Lesson 2: Where Do I Start?

Well, you've made the decision. You want to earn a living on the Internet. The problem is, you've never done this before, know nothing about the various ways that you CAN make a living and you're quite honestly, LOST. And I don't mean as in the TV show, though in comparison, those guys are on a picnic. At least they have each other. For the most part, you are on your own. Oh yes, there are those who can give you some direction (which I hope to do) but ultimately, you have to do the work. Eventually, as you build a name for yourself you may get somebody to go into a Joint Venture with you, but I'm getting ahead of myself there. The point is, at the beginning, you truly are ON YOUR OWN.
So there you sit, with your computer screen in front of you, staring at heaven knows what. And the first thing that comes into your mind is one question...
Where Do I Start????
If you think this isn't a scary thought, it is. I've been there. In my case I didn't even have people to turn to in order to ask questions. I was REALLY new to this. I had to do the whole thought process all on my own.
As a result, I made mistakes. TONS of mistakes, which resulted in months of no income or worse...expenses that were killing me. Man, do I wish I had some direction.
Well, I'm here to give you some.
The most important part of starting an Internet Marketing business and making money ultimately boils down to one process:
You must find a group of people who want something, and give them what they want in exchange for money. This is the one step where most beginners fail. They either don't learn this step or get so excited about the promise of overnight riches they just simply skip this step.
Now, there are a ton of ways you can start an Internet marketing buisness online. But in reality most ways can be narrowed down to a just a handful of categories. These methods I´m showing you here are the fastest and most successful methods that have been proven, time and again, to work. They include:
- You can sell someone else´s product for commission: This is called "affiliate marketing." The product can be digital (like an ebook or website hosting) or physical.
- You can sell your own product: This is the way that most people (not all, but most) build a successful business. They create a product or several products (again, they can be digital or physical) that fill a need, and sell them online.
- You can sell your services: If there is something that you´re good at, you can either provide your services over the web (if it´s something like writing) or use the web as a promotional tool for your local services.
- you can sell on Ebay: Ebay gets it´s own category. You´ll be selling your own or someone else´s product, but the way you go about it is slightly different than normal.
- you can sell advertising on your website: The idea here is to create a website or blog with lots of good content (the kind that keeps people coming back for more) and then put advertisements on it. The most common advertising method currently is called "Google Adsense" but if your site becomes popular you can earn huge amounts of money by letting others advertise on your website.
Now, not everyone uses just one of these methods over time. But when you´re starting out, the best way to see success is to pick ONE method and stick with it, then add more profit models as your business grows. No one´s telling you that you can´t sell your own products AND other people´s products for instance. But if you scatter your efforts at the beginning, you´ll have a really hard time becoming successful.