Typical

The other day, I wrote an article in which I said that when you hear the same thing over and over from multiple people, that you should take note.  I told about an article that I wrote last year entitled #1 Secret to make money online.  Today, I want to share an example with you, something that might make you stop and think and realize that it’s time to stop talking, stop thinking, and actually get something done.

There is a fellow who has been following several of my blogs for at least the past 3 years or so.  He always has lots of questions for me to answer.  Detailed questions, and lots of them.  Not only would this fellow leave comments, but he would also send me lots of private e-mail messages with more questions for me to answer.  I really went out of my way to help him all I could.  No charge, all for free, even though I spent a lot of my time with him.  Not a big problem, I offered my time freely, and if I did not want to spend the time answering his questions, nobody forced me, I could have just ignored his e-mails.

Well, one time, he asked me how he could make money from his website, the URL of which he provided to me.  I spent several hours analyzing his site and coming up with suggestions for him on how he could make money.  To be honest, his site ranked #1 on Google for his main search term, but he was not making any money.  When I looked at his site I quickly learned why he was not making money.  He had it very poorly monetized.  Ads were in the wrong places.  He had a lot of pretty useless stuff in prime advertising spots on the site.  I sent him an e-mail and explained in detail what I would do to improve his earnings.  I honestly felt that within 2 or 3 months he could be easily making $1,000 per month from the site, and likely a multiple of that amount.

So, between analyzing the site, composing the e-mail and everything else, I spent probably 4 hours on this for him.  I considered him a friend, so I didn’t mind.  He wrote back and acknowledged my e-mail, but to be honest, he never even said “thank you for your help,” which sort of annoyed me.  I kept going back and looking at his site and saw that he had not changed anything, even months later.  The suggestions I had made were never implemented.  However, he did still keep complaining to me that he was not making any money.  In fact, he rarely even updated his site with new information, so why would people even come back for a follow-up visit?

For about 2 years he had been talking about buying my book, 49 Ways to Earn a Living, but he never went for it.  A while back, I ran a special under which you got that book, and also my new 99 Ways to Make a Living Online for a special price.  I was kind of excited, not because I made a little money on the deal, but mostly because my friend seemed to be finally taking some action, and I was confident that he would start earning serious money from his site soon.  However, about a week later, I got a surprise.  The fellow wrote to me and was full of complaints about my books!  I was kind of shocked because I had never gotten these kinds of complaints about my books, even though I’ve sold thousands of downloads.  Well, I gave him a full refund and sent him on his way.  I did write to him and tell him, though, that I would not be offering free advice for him any longer.  Basically, I had two reasons for my decision to stop offering free advice for this fellow:

1. I had already offered a lot of free advice.
2. He never did anything I advised him to do anyway.

So, if the advice was never used, why continue spending my time giving him more advice?  Also, I have plenty of such advice in my books, which he bought but later returned to me for a refund.

So, the reason I am giving you this example is that I want to further drive home the point that if you want to make money you have to take some action.  You can’t just sit there and talk about this or that, you can’t just complain, you can’t just say “I wish,” you have to take action.  If somebody who has already achieved what you have as a goal gives you advice on how you can do it… give it a try.  To ask for advice and never act on it is a waste of the fellow’s time, and really is a slap in his face.

Believe me, you CAN make money online.  I have been doing it for a long time, so I know you can too.  There is nothing special about me, really, except that I don’t stop at just talking, I actually do the things I talk about.

Good luck to you!