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What are you worth?
One of the things that paralyze us when we are thinking about building a website, or starting breaking into a new market is will we make enough money to make it worthwhile. I’m sure this is a valid reason for concern because if you kept working and spending and not making money you would eventually go bankrupt (or have to find a sugar daddy/momma).
I like to think that I should make 200 dollars an hour. It doesn’t always work out that way – sometimes I make a few bucks an hour, sometimes I make nothing, sometimes I make thousands.
My average of actual work to money ratio is about 200 bucks though.
That doesn’t mean that I work 40 hours this week and I earn an instant $8000 though.
It’s like this:
I think of something.
I build something, make a site, etc…
I promote a site….
I set up a schedule to keep the site fresh, continue to promote it, etc…
Let’s say I spend 4 hours setting something up. I expect it to earn me at least 800 dollars AFTER any expenses over the course of the year. It doesn’t happen right away – if it did we would all work a lot harder 
But I want it now!
Well if you must have it now – then you have no choice but to tackle the PPC side of things that I don’t cover at all. Honestly it bores me – I do it, but I’m bored the entire time. While it’s great to “outbid” your competition I love outranking them. I guess it’s just in my blood.
What’s the point of this post?
The point is simple. Your action have value and you shouldn’t look at it like what will this make me today. Once you change your mindset to what will this make me down the road your future will change. Let’s say you work 100 hours this year doing things that are going to make you 200 each hour… what happens next year when you’ve got 100 more hours thrown into the mix and your old sites making money as well? What happens when a few of those sites make you 10k per hour?
Think that will change your life?
It will.
That’s the point of this whole “what am I going to do today?” section. Doing something every day even if it’s just building a few links.
Can’t spare an hour a day – figure out what you can do in 10 minutes. Got 8 extra hours on a rainy Saturday? What can you do that will earn you money all year long?
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Hey Ed,
Brian here… thanks for yet another insightful posts.. I have also determined that your attidtude toward online marketing has a huge effect on the results… at times I think even more so than your knowledge. I will try to implement the $200 per hour mindset aswell as the snergistic approach to building out networks… 1 link today 2 links tommorow 3 links the day after…..10,000k links 2 years later
Like compound interest –> compound linking
regards
Yes compound linking is a perfect way of looking at it. But I suppose I look at it like compound networking.
Which is really the same thing.
Asking yourself what you can start to today, what you can improve today, what you can scale up today, etc… will (i promise) surprise the hell out of you in a year.
I’m slowly trying to get my wife more involved with this side of things since she looks at the world differently as a woman. She makes more off 5 blog posts about a scrapbooking idea than I do off 45000 pages of scrapbooking links.
(however they all point to her blog on it – so I suppose it’s all interconnected… hence the network part.)
I like to think I am building a real business that will provide me income or even be an asset I can sell later. The more I can provide value, the more I can connect with people online, the more money I will make. Learning all the newest things can distract you from doing anything. Thanks for the post, cumulative effort can do major things. But our minds aren’t set up to recognize that.
I like to think i am worth at least fifty dollars an hour. for what i know and what i have learned on line i think that is a fair amount.
Yep, minute by minute and hour by hour and day by day does add up to money. Thanks for reminding me to use my calendar more often to make this happen. Looking forward to what else you’ll share along the way.
Joe
Selling yourself short there William. Nothing to accomplish that 200 (or more) per hour takes a whole lot of technical experience. If you can throw up websites on just about any platform you can do it.
Then find ways to make it faster, easier, more profitable.
Ed,
I think the whole gist of your message is that consistent effort over produces results. Its a timeless truth, I know, but it can be hard to keep focused on one project when you are an internet marketer.
For the past 6 months or so I’ve been focused on getting good at building backlinks and other means of getting traffic. Now, I realize that even if the traffic is targeted it doesn’t mean your website will convert traffic to sales. I like promoting physical products but the commissions are low so I need conversions to be relatively higher than an info product. Any good advice on improving conversions on selling physical products as an affiliate?
Thanks,
Greg R
Greg – beyond salescopy (which is sometimes out of your control) the best way to improve conversions are getting that e-mail and mailing then repeatedly.
Keep your message in their face in other words.
Depending on the product you might want to take that web based lead and start mailing snail mail as well. Not worth it for an amazon product but for something you own or sell it can be very worthwhile.
A successful online marketer that no one has heard of says that almost everything we do online can be broken down to dollars and cents.
Each word he writes for an article brings traffic and at the average of 1% conversion he figures an article is worth x amount.
Links and linking bring traffic and again converts to dollars.
We all waste time each day or set our priorities in such away that we have time or don’t have time to do what it takes to become successful.
We like the quick fix but if what we are building is going to have real value and last then we are going to have to work and sacrifice some things. The successful people are not working a 4 hour work week.
I sure know I’m not working 4 hours per week…………lol
Actually Doug – that sounds a lot like what I’ve said before. Or Eric said, etc… because that’s how we operated for years.
The outline of your approach is the one I utilize in my current day job and is transferred to my online endeavors. When I started in construction material sales 3+ years ago at the beginning of a severe downturn, one had to be consistent and even more persistent. The money didn’t come till after 2 years of eating the elephant one bite at a time. When it kicked in, my “hourly” rate increased substantially to the point I felt my payscale had risen to what I was worth. I’ve got a little age on me and planning on hanging up the day job in about a year and half. I think by continuing to implement the strategy you’ve outlined above, I’m confident that my online income goal will be achieved.
Your reminder is timely and appreciated.
Don
I work at construction making $28 per hour. That’s
a “reasonable” wage for blue collar, but recently I’ve
had some offline contracts that will get me about $2000-$4000
per contract. It “should” take about 2 weeks to get each together. So I think your right about being worth. It truly is a mental thing.
Some people think $100 is a lot of money and some people start to think $100,000 is welfare salary.
I think that one has to work systems.
Nowadays, technology makes it easier to construct upsells, cross-sells, etc
Implementing efficient systems to keep the cash rolling in should make life easier.
Ed,
Yes, What am I doing? The taking ACTION rather than getting side tracked. Setting time limits on the emails and focus on your websites and traffic that earn the dollars. We know the goals can be attain.
As a society, we’ve been conditioned to expect instant gratification… which includes the “security” of that bi-weekly paycheck.
Building an online business is much like the work of a farmer… where you’ve got to first prepare the soil… make sure you water and fertilize the ground… get rid of the weeds… allow the crops to ripen… before you see the final results, often MONTHS down the road.
Fortunately, once we’ve finally figured out what works online, we don’t have to wait for just the right weather or seasons, before we can start a new income stream… We can get working towards another “harvest” at the drop of a (black/white) hat.
Cheers!
I cannot say what my time is worth–I am 77, retired on a basic UK state pension which is much less than 200 a week
I have tried numerous so-called white hat methods, but have had absolutely no success.
I know its somewhat late in the day, but I’m willing to try
ANYTHING.
(I agree with most of what Tom states in his post.)
It’s a leap of faith and it’s a big problem. Change the mindset to “what will I make in the future,” is difficult. The “doubt factor” is a hindrance. Not seeing your HARD WORK become fruitful within a short period of time is a drawback with Internet marketing.
For example, when someone works their 8 to 5 job, at the end of the “week” you’re going to get a paycheck, period! Money in your pocket now. Money that can be spent now…not months or a year down the line…maybe.
The point is this. Not everyone can take that leap of faith. The doubt factor is too strong. It’s an unknown; it’s not measurable, in time or in an immediate enrichment of your life.
What’s the solution? I’m not sure. But, I know some things are more certain than others. I know each person is different. And if you’re that guru at the top of the mountain peak, I would like to hear from you.
Cheers!
P.S. I have done some PPC, the best I ever did was break-even.
Well I’d say I have enough comments. As you can see if you go to rssrebound.com I’ve started setting it up to give away.
I need to clean it up and make it the “final” release – so it will be a few days. You guys/gals left me plenty of comments on the two posts where I asked you to. Thank you!
New readers – feel free. Everytime I get more comments than usual I usually do something like throw scripts, templates, or tools out there.