Don’t Fall into the Newbie Trap

In their rush to make ‘millions’ online, WAY too many folks fall into a completely avoidable trap — and end up making no money at all.

What do they do wrong?

They try to do everything all at once, and start multiple sites in different channels — an affiliate marketing blog, selling their own product, auction selling, etc.

By result, they don’t learn how to do anything well and don’t manage to make even one site profitable.

You can imagine where that willy-nilly path leads — to feelings of frustration and eventually, defeat.

If you’re on that path or feel confused by all the different ways you can earn online… SLOW DOWN!

I’ve had an online presence since 1996, and nothing happened over night.

• In 1996 I built a 3-page flower seed exchange website from which I traded seeds with gardeners from around the world Experience with that site made me realize the web’s potential as a marketplace – so I started looking for online bizops at that point.
• In late 1997, I discovered affiliate marketing and started a site to review online dating services – a topic to which I could relate and had the strong desire to share with others. By the end of 1999, the site was generating $10,000 per month in pure profit – and I kept putting in the hours to make it even more profitable!
• While working on my affiliate site, I also dabbled in online auction selling and soon discovered that online auctions were not my ‘thing’. I was too lazy for the hassle of packing and shipping. Furthermore, high postal rates from Canada made the opportunity less than lucrative.
• During that time, I also picked up a drop-shipping arrangement with watchmaker, Eduardo Milieris, a scenario which suited me much better than auction selling as all I had to do was sell the watches and his company shipped them out. I’ve sold his beautiful watches at WindingWay.com for years now.
• By 2002, my affiliate dating site had become so successful (generating $650K Canadian/437K U.S.) that I wrote the “Super Affiliate Handbook to share what I had learned about the business with aspiring affiliate marketers. That then qualifed me as an infoproduct merchant.
• The Super Affiliate Handbook’s popularity amongst readers and industry leaders led to speaking engagements around the world (something I NEVER thought I could do), my own ‘Affiliate’s Corner’ column in Revenue Magazine and a book contract with McGraw Hill to write Make a Fortune Promoting Other People’s Stuff Online: How Affiliate Marketing Can Make You Rich.
• Each of those opportunities opened doors to joint venture with other experts and participate in the creation of more infoproducts and teleseminars.
• In 2010, I opened Affiliate Blogger PRO (now known as Rosalind Gardner’s Academy) – a membership site built on a WordPress blog platform with Wishlist member software.

My story is similar to so many others who have become successful online entrepreneurs.

Basically, you pick a channel and work at it until it becomes profitable OR you decide that you don’t enjoy what you are doing and then choose a new channel.

Furthermore, as each venture becomes profitable, new opportunities present themselves. (Amazing how that works…).

You too can build a diversified and successful online business — but you have to CHOOSE just ONE channel and concentrate on that one first.

So, CHOOSE whether you want to start with affiliate marketing or creating your own infoproduct, learn what you need to do and then WORK your venture to success.

Once your first site is successful, then go find a new project.

With one successful site under your belt, you’ll have the knowledge and experience to get your second and subsequent sites launched and profitable much faster than you did the first.

Cheers,