Dean, if I were to recommend any single course/method for a beginner to follow it would hands down be Andre Chaperon's Tiny Little Businesses (tinylittlebusinesses.com).  He is one of only a handful of "guru" types that I follow; his stuff is GOLD.  I suggest you get into that program when it reopens and buy/follow nothing else.  After six months you'll end up with a killer affiliate site/business/email list.  At that point you can either use it to create and launch your own product in the niche, or use the knowledge you gained to repeat the process in other niches. (Head up, he advocates using paid traffic to build the list.  You can bootstrap, though, so you don't need a huge bank roll up front.)

If you decide to go the curation route that John laid out you need to get into Peter Spaepen's nano212.com. IF he ever reopens that is.  He is another of my mentors and, like Andre, his stuff is GOLD.  Nano212's membership is capped at 200 and he only reopens if people cancel.  That has happened (reopening) exactly once in the 7 months since he started it, and even then it was only for 5 spots.

Whatever approach you decide to take my biggest advice for success is to stick to that single method and don't allow yourself to be distracted.  Don't try ANYTHING else.  A sure fire recipe for failure, or at least delayed success.  It would be much better to stick to a single method for a year and fail, than to flit from one method to the next for a year.  Constantly changing will pretty much guarantee failure.  Sticking to a single approach, even if unsuccessful (although failure is unlikely if you stay focused), will give you much more knowledge and a stronger foundation upon which to build.

BTW, both TLB and Nano212 are monthly subscriptions.  TLB is for a set 6 month term while Nano212 is indefinite.  Both are in the $30-$40/mo range unless they raise prices.

Thanks John for recommending the audio version of Crush It – I have yet to read it (it's on my list) but I imagine hearing Gary read it himself would definitely add to the experience big time.

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Also – I guess just to clarify my earlier post, my progress online has never been a full time effort. I've been squeezing in what I can while working two jobs and spending next to none of my own money.

It's very easy for someone looking to get started in internet marketing to see that it took someone six months (for example) to start earning money, but you don't know if that time was full time, were they spending $1,000/month on ppc – did they already have 5 years previous experience as an employee in the field before the went off on their own? All of these are significant 'details' that will impact on how they reached their results. The time (six months) is incidental – but that is often what a lot of people like myself grasp onto at first glance. However, if you're ineffective and unmotivated you're definitely not going to succeed whether it's six months or six years.

One of the first things we have to overcome is the 'employee' mindset where you can do just enough work to 'get by' and wait just 'long enough' to get the necessary seniority to get a raise and earn more. When you're in business – only results matter and if you can't generate the results and aren't willing to devote the time and go through the pain of figure out what does work and how to get the best out of yourself – you might as well stay as an employee.

It's a huge mind shift that doesn't happen overnight – you need to totally rewire the way you think and how you approach things in life.

Set a definite goal on what you want to achieve, how you plan to achieve it (how much time per day or week, how much money you plan to invest, how many websites, how many pages, how many products you're going to promote – the more detail the better), make sure to track and measure your progress so you can course adjust along the way and see what happens.

These are just my own personal observations and aren't directed at anyone in particular.

OK Mike, we'll leave a light on for ya! Too bad we don't live closer to each other....maybe we could do some gigs together to help you during your stabalization period

Hey John,

I'm considering drip content for the meditation training modules and found this: http://www.wpdrip.com/ 

There are so many of these types of products out there I have no idea which are any good so would love your recommends. This product claims Wish List's method of content dripping is not optimal since it's in "modules"? I don't understand what "modular content" is or why wpdrip could be better.

Also, I looked into evergreen for webcasting and they don't do drip content so I guess I wouldn't be able to pre-schedule the webinar portion of my trainings unless that could be handled by WishList or some other membership site software.

I'd love to find an all in one system or ones that easily integrate with each other. Any suggestions?

Many thanks!

Julianna

Hi Julianna,

I haven't used WPdrip - but if it's the same one I'm thinking of by Robert Plank and Lance Tamashiro - then it's on my radar as well. I remember being pretty impressed with how it works, but it's been a while since I looked at it and I haven't purchased it.

From my experience it sounds like the 'drip' feature should be very simple to do, but I have one feature as part of a theme I bought and it's a little confusing to use. The WPdrip product by Robert and Lance works more like an autoresponder does - so if you're already familiar with using one for your emails I think the learning curve for it is not quite as steep.