unsure if my new project will be a success or failure, only time will tell.

My one piece of advice from all this is not to follow my example. Don’t procrastinate, don’t put things off until tomorrow that you could do today. If my new project succeeds it will be in spite of my huge ability to procrastinate not because of it.

Thanks for reading

Ian