You may have heard that more than 90% of the people that try to make money on the internet never make anything and they give up. I don’t know if that’s true, but I think it probably is. I also believe that one of the most important factors in success is not giving up. So why do some people give up?

I’ll give you two reasons why people give up. First, there’s the obvious reason that’s right on the surface in plain view. It’s HARD. Don’t believe anyone that tells you there’s an easy way to make money online. There’s not. It’s hard. And the hardest part is making the first few dollars.

This means you may have to work very hard for a long time without getting much in return. Most people don’t want to do that. They work hard for a little while, they get nothing for it, and they give up in frustration. So why do some people keep going?

This brings me to the second reason that people give up. This one is deep down under the surface. People don’t really give up because it’s hard.

People give up because they don’t have a good enough reason to keep going.

If you’re going to succeed, you need to have a good reason for working so hard for so little for so long.

Many people, if you ask them why they want to make money online, say that they want more money or a more flexible schedule. But that’s not good enough. Money and time are only useful if you do something useful with them. You need to know why you want those things.

Everyone has a different reason, but generally I think there are two good reasons to keep going.

First, you want to improve your quality of life. This may or may not be good enough to keep you going. If your quality of life right now is miserable, then you’ll probably be highly motivated to succeed to improve upon that. Because you’re unsatisfied with your quality of life every single day.

Or perhaps you’re afraid that you’re going to lose your job or that you won’t have enough to live on when you retire in a few years. Fear can be very motivating. But only if it’s a real fear right now, and not just something vague in the distant future.

On the other hand, if your quality of life right now is ok, but you just want to make it better, then you may not be motivated enough. If you have a decent job and make decent money, but you just want a nicer car and a nicer house, then that might not keep your fire burning long enough. Because things wouldn’t be bad if you quit.

But there’s a better reason that will keep you working hard until you succeed. Strive to do something meaningful with your life. Something that’s meaningful to you. Something that will fill you up and make you glad to be alive everyday. That’s much more powerful than a nice car.

Perhaps you want to send your kids to the best schools. Or you want to be able to take care of your parents if their health fails. Maybe you want to build shelters for homeless families.

Or maybe you just want to have the time to write a novel. Or you want to spend more time with your kids before they’re all grown up.

These things will do more than just improve the quality of your life. Much more than a nice house.

So if you don’t already know what you’re going to do with your earnings online, then you should give it some thought.

Why are you doing it? If you have a good answer, then you’ll have a better chance to succeed.

By the way, this philosophy is really about succeeding at anything, not just making money.

When you decide that you want to get a new dog or cat, how should you decide what breed to get? That’s a trick question because the best answer is to get a mixed breed. A mixed breed is no breed. And most importantly, don’t buy a dog or cat. Go to a local shelter and rescue one from death row.

First of all, purebred animals are more susceptible to genetic health problems. If you get a purebred, any breed, they are much more likely to have some sort of health problems in their life as a result of generations of breeding. Even if you get them from a very respectable breeder.

And that brings up another issue. It can be very difficult to know how responsible a breeder is. It’s nearly impossible for you to determine how responsible they are in their breeding, or the care that the animals get, or how early they take puppies and kittens from their mothers. When you buy an animal, you are potentially supporting someone who doesn’t deserve it.

There is an endless stream of cats and dogs going into shelters, and many of them are being killed because they can’t find someone to give them a home. It doesn’t make much sense to pay someone to breed more of them when there are already a lot of good animals that need homes. By purchasing a pet, you are ensuring that one who’s already in a shelter will be killed.

Of course, there’s the issue of money. Pets from the shelter are practically free. You may need to pay for vaccinations or fees for paperwork, but it doesn’t even compare to the price of a pet from a breeder.

If, for some reason, you feel you need to have a particular breed of dog or cat, then first try to look for a rescue organization for that breed. If you can find one in your area, then they may have some who need homes and you won’t have to buy them. If not, you should still look at the shelters. You may be able to find one who is partly whatever breed you want, but because they aren’t purebred they will have a lower chance of suffering from genetic defects.

From a practical point of view, there’s really no good reason to buy a pet from a breeder. You can get one for free with fewer health problems (and vet bills) from a shelter. And you’ll be saving a life in the process. There’s no more noble act than that.

How many times has someone been harassing you about something until you started getting upset, and then they say “I’m just giving you a hard time”? It’s pretty common, more so in some environments than others, but giving your friends and coworkers a hard time is a fairly common way for people to amuse themselves.

This is fine as long as the people who are getting the hard time enjoy that sort of banter and they can give as good as they get. But this is not a good passtime with people who take a “hard time” seriously. For people like that, it can ruin their mood and they can become genuinely irritated with you. And there’s really no good reason why anyone should enjoy making other people upset.

My point is that you should only give someone a hard time if they enjoy getting a hard time and giving you one back. For people who don’t want a hard time, try to find something else to give them. It’s just respectful.

More and more people are searching for the road to riches online. This program looks great, so they try it. It doesn’t work out, so next month they try something else. They continue to search for the thing that will make a killing for them. But rarely does anyone find it. Why not?

There’s more than one answer to that question. But for starters, there are very few ways to make a killing online (or offline). And if you do manage it, it sometimes only lasts for a few months before dying out. You make a bundle quick, then you’ve just got a monthly trickle (or nothing at all).

So how can you do it? The best thing to do may be to forget about it and give up.

Yep. Don’t bother trying to hit it big with a single shot. Even if you do, you’ll probably have an unstable income.

What you really want is multiple streams flowing in. As many as possible. Even if none of them make a lot by themselves, together they can add up to a lot.

It’s important to create as many sources as possible. If you’re just relying on a single source of income, then you’re always on the edge of disaster. Most people have just one source of income - their jobs.

But look at the dot com crash in 2001. People with “secure” jobs got laid off and suddenly had no income. And many of them couldn’t get another job for months, or even years. Their only source of support disappeared without warning.

You need enough streams flowing that you won’t be seriously hurt if a few dry up. Because nothing is completely secure.

Here are just a handful of reasons why your sales could suddenly stop:

• If you rely on your email list to generate sales, spam filters could significantly interfere with that.
• If you rely on traffic from other sites, those other sites might remove your links, or they might just disappear all together. So make sure you have *lots* of links.
• If you rely on free traffic from search engines, one or more search engines may change their algorithms and your listings could drop out of sight. This happens fairly frequently with Google. The more web pages you have up on different web sites, the more secure you’ll be.
• If you rely on traffic from ppc search engines, then what happens if your keywords suddenly become too competitive? You may not be able to afford them anymore. So use as many keywords as you can. And advertise as many different products as you can.
• If you advertise affiliate products on ppc search engines, then you’re really in a delicate position. Your keywords may become too expensive. Your most important ppc search engines could change their policies and disqualify your ads. This could be just about anything - changing policies on popups, requiring you to send traffic to your own site, raising the minimum bid, and on and on. Or the merchant could change their site - add a popup, add a Paypal payment button, add lots of affiliate links or ads, or just shut down the site all together. There are lots of dangers there.
• Whatever you sell could lose popularity. People may just lose interest in it. So try to sell as many products and services as you possibly can.

There are plenty more reasons, but the point is that you shouldn’t rely on just one or a few streams of income. Build as many as possible, and make them as big as possible.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be excited if you find something that makes you $10,000 a month. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re set for life.

Keep thinking about how you can create more and more streams.

In the spirit of Halloween this month…

You can learn a lot about marketing from Dracula. Dracula has done it all. He’s made lots of different products. And he’s made a killing (so to speak) in a lot of different markets. You should try to do what Dracula has done.

Just for fun, I visited the Internet Movie Database and looked up ‘Dracula’. It listed 113 movies that have been made about Dracula. How can there be 113 movies about Dracula?!? To tell you the truth, there are actually more, but the titles just didn’t show up in a search on ‘Dracula’.

The oldest movie I could find in the list was made in 1922. Although it was a silent movie, it looks like it was made in Germany. It wasn’t really a movie version of the original novel, but it was certainly based on the novel.

And in the 80+ years since then, at least 112 more movies were made based (in some way) on that same novel.

Obviously, people like the novel, or at least the idea behind it. So people have tried to put it on the screen. And they’ve done it in countless different ways.

Stay with me. There’s a marketing lesson here.

Let’s look at all of the different markets that Dracula has catered to. Originally, the novel was transformed into a movie for people who like movies. Great idea.

Later, Dracula movies were made in different languages, to cater to different markets that don’t speak the same language.

Dracula père et fils
Drakula Istanbul’da
and more.

But sticking to the original novel, Dracula was really only appealing to people who liked horror movies. So eventually, we began to see very loose interpretations of Dracula for the non-horror markets.

Dracula: Dead and Loving It (comedy)
Dracula: The Dirty Old Man (comedy)
and more.

Movie makers must have also recognized the popularity of Godzilla movies and realized that people like watching monsters fight monsters. So then we got…

Dracula vs. Frankenstein
Los Monstruos del Terror
and so on.

But there are also movies that actually take the story of Dracula and build on it. Make it into something more. Add to the story. Movies like…

Dracula’s Widow
Lady Dracula
Son of Dracula
Dracula’s Dog
and so on.

And of course, as technology has become more sophisticated, we’ve seen more visually spectacular Dracula movies. A far cry from the original black and whites. People who wouldn’t want to see the original movies still like to see the modern special effects movies.

You probably see how this relates to your own marketing efforts. You don’t have to come up with something original to be successful. You just need to find out what people already like and put your own twist on it.

Can you make something better?

Can you change something a little so that it meets a different need?

Can you copy an existing product and make it available to a different market?

Can you use new technology to do something better?

It’s great if you can come up with something new and innovative. But it’s hard to succeed at that. It’s much easier to build on what other people have already done. Don’t just blatantly copy someone else’s ideas. But use their ideas as the foundation that you’ll build upon.

Follow Dracula’s example and you’ll be in good shape.

If you publish an online newsletter or your own web sites with words on them, then you probably should understand something about copyrights and how they work.

Of course, I’m basing just about everything I’m about to tell you on US copyright laws, but it’s still relevant if you don’t live in the US.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me just say that I am *not* an expert on copyright law or any other sort of law. So don’t consider any of this to be legal advice.

But I have a basic layman’s understanding of copyrights. And I find that not everyone does.

So if you don’t, then you soon will. But take my advice with a grain of salt, because I’m NOT an authority.

Essentially, anything that’s published in any form is technically protected by a copyright.

If you write an ebook, you own the copyright.

If you write original text on a web site, you own the copyright (unless you sign it away).

If you write some software, you own the copyright.

If you hire someone to write something for you, then you only own the copyright if that was part of your agreement.

If you find a great little article or piece of information on someone else’s web site, you need their permission to copy it for your own web site or newsletter.

So what does this mean? It means that if someone copies anything that’s copyrighted by you, then you can take legal action against them. Technically speaking. But in reality, it’s a little different.

In reality, it will cost you money to legally pursue your copyright. You have to decide if it’s worth the money. Sometimes it will be.

And if you do take legal action, then you need proof that you were the original author. This is why you should register your copyrighted work. You can do this by filling out a form and sending it to the US copyright office. Along with your material and a small fee.

But even if you don’t register your copyright, you still have a copyright.

Do you need to have a copyright notice on everything you create? Yes and no.

Your work is copyrighted whether you have a copyright notice or not. It’s copyrighted the moment you create it. But not everyone is aware of this.

A copyright notice ensures that everyone knows you have a copyright.

But there’s even one more detail. This is something I’ve heard from an attorney’s mouth, so I’m assuming it’s true. You can only take legal action against copyright infringement if your copyright notice contains the copyright symbol. The “c” inside the little circle - ©.

Now, here’s how you can make one of those nifty little copyright symbols on your web site. It’s a special html character. At the place on your page where you want the symbol, type © and it will look like ©. Pretty simple.

That’s how copyrights work in a nutshell.

Again, none of the material here can be considered legal advice. It is provided only for informational purposes. To the best of my knowledge, all of this information is valid. But I provide no warranty as to its accuracy. You should consult an attorney for legal advice.

You can find a whole lot more information at the US Copyright web site.
http://www.loc.gov/copyright

Many people who create their own products to sell make a fatal mistake before they even create the product. It’s such a big mistake that they doom their product to failure before it’s even born. Make sure you don’t do this.

In fact, there are actually 2 mistakes people make. And you may be making one or even both of them yourself. It’s difficult to avoid making these mistakes because the seemingly logical course of action when you create a new product is actually wrong.

Here’s what a lot of people do. It’s the obvious thing to do. And I’ve done it myself. But it’s the *wrong* thing to do.

You get a great idea for a product. You know that people will love this product because it will be just so darn useful. It will make so many people’s lives so much better. You’re bursting with enthusiasm for your new idea.

So you start working on the product right away. You know it’s going to sell like hotcakes, so you want to get it out there as soon as possible. You work hard on it everyday until it’s done. Now, you’re great idea is a real product.

Once you’ve got the product done, you sit down to figure out how you’re going to sell it. How are you going to tell everyone about it? How are you going to get traffic to your web site where people can buy it instantly?

Here’s where you may hit a wall. Sometimes, you can’t figure out how to get people to your web site. You have no idea how to tell people what a great product you’ve got. You haven’t got a clue where you can advertise something like this. BAM! You just hit the wall. You’ve got a great product that nobody knows about.

Or maybe you do manage to get traffic. You may try things like FFA sites, safe lists, buying traffic from people who offer a deal that’s too good to be true. Don’t bother. It’s worthless traffic. You’ll be very lucky to make any sales that way.

Instead, you could buy traffic from pay per click search engines. Or you advertise your product in ezines. Or you might even get some people to tell their lists about it. But with all that traffic, you’re still not making any sales. There’s that wall again. You have a great product, and yet no one is buying it.

Could it be that no one wants your product? Was your idea not as great as you thought?These problems can arise because you made one of two mistakes.

Mistake #1: You didn’t find out if people *want* the product *before* you created it. Just because you think it’s a great idea doesn’t mean other people will. Don’t assume something will sell unless you have evidence. There are a few ways you can guage the demand for a product before you create it.

You can flat out ask people if they would buy it. If you have a list of potential buyers, then ask them if they would buy the product. Ask them how much they would pay. Just ask them to do a quick survey with those two questions on it.

If you don’t have a list, then you still might be able to get potential buyers to respond to your survey. If the product is something that people would use search engines to find, then run an ad using Google AdWords to drive traffic to your survey. It will only cost you a few bucks to determine whether or not people are interested in your product.

If you participate in any relevant online forums, then you might be able to ask people there to fill out your survey.

Just be aware that people are much more responsive to surveys if they get something in return.

Again, if your product is something people might look for using search engines, then just find out how many searches there are each month to see if there are enough people searching. If only 500 people are searching in a month, then maybe it’s not a good market.

Mistake #2: You didn’t figure out how to reach your market and tell them about your product. Even if there’s a demand for your product, it won’t sell unless you can tell people about it.

After you determine that there’s actually a demand, and before you ever start working on the product, you need to come up with at least a rough plan for how to market it. Who’s going to buy it? How can you reach them? Do you know where to advertise where they’ll see your ads? Can you collaborate with other people who have relevant web sites and email lists?

You have to know these things before you have the product. It takes the same amount of time whether you do it now or later. But if you can’t answer these questions, then your product won’t sell. And it’s better to know that before you spend time, and possibly money, creating the product.

Make sure you do your product development in the proper order. Don’t get stuck with a product that won’t sell.

Key #2 isn’t the 2nd most important thing you need to do, but it’s the 2nd one I’m writing about.

Some people will urge you to try and be the best at whatever you do, but most of the time you don’t need to. Now, let me say first that I do encourage you to take pride in what you do and excel at those things you have a natural talent for. But I don’t believe it’s important to be the best.

For starters, only one person can be the best at something and most people have no chance at it. So be realistic with yourself about your capabilities or you’ll just be frustrated and discouraged.

More importantly, it is rarely necessary for you to be the best at something in order to be successful at it. In most cases, you will achieve success if you are simply better than average. I have previously stated that you should put most of your effort into pursuing things that you have a natural talent for (see here). If you follow this rule, then you can usually be better than average at what you do with moderate effort.

You need to assess the importance of everything you do. If something isn’t going to have any great effect on your lifestyle or your future, then it may not be worth putting a huge amount of effort into it. You may be just as well off in the end if you’re simply better than most people. Don’t waste your effort on things that realistically aren’t that important unless you enjoy it.

Here’s an example of what I’m driving at. Let’s talk about college. Most people might think that your grades in college are really important, but they rarely are. For most people, a degree is their only goal, and you can get that with a C average. Unless you’re planning to go to graduate school (or med school or law school) after you graduate, then getting straight A’s isn’t going to have much (or any) effect on your future. It’s unlikely a potential employer will want to see your grades in an interview, and if they do then they don’t understand the real world very well.

So if you just want to get a degree to graduate and get a job, then don’t kill yourself to get an A in classes that just aren’t your thing. If you can be better than most of the other students, then you will end up with respectable grades, sometimes even very good grades. And that’s all you need to accomplish your goal, which is to graduate.

Invest your time in those things that can really have an impact on your life. If your future can be significantly influenced by how well you understand statistics, then do your best to learn as much as possible in your stats classes. But if biology is nothing more than fulfilling a requirement, then just make sure you do better than 50% of the other students in the class. Avoid the stress of trying to get an A in a class that, in reality, doesn’t matter.

Before I end this, let me reiterate that I do encourage you to excel at what you do. And if you are doing something that you are naturally good at and enjoy, then perhaps you can be the best if you commit yourself to it. If so, then go for it. But don’t feel that you have to be the best to succeed. You can achieve great success in life by simply being better than most of the people around you. You will get good grades, you will get promoted, you will be respected.

Excel at those things that are important and be better than average at everything else.

I took the quiz and it turns out I’m like Lulu the chimp.

Take the Quiz!

This is just a quick tip to help you get rid of troublesome hiccups. There are a lot of folk remedies and crazy suggestions for curing the hiccups (hold your breath, drink water while standing on your head, have someone scare you), but most of them rarely if ever work. Here are two that I have personally seen work.

1. Eat a teaspoon of peanut butter.

2. Eat a teaspoon of sugar.

I have seen both of these instantly get rid of the hiccups. So it just depends which taste you prefer.