The real reasons I love IM (and don't worry about this) are the following:
1) I love the control and autonomy.
2) I love the freedom.
3) My skillsets are becoming more and more valuable year after year.
4) It teaches you how to be financially literate and live within your means (not many people do this).
5) It teaches you to save money and invest it WISELY (not many people do this).
6) It teaches you all about markets, capitalism, economics and opportunity.
7) Online marketing may not be for stupid people, but if you learn your shit you will make a healthy passive income.
8) You give yourself raises anytime you want just by finding and scaling methods that work.
9) One of my favorite parts. If EVERYTHING FAILS. It is >>SO EASY to start a local business, then use your IM skills to automate it and make a lot of money.
There are so many things I can say just about that last point.
Online marketing is much harder than marketing a small, local business.
So if everything fails, all you need to do is go take a few classes and get certified in some profitable home improvement trade (there are TONS of them). Then just focus on creating and branding 1 website. Withing 3-6 months you can build a HUGE local funnel that generates lots of profitable traffic. Then you can hire a salesman off CL to broker that traffic to competitors for commissions. Just 1 job can buy you insurance for the entire year. Then get licensed. Then subcontract the entire operation. Just selling 2 jobs a week can make 2 people a 6 figure a year income.
This is what me and my bro have been doing for years. There was some luck involved early on but it really is easy to do after you build your initial funnel. You don't need to be a social butterfly. You don't need to be a genius. You just need to be the person who controls and owns all the online real estate. Cause that "virtual" real estate is like owning real - real estate. It becomes worth A LOT of money.
There is this myth I've heard so many times that owning a small business is a lot of hard work. That is BULLSHIT. Total fucking bullshit. I know business owners who work 1-2 days a week and make more money than most doctors. Hell, I know a guy who works 4-6 hours every thursday, owns a pest control business, has got it to the point where everything is on autopilot now. He's built up a small pool of recurring customers. He's got a few employees he pays by the hour. It's a small, tight, intimate, profitable business. No office. Virtually no overheads. He owns 3 company trucks (started off with 1), all his employees do is drive around all week replacing traps and killing rodents.
And the owner bought a half a million dollar home 1 1/2 years ago.
In my case I had to work my ass off really hard the first 3-6 months (the first 3 were the hardest). We have a good deal of online real estate now. Lots of automation in place. At this rate we can grow to a 7 figure / year business within another few years. And if my entire industry was somehow wiped out tomorrow I'd just replicate the same formula in another industry the following day.
The problem I see on this forum (with broke, long term members, not noobs) is NOT that they lack skills. It's that they don't know how to APPLY their skills in the most efficient way possible.
Like I see journey threads where dude are building review sites targeting a million different niches, working their ass off and not making a dime. WHY NOT pick a safe, profitable, long term niche that you keep on the side as a "hobby". Create a local business website. Something you KNOW will be profitable. As you're working on all your online shit, keep growing the funnel of that local site. Because local services will always be profitable. Local services will always be needed. And they can always be automated.
The point is really to build a >>>foundation. So many guys I see on here don't have a foundation to stand on. They bounce back and forth between tons of random things. They're always looking for that sneaky, sly, slick and novel idea.
And sure, it's important to be innovative and creative. But all you need is that 1 base business that isn't sneaky, that isn't sly, that isn't slick, that isn't novel... something that's existed for decades ... that has been time tested to be profitable ... that a lot of people don't focus on.... something people will always need.
It doesn't even need to be that isolated. If you just go after all the keywords other people are ignoring, build your site right, build a real funnel that doesn't just rely on SEO.... you'll be set. And once you do that 1 time you can do it again.
I really think the problem is guys on here just don't think long term. I suffer from the same shiny syndrome problem a lot of marketers do. But when I got into this industry I KNEW I was not going to make it if I didn't have at least 1 traditional, safe business. It's just conservative, smart investing. Look at Warren Buffet. What did he do that was so brilliant? HE INVESTED IN COCA-COLA SHARES. So if you're a marketer and want to make it long term, you need to simply think long term. Don't reach for the stars. Reach for the foundation. Reach for the DIRT that you're gonna build the foundation on.
-BB
