Making money online is not something that's going to happen overnight. It takes time and there's most definitely a steep learning curve, especially when first starting out. Believe me, it’s not always easy or straightforward - I’ve made plenty mistakes along the way. 

I think I have a generally positive outlook, and truly believe that making mistakes is a good part of learning. The thing is; learning to make money online is hard enough without also having to endure the difficult, and sometimes costly mistakes, which can be so easy to make in the online world. There's no need for this, although I can understand how this happens as we seek out potentially easy and quick ways of making money – the offers for this online are so numerous and tempting that it can be difficult not to get caught out. And it’s these empty promises that’s given the illusion that making money online is quick and easy.

What I’ve learnt from my endeavours and through personal coaching and training, is that it’s possible for anyone to be successful online, but it’s not necessarily easy. This is not something that’s business specific. There are many successful online entrepreneurs in many different businesses or programs that have amounted massive financial success. So why is this, what sets these people apart from the other 97% who end up failing in their online endeavours?

5 Primary Principles to Succeed Online

Principle 1 - Vision

Having a vision for yourself and life is fundamental to creating the life you want. If you don’t know what you want – you’re probably drifting, and quite likely helping fulfil someone else’s vision.

Having a vision for our lives, something that we are striving for that’s compelling and inspiring, helps us become passionate and enthusiastic about what we are doing and also to overcome the obstacles that are bound to show up.

Having a vision will drive us to do whatever it takes to succeed. And a part of developing a vision is to know why it is that you you want to build an online business and make money online. For me it's a strong drive away from pain and struggle. Towards a more pleasurable life. A life of more choice... 

Principle 2 - You Need to be Willing to Learn

It’s highly likely that when starting out you’ll find yourself needing to do things you may never have done before, things you may have resisted in the past for various reasons. Building a successful online business is going to take a willingness to learn.

Any online marketer will attest to the fact that there is a lot to learn when starting an online business, and it starts with learning the fundamentals such as:

• how to build a website
• how to produce content
• how to get your offer or product seen 
• how to generate traffic and build a list
• what to do with that list 
• how to build long term relationships
• how to offer value 

In order to succeed online, you need to be willing to learn how to do these fundamental tasks and activities. You also need to learn to communicate effectively in order to get your message out.

Principle 3 - You Need to Work at it

It’s important to realize that online success will take a lot of consistent and focused work.

Unfortunately there’s this perception that making money online is easy. This is one of the pitfalls, and understandable as there are many online opportunities that entice people to sign up and part with their hard earned cash, offering done for you systems. Just plug in, sit back and you’ll be rich beyond your wildest dreams in no time. To be fair sometimes these can pay dividends in the short term, however it’s long term and sustained online success that we should be after, and this means taking personal responsibility for our success.

Taking personal responsibility means owning what you do, what actions you take and how much effort you put in. Your results will be a reflection of this.

Principle 4 - You Need to Focus

It’s up to each one of us if we’re to succeed online, and in order for this we need to work at it, and make sure we are engaged in income producing activities while keeping focused on our objectives. Taking the daily actions that produce the results we are looking for. Follow the program, stick to the training and learn, take action, learn and take more action.

It’s so easy to get distracted. And disheartened. The reason so many people fail with their online endeavours is that they lose focus. They don’t see the results they were hoping for quickly enough, lose heart and get distracted by the next ‘promising’ thing.

Principle 5 - It Takes Time

Expecting or hoping for immediate success online is unrealistic. Building an online business takes time. It takes time to learn new skills and how implement them effectively.

There’s no short cuts here. It’s vital that you’re willing to invest time to learn and put what you’ve learnt into practice. This is a long term strategy for ongoing success.

Any successful person in whatever field has spent time dedicated to learning their skill or craft and practiced, practiced, practiced.

A successful sports person or business person doesn’t achieve this overnight. It takes time, commitment and graft. Becoming successful at any online endeavour requires the same. The beauty with online business is that it's possible to leverage many elements - systems, tools, training, technology, knowledge - in order to achieve success in a relatively short time. 

The Key to Your Success

You Need to Know Your WHY. It’s crucial that you know WHY you want to start an online business and why you want to succeed at it. This is very much linked to your vision and forms the substance which holds the principles together.

Think about what you desire to move away from – like financial difficulties, debt or an unsatisfactory living situation, and also think about what you desire to move towards – like a stable second income, financial freedom, the house of your dreams, more choice in life...

Take some time to work this out, write it down and keep it somewhere you can see it everyday. The stronger your reasons for wanting this, the better, the more specific and visual you can be, the better, the more emotionally charged, the better.

One of the main reasons so many people fail online is they don’t have a clear and strong WHY and are unable to commit to it.

Creating a successful online business takes vision, learning, work, focus and time. It’s necessary to commit and be consistent with effort and action. Without a clear WHY it’s unlikely you’ll be able to do the work needed to succeed.

Top tip - write down your vision, your 'why'. Get specific about it and add as much emotion you can muster into your vision. See yourself achieving your goals. And most importantly, take action every day towards achieving your goals. Break these down into small steps and go for it!

To all of our success,

Grant