How Long Will This Take?
ByHow Long Will This Take This is just one of the many questions new marketers have on their minds. It’s not the most important question they should be asking, but I’ll address it anyway.
Almost everyone I begin working with asks me this question. If you ask me, I can’t give anything but a general answer. I don’t know you well enough. I have no idea how hard you will work. I don’t know how much time you can devote to the proocess. I don’t know exactly how computer literate you are…there are a ton of varialbles. Besides the personal variables, the choice of niche makes a huge difference too.
All things being equal, smaller niches will see quicker results. Of course smaller niches generally produce less income. On the other hand, high potential niches (more competitive and usually more income potential) take far longer to succeed with. Whatever your current skill level is, a large and high potential area may take 5 times as long (or more) to get traction with compared to a small niche.
From my experience, one of the biggest reasons so many beginning Internet marketers “drop out” before seeing any success is because their expectations were simply too high. They almost always choose too large of niche and thus sabotage their early efforts.
Most of us need to see a bit of progress in order to maintain motivation. Just a small amount of progress in a large area can take a very long time. Although most beginners really wish to “pass go” in the beginning and skip right to the big money, I try to move beginning marketers into very small niches. There is quicker success in tiny niches (motivation to continue) and the skills learned with them can then be transfered to larger and more profitable areas.
Just think of it as “paying your dues” when learning how to make a tiny niche work for you. Although I have not, and cannot answer the question “how long will it take” in specific terms, I can tell you how long it took me to make that first $1000 a month of steady profit from our first business. In 2003 I had pretty good general computer skills already. I could make websites and understood well how to publish them. But even with those basic skills, it still took me several years of working most nights and weekends for about 18 months before I could learn and apply the required marketing steps in order to achieve the $1000/month milestone.
Sure, some beginners can and will achieve success sooner. Others will take longer. Others will quit in frustration. I may not know exactly how long it will take you, but I do know this: If you dig in and learn the basics and KEEP applying action, there is no way you can fail. If giving up is not an option, then you will succeed; there is no other alternative. None of this is rocket science.
Study hard, apply relenteless focused action, fail fast, and never quit…every successful marketer followed those steps.
Hey Steve
The answer you have provided is right on the money. You or the new marketer can guage when success will arrive. Success arrives on its own time. All you cando is have it in your mind that you are going to succeed, you are ready and able to do the work required to be successfull and know in your mind that success will arrive and that it be be that much sweeter when it arrives due to the hard work and full effort you have provided during the preperation period.
I hope that makes sence to you and you understand my line of thought. Thank you for the kind words in your note and I look forward to the next time we exchange e-mails.
Take care.
Bob
Great info as always Steve. My Grandfather had a saying I have heard a lot over the years: “If it was easy everyone and their dog would be doing it.”
Like you said, the key is to take consistent action. BTW…..great website!!!
As usual, well written, concise and brutally truthful. When (complete) failure is not an option, mistakes are opportunities for learning what doesn’t work and allows you to zero in on what does. There really is no such thing as a free lunch.
Keep up the good work!
From a beginner.. Thanks for the encouragement.
Steve
I think it is sort of like a jet pilot buying the farm he gets target fixation and knows the abc of how to do what he does but does not know how to get to the xyz before he crashes and burns.
knowing the nuances of how to manipulate the entire system to and advantage is what the success rate is all about. Not knowing how to jump the fence and bypass the things not working is a hard sell.
It takes a little tweak here and a little tweak there to make the choo choo run on all cylingers and hit the ka-ching. some like myself can never jump that creek we try but get our feet wet splash even though we dry off it seems to evade us and our target of success fades dimly into the same ole same ole.
Great replies everyone! I should have added this too to the post:
When learning to fly a 747, there is a lot of work in between ground school and piloting the 747. Too many beginners skip right to trying to fly the 747. This stuff takes time and dedication to get right. Probably the hardest part is finding that match between you, your marketing personality (what you do and don’t like to do and what you have to do) and your niche. Those who keep learning, tweaking and trying things will succeed.
This is a good point and newbies must realise that working online should be treated like any other brick and mortar business or offline bussiness.
Investments have to be made and when trying to make money online time is a major factor. Although some people actually start making money quicker than most, the big secret is definitely consistency and persistence.
Good advice here Steve.
Hey Steve.
This is perfect.
I have been Internet Marketing full time for 3 years, and as it’s just past Midnight here, 19 days. New Years day 2008 was the first time I was ever online.
Coming from a long marketing history in the “snail mail” business (yes, I’m old) I would not consider myself a rank beginner. I knew how to write copy that sells and had published a small a magazine for a time. Internet Marketing is basically the same thing, on steroids.
I had some early success with a free 2.0 site and quite by accident picked a rising product and with out consciously thinking about it too much, I optimized the page well for the nickname the product would become known by using what I was learning from “Adsense Connection”. (Which, by the way I found recently still in the envelope. I plan to sell it on ebay in 20 years haha)
That page produced a $26 commission every 5 or 6 days for nearly a year. But other than that, income was “few and far between.” I just kept my head done and trudged on. I knew I had what it took, it was just a matter of time.
Three years in and I have recently re-worked the whole plan, almost. I just now am starting to feel confident that I really know what I’m doing. I’m no longer a beginner in the testing stages, I am now a fairly seasoned marketer with a very definite plan.
How many licks does it take to get to the chocolate center? In my case, three years.
Thanks for all your help.
Brent
thanks Brent…Great comment!
Yes, the “holy grail” of niche marketing is finding that up and coming product/idea/service that you can get into Google on the ground floor with and become the authority site for.
Keep in touch and let me know how it’s going for you!
Thank you so much for this. I was sitting here a bit discouraged (even though I am further along than most). I’m so anxious to reach that 6 figure income mark that some days I almost feel like it will never happen. Heck I haven’t even reached the 5 figure mark yet. But I know that I have to keep forging ahead. Guess I just needed someone to smack me around a bit to remind me. Thanks!
Hi Lynn, always remember to maintain focused action….just a little bit of action in the right direction adds up over time. Make a list….a short term and long term list. Work from that list. You can make tons of progress like that.