Yes, us Aussies really do talk that way:)

I want to talk to you today about staying focused as well as some real down to earth REALITY stuff about earning money online.

But first I want to tell you about the story behind the headline. Many years ago now (about 12 or so years ago) my wife and I were on holidays sharing a house at the coast with another couple. Anyway the guy I was with was (still is) a real extrovert, dressed in really loud clothes, could talk to anyone, and so forth.

Anyhow, I was right into fishing back then and managed to sneak off for an hour so every evening and was catching one or two nice fish each time. After the second nights success my mate wanted to come as well so I gave him a spare rod and gear that I had and off we went.

I was using pippies for bait and my new fishing friend didn't have a clue how to break them open to put the bait on the hook and I took him through it all and we started fishing from the beach. I caught 2 nice fish when another two blokes seeing my success came over and started to ask how we were doing it, what bait we were using, etc.

Inside I'm laughing as my extrovert mate who didn't have a clue about fishing and only new what I had told him 5 minutes earlier started telling them the answers and he had these guys hanging off every word. These guys even asked if we could give them some of our bait and I said okay and my mate gave them some. Blow me down if they didn't ask the exact same question my mate asked earlier about how to get the pippies out of the shell and I will never forget the sight of my extrovert mate giving them the run down on how it was done - in their eyes he was indeed an expert - but little did they know he hadn't caught a fish as yet.

Anyhow - my mate was quite pleased with himself having spun a good yarn to a captive audience but he soon became very angry about what happened next. These guys then went and stood in our fishing spot - in our very footprints. My mate was spewing (Aussie term for very angry), he called me aside and said do you believe these blokes, they take our advice, they take our bait and now they have taken our fishing spot. He was going to have it out with them when I said...

With that statement I proceeded to walk down the beach about 20 metres with my mate reluctantly following still muttering and spluttering about the rudeness of the other two fellows. So we cast our lines out from our new fishing positions and immediately my mate hooked up a nice fish and realed it in. He couldn't believe it and just kept saying over and over again - you were right - they did just move us down to where the fish were - I can't believe it - you were right - over and over again like a man in shock.

I have used this experience as an example to motivate myself when things go wrong ever since.

Me and my mate could've got into a blue with these guys very easily that night but what would it have achieved? Apart for the fact that I have an allergic reaction to fighting (I break out in cuts and bruises), it would have totally ruined our evening and my mate would not have caught a fish.

Now convert this story to online marketing: It's just a fact of life that things go wrong and people can be rude or misunderstandings can take place.

Just recently I suffered a major set back. The software providers I was using to run my membership site at http://www.infoproductmarketing.com lost everything in a server crash of some sort. My site was off-line for 6 days before the truth finally come out that they had lost everything. They blamed their hosting service and so forth but the end result was that 2 months of long, long hours of work, tutorials, members details, subscriber lists, etc, etc, was all gone!

I was gutted and left very deflated by it all and extremely angry. The work involved in resetting everything back up just seemed like a mountain too high to climb. But in amongst it all I couldn't help but to remember the above story. And despite the mountain looking too high and I remember the advice of another friend who once said: "How do you eat an elephant?" and the answer was: "One mouthful at a time". So I just sat at my computer and let rip - I had to recreate membership areas and tutorials. Then the biggest job of all was tracking down paid subscribers. I had to go into paypal and go through each transaction one at a time and find email addresses to notify everyone.

It was a long nightmarish job but because I got stuck into it I was back up and running within 24 hours and I strongly believe that inadvertently I have been moved down to where the fish are. And I no longer use their software.

There were some positives to come out of it as well. Mainly some of my members contacted me with some very encouraging words and some fantastic positive feedback about how they liked my service. I may never have heard those things if this hadn't happened...

If you want to succeed online you have to accept that it is not always going to be easy. I have experienced numerous set backs over the years. Another big one was when my third party payment processor decided overnight that they no longer accepted Australians. I had another hectic time similar to the above scenario.

Relying on third parties always puts you at added risk. Payment processors, webhosts, autoresponder companies and so on. And of course there is this really big jerk that keeps making all sorts of mistakes (yes - that's me) like the time I accidentally wiped out 20,000 subscribers from my list - ouch that hurt - even more so because it was my own stupidity.

But believe it or not I was stupid enough to lose another few thousand not long ago when I switched webhosts I didn't back up the mysql data base correctly - Duh! Oh well... At least I know how to do it now:)

Yes - you probably have heard that if I can do it you can do it too. But can you?

Here's my advice for any budding online entrepreneur...

Keep your day job: I honestly believe if you are just starting out that creating websites and earning income from adsense and affiliate programs is the easiest way to go. A few extra hundred dollars coming in each month on top of your day job wage is very nice. If you don't like answering customer support issues this is also an ideal way to go.

Before quitting your day job I would strongly advise you have more then one stream of income. If you only have adsense it could disappear over night. Concentrate on one way of making money til you have a nice flow coming in and then branch out into other fields.

If making money with adsense is your go then forget everything else and just concentrate all your efforts on doing this one thing. After you are making nice money then spend SOME time branching off into other fields but don't get distracted from your main goal.

Block out all of the latest fads, gizmo's, guru advice, must have products, etc. One of the biggest enemies to your success is the time wasted away from your primary objective and the expense of buying too many products. I envisage a video with a bunch of hares running from one side to the other - chasing after the next big thing or latest idea, while there is a tortoise going slow and steady straight down the middle. Be the tortoise - let the hares go side to side in a frenzy but you keep your nose down going straight ahead and you will get there before them.

That even includes my newsletter. Let's face it we all have a newsletter so we can make money - if we couldn't make money from it we wouldn't have one would we. So even in my own newsletter if I am promoting a product that doesn't fit into your main objective then don't buy. If you are like me you are subscribed to lots of newsletters and it is good to see what it is going on but be like the tortoise - keep plugging away at your main objective.

Money is not the only consideration before leaving your day job. Working from home can be very lonely... I am very fortunate because of the Church group I am with that I have a great social life but I still miss the day to day social interactivity I used to have with my old work mates.

Having the word secret in your headline has actually been proven to work but man I'm sick of seeing it. Don't be drawn into having to have the next super duper software product or book that unlocks the secret. Can there actually be any secrets left? If they really are secrets then internet marketers are really bad at keeping them.

Some software (scripts) I really like so I'm generallizing here... But consider this...

Before being converted to Christianity many years ago I was a compulsive gambler. Now being in the gambling game it is amazing how many systems are being sold. Think about this... A guy says he is making $100,000 a month with this super duper horse racing system and out of the kindness of his heart he is going to reveal it to you in a $47 book or piece of software. Come on... If you are earning $100,000 a month from your system why are you trying to sell it so the whole world knows about it (which will destroy its effectiveness) and why sell it so cheap? Answer - because it is a con!!!!

Now go and read some of the salesletters for various types of software out there. One of the latest I saw was a guy who is making over $500,000 a month is now releasing the software for us lucky fellows as well. Hmmm... Sometimes Internet marketing products sound an aweful lot like those horse racing systems.

Like I said - I'm generallizing - I do use a variety of products especially the one I advertized to you guys a few weeks back (no need to mention it again) except to say that will be my second objective next year - I will not be purchasing the latest and the greatest - I will be like the tortoise putting to maximum work what I already have.

This has been rather long and I'm sure I could say more but I better wind up. Of course my main directive next year will be to continue and look after my private label rights members - now 1000 private label articles and climbing.

You didn't expect this newsletter to be totally ad free did you:) I have to earn a quid too:)

Anyhow, I hope there has been something in this issue to help you out and I strongly encourage you to settle on what way you want to make money online and then go for it, concentrate on it and avoid being distracted away from it.

All the best
Allan Wilson
http://www.nichehealtharticles.com

Disclaimer It is amazing how some people get upset about spelling or grammar mistakes. If I have unintentionally made those types of mistakes above I have done or did it deliberately to tick you off and to boast that despite my deliberately left unintentional spelling mistakes I still make money online.