7 Rules to Success

1.  Do it. Stop reading everything there is to know about making a living online. Stop falling for all of the guru’s latest and greatest inventions. Education is very important to your success but I find that most people over educate themselves. Each and every day they read all of the latest forums, blogs, and guru tactics yet they never take action. Pick a form of marketing, figure out what you’re going to promote and just do it.

2.  Set Goals. One of the most important things in this industry is self motivation. There is nobody here to hold your hand, no boss to yell at you for goofing off. The only person that can truly motivate you in any case, is you. Goals are an important part of that process, by setting goals and deadlines for those goals you strive towards them. Different rewards motivate different people. Set your goals so that you can tie in a reward with them that actually motivates you, whatever that may be. Bryn Youngblut recently had a great post about achieving some pretty awesome goals – you can do it too!

3.  Stay Focused. You have to stay focused on what you want to accomplish. You can’t let the new latest and greatest way of making money stop you from what you’re currently doing. Don’t let other people’s opinions about whether it works or not sway you. Make it work, you can market literally any product if you do it right. Anything can be made profitable. Don’t let it get the best of you – tweak it until you force it to profit.

4.  Diversify. I know, this might sound like a contradiction to the last rule. However I don’t see it as one. I always try to keep my top priority 80% of my time, and use that other 20% to work on some side projects, some long term projects that will be consistent for you. You can’t expect one thing to last forever – so have a backup plan too.

5.  Have fun. Often over looked in this industry – you need to have fun each and every day. If this isn’t what you want to do then go find what is. You like the 9-5 work day for a company? Great – go do it. You like the whacky schedules and hard work in the restaurant business, go do it! But if making a living online is what you want to do then you should automatically have fun each and every work day and that’s what matters. We aren’t here to slave away and make a ton of money and do nothing with it. Have fun, do what you want, just get your job done.

6.  Network. I’m surprised I didn’t put this one on here sooner. Network with anyone and everyone you can. Don’t spend all day long on Facebook or Twitter or any other social media but you need to talk to people in the industry. Get to know your affiliate managers, your peers, your advertisers. Get to know everyone, any contact you have may come in handy some day. Whether it be for advice, a new direction, a joint venture or anything else, networking is key!

7.  Protect your wealth. Wealth is not measured in how much money you make, it’s in how much money you keep. I know plenty of people in this world who make way more than they need to yet they throw it all away and live paycheck to paycheck. Spend your money properly – make sure to always leave plenty of money in your business to expand and grow – but at the same time make sure you pay yourself what you deserve. One of the quickest ways to increase the amount of money you keep is by legally cutting down on the taxes you pay. There are several good reads out there about the subject – pick one up because you’ll be amazed how much money you can save and protect each year.