It's that time again - when I pick one of you guys that seems to be a natural at this - and pick your brains to exploit them for the new guys
Everyone knows we're not going to dig too deep out of respect, and we're not going to give away secret tactics or exact blue prints.. . .... But Jim is a softy so I managed to pull a lot out of him for you guys :P
Enjoy your reading:
Q: Tell us about yourself - age, location, the type of cat you are etc.
I am 32 and live in Manchester, England. I got married this year to my
(and understanding) Wife, Kelly. We love to travel, having visited Cuba, Mexico, Paris, Turkey, Rome, Ireland in past few years. Hoping to make enough money through IM to buy my dream Porsche. I am a Lion!
Q: Before you were an internet marketer, what did you do? How many jobs did you have? How did you make money?
I still have a day job! I am a Project Manager in the Construction industry and I am currently managing the design and construction of two Colleges worth about £95M (approx $175M). I have had two other jobs since I graduated in 2000, both in Project Management.
Q: What was the first thing you ever sold online? It's ok if it was adult related, we won't hold it against you...
It's not Adult related, but it could be considered a dirty word! My first venture into making money online was selling EBOOKS, both on eBay and via my website infoebookstore.co.uk. I started this in 2006 and sold over 2000 very low priced ebooks with a total profit of approximately $1000. I stopped doing this as the customer service side of it was a nightmare and just not worth the hassle for such little gain, eBay and paypal were the biggest winners. I do have a eBay account with over 1400 positive feedback so that is pretty cool.
Q: How did you hear of ClickBank - and what was your first ever campaign?
I think I heard of CB through DP, but it was a long time ago and I can't exactly remember. I started promoting a couple of products on my ebook site and never made a sale, but the first site solely set up to promote Clickbank products was promoting things like RichJerk, affiliate project x and a few other MMO titles. The first site that actually made money and kick-started my interest in Internet Marketing was
Paid Online Survey Reviews - Paid Survey Systems and Online Survey Companies Reviewed and Rated, through a mixture of good organic traffic and some PPC I made quite a few sales in January 2008. Then CB had one of their infamous "updates" and I lost money on PPC in February 2008!
Q: If you could give newbies five tips on what NOT to do - what would they be?
1) Do NOT start with PPC until you make some organic sales, you need to know that the products will convert before throwing money away.
2) Do NOT expect an easy ride to riches, whatever the Gurus say, making consistent money online takes a lot of time and effort.
3) Do NOT spend too much time reading and not actually taking action. There is a fine line between research and procrastination.
4) Do NOT worry if ezinearticles reject one of your articles and then you don't get Platinum Status!
5) Do NOT buy domains when you are drunk, you will convince yourself it is great and then in the cold light of day when you check out the competition or the keyword searches it might not so good! My best one has to be when I bought accomod8.com about 10 years ago (thought it was great then realised I was missing a "m", doh!)
Q: And now the five most important parts of your 'make money' ventures that newbies should follow.
1) Pick a high paying niche to start with like Forex, the time, effort and PPC costs will be more worth it than busting a gut for $10-$20 commission.
2) Buy your own domains and hosting, more flexibility, more credibility and more control than free sites. I also use squidoo, blogger, wordpress, synthasite as they rank well in Google results. I find it a good combination.
3) Pre-sell, I don't think I have ever made a sale by direct linking to a product page, that is not to say that the sales pages are no good, but if you can give an independant view on something and explain benefits I have found it helps.
4) Focus, this is still something I am struggling with, especially with Norb releasing so many good products at the moment. Try and focus on one campaign or product at a time, even if it is for a day or a week. I find myself all over the place and have to reign myself in.
5) Choose products from Publishers who help you (like Norb) and I mean by providing great quality graphics, landing pages, email campaigns, videos. These help soo much with the pre-sell. I cannot believe how bad some publishers are at assisting their affiliates, especially as most give you less % per sale than Norb. They don't seem to get it, an affiliate sale is one that they probably wouldn't have had otherwise, so give us a better share and more assistance.
JIMZ Gets Hit With The Interview Stick - WHAP!
