What do you tell beginners who want you to teach them how to make money online?
I got a phone call a couple days ago from a good friend of our family who is interested in making some internet monies on the side. They have a busy life, family, and career but want to make a little extra every month.
I’ve received similar requests from various people who have varying levels of knowledge of the internets. My responses tend to vary to try to match what I think that person’s level of expertise might bear, but generally, I’ll help anyone I can.
First I try to figure out what that person wants to do from these 3 choices.
1. You can sell your labor to others for nearly guaranteed income. (write articles, sell stuff on Ebay)
2. You can trade your labor for free traffic. (SEO)
3. You can pay for traffic. (PPC, etc.)
Then, most of the time I tell them to go to digitalpoint forums or to warriorforum. (Google it if you need to. I’m too embarrassed to actually link to them.) If someone is already making money online and is new to the affiliate space, I’ll send them to wickedfire.com with a few words of warning. Here are micro-reviews of these 3 resources:
1. Digitalpoint forums. Great for newbies, but you don’t need to ever buy an e-book. There are many 1000′s of participants, but the problem is that most of them are newbies too. When I was a newbie, I spent a fair amount of time here but no more. I feel like I’ve outgrown it. Still, because of it’s massive size, it’s worth mentioning.
2. Warriorforum. Back when I was a newbie visiting digitalpoint, my wife was a newbie visiting warriorforum. I personally have spent less than an hour on the site, but 2nd hand I’ve learned that it’s a great site for women or people new to making money online who want to SEO their way to free traffic. The folks at warriorforum are ‘nice’. Which leads me to our last mini-review.
3. Wickedfire.com. From the perspective of a newbie, woman, or anyone with much of a sense of decency, wickedfire is hostile and offensive. Nudity and hostility are celebrated. Newbies are not welcome. That being said, it is the place to be if you are into affiliate marketing and want to read what people who make $1K to $100K+ daily have to say. For what I do, this is my first stop when looking to get a question answered. Well, maybe I’ll ask a friend first, but you get the point. If you are a new affiliate I’d advise you to lurk only. Try not to speak.
So generally, if someone asks me how to make money online, I’ll try to pass the buck to one of these 3 resources. If someone knows nothing about how internet money moves around, they can get a good feel of it from these forums and along the way probably make a few new friends of their own with similar interests and skill levels.
What advice do you find yourself giving to marketing newbies?
MisterD
November 24th, 2009 at 11:32 am #
All 3 of these resources have their time and place. I was a frequent reader of WarriorForum for a few months, but just got tired of everyone and their mother selling a ‘WSO’ that were generally crap.
I recently found WickedFire a few weeks ago, and have had a hard time peeling myself away from it. The people on that board are more similar to me than the other forums, and I get what people say/do. I’m not much for sugar-coating or any BS. Plus it seems WickedFire sparks my imagination for marketing ideas, whereas WarriorForum is depressing with all the newbs and ‘gurus’ selling them useless crap.
Great post, keep up the good work!
Steve
November 24th, 2009 at 12:09 pm #
I’ve gotten asked the same thing over the years – ppl wanting to earn money online…
A few times I’d actually make an effort / spend time trying to get them set up, but it always turned out to be a waste.
Now I’ll give them a general outline of what they need to do first, and see if they follow through. Either they don’t do anything at all (the most likely result) or else they get started but only last a little while before quitting.. usually because they haven’t started making money in their first week.
If someone wants to put in the time and effort, then I’ll continue to help. But have found this to be a fairly quick and effortless way to ensure I don’t waste any time on someone who won’t follow through.