Hey there!
Let me introduce my self and let you know how I ended up doing IM in my ‘retirement’.
My name is Barb Hill and I have decided to start this project online, to put it out there, to keep me accountable and hopefully it will be useful to others in my situation.
I first got my feet wet in internet marketing about 10 years ago. I thought it would be a good way to earn some extra money to put away for retirement. I was completely green, had no idea what I was getting into at all.
I had found a few people online who seemed to be doing well and I did a bit of reading and decided to take the plunge. In my case, the plunge was a course that taught you several ‘easy ways’ to make money online. There was a monthly fee (roughly $150) and regular phone calls and online support. I followed the instructions, built the website and amazingly got some traffic and made a bit of money. Wow – this is great, I thought. I just need to make more of these sites and the money will really start to come in.
Much to my surprise, shortly after putting the time, money, and effort into 10 sites, POOF! – the traffic dried up and not a cent did I make. Not so easy after all.
Meanwhile, I was still paying a monthly fee. Hmmmm. This was not good. I did some more research and discovered that the method we were using was frowned upon, and Google just ignored all the sites. Bummer!
I started looking for some other way to make money online.
Lots of people we talking about ebooks at that time and how easy they were to sell. OK. I decided to write my own ebook. Again, I took a paid course on how to create and market your ebook. This was long before the days of Kindle so you had to do all your own marketing. So, I did some research, found a topic, started writing, writing some more, re-writing etc etc. Turns out, I don’t like to write about something I know little about and I did not feel comfortable that I was providing good information so….. I stopped that ebook.
I looked at what I knew, and wanted to try writing about something that really interests me. It appears that my interests have too small an audience to hope to ever be profitable.
OK. Now what? Maybe this was all a bunch of hooey. Maybe I just don’t understand. Arghhh!!!
Bored yet?
No? Maybe you have experienced something similar?
So….
I took a break.
After a while I thought that perhaps selling other people’s products for a commission might be more my style. So…. guess what? I found another course on being an affiliate marketer, bought it and followed the steps.
Worked my tail off, put up some sites and started driving traffic. Well… unlike the first sites where the traffic just appeared, now I had to work to get the traffic. Boy oh boy was that an expensive pain in the rear! I did manage to get some free traffic and made some commission but this was way too time consuming for the money I was making.
I would buy a course, follow it, not have the results I was hoping for and stop working on it.
I could go on and on but I am sure you get the picture (and are probably saying ‘enough already’).
As I look back now it is almost embarrassing how must money and time I spent and how little I got in return.
I had put together some of the pieces bit could not seem to get the all in the right spots to make this thing work. I’m getting desperate at this point as retirement is fast approaching and I am further in debt than ever.
Recently I joined a program (yes, yet another program – will I ever learn do you think?). This time they really explain it all, start to finish and……
I had my first $1,000 day! Yahoo!!!!
I am just getting started still have lots of work to do and that is what I will be posting about. I figured if I say it in public, I will have to follow through and maybe, hopefully, someone else who is struggling will find this and realize that there is a way to make a living online.
If this sounds like something that can help you, then be sure to sign up for my newsletter using the form below. I have some goodies for you when you confirm your subscription.
Until we speak again – take care of yourself!
Barb
