Many of the readers will already know a little about my history, I have mentioned it in passing. But here it is again, at least as far as Internet Marketing goes.
Me and Wifey moved to rural Spain just over 6 years ago. We sold a house in the UK after renovating and moving houses 3 times, with 100,000 GBP ($163K) in our pockets, give or take. The money didn’t come easy, we worked hard, both at real jobs, renovating houses and I did a year selling DVD’s on Ebay which made a full time wage in the last year while I also renovated our last house.
Once we moved to Spain we had about 4 years where we went very self sufficient, bought our house and began the renovations. The property was a shell and nothing more. We installed concrete floors. I tiled, I installed new plumbing, new electrics, a solar system, satellites for tv and Internet until something better came along.
Bottom line we worked hard again, and then the money ran out.
We spent some time them working as builders for friends, until in Sept 2008 we were so poor that Wifey went back to the UK to work in her old Government job for 3 months.
At this point I decided that if we were going to be able to live together here then something needed to be done.
On With The Laptop
I began the usual rounds of trying to find out how people make money online. Man, what a load of shit there is about it online. I had heard about it and decided that this was for me. I have had “real jobs” in the UK, and frankly it sucked. I am not a sociable person in real life, especially if I have to be with those people more than with my Wife and my menagerie of animals.
Spending more time with people that you have no interest in, do not particularly like and get a pittance at the end of the month is not my idea of fun, and it never has been.
Back to the laptop. As I was alone for 3 months I made a concerted effort to see how to make money online. I discovered Squidoo and blogspot. I made a lens about a Clickbank product and I wrote for Ezinearticles to get backlinks. I made a few blogs where, after what I had read I JUST KNEW I was going to make a killing. I even take surveys for money to earn a little bit of cash!
It seemed that all you had to do was get subscribers and entertain them and they would somehow make you money. You could sell them products and if you went on Twitter and made lots of friends then you would make lots of money.
As you can guess it did not work out like that.
When Wifey came back after her 3 month stint with about $1600 in her pocket I thought we were buggered.
But then something began to happen.
My stupid crap began to make a few dollars a day. But I could already see that trying to be a clever blogger was one of the most difficult ways to make money. Then I encountered a certain BEAR in about April 2009.
DING, bloody DING DING DING!
It clicked.
It clicked and I have never looked back.
By the end of 2009, although we were still extremely poor, and spent most of the year without enough money to get down from our mountain because we couldn’t afford fuel, let alone buy food, we decided to buy 2 new laptops. We could then about afford it.
Up until then, all year one of us had been getting up at 6am to have the morning on our one laptop. And then the other took over for the afternoon. We were making some money so we thought that if we doubled our output then we would at least double our money.
It worked out well.
Once you begin to earn money it seems like the ball simply builds momentum. This site now makes $1000 a month and it is my hobby. I don’t backlink it, I don’t write guest posts. I do change things after a year though. Click that and you will see what I mean. I now experiment a little more than I ever have, and that post alone is now set to bring in an extra $3000 a year, which is $10 a day.
Our earnings have skyrocketed since we were full time each. As sites get older the traffic increases and we hone in on better earners for periods of time, then go back and build up our newer content.
I know the basics of how to do this game, and I know little more. But for about 16 months two people have spent a minimum of 8 hours a day writing product posts and backlinking until they felt sick. We make adsense of about $45-$60 a day but we don’t do adsense. It is real passive income that is just from sites we built when we were total noobs and thought it was the best way to go.
It isn’t.
If people are paying for ads and keep paying for ads then they are making a profit, that is where the money is.
If I look at our earnings increase and take it from the beginning of April 2009 when I actually really knew what I was basically doing then the numbers are staggering. If I look from April 2010 to this month in 2011 then there is no mere slight increase increase. We have worked bloody hard and it has payed off.
I am not talking double our previous years earnings, the numbers have exploded, each month this year has been so much better than the year before it is not even funny.
Think you can earn an amount enough to by a new house in a nice neighborhood in 2 years, you can. Cars, trips etc, whatever you want.
If you work for it.
Which brings me to the point of this post.
If you want to make it in IM then give up your day job.
Learn how to cope on minimal money. Forget new clothes for a year. Forget restaurants, going out to the pub, the cinema, driving when you can walk.
Forget nice food and forget a social life and forget about haircuts and anything else that costs money.
Say goodbye to your boss and work like a demon for a year.
If you are already earning at least a part time wage then as soon as you can save enough to struggle through the year, jack in the job and fulfill your dream.
That is if you don’t like work.
Some people enjoy going to work every day, and this advice is certainly not for them. But most people either hate their job or would rather work at home if they had the choice.
You do.
Life is short, very short. Do you want to waste the best years of your life doing something crap, only to find at the end of it when you are in your sixties that you are too worn out to enjoy the pittance you get every month in a pension, and it won’t go far anyway.
Wouldn’t it be better to be able to go on holiday when you feel like it. To be able to take a 3 month break from your job if you felt like it. To take your laptop to the other side of the world and still do your daily job, just nearer to a tropical beach?
I know what I would prefer.
Many people simply have the fear factor.
Me, I have always just assumed something would turn up. But I also made it turn up.
We were so poor for well over a year it was not funny. No fancy food, lots of veg from the garden, and not a lot else.
Sure we don’t have dependents, and no mortgage.
But think about the rest of your life. Could you rent your house out for a year and live somewhere cheap so you can try IM full time?
Could you really simply do overtime at work, or get a second job for 6 months and save and then be able to take a year off?
Or could you simply move to the other side of the world where the money that you now have, or earn from part time Internet Marketing would actually be seen as a very respectable full time job wage in the country of your choice.
Life is for doing, and it is certainly not for looking back on and regretting.
So, sell up, move out, live in a cheap country and hammer the laptop.
Or simply knuckle down, save for a few months then jack in working for the Man.
What is the worst that can happen?
You don’t meet your goals and have to go back to a crap job.
But what is the best that can happen?
A new house of your dreams, a life of freedom, and the chance for some afternoon nookie with the Wife, yours, not mine.
Laters.
