Excuse the cliche that is the title of this post…
I was having a chat with a friend of mine on Skype the other day, David Cavanagh. David speaks at IM seminars around the world and coaches hundreds of new internet marketers.
He asked me a question which resulted in a conversation that I thought would be worth sharing with you in a blog post…
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[12:39:26 AM] David Cavanagh says: hey… one question… if I asked you “I want to make $1000 to $2000 usd on the net over the next week fast”… what would u suggest?
[12:40:00 AM] Andrew Hansen says: is the I in that sentence YOU david cavanagh or a random unexperienced individual
[12:40:08 AM] David Cavanagh says: anyone
[12:40:15 AM] David Cavanagh says: anyone with a bit of experience
[12:40:29 AM] Andrew Hansen says: id say you’re not going to do it 
[12:40:51 AM] David Cavanagh says: yep I agree… had a lady ask me that on my coaching call earlier tonight
[12:41:13 AM] Andrew Hansen says: yeah u gotta get that mindset out of her fast hey
[12:41:15 AM] David Cavanagh says: what would you say if it was Andrew Hansen? what would HE do?
[12:41:36 AM] Andrew Hansen says: ask her whether she thinks the owners of Google or Microsoft asked that question when they started their business
[12:42:53 AM] Andrew Hansen says: well if it’s me or you it’s easy – but its taken you and I plenty of time to get to that point!
[12:43:28 AM] David Cavanagh says: yes thats true.. yeah I find their mindset needs to be given a bit of a whack
[12:43:40 AM] Andrew Hansen says: a BIG whack
[12:54:54 AM] David Cavanagh says: I’m off to get ready for my next coaching call… talk soon Andrew
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Did you get the subtle message there?
I’m going to put a sobering but important message out there right now:
If you’re in this internet thing to “make money fast” you’re in the wrong place. Despite what all the sales letter promise you, there is no shortcut worth taking in order to make money quickly on the internet.
You wanna know the quickest way to make money?
Get a JOB! I could go get a job at a grocery store and work 40 hours a week on a casual wage and probably earn $500 plus in a week – that’s $2000 I could earn in my first month, WOW!
But is that really what I want? Is fast money like that really what I want?
Of course not! You want a business that gives you freedom, where you can choose your hours AND make great money with a SMALLER investment of your time. Unfortunately you CAN’T develop that in a month, or two months, heck it’s rare to do it even in 6 months!
I spent a long time chasing fast money on the internet and I even MADE fast money – but (not to mention getting me into trouble) it didn’t give me what I wanted – because if you’re working on fast money ideas, you need one idea after another to keep the money flowing – it’s NOT a business!
Further to all this, when you get out of the desperation to be making money NOW, you open yourself up to a whole lot of new possibilities and new potential for greater things, that you otherwise wouldn’t see.
I’ve got sites that we haven’t made any money on in 12 months – do I think that’s a failure? HELL no! Every day this site becomes more valuable, and I know that its only a matter of time before all the hard work pays off and it hits the all important tipping point. Now of course not everyone can do that because not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to maintain a site for 12 months without it making income – but I’m hoping you can see my point here.
The bottom line:
Approach your websites and your online business from a LONG TERM perspective. Of course you have to think about making money, but be sensible with it – don’t make stupid decisions chasing instant cash if it means sacrificing the potential for greater income in the long run.
Keep making small pieces of progress every day.
Remember my friend Colleen? She just kept submitting an article a day, straight for 6 months – probably didn’t see any progress for most of the months – probably seemed like she was getting nowhere – until she reached that tipping point and within a few months more she was hitting 4 and 5 figure months.
Don’t measure your progress by income, measure it by growth, measure it by moving forward in a variety of ways – remember that you’re contributing to something that will be HUGE if only you stick at it long enough.
Ok rant over – I hope this post served its intended purpose.
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Hey Andrew,
I would disagree with “make money fast” you’re in the wrong place” you can make small amounts fast but you’ve got to be prepared to take a gamble.
For Instance couple of weeks ago I brought 10 domains approx $8.00 AUD my expense was $80
I sold one domain for $50 and the other nine are making an average 25 cents a day approx $68 combined through adsense and I’ve even and I’ve even made two affiliate sales with a total $100 commission.
So out of $80 invest 30 days later I’ve got $248
Now if I want to sell those nine domains I would get an average price of $100 each as I’ve proven they can make money so I can either keep them or sell them for $900.
How hard was that?
Myles,
Firstly congrats on those results, that’s great to hear.
Of course you’re right – you definitely CAN make money fast (small amounts, like you said – or even big amounts) but its sustaining that fast money income and creating a solid freedom giving business that is what we should really be after – and hey, that’s certainly not impossible either!
My point is that it’s the MINDSET of trying to make money fast, thinking about the next buck and the short term profit that STOPS alot of people from making as much money as they could – or makes them feel like a failure if they DON’T make money in 30 days like you did.
Again, congrats on your results and I hope we can catch up at a seminar again soon!
Andrew
some really good stuff here and I’d love to subscribe. Can you enable your RSS via email option? I never remember to check readers.
I agree that mindset does play a big part for me it was purely a test to see what I knew would work if I had to start from scratch.
As for failure you only fail when you give up sure it make take a little longer to learn something or profit from an idea but that’s ok as long as you keep trying.