Oh boy lots of action has been going on in the recent How To Make A $100 per Day post. If you haven’t checked it out yet I strongly recommend you get that scroll wheel workin! We got a ton of responses and great some great ideas emerged from the brainstorming sessions. However I have to admit there was an alternative motive behind that post. Haha, com’n you know better than anyone that there’s no such thing as a carrot dangling in front of you without a string attached. Besides getting a good cash idea out there the main reason for the post was to help people identify what type of Internet marketer best describes them. I’m a firm believer that knowing your strong points and your weaknesses is the first step to producing solid money making projects. As you probably are starting to realize the project proposed wasn’t so cut and dry as it appeared. Infact it required a little bit of everything a good project has; Tough decisions, creativity, motivation issues, independent research, and good ol’ fashion moral delemmas. Facts be faced no matter what the project, if it’s going to make you money than inevitably you’re going to get confronted by each and every one of these elements at least once. The best way to prepare is to know where you stand on each one. Know your limits and know your potential.
Other blogs seem to talk a lot about this topic but since this is Blue Hat SEO I decided to go with a more creative approach and instead I attempted to give everyone actual hands on experience so they can learn first hand about problem solving with a real life example. As you’ll find out it doesn’t matter in the slightest if you even attempted the $100/day project. What matters is how well can you dissect your own though process when you originally read the post. This is why I said read the post at least three times; I wanted people to really put some serious thought into it.
Those of you who read the post realized instantly that you were hit with ambiguities and decisions you were going to have to make. How you made the decisions determined how the project turned out for you. Let’s step through the problems one by one starting from the beginning. Remember this was not a test so there were no wrong answers. So in the spirit of a social experiment. Take this short quiz and do your best to interpret and dissect your own thought process during all phases of the project.
Problems Faced With The $100/day Project
1)MotivationRight off the bat you instinctively asked yourself “Is the juice worth the squeeze?” Whether or not the money was going to be worth the effort was the first hurdle.First off the project seemed easy. Secondly it was stated that the project should only take about a couple days. So naturally your answer to this decision was based off your current financial status, your time investment, and the amount of effort you are willing to invest. I made it a point to talk up the project with highly motivational words. By the time you read through the post your motivation should of been high and rational should of been low. It was then up to your brain to quickly level them both out to the point of making a wise decision.
Did You Attempt The Project?
A) Yes I will do the project. You are the type of marketer with nothing to loose and everything to gain. it doesn’t matter whether your making 10k/day or $5/day an extra 3 grand+ a month for only a couple days of hard work is a good thing and your willing to accept the challenge. You are the type of Internet marketer that knows the value in an idea and willing to explore new areas. On the con side this type of thinking may cause you to jump into ventures that are a huge waste of time and resources.
B) No I will not do the project. This project isn’t worth it. You are the type of Internet marketer that realizes there are bigger and better fish in the sea. Focusing your efforts in the areas that best fit you play a big part in success later on. On the con side there is no reward without a risk. You may tend to loose out on huge opportunities while you sit and wait for something better.
2) Intimidation.Does he really expect me to compete in the screensaver industry? Intimidation was naturally a factor when you got faced with this decision. Should you continue on a potentially broken path?
How Did You React To This Intimdation?
A) Fuck it I might as well give it a shot. You are the type of marketer that never lacks in determination. You are the most dangerous type of marketer. You aren’t afraid to take on competition and slaughter them quickly. Success comes quickly for people like you. A good philosophy to live by “3 in every 4 businesses fail, so if you can venture out 4 times odds are you’ll succeed. Con: Faith is blind. Entering a market just because someone told you it’s easy will eventually cause many failures.
B) Lets put a little more thought into this. You started looking at all the angles. You’re the type of marketer that doesn’t see your lonely website competing against millions of older more experienced screensaver sites. You see all the links and all the screensaver directories promoting your product for you. You didn’t see one giant niche you saw tons of tiny ones waiting to earn you money. You take into account all the cards on the table and use leverage to get your way. Con: The sky isn’t always blue and not all competitions can be won. Sometimes you may find yourself spending way too much time on a single project before you realize that its going nowhere.
C) Forget it! Some fisherman go for the big ones and some go for tons of smaller ones. You’re the type of marketer that likes to diversify your investments. There is just as much money to be made in either strategy. The more you spread yourself out to smaller niches the better your chances are of not failing. Con: Overwhelming work naturally plagues you. The more you spread yourself out the less there is to spread.
3) ResearchI specifically said to find 20 public use pictures for each item. This is no easy feat and infact is a huge hurdle! You were going to have to do some serious research.
What Type of Researcher Are You?
A) Group player. You went straight to the comments to see if anyone else had already solved this problem. You asked around and got your answers from other people that had already faced it. If that resulted in a failure you did a bit on your own and shared with the rest of the group and in return they responded back with the research they found. You’re the type of researcher that is all about speed and efficiency. You know how to get things done and network with the right people in order to accomplish your goals. Con: Sometimes these people don’t exist or are such idiots that they just waste your time and take away your patience.
B) Loner. You went out and Googled like crazy. You’re the type of researcher that won’t accept an answer until you’ve seen it for yourself. Your strongest suite lies in your accuracy of your data. Con: You tend to take the long hard way to get things done. When sometimes asking a simple question is all that is needed.
C) I asked Someone I trust. You found someone you know personally and asked them. Together you solved the problem with hardly any difficulty. You are the type of researcher that is all about trust. You don’t trust the data until you trust the source. You working as a team with someone you trust quickly weeds out the bullshit and helps bring new ideas to the table that you may not have thought of. Con: You may sometimes be a little too codependent. When no one else is around you get frustrated easily with a problem that would normally be easy.
4) Financial InvestmentChances are you only know me through my writing. Most of you have never met me before and yet I’m telling you to invest a little over a $100 of your own money to this project. Everyone will tell you your business idea is great and brilliant and all that jazz but you don’t get the real opinions until you bring money into the equation. Negative thoughts and reasons why you shouldn’t do it are the first thing that rushes to your brain when money gets mentioned.
What Type Of Investor Are You?
A) I whipped out the credit card. You’re the type of investor that lives by the philosophy that if you throw enough shit at the wall eventually something will stick. You are bound to succeed simply because you have no fear of failure. Con: You will fail, lots and lots of times before you actually do succeed! The average self made millionaire has declared bankruptcy 4 times in their lifetime.
B) I researched alternative software. You’re the type of investor that doesn’t make a decision unless it’s cold and calculated. You know your alternatives before you make a final decision. You are the best apt to make a wise decision. Con: Sometimes experience knows best. You sometimes tend to create more work for yourself without prevailing.
C) I have bigger priorities. You instinctively looked at all your bills and took your budgets into consideration. You got a family, you got a life, you got other expenses. Can you really afford this? You’re the type of investor that knows your priorities and never wastes. The biggest investors in the world understand this perfectly. Most empires are built on small smart decisions and not upon rash big ones. Con: You’ll always wonder…what if? I’m sure the people that originally turned down Bill Gates on his $2,000 investment offer are kicking themselves every single day of their lives on that decision.
5) Technical HurdlesI casually said, oh yeah make a website. This isn’t such an easy task for everyone. This required some technical knowledge. Furthermore I said make a separate page for each screensaver, even if you are savy you realized quickly that it adds up to at least a 301 page website. What a pain in the ass!
How Do You Handle Technical Hurdles?
A) I had no problem with this one, or I went out and learned how to make a website. You are the type of person that if something needs to be learned you go out and learn it. This saves you tons of money, tons of headaches and tons of cash. What if I told you the site had to be in some special format you knew nothing about? Would you have gone out and learned all about it and became well versed enough to conquer? Con: You may not be able to put a price on education but damn if it doesn’t take some serious effort. Facts be faced, there is more knowledge out there for one person to ever be able to handle. You will NEVER learn it all. You need to learn a bit of delegation.
B) I found someone to do it for me. You’re a smart deligator. You’re the type of person that knows the meaning of the word efficiency. Things tend to get done quickly with you in charge. Con: You want the product you have to pay the price. It won’t ever come cheaper than it would if you just made it yourself.
C) I gave up. You know your limits. You realized this project was going to take way more time than you had originally thought. Perhaps its time to find another that fits within your technical range. Con: Enjoy writing ebooks.
6) Morals and Ethics
You can’t give someone a dollar without first taking a dollar from someone else. You can’t cure cancer without first putting thousands of people out of work. This is exactly the type of delemma I threw at you with the link to Zango. To distribute adware/spyware or not to distrbute. That is the question! Facts be faced no matter what you do online to make money YOU WILL HURT OTHERS in the process. There is no such thing as an online business where everyone wins. Even this blog of mine has its negative effects on other SEO blogs. You could be on their site supporting them instead of reading this right now. You just need to set an exact and fine line for yourself on how far you will push the moral envelope. Know this limit and stick by it. Never go over and never hesitate to go anywhere in between.
How Did You Handle The Zango Step?
A) Absolutely not! Forget the whole project! Most great million dollar ideas come from simply asking “What will others benefit from?” Having a strong moral stand against bringing any form of harm to others gives you a distinct advantage in coming up with ideas. Con: Your competitors don’t think like you do. Don’t be surprised when they pull something dirty and you end up loosing the race.
B) If it hurts consumers fine, but if it hurts other websites from Affiliate hijacking than hell no! How did you handle that debate? On one side you have tons of other information and research by individuals saying they DO hijack affiliate links and on the other hande Eli quickly and sternly said NO THEY DON’T. There is all this overwhelming information saying they do, but on the flip side Eli is definitely not the type of guy that takes his research lightly and would never say something like that if he didn’t know for damn sure if he was right. I made it a point to not release any of my own research on the topic because i wanted you to handle it yourselves. Did you actually go read the other articles on the apposing views? Did you firmly and thoroughly critique them and their research process before you made your decision? Did you blindly accept my answer because you trusted my opinion? Did anyone actually contact Zangocash and ask if they could get a copy of their source code so they could see for themselves? That sounds like a completely ridiculous idea, right? That is such a ridiculous answer that your brain will naturally swarm you with hundreds of reasons why something that obvious would never work. It’s too full of road blocks to ever work. However the more you think about it the less ridiculous it starts to become. Why isn’t it possible to find out the answer to the affilliate hijacking question for yourself and be 100% sure of it? Just how far are you willing to go on your own research to know the truth?
C) I want to look at some alternatives. You are the creative thinker in the bunch. Instead of dismissing the whole idea you started brainstorming for other ways to make money that wouldn’t go against your morals. With this type of attitude you can never fail.
D) Get R Done! Forget the pansies you’re aggressive and you get what you want. You realize its nothing more than bad software and there really isn’t anything immoral about it. You aren’t an immoral person you just understand the concepts of business. This is what it is, it isn’t personal its business. You get done what you need to get done. You are the model of efficiency and chances are you will make more money than everyone else with less effort. Con: Your not the most popular of cats in the kennel.
7) Follow Through
By this point you’ve collected 6,000 pictures. You’ve created a 300+ page website. You’ve dealt with sponsors. You’ve created 300 screenshots and filled out 300 pad files. You’ve realized that it takes about a half hour to submit each screensaver (that’s about 6 days straight of submitting). The monotony and repetitiveness is starting to wear on your last nerve.
How Did You Handle The Follow Through & Completion Of The Project?
A) I was like a freight train. You solved the submitting problem by scrounging up as many computers as you could get your grubby little hands on. You’re a real go getter. You don’t fuck around when it comes to making money online. You are bound and determined to succeed at everything you do. Con: Welcome to the looney bin called online marketing.
B) It sucked! You decided the only way to get through this was to start doing it in your spare time. You are in it for the long haul. The juice is worth the squeeze so you plunge through and get it done. You realize that there is no price on your sanity. So you take your time with it. Con: It’ll take a little bit longer than you expected to reach your ultimate goals.
C) I Gave up. This project was not what you were expecting. There has got to be easier ways to make $100/day online. You’re still a sane person and at least you tried. Con: No one ever said making a living online would be easy. It’s a ton of hard work and if you don’t sweat than theres a good chance you’ll never reach your goals.
In ConclusionSo now that you’ve taken this quiz you’re starting to realize one thing. Eli Set You Up To Fail! It wasn’t as if the project wasn’t exactly what I claimed it would be. Infact it really was easy, simple, quick, and everything you would expect from a high quality $100/day project. Nothing in the project was beyond your scope of talents or even unordinary. It was all perfectly reasonable. However simply because it required a specific marketer profile in order to succeed with it, over 99% of all the readers of BlueHatSEO would inevitably fail the project no matter how simple I made it. Of the several thousand readers here I never expected more than one or two to actually be able to complete that project. Tell me thats not the craziest shit you’ve ever heard! Its true though.
So the odds are against you eh? Not really! There are MILLIONS of $100/day projects and even $1,000/day projects. Some are easy, some are hard. When picking your projects your best weapon is knowing yourself. Pick the projects that best fit YOU. Not the ones that fit best on a piece of paper. The easier sounding projects will not necessarily be easier for you. Some will fly through this project like its a fly on the wall, the others will struggle and fail and never understand why.
I know some of you will be like WTF Eli? I realize that this is probably the strangest and off the wall post I’ve ever made, but I also firmly believe it is the most helpful post I’ve ever made, because once you got a good understanding of this post than the $100/day projects will just start flying at you. You will accomplish them all with ease and before you know it your making more money than you could of ever imagined. Others will ask you how you did it and you won’t even know why. The whole thing just seemed easy. Thats the real trick to Internet marketing.Cheers!
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Until then enjoy being able to use them.