Today’s article comes from Duncan Heath, owner of Extreme Sports Trader, a surf clothing and extreme sports website in the UK. His site sells items like Animal backpacks and allows users to trade anything from kitesurfing equipment to snowboards. I love the model and the story of how he got there. I think both are extremely valuable.

If you’d like to feature your successful model, just let me know!

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If you were to ask me to summarise what my website does and how it makes money, in a nutshell I would tell you that it is a price-comparison and classifieds website for extreme sports clothing and equipment, and the main sources of monetization are advertising and affiliate sales. If you were to then ask me for a bit more information on how it was started and how successful it is, I would tell you the following…

Back in 2008 I saw a gap in the market for a classifieds website that provided a platform for the buying and selling of extreme sports equipment and accessories. I figured that with big items such as surfboards and snowboards, people want to see the item in person before they buy, rather than carry out transactions over the internet as you would on Ebay. I also thought that if the site was niche enough I would be able to tap into a captive audience and create a loyal user-base.

After a lot of effort promoting the site (mainly via SEO) I started getting the visitor levels I wanted and people actively engaging with the site (buying and selling). However, I didn’t get anywhere near the revenue I was expecting from AdSense (which actually requires a staggering amount of traffic to make any money from) and I couldn’t start charging people for listing their second hand items (as I had originally hoped to) as it transpired people would only really use the site if it were free.

What I had ended up with then is a website model that brought in lots of traffic, but that didn’t generate much money. I believe that classifieds sites are some of the best traffic-driving sites out there as users are supplying you with free, keyword-rich and unique content on a daily basis. Also, the more popular the site gets, the more people upload their content, and the more traffic you get. But then this doesn’t mean very much at all if you can’t make money from it.

I got to thinking, what if people were looking for a second hand item on my site and either couldn’t find what they were looking for, or found an item but it was the wrong price, in the wrong location, or had been sold already? I concluded that they would probably start looking for best price for that item if they were to buy it new, and thus the price-comparison idea was born!

I found a number of online merchants selling items in my niche and set up affiliate deals with them. The price comparison section of the site now runs alongside the classifieds section and whilst it is the classifieds section that brings in more traffic, the affiliate-based price comparison sections now brings in far more money. I’m soon going to begin cross selling individual items listed in the second hand section with their comparative products in the new section, which should improve conversion rates further.

Right now the site is bringing in a very good salary and actually requires very little maintenance time, so I’m currently looking into other niches where this business model can be applied.
Photo by Bengt Nyman.

Today’s article comes from Elizabeth Cutten.  She helps run FindBizCards.com, a business blog, as well as a resource to find the best small business credit cards.  Before I agreed to post this, I checked up on Elizabeth to make sure she had actually implemented this idea and wasn’t just presenting a theory.  She was able to back it up.

If you’d like to feature your successful model, just let me know!

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Everyone’s dream is to work at home, make lots of money, and be able to cash in the checks while sipping piña coladas on the beach. While this situation can happen, you’re going to have to understand that it’s going to take time, as well as effort and motivation.  If you have a goal, ANYTHING can happen, and I truly mean it.

First, let me tell you a little bit about myself.

About a few years ago, my husband and I came across the AdSense program.  How is this, we thought?  Draw traffic, get legit clicks and get paid.  Yes, while it was really hard that the beginning, I look back now and just thank the lucky stars that I’m still doing it today.

Here’s how I did it:

#1 Screw the man hours you put in – At the beginning, you’re going to put a lot of hours into your work, and get nothing in return.  This happens, and what ticks me off is when people say, “Hey! I worked 98 hours and received $1.39″  You have to throw this mindset out the window right now.  Count on making pennies your first 6 months!

#2 Content is king – This is a simple formula that I came up with when it came down to AdSense, and it works really well.  What you’re going to want to do is find out a content based site that you can create that will easily create at least 5,000 to 10,000 pages of content.  For example, you could do a “job description” site.  There are easily 5,000 jobs you can write a separate page about.

Now, with this formula, you’re going to get 2 views each day for each page that you write about.  So, if you have 10,000 pages of content, you’re going to get 20,000 views each day.  Now, let’s say your average eCPM (price per 1,000 views) is $16.  You’re going to get paid $320 based on those 20,000 views.  (20 x 16).

Now, while my $16 is low balling, you’re going to find that with 25,000 articles, you can make very close to $1,000 a day.  Take that 25,000 articles over 5 years, and you have to pan out 416 articles a month.  This brings me to my next point…

#3 How to get your content – Now, you’re probably thinking, “How the heck do I write 25,000 articles to get to my $1,000 per day?”  I’ve found that I can’t personally write 30-40 articles a day, and this is where outsourcing comes in.  Keep in mind that you will have to invest into this business to get a great return.  I will let you do further research, but the best place to outsource for writing is the Philippines.  I have over 20 writers that work for $225 a month each!  Yes, I get around 250 articles per writer per month for that price tag.  There are many various ways to find them.

I know, everyone has their own formula out there, and if you don’t like mine, that’s fine.  While you will still want to build links to your site for authority reasons, this trick really works well.  Not only that, you will find that over time, your numbers will consistently grow.  As long as you outsource, the sky is the limit!  Good luck!

Chris Guthrie

As we were talking about it last week, I realized that what he knows could probably help a lot of you so I asked him if he would be willing to be interviewed. Thankfully he was. (If he hadn’t been, I would have had to resort to other tactics. Glad we didn’t have to go that route.)

So, Chris, what made you decide to do an info product?

I got a lot of good feedback from two blog posts I wrote at the beginning of the year that analyzed the money I made in 2009 with Amazon’s affiliate program (over $40k). From this I found things out like the best way to make money with Amazon is text links inside a document and that banner ads, Amazon Astore, etc. are the worst ways.

I got hundreds of comments on those articles and because I legitimately knew what I was talking about (having found something that worked for me to help me make enough money to support my family), I knew that an expansion upon that information would be useful to others because there is so much misinformation online.

So much misinformation. I certainly understand that motivation. How much has the experience met your expectations?

Well, I learned several things about what people are looking for in an information product in the market and what things I could do to improve everything in a second version as well.

I also found out that people were a little more sneaky than I anticipated: ~ 25% of the sales were from people buying through their own affiliate link (even when I hid an affiliate page on the sales letter when I first launched).

This experience has led me to want to do more information products but to branch out into markets besides internet marketing / make money online.

I believe people have the blinders on when it comes to the opportunities on the web. People are drawn to the internet marketing niche because the people selling products in the space are always talking about how much money they’re making with no effort etc. but I also know people will pay for information about how to be a better World of Warcraft Player, teach their Parrot how to talk, etc. etc. etc. but people creating and selling these products tend to be more secretive about their earnings so there is less competition.

That’s very interesting. It’s definitely easy to get so focused on where you are that it’s hard to see other opportunities.

What did it cost you, beginning to end, to get the product rolled out?

This is the software that I used:

Wishlist Member $97 (I got a free one though)
This software handles the protection of the content within WordPress.

Easy Click Mate $67 (I got a free on here as well)
This is the 3rd party affiliate tracking software for use with Clickbank. Very nifty tool and it’s what helped me to see just how many people were buying via their own affiliate links. It also helps you keep in better touch with your best performing affiliates.

S3FlowShield $97
This is the software that helps prevent people from easily downloading content hosted on Amazon S3. My product is a video course so I knew that I needed some way to make piracy a little more difficult (without using this plugin someone simply needs to know the bucketname you’re holding content in and then they can download anything inside).

Clickbank vendor account activation fee $49
One time fee when you’re setting up a new product.

JW Player $100 ish (can’t recall exactly)
Whenever you’re selling a product that uses a flash player you’re technically supposed to pay for a license and so I did that here as well. (I prefer to be a straight shooter whenever and wherever possible — less stress, better for your reputation and it’s often the right thing to do).

So total cost would be around $400 if I didn’t get any of the software for free.

Wow, I definitely wouldn’t have expected it to be that cheap. And it looks like all of that can be used for any future products, too, right?

Yah – I will need to pay to upgrade my Wishlist member license to a multi site option but I plan on doing several more products in various markets in the future and I think video is the format I’ll chose for many of them.

You could make the product even cheaper if you went the eBook .pdf route and pretty much make it for free if you wanted to.

The products you got for free, how did you do that?

I emailed the creators and told them I had a blog in the space and that I’d mention their product and/or do a review on my blog. I usually charge $200 for a review, but on products or services I really see a ton of value in I want to do reviews even if I have to pay for the product because I’m never going to recommend something to my readers to buy that I don’t think is worth it. (In the reviews of course I mention I got a free version.)

Good tip! Has the course been well received by those who have bought it so far?

Yes, inside the course I have a section underneath the videos and customers can ask questions to clarify stuff I talk about in the videos and that’s been a good resource for both new and old members.

I’ve had under a 10% refund rate as well which is apparently pretty good for a Clickbank product. (I talked to a guy that’s huge in Clickbank and he said there are people that just buy products, consume the content and then issue a refund regardless of how good a product is.) At first I was taking it personally but in the end a chunk of people will always try to scam you anyway.

Based on that, and the fact that you’re thinking about doing more info products, I’m guessing that this has been a really worthwhile experience. Am I right?

Yah, I think the one component of my business that is lacking is an element of scalability. With a product you can create it once and then sell it over and over again. In this niche I would need to go back and update content as tactics change but the framework is already there. Half the trouble was trying to figure out what I would want to learn if I didn’t know what I had already been doing for a living.

I still want to continue developing out websites and ranking them in Google though because there is always room to make good money there.

My next product is going to be in a category no one has done a product in before so I’m very interested to see if I can make good money with it. In this case I’ll be using Facebook Ads, Google Adwords etc. to sell instead of using an email list I built from my blog / relationships with other marketers to sell the product.

Following up on that last part: What takes longer in the making of a successful info product — actually creating it or the marketing of it?

With the last product I did I’d definitely say the creation. I spent about 3 – 4 weeks to finish the project and that included research to find the software, familiarizing myself with all of those nuances, working with Clickbank on down to creating powerpoint slides, asking friends that knew nothing about making money online to go through the material to see if it makes sense, filming the videos etc.

The marketing was fairly easy. I sent out 3 or 4 emails to my list and fortunately because I was so worried about the process and if it would work correctly that it all went off without a hitch (technical wise). It’s far more difficult to do the marketing end if you want to do a big affiliate launch because I found that most people don’t want to work with new people in the market. So I just did the launch to my own list and then I’ve been finding affiliates slowly based on my relationships built through my blog etc. to sell with them as well.

What are the biggest things you’d do differently if you could go back and do it again?

I would have found ways to get a bigger email list because although my list is a small sample size it would fair to assume that with 10 times as many people I would have made 10 times as much.

I don’t think I would have done the launch strategy any different though. When you’re new it’s nearly impossible to do a launch with affiliates. I still think one of the easiest ways to make money with a blog that discusses highly specific knowledge (like how to make money online) is to create a product in the area that you know so much about and then sell it to the people that trusted you enough to subscribe to your newsletter.

I’m sure I wouldn’t have had as good of results selling a product teaching people how to make money with niche product focused blogs if I didn’t have the backstory that I lost my job in October of 09 but was already making more money from my “side business” than my day job. I’m earning over $5k profit per month with Amazon Associates (on average) and I know that if that figure was only $500 a month no one would care about a product I created because it’s not enough money to live on.

Very true, but that doesn’t stop most “gurus”   Anything else you’d like to add that we didn’t cover?

The biggest thing I would say is please don’t bother spending time in the internet marketing niche unless you truly know what you’re talking about. (Yes I sound like a hypocrite right now, but hear me out.) You’ll spin your wheels and waste time. I know this because for close to two years I wasted time in the blogging about blogging / make money online niche because I was like the noob that read about people talking about making money online and assumed I could just do the same thing. Little did I realize no one cares about what you have to say unless you know what you’re talking about. So I eventually quit that blog, started building websites in other markets and then came upon Amazon Associates and did well with it. The only reason why I came back is because I’m actually earning a full time income online now and have valueable information to share for new and experienced marketers. I hope that at least one person reads “Proliferation of Misinformation” and decides to quit their pointless blog and/or start something they’re truly passionate about.

Great advice, Chris. Thanks. And thanks, too, for taking time out of your day to sit down with me. I really appreciate it.

Got your own questions for Chris? Ask them in the comments!

Virtually all the sites I’ve worked with have been U.S. sites that marketed nationwide, but I’ve worked with a handful who were only interested in marketing locally.  Here’s what I’ve learned with those clients.  Your mileage may vary, but I think at least some of it will be useful.  I’d love to hear any other suggestions (and corrections) you guys might have as, again, I’m not an expert here.

Not a Magic Potion

I talk to a lot of people who think the Internet is the answer to all their problems.  It’s not.  In fact, it may cost you way more than it could ever pay you back.  When you’re marketing locally, there are often way more effective ways to spend your time and money — especially if you’ve never done any Internet marketing before.  Don’t believe the hype.

Take Care of the Basics

That said, there’s no reason not to do some basic work to give yourself a decent presence online.

Have a Great Design

This is absolutely essential.  People will judge the excellence of your business by what your website looks like.  That’s probably not an accurate indicator even 50% of the time, but it’s what people do.  A great design can be had at 99designs for less than $1,000, so you have no excuse.

Submit to Local Business Directories

Go to Google and search for Atlanta dog sitters or any other local search you can think of.  Chances are, the first thing in the search results is Google’s “local business results.”  You want to be in that list and any other lists like it.  Three places you need to be sure to submit your business to:

• Google’s Local Business Center
• Bing’s Local Listing Center
• Yahoo! Local

Or you could just use GetListed.org.

Basic SEO

Be sure your site follows basic SEO principles.  It’s not rocket science.  You might not see much traffic from search engines, but you’re sure to see none if you don’t at least take care of the easy stuff.

Network… Network… Network…

I’m not talking about offline, though that’s a great strategy too.  I’m talking about online networking.

Blogs

Be a regular, quality commenter on blogs that a) are written by people in your geographic area or b) are about topics related to your business.  Use your real name and don’t comment just for the link.  Genuinely add something to the conversation.

Forums

Same thing here: find and participate in forums that are local and forums that are about your topic.  The advantage of forums over blogs is that you can automatically include a signature on each or your posts that tells who you are and advertises your business a little bit.

Here again, though, you have to genuinely add to the conversation.  Being a valuable member of the community is why you’re there. The publicity for your business is just a side effect of how well you do that.

Twitter

Join Twitter and start posting quality stuff.  Don’t post commercial stuff, and don’t reply to others with a sales pitch.  That will do far more harm than good.

Once you’ve been on for a week or two and have some quality stuff, start following people in your area.  You can find them using Twitter’s advanced search.

And one more time for good measure: add value to the conversation.  You’re not there to market your business.

Get Noticed

Everything up until now has allowed you to interact with people who were already looking for your business (or one like it) or who already had something in common with you.  If you limit yourself to only those people, though, you’re missing a huge segment of the population.

Be Newsworthy

What can you do that is newsworthy?  Newsworthy things get into the news (thus the name).  People read the news and find out about your business.  Pick up your local paper and see who’s in there and why they’re in there.

Be An Expert

Sites like Examiner.com give you a forum to be a local expert on a very wide range of topics.  Take advantage of that.

Or, better yet, write Examiner-worthy content on your own site.  That way you own the content and you get all the publicity (and links).  Select a topic from their application form and take a look at the questions they ask in order to get a feel for what kind of content really draws readers — then get writing!

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Finally, take a look at PPC advertising — particularly with AdWords (because of the much greater reach and much better tools).  For the people who are searching for what you’re offering, you can be front and center and control your costs down to the penny.  Start slow, though.  You can spend a lot of money in a very short amount of time if you’re not careful.  Once you get your legs under you, though, PPC is an incredible tool.

So if you’re just getting started, I hope this list will be a good resource for helping you select what kind of site to build.  If you have comments or questions, please leave them in the comments below!

Types of Sites

News

This is obviously a very common type of site.  Whether it’s world news, national news, local news or news on a particular topic, most of us visit some sort of news site on a regular basis.

This type of site can be extraordinarily labor intensive, though, and few traditional news sites could be considered true money-making ventures.  However, sites like Coolest Gadgets would also fall into this category, and the revenue opportunities there are much greater.

Commentary

This is another type of site that we’re all pretty familiar with.  Sites like The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal are similar to news sites, but have the very important distinction of being commentary on the news rather than having to report the news directly.  That’s important because it eliminates both the need to be first on a story and also the need to be 100% accurate — both of which consume significant amounts of time.

If you can provide compelling commentary, these types of sites can be very viable — though the recent advertising downturn has hit many very hard.

Magazine

A magazine is like a news site as well, but with less reliance on breaking news and longer articles on particular topics (e.g. RELEVANT Magazine).  Just about any offline magazine has an online presence these days, and more and more magazines are even choosing to go online exclusively.  There are numerous high-quality magazine themes for free blogging platforms available inexpensively (or free) from companies like StudioPress.

As with commentary sites, magazines fill a need similar to news sites but without as much labor involved — though the advertising downturn has forced many to find alternate sources of revenue as well, a task that hasn’t been easy for many.

Informational

Many of the sites we visit on a regular basis would fall into this category: sites that provide information on a particular topic.  Some are built on a blogging platform (e.g. Digital Photography School) or some other content management system, while others are are custom built (e.g. Lakes Online).

These sites can be easy to build and can be strong moneymakers if you pick a good topic.

Wiki

Obviously most people think of Wikipedia when they think of wikis, but the software that powers Wikipedia is freely available as MediaWiki and many people have created very compelling websites with it (e.g. WikiCity).

The great thing about wikis is the ability for users to create the content for you.  If you can generate enough interest to get it to become self-sustaining, a wiki can be a great money-maker that also involves a minimal amount of time investment once it’s up and running.

Directory

I have become a huge fan of directories lately.  Think Yellow Pages, but online and customized to a particular topic.  Sites like Fly & Field provide a place for companies to have a very compelling online presence in a place where their customers can find them easily.  There are many pre-built software packages for building a directory, and many directory owners choose to build their own.

Generating enough traffic to the site to make companies interested enough to spend the money to be listed there can be difficult.  Once that has been achieved, though, the site can become almost self-sustaining just like a wiki.

Classifieds

Craigslist obviously seems like the granddaddy of them all here, but sites like Monster.com and AutoTrader.com are essentially just classifieds too — just with a prettier face put on them.

Like directories, classifieds can be a great moneymaker because the product you’re selling doesn’t cost you anything.  The cost to you for one classified ad is the same as the cost for 1,000.  It’s like printing money.  Like with directories too, though, building a compelling amount of traffic can be a real challenge.

Forum

Sites like Nursing Voices provide a place for people to congregate and discuss topics around a particular theme.  There are several good software packages available for powering a forum, and many of them are free.

However, I have heard even very successful forum owners lament how hard it is to make money with a forum — to the point of recommending just about any other type of site.  Money can definitely be made with forums, but it’s a unique challenge.

Community

A community site like Totally Her is like a forum on steroids: more, richer opportunities to interact and more community-related content.

Revenue opportunities are more abundant with communities than they are with simple forums, and getting and keeping members engaged is easier as well because of the many points of interest.  Building the community can be much more difficult, though, if you’re not using an off-the-shelf package.

Social Network

Everyone thinks of MySpace or Facebook when they think about social networks, but there are lots of smaller social networks as well (e.g. WannaNetwork) that are built with software like Ning or BuddyPress.

Hit the tipping point with your network like Facebook has, and traffic skyrockets all on its own.  It can be very difficult to hit that point, though, and even when you do revenue opportunities can be hard to come by.  Even as much as it has changed our lives, Facebook still isn’t turning a profit yet.

Review Site

If you’ve been around affiliate marketing long, you’ve heard review sites mentioned more than once.  Often used merely as thin affiliate plays, reviews sites can also be legitimate, valuable sites (e.g. Award Winning Hosts).

The monetization opportunities here can be great, since many of the products being reviewed also have affiliate opportunities associated with them.  Generating enough traffic to make it worthwhile can be a challenge, though.

Online Store

Well over $100 billion is spent online every year.  Large sites like Amazon get a huge share of that of course, but there are plenty of small sites that do well, too.

Running an online store can be very labor-intensive, though.  Even if you’re just drop-shipping, tracking the orders, staying on top of backorders, and handling customer service take up more time than you would probably imagine.  I’ve done it, and it wasn’t fun.

Try a Combination

It was hard to find examples for some of the types of sites listed above because most successful sites don’t rely on a single type of functionality.  A site like Sprintusers.com, for example, appears at first glance to be nothing more than a forum.  Look closer, though, and you’ll see that it also has elements of a Magazine, a Review Site, and an Online Store.

RADIANT is the same way.  They used to be an offline magazine, but they’ve since moved to be online exclusively, and they’re as much a Community site now as they are a Magazine.

Few sites are successful with just a single model.  The ones who do well use a mix of site types to create a site that perfectly fits their goals (and their target audience) and gives them a mix of revenue and traffic opportunities to provide a solid foundation.

Ignore My Opinion

I’ve tried to be as unbiased as possible, but much of the information above is still my own personal opinion.  I would never want to run a news site, for example, but I have friends who love running news sites.  It’s what they’re passionate about, so it doesn’t feel like work to them at all.  Let me know if you have different opinions!

Also, I’m sure I’ve left out a site type or two and that I’ve been less than clear in some cases.  Let me know and I’ll get that fixed!

As Google struggles to keep its earnings growing, another place the company will look is to squeeze its content partners. All it has to do is dial back the revenue share it provides to content publishers. That includes domain name owners. Since Google has essentially killed off most of its competition, it’s difficult for publishers to threaten to jump ship.

He’s right, of course — at least about them being able to reduce the revenue share without publishers being able to do much about it.  If AdSense is a major revenue source for you, there’s simply nothing to put in its place that would work exactly the same way and provide comparable income.

The Impact on Domain Name Prices

So “JS” takes it a step further and writes in the comments section of that post:

What happens to domain values when you decrease the major source of monetization?

I think I have an answer…

Two primary components of the extraordinary rise in domain name prices over the past few years have been the rising prices themselves — people were sure that they could make money by doing nothing but buying and holding for a little while — and the easy revenue in the meantime from just parking the domains and enjoying the PPC income.

It’s clear now, though, that prices are no longer rising.  Premium generics may still be a great investment (I’m buying, so I hope so), but prices in general are down.  As Rick Latona said about his domain name auction back in September: I’ve told everyone on my team that if we do 1 million in sales we would have done 3 million if the auction was last year. Add that to the fact that every month seems to bring more bad news like this about parking revenue, and domain name prices just continue to fall from their peak a year or so ago.

What’s the Answer?

Obviously, the answer — whether you’re talking about domain names specifically or websites in general — is to diversify away from a single revenue source.   For domainers, that means starting to build out sites under their domains or partnering with someone who can.  For website owners, that means expanding beyond AdSense.

It can definitely be a challenge, but what’s the alternative?

Oh, the Irony

As a side note to all of this, don’t miss this great irony in the Wall Street Journal article:

But revenue growth has slowed dramatically over the past year. Products such as Google Checkout, a Web payment service, and Google TV Ads, which sells television advertising time, haven’t generated significant revenue, leaving online ads still accounting for 97% of revenue.

That’s right.  Google — who created such a great, easy revenue stream that has made it difficult for publishers to generate revenue any other way — is itself struggling mightily to diversify beyond those exact same ads.

Think you can get diversified faster than they can?

So as someone who’s both bought and held sites and bought and flipped them, I wanted to give you my perspective on site flipping.

Why To Start Flipping Sites Today

Low Entry/Low Risk

Depending on which technique you use, you can get into site flipping for little to no money at all, and the only thing you risk is your time.  Granted, the lower the investment and risk, the lower the potential payoff, but there’s a lot to be said for an opportunity that you can try with little to no risk — particularly when you’re just starting out.

Build Great Experience

You can read about how to do things for years and not learn as much as you would in just a week of actually doing it.  That’s why I say that you should just get started.  And not only are you learning, but building or refurbishing a site requires you to develop a breadth of skills.  The more you’re able to do on your own — without having to hire or partner with others — the faster you can move and the bigger your piece of the pie.

Discover New Niches

So much of your success is determined by two components of your site — the topic and the type of site.  We could all name several high-profit topics that are also way oversaturated, so flipping sites helps you test-drive new topics to see just how profitable they can be.

In the same way, flipping sites helps you try out different types of sites to figure out which you like best.  Do you like blogs?  Forums?  Review sites?  Classifieds?  Directories?  The list is enormous.  The low entry/low risk nature of flipping sites gives you the freedom to experiment and find what works best for you.

Build Your Network

One of the most important lessons I ever learned about making a living from the Internet is how crucial relationships are.  No one who has had great success online did it all alone, and you can make some great contacts in the process of flipping sites — contacts that will be very valuable later on.

Experience the Full Business Lifecycle

It’s enormously valuable to have followed a site from beginning to end — whether you bought the site or built it from scratch.  There are things you’ll learn during the process of selling a site that will forever change how you start the next one.  Businesses that once would have seemed like a great idea no longer seem so great when you’ve seen the finish line, and vice versa.

And The #1 Reason Not To

You’re never guaranteed a second success.  If you don’t go deep at some point and stop chasing quick profits, eventually the well will run dry and you’ll be left with nothing to show for all the work you’ve put in.  It will be a great run (don’t get me wrong, working for yourself is phenomenal) but you want to be thinking long-term, too.  How can you establish a firm foundation that will last beyond your ability to find the next success?

You don’t want to taste the good life only to have it taken away because you sold the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Gurus claiming they make money from the net or whatever line they’re using is like saying the guy we buy produce from at the flea market is “making money from the flea market.”  No, he has a business at the flea market and he busts his tail setting up shop, ordering produce, doing paperwork, stacking watermelons, sweeping the floor, unpacking his truck and so on.  The flea market has no magic, it’s the work that John does in his produce business that puts food on his table and pays his bills.

Alan and I see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, not the least of which is this.