I’ve been in a “reflection mood” lately, so I wanna share with you some of the BIG lessons I’ve learned over the past 4 years making my living online.
1. Enjoy the process of building your business, because the end result won’t make you any happier…
I wrote about this the other day on my own blog and got a lot of good feedback from my readers.  Most people live their lives hoping the future will get better and make them heppy. Here’s the truth… It won’t. If you’re not happy building your business, you’re not going to be happy when you finally “make it”.
2. Working from home is a LONELY experience…
As a copywriter, I’ve written a lot of copy for “work from home” type products. I always try to sell the person the dream of quitting their job, and making thousands of dollars while sitting in their pajamas (cause thats what they want). Well the truth of the matter is, working from home can be a very lonely experience. And it’s even tougher when you’re going through a hard time like a break up or the death of a friend. We don’t have the same kind of social outlet that most people do when they’re at a job with 50+ employees.
3. At some point you have to treat this like a “real business”
When you’re starting out, or you’re an affiliate making a few bucks you can kind of do whatever you want. But once you get your business to the point that it’s doing $100.000+ you need to start treating this like a real business. This means you have to commit yourself to doing certain things every day, every week and every month. This isn’t what most newbies want to hear, but that’s what it takes to be successful.
4. The more money you make, the easier it gets…
You’re probably familiar with the phrase “the rich get richer”… When it comes to your business, this is definitely true. I noticed when my 31 Day Fat Loss Cure product started to take off, we saw a BIG snowball of new revenue streams coming in. We made more direct sales, we got more affiliates, even our search rankings improved.  Once the ball gets rolling, you need to ride the momentum and cash in on all the opportunities that start showing up for you.
5. The less people you depend on, the better off you’ll be…
One of the surest ways to drive yourself nuts is to depend on other people for your success. This includes affiliates, product launches or even search rankings in Google. If you want to have complete control over your business you need to learn how to drive your own paid traffic from multiple sources (Facebook, PPC, Media Buys, Offline etc..)
6. Discipline is everything…
My buddy Craig Ballantyne has helped me a lot in this category. When I talk about Craig to other marketers, the only word I use to describe him is “Machine”. Craig might not be the “smartest” internet marketer out there, but he makes more than 99% of people online because of his consistent discipline. I’m pretty sure he does 7 figures a year currently, and if you looked at all the “stuff” he gets done, you would see why. Staying disciplined is not fun, or sexy… but it’s essential to running a business for multiple years (and not just a few months).
My Wrap Up
A large majority of the people you read about online are nothing more than a “flash in the pan”. They make a few thousand dollars, tell everyone about it and then are never successful again. I’ve been doing this full time for 4 years… Shoe’s been doing it for 10+. While our businesses are completely different, there’s a lot of similarities as to how we got where we are…
Shoe was in debt and unhappy with his life and decided to turn things around. Back when I hit rock bottom, my girlfriend of 3 years broke up with me, and I lost my big consulting client that was 90% of my income in the SAME week. I was miserable and 2 months away from being dead broke. The only place I could go was up.
I went on to make The 31 Day Fat Loss Cure one of the top fat loss products on Clickbank in just a few months – and since then I’ve realized that these 6 ideas I just discussed were what helped me to get there.
Feel free to leave me a comment below if you have any questions or you’d like to share some of the BIG things you’ve learned about making money online…
– Justin
The lessons learned by a perosn who in doing online home based jobs gives an insight ideas of what a home based online job would be. The reality is slightly bitter that sweet.
This is a very good story of a normal indivisual who is like us. There are so many people like you who thinks like you. Normal person likes to go out in company, he likes to work with other people.
Thanks for your insights! That’s a lot to think about. I really appreciate your candor, and your thoughts about taking it seriously and being and staying happy. Congratulations on your success!
nicely and very intelligently and informatively written passage about passing the life and the principles and rules which we should follow throughout our life making our life more comfortable
That was a nice read – I am in a place where I’m realizing some of the things that were mentioned. I also realized today as I was driving around in the car going to get something to toss down my throat… I’m too comfortable with what I’m making. I’m not hungry like I am when I’m not making enough. I’m making enough – and that’s the problem – that’s what’s blocking me from making TOO MUCH.
Some mental gymnastics are necessary here to regain the hunger.
Thanks for the article Justin.
Hi, i am from France and following your blog quite frequently. Your feedback from online sales business on your own is very interesting, but my question is to know what sources of trafic do you use do get some suscriptions to your squeeze page ?
Thanks for the story and the links. Especially the discipline one. That is the one thing I will get out of this. I’m learning more and more that anything in this area requires a ton of action and the willingness to work your ass off while everybody is out eating, sleeping, drinking, complaining, etc.
Great advice …. especially for me. I have been building my business over the last year and some-odd months. Thank you Justin.
Mike Stewart
Great honest article Justin. Hope you are still dominating!
As a newbie, I say “Thanks”!
I like your advice on enjoying the journey. In my opinion, there should never be a point where you should feel satisfied. You should always be looking to build your business. If you think you’ve “made it” then you failed. Look for further ways to expand be an ever growing entity.
Example, Google. could have kept on making a search engine that rocked and said to itself “we made it.” But instead they branched off to keep growing into a million other directions to further themselves.
Justin, as an old friend that’s really inspiring to know you were so close to broke, but bounced back big time.
Very well said, lack of discipline can hurt big time. Other than being disciplined, one needs to be focused and serious.
Great article. What surprised me a little is that one does not get any happier at the “end” of the process. “Working from home is a LONELY experience” is a big danger, I confirm. It would have great to hear some more on the “The more money you make, the easier it gets…” subject.
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the part that i think is msot relevant is the “lonely” work at home thing.its qutie true,it can get dul land sometimes boring,but at the same time theres so much freedom,similar to running your own business
Hey Justin, Thanks for a big lesson from 4 years experience about making money online of you, it’s very helpful for me because I have just started learn about make money online and all lesson is the thing I need for my succeeding in the future. Thanks so much.
I liked the last point and as its the most important thing to follow in making any kind of success.. These are looking very vital steps that you have learned in this useful years..
I have to admit that working from home has it downsides but the upsides are much more.
Some great lessons there, I believe in always being happy now, I enjoy what I do, I hope for it to keep getting more and more fun as I make it further and further. I try not to work all the time I home, I try and go out for lunch with friends, family or clients at least 2-3 times a week so it’s not as lonely, and meet with people (customers or partners) when at all possible, either locally or at conferences.
Truly insightful article. I must agree with you on all of the above mentioned facts. It is pointless to do anything, without enjoying it. Another point I would like to touch on is the “lonliness factor” that comes with working from home. This ties in with the decipline part you mentioned. I think it is important to remember that once you’re alone, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to work. I think you should draw up a realistic schedule and stick to it, because no-one is going to remind you that you should be working. Thanks for the great article.
You have so many excellent points with this article! One of the biggest enemy a person who works at home has it is itself. It took me over a year to realize, that this is not a game, it is a real job. The first few months after going full time was crazy, I haven’t worked at all, was just browsing around, and waited for something to happen. Well it didn’t, any “get rich quick scheme” was not working, so I had to put my ass down and work very hard. Ups and downs, and downs, and downs again in a row, mistakes, errors and even more and still not where I would like… but as you said: you must enjoy the road, not just the final outcome!
Excellent article, I agree and also think that everyone should start from the beginning and consider their business as a real business and treat it as such. Affiliate marketing or blogging is just another industry and as such should be treated as so as you would expect to treat your business if you were manufacturing something. In the end either case takes a lot of discipline to be successful.
In regards to number 3, I kind of don’t agree here. You can build up a business with the sole intention of making it a low-input exercise.
I guess it all depends on how you define “successful”
Great article. I think the combination of it being a lonely way of working and the potential not to be disciplined are 2 key points you make – put those together and you have a disaster!
Love your story! I’ve been online for 3 years now and I can say that discipline is indeed a special yet unsexy ingredient that leads to success.
I’m interested in how you test your ads to bring traffic to your websites. I’m struggling to master those. My current powerhouse for traffic is organic SEO but I’d like to free myself from that.
Thanks!
Nice experience and thank for saying the truth . Now i know that working at home really that lonely.
No matter how many friend work for my website , i still feel alone while it mostly done by myself. But what i happy is i always happy when the process of my hardwork and gain certain result. That the motivation for me to keep move on .
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