Getting started is the most difficult part for those wishing success as an online entrepreneur. Beginners are fearful at the prospect of learning about and applying techniques when it comes to earning money online. Others may have had prior experience but have struggled to see much success. And still, others may have had some success but are looking for tips and strategies to scale up their business to the point where it provides a full-time income.
One thing to remember, an online business is an excellent opportunity to secure your financial future. In spite of the current economic woes online business opportunities provide for low start-up costs and high ROI. No doubt it takes the right mindset and some work but the payoff is fantastic.
The options are vast. Blogging, e-commerce, affiliate marketing, starting a social media/digital marketing agency, website creation and hosting are just a few. The list is endless. And what everyone in this industry loves is working from home and on your own schedule.
Valuable Lessons
One of the things I learned early on is that I had to be patient and had to persevere if I wanted to realize success. You will notice immediately that this site is NOT about ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes. You will not find overstated income claims and hyped up opportunities. I started this site to educate and inform others about legitimate methods to make a living online. I will promote solid companies and opportunities as a vehicle to do so. This is not a review site and that is the reason there are only a small number of reviews. In fact, I only write reviews based on my personal experiences with programs and companies and would only highly recommend those that are helping me create an online income.
See also: Online Entrepreneurship – The Right Mindset
Starting Point
The starting point is first, making a decision to begin your journey. I suggest starting a journal in which every day you write down what you’ve done or are doing to ensure your success online.
In your journal write:
- What motivates you in your desire to make money online. Is it that you are tired of living paycheck to paycheck? Are you maybe one medical issue away from a financial disaster? Are you looking to make enough money to retire and do some traveling? Or perhaps you simply want to give you and your family a higher standard of living and to eliminate debt and financial worries. Whatever your reasons write them down.
- Also place in your journal your goals and ambitions for your business. Be specific about those goals and ambitions, don’t write vague or cliched objectives.
See Also: Online Entrepreneurship – Continuing Your Journey
Be Specific
Be specific when you set your goals. For example, you may want to earn an extra $300-$500 per month in the next 3-4 months. Write down your short, medium and long-term goals. Maybe at the end of your first year, you want to be earning $1000/mth or perhaps $3000/mth. By year two your goal is $5000 or $10,000 per month. Whatever the case may be put this in writing and keep active with your journal contributions. You have to think about and decide what you want from this endeavor and you have to commit to making it happen.
Persevere
Most of all you must decide that you will not give up. That is the easiest thing to do especially when you may not be seeing the kind of results you wanted and in the time you expected. I can make no guarantees about your success; it really is up to you. But I can tell you that I gave up once before and threw in the towel. I turned my back on all this ‘internet garbage’ and told myself that this is for suckers. But something kept telling me that in spite of past failures the opportunity is real and the key is to find the right companies, strategies, and tools to be successful. So I came full circle and now having persevered I am almost at the point where I can literally say that my financial future is secure.
So please explore the site and take a look at my reviews and be prepared to take action. Without action, there is no progress and ultimately no success.
See more on what it takes to become an online entrepreneur:
Online Entrepreneurship – Counting the Cost
Online Entrepreneurship – Continuing Your Journey
Online Entrepreneurship – The Right Mindset
D. Brahim
And Click Here for a peak of the training available at Wealthy Affiliate as a FREE member.
I completely agree with you. Most people start full of enthusiasm, but most of them give up at the first sign of defeat. The key is to keep moving forward and always turn negative into positive. Thanks a lot for sharing this post. Could you tell me more about Wealthy Affiliate? How much does it cost to join? Is it really free?
Hey Ivan,
Thanks for your response. And yes, getting started can be free with Wealthy Affiliate. They even allow you to make commissions on your referrals to their platform as a free member. How neat is that? Of course, becoming a Premium member doubles your commissions but folks can try the platform out with a free starter account and it’s a really vibrant and helpful community of online entrepreneurs. Best place to ‘get started’ online in my humble opinion. Take care.
D. Brahim
I started pursuing my goals of becoming an online entrepreneur a couple of years ago and I am always on the lookout for information to help me and keep me motivated. Your post was very informative and gave me some valuable lessons to consider.
Writing down my goals is a big takeaway. You are very correct. If I do not write them down I will not be able to know if I am on track or not. I especially like writing down how much I want to earn. That will keep me motivated for sure. Having lost out following get-rich-quick ideas I am very happy to know that this is not one of them. It will take time, I know that and I am prepared to persevere as you say.
One question though: How long will it be before I start seeing results when I get started?
Cassandra
Hi Cassandra,
Thanks for the comment and the question. In any business venture, a certain amount of discipline is required, and even, for example, in ‘writing’ down goals, etc it’s an ongoing process. Other important areas are in time and money management. Although my site is not focused on some of the business basics I would like to help others understand what it takes to succeed online. As far as how long it will take to see results it depends on several factors. One such factor is based on how much you put into your venture and that may determine how much you get out of it. Another factor is just the ability to persevere, WA has a great training program and it can be overwhelming at times but in my opinion, WA is a steady and long term growth opportunity. There may be other opportunities that help generate income in the short to medium term. Feel free to PM me and leave some contact info or contact me at netsuccess.drbrahim@gmail.com with subject line “WA comment” and let me know what your experience has been like online. I can perhaps provide a few pointers. Thanks and all the best to you.
The most part thing to have when considering being an online entrepreneur is the right mindset and orientation, I mean most newbies nowadays are up for get rich quick opportunities which happens to be mostly scams. I like how you’ve organized the steps, it’ll help starters observe the right steps at the right time.
Thanks for your comment and indeed the right mindset is critical. I’m not sure about accurate statistics but you see it posted in many places that 90+ percent of online entrepreneurs fail at it. Whatever the numbers a majority don’t quite understand what it takes to succeed online. I hope you will take a gander at some of my other articles on the topic of online entrepreneurship. Thanks again.