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Sunday 14 December 2008

Starting a Serious Internet Business By Jack Torrence

Let me get one thing off my chest before we begin the first article in this series, which I think of as "How to make money online... for REAL PEOPLE":

I am not an internet marketing expert. I have not made millions online.

Whew. I feel better.

But that's why you should keep reading. Search for ways to make money online and you find a lot of flim-flam. A lot of magical methods to make a zillion dollars tomorrow. Photos of guys holding wads of cash: I made this much, and you can too. In fact, if you don't, I'll give you all of your money back.

This article and the ones that follow it (to be published along with non-article-length insights on my blog) were not written by a guru. They were written by an average guy who is good at offline business, and who has learned one thing very well during a few months of initial research:

Making money online is based on business, not magic. You cannot wave a wand made of AdWords techniques and start earning $10k a month. You need to build it, brick by brick.

That's the good news and the bad news together. It's bad news because you're not going to get rich overnight. But you never really believed that anyway, did you? You wanted to believe it. But you also wanted to believe in Santa Claus. Deep inside, you knew better. Money doesn't come from nothing. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

But that's where the good news comes in. The understanding that a serious internet business is, well, serious business should make all of this feel real to you. It should make you feel that you can do it, because magic doesn't need to show up in order for it to happen.

To date, I have made $103.45 online. You're looking at that, thinking of those millions that you want, and you're disappointed. But I want you to consider some things:

1. I'm writing this article on December 6, 2008. I earned my first cent online (literally ONE CENT) on November 13, 2008, about 3 weeks ago.

2. I started knowing nothing about this. I build websites for a living, but I never knew anything about how to make money online. I never had a serious internet business. In fact, I once had to turn down a client because she wanted ads on her website and I didn't know the first thing about ads.

3. Most people never make one cent online. A few people do manage to make one cent by owning a blog and slapping up some Google AdSense ads, but they never make a whole dollar. Some of those people do get a dollar, over time, but never get paid. AdSense won't sent you a check until you make $100. So we're back to square one: In the end, the vast, vast majority of people who think about an internet business never actually receive one cent.

4. My website is called "Serious Internet Business" for a reason. Making money online is a business. Business is not easy off the internet. So buckle down and prepare yourself, because it's not going to be easy ON the internet.

Try this for a second: Go to Google, and do some searches for "easy money online" or "make money on the internet easily," or similar phrases. The sites you find offering easy money will invariably try to sell you something. Because the serious, realistic, honest way to do this takes work. It is not easy.

Now, I don't know about you, but that actually encourages me. Give me a normal hat, and I can't pull a rabbit out of it. But give me a trick hat and explain how it works, and I can do the trick too. I can repeat the trick if I understand its basis in logic. But I can't repeat a trick based on flim-flam.

If you're new to these articles (and let's face it, you are all new because this is a new series), what you'll see is a guy who is good at BUSINESS figure out how to make it work online. You'll watch me earn my 104th dollar. Then my 200th. Then my thousandth. Because I understand that a serious internet business is based on sound business principles, not hype.

I'll tell you how I'm doing it. You'll see what I screw up. And, more importantly, you'll see what I do when it works.

You'll see it from the perspective of a guy who is new to this - who won't speak over your head because I'm not able to.

So for step one, here's what I've done so far: I've set up my blog, using a pretty simple process I'll explain later. I have another, personal blog which I may mention later if I decide I want the two worlds to intermingle. I've put up some AdSense ads, and I've sold some affiliate products - again, I'll explain more later.

Lastly, for Christmas, I asked my mother for the IttyBiz Online Business School. (Yes, I actually did ask for and received an informational course for Christmas.) I really respect what Naomi of IttyBiz has done and continues to do, and her approach to business. She's a self-made woman who started with nothing. Literally nothing - she was on Welfare and has lived in a homeless shelter. But this year, her website will make over $200,000. And in the Online Business School course, she tells you what... she... did... EXACTLY. Step by step.

(To see what I'm talking about, visit my site (the link in the author info box below). The Online Business School details are in the upper right corner.)

I'll tell you about my experience as I go through the OBS course, and give you my thoughts. I can't give a lot of detail because that would be a violation of Naomi's intellectual property, but I can give you some of the broad strokes. If you want, you could sign up and follow along with me. Teams work better than individuals, after all.

This should be fun. Let's go make that 104th dollar.

Jack Torrence is an average guy who is good at offline business, not an internet millionaire. He writes for the Serious Internet Business blog about how he, as a REAL PERSON, is learning to make money online using sound business principles instead of relying on flim-flam and magic. Jack does the research, finds out what to do, and then he (and his readers) take real steps toward building a serious internet business.

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