You nailed it with “…or provided something my niches wanted.”

You’re probably pretty close to success. Keep after it man!

The successful internet marketers are marketers first, and internet second. If there was no internet, they would still be successful marketers.

Here’s a few other things to keep in mind:

* all marketing of any product anywhere is essentially a pyramid scheme of who can get in first and either lock up the market, leaving the crumbs for everyone else, or commoditising the money completely out of it. You can see this in IM with stupendously valuable products now being given away for the cost of monthly memberships. But it works the same way with laundry detergent, etc. (Think about starting a new laundry detergent company)

* Related to the previous comment is that there is an implicit MLM — multi-level-marketing scheme — built into all of this. The first person that gets ahead, stays ahead, everyone else falls into line behind them, getting a radically smaller share of the market at each step.

* The rich get richer. The internet is just exposing this at a much more rapid pace.

* Quitters never succeed. If you’ve only been doing this 2 years, you need to listen to Brad Fallon on one of Eben’s videos: “We’ve been working on this almost 20 years… it’s nice to finally see a payoff.” (After a $13M launch IIRC).

* EVERYTHING is difficult to master. If it wasn’t difficult, anyone could do it.

Ok, these analogies are a little strained I know, best I can do for now.

Looks like I said more than I intended… I’m cleaning up these comments to post on tinobox in a bit.

I signed up for Mass Control in Jan. 2008, launched two products last year and both flopped. I’ve probably invested close to $30K in internet marketing between Google Adwords, site development costs, product development, Guru courses and eBooks, etc. I’m on my last leg at this (literally) and this is really my only hope to avoid bankruptcy. Combined with my terrible real estate deal two years ago, I’m looking to Internet Marketing to absolve my debts first and then provide a way for me to replace my 9-to-5 income. I don’t even want the millions the gurus talk about right now, my goal is just to make enough to replace my 9-to-5 income, and even that is extremely difficult to do.

And I assure you, I’ve not been one to read the steps and put them down. I read the steps, do them, and then scratch my head, “why didn’t that work?” I’m definitely missing something here, but its not another course. Perhaps I just haven’t chosen the right niche or provided something my niches wanted.

In any case, I’ve taken what I’ve learned from internet marketing, and turned it into a consultancy for small businesses who want to dominate local search. If I can earn a measly $6K/month from this, then maybe I can start to get back up on my feet. But its easy in principle, and extremely difficult in execution.

I wish I had read this post two years ago before I bought my home in Ocoee, FL. Which was easily one of the most overpriced markets in the country when I purchased (Summer 2007). I am in the middle of a short sale now (third try) and I hope to get rid of this property soon enough. Not only does it have an HOA fee ($167/month), but the mortgage is underwater by $165K. I also bought it with 100% financing. Cash flow? Mortgage is $1,911/month, interest-only, and the the highest rent I can get for it is $1,300. I pretty much made the worse real estate purchase in history.

Why did I buy it? A broker convinced that at $275K it was at the bottom in the area. The neighboring houses all sold for $300K. He also promised he could find a renter at $2,000/month from out of town. He failed to deliver on both counts. The home’s value continued to fall, and when I realized what was happening, I knew I had to get rid of it ASAP to cut my losses. Unfortunately, the home is so overpriced and my bank has been difficult to deal with in terms of a short sale price, so I’ve had the property up for sale for the last year.

I stopped making payments a while ago, the home is in foreclosure, so I’m hoping to short sell it before the auction. I’ve lost close to $20K so far, and the bank or mortgage insurance company will no doubt have me sign a promissory note to absorb the deficiency between the short sale and the mortgage. If my internet marketing efforts don’t take off my next stop will be bankruptcy.

If anyone is reading this post, pass it along to everyone you know. Erica is sharing information that virtually no one will tell you because brokers, mortgage lenders, title companies, etc. are all incentivized to get you to buy a house and will distort information to make everything seem like a really good deal. The fact is Erica’s formula (the rent-to-price ratio) is the only metric you need to listen to. If you decide to still purchase a house that doesn’t pass this test, realize that its for emotional reasons–not a rational one– and your house becomes an expense, not an investment.

Sadly I’ve had to learn real estate investing the hard way. And frankly the entire experience has left a bad taste in my mouth, and I probably will be reluctant to buy another house even after I bounce back from this.

I’m sure the code is good…but I wouldn’t test it on your server.

Not only did Plimus hold the affiliates earning, but also thousands of dollars they owed to the vendor. Each month they would issue an email stating that they were paying and then a recap that they were not a few days after. The live customer service is only for the customers – not affiliates or vendors. You have to play email tag for any explanation, and it is vague. After months of their holding our money with no valid explanation, they have just started releasing the money to the vendor. They paid only 10% for the first payment.

I would suggest that you go ahead and develop your own if not planning to use clickbank or paydotcom.