It Ain't Easy

I am here to tell you that making your living online is not as easy as the GURUS like to say.  

I began this blog many years ago.  I wish I'd known then what I know now. 

If I had to do it over again, I would first conceive and devise a SYSTEM to get things done.  I foolishly thought I could, and should do everything myself.  And I had no clue what to focus on or how to really go about it.

I worked like a dog and got so tired of "internet marketing gurus" claiming that if you were not making millions,  you simply weren't applying yourself.

I applied  myself, I just applied myself often on tasks that  did not lead to profit. 

In part, that is because I was not focused enough on money.  I did not first devise ways to profit and then create an internet presence around those ways.   

 

Snakes

The world is full of snakes in human form.

This fact goes way back to the beginning. Even if Adam and Eve are fictitious, (which is my guess) the concept of people being lying snakes started there.

So why would I be surprised to run into a few lying snakes myself? Shouldn't be. And on an intellectual level I'm not surprised. But on an emotional level, when I realize some one I had trusted was lying to me all along, I get so angry I want to spit. Like a snake. See, if I were more of a snake myself I could play the game better.

I don't like the movie "KILL BILL" but I have discovered a new fondness for the title.
You see, my snake is named Bill. He seemed so nice. He seemed so trustworthy.

Honey coated snake I guess.

Internet Marketing is full of snakes, is it not?

Time Flies

Once upon a time, I thought it would take about six months to start a profitable Internet business.

WRONG!

It's been, well....nearly two years now and I'm still waiting to strike it rich.

Slow as molasses and not quite as sweet.

Never believe someone who tells you making money on the Internet is easy. Honest marketers will tell you it's not easy but it's worth doing.

I love what I do and making millions has never been my goal, although it'd be nice. Making a living by working for myself out of the house, that's my priority.

Since starting my business, I've given myself a great education on Internet marketing. No school offers what I've managed to learn by studying different Internet marketers. It would have been nice to have a trusted source like a school to teach objectively about running a business on the net. All the marketers want to sell you something so much of what the tell (sell) you is bull and not to be trusted. Figuring out who falls into what category is not always easy.

Mogule in Trainging: Status Update

My Internet business is actually working! Well...sort of.

I'm not what you'd call a millionaire mogule yet, but I've learned enough to create visions of gradure that aren't even delusional. No doubt I'am happier than I was doing the work-for-the-jerk grind.

The joys of being a self-employed mogule include sleeping late, wearing sloppy clothes and earning a less-than-great paycheck. Now before you just to conclusions, sleeping late doesn't mean never working. It just means I've given myself the late shift, which is more in tune with my body' clock. I work until 9 pm so getting up at 10 am is allowed! That freedom is worth more than a company-invested 401K at the moment.

The growth of my Internet multi-media empire is now to the "mapped out vision" stage. My plans are incredible! So far, I have eight websites established with a specific plan of action for each. Ebooks for www.FeelingGood4ever.com, instructional videos for www.OuchMyAchingFeet.com, and www.CreativeCandleMaker.com, MP3 downloads of me reading nursery rhymes for www.Read2Child.com. The list goes on.

My biggest mistake so far is to have underestimated the technical abilities I'd need for success. I've tried several over the web builders and found them all to be too limited to work with effectively. So I've enrolled in a local community college to hob-knob with the teens and learn basic HTML. At 48, no doubt I'll fit right in!

The Internet is a great opportunity, but it sure has been a challenge to navigate the much hyped-up world of Internet marketing. It's taken me months to wade through the crap and decide what's worthwhile. Thank God that's over and at least I feel like I know enough to avoid some of the STUPID mistakes I'm not going to reveal right now. The future begins now.

Curse of the Wanna-be Moguls

How many ads have I read that promise I can make a fortune overnight on the Internet?

Lots.

Is it true?

No.

At least not for me.

I've read dozens of newsletters and eBooks. I've applied what I've learned and built four websites. None of them are making money.

I've got two mini-sites which I've promoted with Pay Per Click advertising. PPC ain't cheap. One site, www.energy-efficient-car.com sells a gasoline catalyst that has lots of research to back up the claim that it helps get up to 35% better mileage. With gas up to three bucks a gallon, folks are anxious for relief, so obviously I've picked a hot product. But $500 worth of PPC hasn't gotten me one single customer. Is there a guru handy to explain this expensive failure on what you said would be a sure thing?

I also spent $300 to have this web site promoted by one of the gurus to the gurus. This Guru-Supreme has an email list of 500,000 people, all itching to buy! For a fee, he'll promote your product to his list. (Gee, doesn't that take away his credibility when he claims to never take advantage of his loyal customers by promoting stuff just to make a buck? "It has to be a really wonderful product," he insists.)

Every Internet marketing advisor says "the money is in the list," build a list of customers and you can shoot out one email and make a fortune. So what a great deal to be able to "borrow" Mr. Guru-Supreme's list for a measly 300 smacks. Since his ad copy is bound to be top-notch (all gurus are brilliant copywriters) I should get at least a 2% conversion. I'm splitting his list with nine other folks (no guru worth his salt would lend out his list for 300 piddly bucks, no way. This deal was for $3,000 so I chipped in with nine other wanna-be moguls.) My share of the pie is 50,000 loyal customers.

2% of 50,000 = 1,000.

A thousand new customers! Yipeeeeeee! It's time to order that gold-plated name plate for my office door. (All moguls have them.)

Well…Mr. Guru-Supreme wrote a dandy email promoting our gasoline catalyst and zapped it into cyberspace. I anxiously awaited the stats that would catapult me into moguldom and indicate soaring profits!

What? Was there a meltdown? Did the entire Internet crash due to a malicious virus?

Can you believe it? Not one of us would-be moguls got a new customer. Not ONE of the half-million suckers on his list bought the catalyst. Not ONE. Zero. Zip. Nadda.

That sucks.

Hey Mr. Guru, have you been lying to me or is it just that the Internet Gods hate me?

The Joys of Fame and No Fortune

If I were to pattern myself after a famous character in a book, I'd pick a heroine that was gorgeous, brilliant and amazingly successful.

I wouldn't pick Barbara Ehrenreich as she presented herself in "Bait and Switch, the Futile Pursuit of the American Dream." However, that character seems to have picked me. Try as I might, I can not escape the fact that Ehrenreich's adventures in that best-selling book are much like my own.

The biggest difference is that I didn’t get to write about my failure in the job market and make a bunch of money on book sales. I just got to endure my failure and realize that my life was a statistic.

That's always fun.

I've also read about myself in the pages of the New York Times. (See, I must be famous and they just forgot to tell me!) I'm so flattered when a guy like columnist Paul Krugman writes, "a college degree has hardly been a ticket to big income gains…the real earnings of college graduates fell more than 5% between 2000 and 2004."

Paul, I'm glad you know me and I hate to criticize, but you got it wrong. For this college graduate, her income fell 100%, not a measly 5%.

But the gist of Krugman's writings, that the obscenely rich are getting more obscenely rich and everybody else is falling, is completely accurate. This economic unbalancing act is happening for lots of reasons, one of which is white-collar unemployment and under-employment.

My point is that my woes are not just mine. Many people are like me. I see them every time I make a trip to any retail outlet, folks who used to work at professional jobs selling lumber, light fixtures or lettuce. Older workers who may not have the pep of a 21-year-old; they have what the workplace DOES NOT reward, wisdom and experience.

I do not pretend to understand the irony of that; I just know it to be true.

To avoid falling into the same trap as my former white-collar buddies, I have elected to start an Internet business instead of taking whatever menial, low wage job I can find.

In part, I made that choice because I couldn't find a menial, low wage job. I interviewed for five. None wanted me. It must have been the orange skirt I was wearing that made me look like the great pumpkin.

Barbara Ehrenreich's job coach gave me that tip. (I couldn't afford my own job coach so I borrowed hers.)

Self-employment is risky, but it's the only way a person like myself will escape being a wage slave. The Internet is still open to the little guy so even though I'm a little late, I'm merging onto the information super highway.

Which brings us to the net neutrality issue. How much longer will the Internet be open to the little guy? If the big guys get their way, not much longer.

Bastards.

What option would be open to me then? Welfare handouts? The big guys would balk and call me lazy and undeserving. "Find a job, damn it," they'd bark.

"I'm trying," is all I would be able to holler back from my merry-go-round as it whirls past them, lazily enjoying their weenies and ice cream cones.

I'm trying.

An Internet Mogul Enters Training

For years, I've joked about retirement being filled with greeting Wal Mart shoppers instead of cruising the Caribbean. As my 48th birthday approaches and my retirement account is less than it was twenty years ago, that joke is less and less funny.

Lingering unemployment has a way of devouring retirement accounts.

So the job title I gave myself, Internet Mogul, pays well. I need a good paying job for goodness sake! Surly a few months of being an Internet Mogul and those meager accounts will be flush with my success.

All the web gurus say I can do it, if I only buy their terribly overpriced product.

If I'm on a budget, $99 bucks will get me their hot-shot eBook with the 10 Magic Secrets of the Rich and Powerful. You know, the ones who work ten minutes a day in their silk jammies, don't know a bit of HTML yet rake in millions on the net.

Of course it's not worth the $99 that was so conveniently tacked onto my credit card bill in a nano-instant after I clicked here.

To really learn the secrets of the gurus, I gotta spend some money. After all, the honest ones will confess those free reports they give you aren't even worth that much.

So for a mere $997, I can get a glimpse of their incredible wisdom sloppily photocopied and loaded into 3-ring binders. Ten-thousand pages. Delivered to my door. Ah, the personal touch!

Is there a better learning system out there? This mogul needs better training is she's going to succeed.

The Dog's Hungry and So Am I

The definition of "being hungry" changes with age.

We're born, and it means, "give me milk so I can survive."

We reach adolescence and it means, "bring me a hot dog…and lots of friends, status, dates, cool clothes, a hot car…"

We enter the job market and being hungry translates into, "bring me challenges and riches, excitement way beyond the need for mere nourishment. Challenge my creative spirit, reward me with expensive toys, giving me tangible proof so I can flaunt my talents on the world stage."

Geez, it's embarrassing to admit, but after my "distinguished" career, (translation: twenty-five years as a cog in the wage-slave wheel) the phrase reverts back to just the basics. I'm hungry to fill the cupboard with food so I can survive. I'm not worried about satisfying a creative drive and I don't require riches, just enough to keep a sturdy roof over my head. The same basic needs my dog has. Luckily for her, she's clueless that the piece of lunch meat I'm sharing is getting harder and harder to replenish.

It's now been nearly a year without a paycheck.

Survival in the economic world. Remember the TV commercial for the large financial institution that praised the American spirit by claiming, "most people want to succeed, not just survive." True, true. But how exactly do you define success? Unfortunately, reality forces many hardworking people into being grateful for mere survival and realizing that to survive IS to succeed.

This is my last chance...

I always thought if I worked hard, I'd be employable. Back when I was twenty, it never occurred to me that by age 47 the world would consider me washed up. But it did. The work-a-holic hours and the "valuable" experience didn't ensure me a place in the workforce. Unemployed for six months, I finally decided to just give myself the lofty title "Internet Mogul." At this point, that's a complete fantasy; I'm not even remotely qualified to call myself that, but it sure sounds nice. Much better than "workplace-reject-beggar." Besides, I have faith in myself even if no one else seems to.

So I cleaned the softball-sized dust bunny from my computer and typed "how to make money on the Internet" into Google. Holy Crap. A mountain of information was now at my fingertips. Too bad most of it wasn't worth the electricity it sucked up.

But a Mogul (with a capital M!) doesn't give up. So I plodded through, sorting the scams from the hype from the just plain crazy. Somehow or another, I have to make this work. The dog's hungry...and so am I.