Got an interesting blog comment this morning from “Anonymous”:
“Here’s the bottom line, if you’re not smart enough to have figured it out already:
To make money on-line, you need 5-10 years to sustain any meaningful income. The barrier to entry is so low (everyone can play).
In the meantime, make sure you have a spouse who makes 100k/yr to pay the bills and support you.
There is still a traffic jam at 5PM every day and the commuting trains are still packed.
Welcome to reality.”
Anonymous
~~~
Dear Anonymous:
[should I even reply to an anonymous blog post?]I respectfully disagree.
I did our first Bobsled Run in Spring 2005 and right off the top of my head I can name three graduates of that course, barely hanging on at the time, who now run multi-million dollar companies. One is Jeff Hughes. He went from $15,000 per month loss to $16,000 per month profit in one year. Another is Ari Galper. He went from $5000 per month in sales to $25,000 per month in sales in five months and reached $100K per month in ten. Conrad Feagin went from $4,000 per month in sales to $100,000 per month sales in a little over a year.
At least one of these guys is now hovering at the $10 million mark. All three are doing extremely well, four years later.
Are these guys above average?
Yes.
Are there others who wiped out and are not around today?
Yes.
But I watched them and I know what they did and what the others didn’t do. Jeff, Ari and Conrad relentlessly and remorselessly applied what they were taught. They get the credit for their own success.
It did not take 5-10 years, it took a year of really focused effort in a market that was already alive and kicking.
Yes, the barrier is low, and yes, everyone can play. But since most people won’t put themselves under a mentor and most people only apply a tiny fraction of what they’ve been taught, the barrier isn’t as high as it appears. Most people never get more than about 10 feet out of the starting gate.
Most people start on a good idea, then some email shows up and distracts them with some “shiny metal object” and they’re DOA. That’s why there’s still a traffic jam at 5pm every day and the commuting trains are still packed.
Stay focused and you can get respectable, meaningful results in a few months time. Read the results of more students at http://www.perrymarshall.com/adwords/personalcoaching/stories/
Welcome to a *different* reality.
Perry Marshall
P.S.: AdWords Boot Camp is like a mini version of the Bobsled Run. It just focuses on AdWords. AdWords isn’t the whole picture but it’s a necessary part for many businesses. If you can affordably get qualified traffic to your site, you’ve won half the battle. http://www.perrymarshall.com/adwords/bootcamp/
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
6 Comments on “Reply to Mr. Anonymous”
Tom also checked one of the stalls to see if it was occupied for him. ,
Took me 3 months to hit $25k per month starting at 0. Nuff said!
Hi Perry,
Mr. Anonymous has an interesting perspective, to say the least. But my story contradicts what he says. I built my online business in about two years while having very little money in savings to start with. My wife was and still is a stay-at-home mom, so I couldn’t rely on her to make 100k/year.
What contributed to my success? Well, a big part of it was your personal coaching – remember that I was in the first run you ever offered? Of course, it took a lot of hard work on my part and some failures along the way, but having a respected mentor like yourself made a huge difference.
Thanks again,
Steve
http://www.adwordaccelerator.com
Mr Anonymous thinks that during startup of his business he needs financial support from a spouse?
He is completely wrong on this. ( probably still unconsciously thinks he’s four years old and his spouse is his mother? )
I think he implicitely assumes that it is not possible to start a business besides an employee job and therefore without huge amounts of startup money.
My experience is that starting up besides an employee job is actually easier than starting up full time after quitting the job. ( where after quitting the job, cost of living has to be financed by savings or a loan or whatever… )
Here’s why starting up besides an employee job is easier:
1. When you start up besides an employee job you have less pressure because there is no deadline. So you can focus on the right things instead of constantly having to focus on the deadline dictated by the startup money, where there it’s either “game over” or “success”.
2. you can start up gradually:
First start with a monthly investment of say $30 in advertising and learn to make monthly sales of $60 from it with working 10 hours of work per week.
If you succeed with that, then you are qualified for doing the next step: Keep the time constant and increase revenues and monthly investments. etc etc
If you quit your employee job and start your business fulltime with some startup money you probably are not qualified to both handle those huge amounts of time and money in a useful and responsible way. Better learn gradually and let the business grow with your qualification.
And yes, investing in your education is very important for getting the qualification. The combination of education and experience in your own business is what gets you forward.
***
(I learned the difference between both ways of startup the hard way: First I did the thing with quitting the employee job and tried to startup fulltime on savings plus a loan: EUR 67k basically wasted because I was not qualified for wisely using the time and money and there were some unexpected things happening in my private life. Those unexpected things are part of reality. The end-of-startup-money deadline can be quite a problem if not everything works out as expected.
Fortunately I managed to get an employee job quickly after the end-of-startup-money deadline and I am now continuing my startup besides my employee job. I am a bit on the slow side with it but I do make progress, so I am moving in the right direction. And I learn *a lot* during this process. )
***
How do I startup my business besides an employee job?
Basically it is a time-management issue.
Due to my current time management strategy I manage to get 20 hours of work done per week for my own business besides my full-time employee job *and* I have time for my family.
Here’s how I do that:
1. My office is mobile: a rucksack with a 17-inch notebook with mobile Internet plus some Electrovaya Powerpad batteries ( half a kWh of energy in 8 pounds of batteries… ) –> plenty of runtime even if the notebook runs on full power during things like video rendering etc. And this usually even is enough energy if I forget to recharge batteries one evening… . (Maybe someday I’ll start another business in selling completely equipped mobile rucksack-offices which passed the long-term reality test by me with all tweaks to make them useable efficiently… :-) Or I simply write an ebook on how to assemble such a mobile office. )
2. I use the time in my commuting train. Since I have a one-hour commute, this is two hours per day which sums up to 10 hours per week
3. Sometimes I work for my own business in the lunch break of my employee job. ( after finishing my meals of course )
4. On weekends I usually work some hours on Saturday and Sunday morning. If the weather is fine I sometimes work outdoors, driving with my bicycle, i.e. do sports, and then stop at some bench, sit down and work for a while…
Sums up to about 20 hours per week.
Plus, I do not watch TV, ever: big time waster and energy waster eliminated. Better go to sleep earlier. I did that elimination of TV some time before I started up my business, and independently of starting up my business…
Basically I use the time that other people are wasting like commuting-time, lunch break, TV, waiting for anything
or time they are using for hobbies ( like Saturday and Sunday morning )
A year is really little time for have success on line, I have been two year trying earn money at internet but I have been yet not earn the first
Hey Perry,
I have to believe that any entrepreneur can make serious money well before 5 – 10 years online. It will be only determined by the will to succeed and the realization that get-rich-schemes are a total waste of time and money.
I can’t say enough about how your positive attitude infects me every time I get an email from you.
A cynical outlook is never going to help a person even see the bottom line, let alone identify anything close to a real opportunity.
There is no doubt in my mind that there is a learning curve involved with internet marketing, as with anything else in life.
However, if you do try something, then test it, then tweak it, then rinse and repeat it, eventually you have to succeed. If you don’t hit it, try something else.
Winners Never Quit, and Quitters Never Win!
I find it interesting that a comment from an anonymous source offers such a negative perspective without the confidence to stand up for their opinion!
Thanks Perry
Jim