If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or you can leave me a message HERE. Don't forget to leave a comment. I allow Do Follow so you get a link back. Thanks for visiting!

This is the third post in the series on how to make the switch from your 9-5 job to full-time work online. Part 1 and Part 2 here.

I know everyone wants the magic bullet or the secret elixir to making money online, and the truth is I don’t have it. The most I can do is tell you what I have done and the things not to do in order to make the switch. The best part about not being able to tell you how to make your money online is that it will not limit you in your pursuit to do so. The sky is the limit and when you find your niche you’ll watch your business returning more than you ever thought possible. I don’t have to remind, but the Internet can deliver more customers to your business than being located in the most expensive and trafficked intersection in downtown Manhattan. Here are four lessons to keep in mind while discovering your calling online. Hopefully they will reduce the bumps along the way.

First:

Wait before you act. I am sure most of you were like me and discovered how some others were making their money online and decided to do the same exact thing in order to make some cash. You have to give yourself a breathing period before you act on those urges and more importantly before you spend money. Here is a simple rule: For every $100 you are about to spend, wait a day. The average wage is about $10 an hour and $100 is roughly 1 days worth of work. Before you spend that money on something, ask yourself if it will help you in your quest to making money online. Wait, think about it for a day, then if you still think it is a good idea, go for it. Even if that idea doesn’t pan and make you money back, you had the time to properly analyze the information and hopefully did a little more research and soul seeking. You’ll be surprised how much money you will save when you employ this tactic of waiting.

I love to read both online and offline and when I get into the mode of one idea or another I want to jump on it while it is fresh and seize the day. This is particularly dangerous online because of all of the information and plethora of ideas available from all sorts of people who claim to have made it big online with whatever technique they are promoting. Don’t forget they got rich promoting those ideas and encouraging that “I can do anything” emotion.

Second:

Ask for someone else’s opinion. When I say most of my friends and family don’t know what I do online, I mean it, they don’t. The reason for them not understanding what I do is simply because their generation was not immersed in the age of the Internet like my generation was. But business is business and marketing is marketing both on and offline. I know there are a lot of different techniques, but the basic principles hold true in both worlds. Before you set out to make your millions online, tell someone else how you plan on doing that. On top of telling them, ask for their opinion and listen. More often than not, you will have to explain things like you are talking to a 5th grader, not in disrespect but in order to bring understanding of what it is you are planning on doing. If it is a get rich quick scheme or sounds to good to be true, you will probably see that in your discussion. Listen and heed those warnings. Don’t get defensive with question after question. A one-hour discussion with another person can save you hundreds of hours of work and more importantly wasting your time. The Internet is full of ways to make money online, but if you can’t name one person who has done that to make money, it is probably because no one else has.

Third:

Develop a leather skin. I know after that last point you might think this is counterproductive, but I am referring more to the criticism you will for sure get. I was fairly lucky in the area of criticism. Most of my friends and family have come to expect that I would try and do things others typically don’t. With the help of family, I bought a house at 19 to rent out the rooms while going to college and many more atypical things. Other people are not so lucky when it comes to criticism from their support group. It is hard to combat that negative energy and comments while you aim for your goal. Most of that criticism comes from a lack of understanding on their part. Take the time to sit down with them and explain your logic and method you are using to obtain your goal. Hopefully that will squelch the criticism, but it is not guaranteed to do so. The truth is those criticizing your idea normally care about you and don’t want you to fail trying to obtain some lofty goal they don’t understand. In this case, the more they know about your goal and method, they will probably start supporting you in your endeavor.

If talking fails to rally the support you need, surround yourself with others who have the same type of goals you do. Find a forum or small group that is aiming to do what you are doing, and join the community. Others might not understand your need to go after these goals, but your new friends will. Make your intentions known, and see who is in support of them. Those are the people you should develop a strong relationship with.

Fourth:

Draft your ideas. Like doing an outline for a paper in high school, it is still important to map out your plan of action and develop the idea. The last thing you want to do is get caught with your pants down in the business world. Having a clear thought written down with the steps you want to take will save you a lot of time. As you truck along on your online ventures, it is easy to get sidetracked and lose focus. Having your plan or goals down and in a visible place will bring you back to where you need to be, much like the Constitution is for the United States (bad example but you get the idea). Goals and visions change all the time, and that is okay. When you feel the project is going to take you in a new direction, simply make the changes to your business constitution.

On a final note, I wish it were easy to tell people how to live and make money online, but it isn’t. The most I can do is give you a set of guides and some time saving methods to help you along in your quest. I have had to learn the hard way more often that not even though I had the counsel of others that had gone on before me. I still tried the same stupid techniques guaranteed not to make you money and wasted countless hours doing so.

My last post was about switching from a traditional job to working for yourself online. I touched on some basics needed to accomplish this task. For me, all of this started when I quit my day job and set out to work for myself online, inspiring me to write about The Top 10 Reasons to Quit Your Job. There are countless reasons to quit your job and start having fun, but how does someone make that jump from the rat race to living out a dream?

November 2006 is where my dream started. I was driving beet truck for a local farmer during harvest season, looking for jobs to apply to and setting up interviews. I listened to the radio a lot while driving and picked up a show by Dave Ramsey, the get out of debt guru. He inspired me to make life changes in order to get out of debt and live a more fulfilled life. After reading some of the books he recommended, including some of his own, I came across a book called, 48 Days to the Work You Love. I have mentioned this book a couple of times because I will gladly buy this for anyone graduating from high school or college. The book doesn’t give you any answers about what jobs you should work, but it does ask the right questions. Over the next year and half, I worked to achieve my goal and quest to pursuit the career of my choice.

When I say I tried all the wrong ways to make money online, I mean it. I did the blog with Adsense, tried to sell ebooks, eBay drop shipping (including the book), and many others. I thought because others were successful at doing those things that I would be able to replicate their work. I was able to an extent do what they did but ultimately it cost me much more time and effort than I ever got out of those ideas. I always knew I wanted the flexibility and lifestyle that the Internet business could provide, but I was doing the business of others and not myself. It wasn’t until I figured out that doing what you are really passionate about is the key to succeeding both on and offline in business. You truly have to love what you do and be willing to do it even without a paycheck. If you can honestly wake up in the morning and want nothing more than to get to work you have found what you love. I can’t even sleep in anymore because I will just lay there thinking about the things I can do for the day.

For myself, I found that I love solving problems. I have know this for a long time but never capitalized on that ability to help negotiate my way through the situation until its resolve was complete. I also knew that I love working with people and helping to meet their needs (the go to person). What I did was merge offline business with business online. I have been helping local groups and businesses be found online. Most have a website but that site is not easily found in their local markets. I help define people’s goals and target for their businesses online. In our local market, this is a completely untapped niche. I can’t name anyone in town who really has a clue to accomplish these tasks for a business (some claim but don’t deliver). The last two months have brought a lot of business in for me and I find that each day I love what I do more and more. I think it is so much fun to help people like this and in an untapped market there is a lot of opportunity to grow.

The biggest part to remember with all of the information you digest while beginning your quest to work online is to live out your dream, not the successes of another. Unless you can separate your quest for money apart from a fulfilled career, it will have a short lifespan. Ask yourself the right questions:

• What are my favorite hobbies? (Passions)
• What do I know a lot about or seek to know a lot about (investing, housing, SEO, puppies)?  (Drive / Motivation)
• What are my talents (talking, writing, production, media, technologies)? (Leverages)
• What do I get fulfillment out of (helping others, adding value, sharing, teaching)? (Purpose)
• Who do I most want to work with (kids, businesses, charities, sports, car enthusiasts)? (Market)

Find your target market and build a product for it. Always have a plan and a goal before you start something online. My goal for this blog was to reach others and build a network. Don’t build a blog and try 10 different methods of making money from it, you’ll waste your time. Build a product or service for your target market, not a market for your product or service.

Travels are over, at least for now

Yesterday was my first day back home after 3 weeks of traveling. I spent two weeks in northern California visiting family and lending a hand where I could. Then I took a trip to Washington state to visit my mother and some friends. Overall, it was a great time and I got to do some of my favorite things like eating huge home-cooked meals, hiking and sight-seeing. I am sure glad to be back home, though.

End of the month stats:

• Unique Visitors:  43,716
• Page Views: 107,112
• Pages Per Visit: 2.5
• RSS Subscribers: 176 (more than month goal)
• Technorati Rank: 48,166
• Alexa 150,510: (just above month goal)

Next month goals will be posted on the side bar.

Here are some pictures from my trip

Family cabin in northern California, a little morning breakfast.

My mother’s cat Pretty Girl and I (used to be my cat).

Blaine, Washington about 2 miles from Canada on the coast.

First I would like to say thanks for bearing with me on this slow posting week. I left Fargo on Monday and headed to northern California to stay with and help some family. I will be in California for about another week until I depart for Washington state. I am making the most out of this trip and visiting my mom in Ephrata, WA, for a couple days on my way back to Fargo.

HOT!

Everyone knows California gets a lot of sun (at least in most areas), but 94 degrees in the middle of May? Due to the lack of air conditioning where I’m staying, not much gets accomplished in that kind of heat. I did manage to build a shelving unit before noon and called it quits. The temperature is dropping slowly, so the next week should be nice. Here are a couple of pictures.

(This is the view from my grandparents’ front porch in Weed, CA)

RSS Feed

Last week I did a blog review of Marcus Hochstadt and mentioned how he doesn’t rely on FeedBurner because at any moment they could delete your RSS feed and all of those who were subscribed. About two days later my FeedBurner wasn’t showing the email subscribers I have. So my number for a couple days was down below 100 :(. I was about to get worried and then the email numbers kicked back in and were much higher than before :). After last months unsuccessful attempt of acquiring a specific number of subscribers, I lowered my expectations for this month to 170. Then yesterday I was at 173 with a lot of May left to go. Serves me right. I try and meet my goals right at the end of the month knowing they were just high enough for me to reach.

Also if you subscribed to my RSS feed by email and want the 300 Entrecard credits I advertised, you need to tell me either by message at Entrecard or email me at: Josh@JoshWhitford.com so that I can get you your credits. Otherwise I have no way of knowing you subscribed.

Review of Marketing Blogs

I really enjoyed reviewing different marketing blogs and probably will continue to do so every now and then. If you want me to review your blog or marketing blog, either comment or send me an email, and I will try to do so shortly. Here are the reviews I’ve done so far:

• Internet Business Guide by Marcus Hochstadt
• Marketing Deviant on Marketing Strategies
• Make and save money with Moremerchant.com
• Talking about 1 Million Readers in 365 Days

Actually, this post was written by myself, but I know the title is fitting for this blog. Marcus Hochstadt has been working online since 2003 when his former company was downsized (see post here for 10 reason to quit your job). After his abrupt job less, he turned around and focused his talents as a sale manager towards niche marketing, video demonstrations and of course, his blog.

This is one of the few blogs I know simply exists because of his love for sharing information as well as networking with others. It truly makes a big difference to learn from another who is sharing for the sake of sharing vs. trying to earn money from me directly via sales or affiliate programs. I don’t even mind when he injects personal opinions and faults into his posts. Here is a quote from the post How to Save 2 Hours a Day.

Plan the next day the night before — Before going to bed, go over your daily planner for the next day.  The mind is amazing at accomplishing goals, and while you’re sleeping it will be working everything out to save even more time and increase productivity. This 10th tip is well worth a separate post as it can give you another 2 hours per day. So stay tuned!

I love this tip and am glad he saved it for last spot on his list of 10 ways to save time. It is amazing how even spending just 5 minutes the night before collecting and organizing your next day’s thoughts will ultimately produce amazing results.

Even while searching his blog for past articles, I was amazed by some of the things I learned that I had never thought of before. For instance, you won’t find an RSS feed counter on his blog (Why I Do Not Use FeedBurner). There is a reason behind that, mostly related to the fact that at any one moment, that could all disappear. It had never really occurred to me that if FeedBurner did like my blog or my subscription base for some reason, it could simply shut it off. I think I would rather be safe than sorry. Maybe it’s time to explore the world of newsletters in addition to FeedBurner.