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This blog is about my journey online – the process of learning Internet Marketing that I went through when taking a business online, after I decided to add it as an extra income to my computing business, having realised I hadn't made provisions for a financially comfortable retirement.
Nutritional Consultancy Online
The first business I wanted to take online was a nutritional coaching business. Having taken a 3 year course to be a nutrition consultant, I qualified just about the time that my potential clients started using the Internet to do their own research. So they would turn up with sheaves of paper printed from the Internet and then complain I hadn't told them anything they couldn't have found online.
So I started selling a fairly unusual nutritional test that I really believed in, and I decided to focus all my efforts on that, selling it online, world-wide – rather than by seeing local clients.
That begins the first phase of my online journey – and it's defined by the fact that I thought Internet Marketing would be easy as I already had 30+ years of computer programming experience.
What a joke!
My Journey Online – Phase 1
If I thought the 3-year nutrition course I passed way back in the year 2001 was challenging, it pales into insignificance compared to the process I followed when setting up a health business online – despite my many years in the computer industry!
To be honest, much of it was self-inflicted by trying to ‘do-it-myself' and ‘make money free'. I now know better!
But within this blog I explain how I made more than my fair share of mistakes.
Banned – For Selling At Recommended Retail Price!
By trial and error I set up a profitable online business selling some nutritional tests online – until the supplier decided I could only sell in the UK because overseas distributors complained that I was charging less than they were for the same service. (I was selling at recommended price, they were adding a huge mark-up!)
When I'd been ‘banned' by the test supplier I decided to write and sell an e-book that focused on a “Nutritional approach to preventing migraine”, which had been my dissertation subject. As my ‘nutritional tests' venture had been such a technical challenge I invested in a coaching program to help me this time. But there was SO much to learn and – I have admit that I was completely overwhelmed again by the amount that I needed to learn. This was even before the popularity of social media sites.
If Only I Had Known About Affiliate Marketing..
After spending many, many hours and a lot of money, I launched my website and eBook and made a handful of sales.
But round about that time I discovered affiliate marketing – where you promote someone else's product and just take a share of the profits. To my chagrin I realised that, no matter how well researched my e-book was, the affiliate products were much more attractively presented than mine AND the people promoting them knew far more about Internet Marketing than I did, so they could beat me hands-down.
As well as presentation…
It's Mainly Down To TRAFFIC…
… getting visitors to your website. No visitors = no sales. The worst moment of that coaching program was when I was given the assignment to set up a Pay-Per-Click advertising campaign and, on top of the expense of the course, instead of making sales, I lost money. By this time I was so furious with the whole project that I insisted they assign their head coach to run a marketing campaign for me. HE lost money too – and I completely lost interest in that venture. It was an expensive failure – BUT I had actually learned a lot from it.
So, onto….
Network Marketing – Leveraging a Team
We're now onto about the year 2010 in my ‘make an extra income' story. Understanding how difficult it was to attract regular buyers, I joined a network marketing company, where you build a team and earn on their efforts.
I was very successful with that company and had a large team (about 2,500) mainly because I was lucky enough to recruit some very good team builders. Then – disaster – the company closed down – taking with it the team I had built (with paid marketing).
Big mistake – I had let them maintain my leads list, so I lost them all and watched while the new company marketed a competing offer to MY leads. Won't do that again!
I tried a few ways to sell Internet Marketing training, but soon discovered that much of it was out-dated rubbish. And some systems were so complicated to set up and implement that, working as a part-time online business, I had no chance of success.
But I made it my mission to learn SOMETHING from every failure and finally I moved onto……
My Journey Online – Phase 2 – Success Starts Here
Making progress…..
Eventually I found some genuine and up-to-date training to learn Internet Marketing “properly”.
Until I admitted to myself that I needed proper training, I followed the same learning process than many aspiring online marketers will take.
- Buying silly ‘magic tools' for instant commissions and discovering they just don't work
- Posting offers in Traffic Exchanges – there are better ways to use them.
- Posting (spamming!) Facebook groups
- Buying expensive adverts
- Not building my own contact list using an autoresponder
- Blogging on the wrong platform (i.e. not using a self-hosted platform) – because I didn't own the content.
Finally I started to learn about Internet Marketing properly in a free Facebook group I have joined where there is training to get people earning their first commissions online, without paid tools.
If you have experienced the same failure and frustrations, stress and self-doubt that I did, I can show you a different approach to learning about Internet Marketing.
After my comments, you may think learning Internet Marketing would be expensive, but the basic training you'll hear about in the group is free. When you apply that, consistently, you should start earning commissions (selling Affiliate products and training).We have people in the group who have earned their first commission after trying and failing for several years online.
Whatever your online ambitions, the information you can learn here WILL save you thousands in wasted time, money and stress (when implemented).
Learn Internet Marketing – Two Ways
You can learn Internet Marketing the easy way (with support) or the hard way (“do it yourself”). Believe me, if I could have made a success of the DIY approach I would have done so.
Yes, you could a few years ago, in the “Wild West” days of the Internet. Many did. Some still do – but the hours and money they need to spend are eye-watering.
Internet Marketing has moved on and competition is much tougher today. So unless you're already an online expert, you'll have questions that you MUST get answered before you stray too far off the path, making fundamental mistakes.
The number of skills you need to master to be a successful affiliate marketer (selling products other people have created) is frightening.
I made many blunders that cost me time and money because I had no-one to ask. There are so many complicated stages to Internet Marketing that you need a team of experts. But can you afford to pay experts? I can't. They don't work for free, unless there's something ‘in it' for them.
Home Truths About Internet Marketing
I'm specifically keen to teach the truth about IM to anyone who is looking to start an online business to supplement, or provide, an additional income in retirement. Many of us (me!) have reached the age at which we'd like to retire but we haven't made adequate retirement income provisions.
And we don't have years and years in front of us, so we want to get on with it.
But to reiterate – the truth is that it's not easy.
Money doesn't fall from the skies into your wallet. You have to work to earn it, and it's made from profits on the sales of valuable products.
So on this blog (JoyHealey.com) I'm writing up my experiences as I go through the process of building my online business and finally understanding the ‘truth'.
Why? A few reasons….
- I want to help YOU start making an online income without making the mistakes I made when I started out.
- I enjoy writing about solving my Internet Marketing problems. I guess it gets them “off my chest”.
- Recording solutions to problems I experienced helps me to find them if I happen to make the same mistake again!
- Those recorded solutions may help someone else avoid the same mistake.
- I earn commissions on some affiliate products that I recommend. But I will never recommend a product that I don't believe in.
Lies About Internet Marketing
If you watch most of the sales videos you see on squeeze pages on traffic exchanges, they will be selling you ‘magic bullets' , and you may be under the impression that making money online is easy, and it's free.
There couldn't be a bigger lie.
It's NOT easy – and worst of all, those glib gurus leaning on their (rented) limousines have NO interest in helping you make money online.
The only interest they have is in you finding them buyers for their own products, they then add the buyers YOU found to their own lists and market to them until they bleed.
It look me a long time to figure it out, but now I have, I want to share it with you. That's the bones of it, but the training in the group will illustrate everything far more comprehensively than I can.
Who Can Help With Internet Marketing?
I have access to a whole team of experts in the group, so if you have a question I can't answer… it's pretty certain there'll be someone in the team who can. Click here to join.
Why would they be any different from the smooth talking gurus I mentioned earlier?
Simple.
We are a genuinely supportive community.
You will be properly trained to make sales of products produced within the group, and it's in everyone's interests that you, and the product creators within the group, make commissions, so that you want to promote and earn on more of our products.
I look forward to welcoming you into our Learn Internet Marketing group (click here) and congratulating you on your first commissions.
Incidentally, using the skills I have learned, I also promote a network marketing company – but before I tell you about that, it's more important that you learn about online promotion methods.
