“Don’t ever rely on someone else's online business or project as your main source of income. Instead, set up a system that you have control over, that you own, and make that your online business. Sure, join other businesses or programs, do your due diligence as best you can, promote them if you like, use them as vehicles to make some money. But never, ever rely solely on them.”

Perhaps these weren’t his exact words, but I’ve captured the essence of what he said and meant during one of my first sessions with my online mentor.

Are you teachable?

One of the things you need to be in order to succeed online is teachable. I thought that I was, but the results of what I implemented starting out online, showed me that I was a far cry from it…

In theory I knew what he meant and what I needed/should do in starting my online business. Did I though? Was I teachable then? Heck no! I ended up getting all distracted by the alluring and shiny objects out there.. One glitzy thing after another… Those marketers and ‘business’ owners where having a field day with me as I hopped from one project to the next…

The mantra

I was only just starting out and had learnt a few basic skills to refer people into the projects that I joined. Fortunately I wasn’t that good at it at the time, and only built tiny teams or down-lines. So when the projects collapsed - as I later learned was inevitable (zero sums game), only a handful of people that I had brought in made a loss. Fortunately it wasn’t too much. But hey, no-one likes losing money! And I recoiled at the thought of people who joined under me taking a hit…

“Don’t invest more than you can afford to lose”

“This is not financial advice”

“I am not a financial advisor”

“Do your own due diligence”

So on and so forth. The marketers mantra…

The amount of times I heard marketers making these statements… heck I’ve made them myself!

And still people joined business after business, never seeming to learn the lesson. Why? Why is it that so many people entering into the online marketing/business world think they can make money without doing any or very little work?

Hard lessons

Why would they hand over their hard earned money to someone they barely know, in the hopes that they’ll generate passive income? The answer is simple, because it’s easier! It’s the path of least resistance. I know this because I did it. A few times… all the while my mentors guidance and advice at the back of my mind…

Sometimes we need to learn things the hard way before making changes in our lives. In my case I had to learn that putting money into programs promising a daily % return, and relying on just that as a business model, was destined for failure.

Sure I made some money in the short term, so long as the project/s were viable, and for the most part managed to profit by implementing a strategy of; get in, compound, get out.

What I really didn’t like about this though was that there were a lot of people who didn’t know how to do this, or simply joined too late and lost money when the project collapsed. The idea that I, and others, were profiting from someone else’s loss, in particular did not sit well with me…

Broken dream

In part 1 of my personal online journey I mentioned one of the last businesses I joined, that looked promising for the long-haul, showed transparency, strong business model, great and sustained trading results, an ever-growing reserve fund (just-in-case)… I went all in with this one, not immediately,  only after about 8 months when I felt comfortable and that it was indeed a solid business model.

Fast forward 18 months, I had a decent size team, close family members included, and was earning a very respectable amount of money. My crypto portfolio growing nicely. Happy days!!

March 2020 - crypto markets crash. This business then decided to stop paying it’s members. Crypto’s down, trading is not sustainable they said… what about the reserve fund we asked… some lame excuse was given… they then decided to bring in their own token as a payment method. The idea to increase the token value. Of course everyone sold as soon as they could, token value plummeted…

The result? Many many unhappy and disillusion members. Including myself. I tried to salvage what I could and joined another couple of promising programs. That didn’t last long. I began to question myself, wondering if perhaps this internet marketing thing just wasn’t for me. Maybe I just wasn’t cut out for it after-all. Lost faith, trust and confidence, I took a break for a while. The momentum I’d built over the few short years dissipated quickly… my dream of online success, broken.

Learning from our mistakes

What I’ve described above is in my view the wrong way of going about online marketing/business, and with the wrong mindset. A part of my online journey has been doing it the ‘wrong’ way. Which has been my most valuable lesson. For some reason I needed to go through this learning phase in order to come to realise, finally, that the words, the advice given by my mentor, was indeed wise and on the money.

Depending on the results you’re after, there is a ‘wrong’ and ‘right’ way of going about online business and marketing. Stay tuned for part 3 as I go into detail describing what I believe to be the right way of approaching an online business and the elements that are needed in order to be successful.