8 Reasons You Are Not Making Money Online

I have owned an online business since 2004 and for years I could not figure out why I just was not making anything of significance. In my lens, Why I Will Not Make New Years Resolutions for 2011, I really sat down and thought about some habits that I needed to change in order to be successful and this list is a rundown of the things I have found out about myself. I’m sure not all 8 will apply to you, but I’d bet there’s a couple of things in this list which could be holding you back.

8. You’re afraid. You may not know it, but you are afraid of failing. You are afraid of what others might think of you or that your family may laugh at you. You’re afraid to put yourself out there to try new things. I was afraid of writing for Ezinearticles for the longest time because of the manual review process, I didn’t want to be rejected because my writing wasn’t good enough. Once someone told me to just do it and held me accountable, I did it and realized that I had nothing to be afraid of. I now have about 85 articles at Ezine. I should have more, but I haven’t made the time to write more yet.

7. You’re desperate. When you need money now, nothing will work fast enough. Many times it takes years for a mega blog to become successful and even many of my lenses didn’t start earning me any money until they were at least 3 months old. Once you get the idea out of your head that you are going to be earning $2000 a day tomorrow, you will learn to become more patient and just keep building your empire.

6. You’re looking for a magic pill. Your desperation could lead you to jumping from blog to blog and buying ebook upon ebook leading to an extremely high credit card bill. Sit down and focus on one or two things to start. Learn everything you can about it and then keep at it. Once you’ve mastered what you’re working on, you should have enough money to expand your knowledge and earn even more money.

5. You’re not investing in your business. On the other hand, you have to run your business like it is one and sometimes you’ll find you need to spend some money. Things that come to mind which almost everyone should have would be hosting and an email list. Hosting to get you started shouldn’t cost a lot. If you are using WordPress, I recommend Page.ly, you do not need to worry about setup or maintenance on your WordPress sites. It will cost you a little more, but it’s well worth it. If you are looking for a low cost way to bust into email marketing, I recommend Mailchimp. You can get started for free and by the time you have to start paying for it,  you should be making enough to pay for it.

4. You’re over thinking things. This kind of goes along with being desperate, but when you start to over think what you are doing you will start to doubt what you are doing. Be confident and understand that you are going to learn from your mistakes. Once you get past this, you should start to see some rewards.

3. You check your emails constantly. Email is a time sink that doesn’t produce any money. Set aside time to check your email and keep it to 15 minutes or the end of your day once you are done with anything. This will keep you from feeling like you are being productive without getting anything done.

2. You’ve cut yourself off from the world. Everybody needs a break, which is why employers will often force you to take a vacation. When you are working online for yourself it’s easy to forget this. Time spent with your family or doing the things you enjoy will keep you refreshed and ready to tackle the world when you get back to your computer. You will also be surprised at how many niche ideas you can come up with when you are out and about being a real person.

1. You’ve set goals, but haven’t changed your habits. This is possibly your biggest problem. We all want to make $1000′s a month, but how are you going to get there. Think about your goals, then think about what method you are going to use to get there and then think of 2 or 3 habits that you need to change in order to start moving towards that goal. For example, this year I’ve set a goal to be making $500 per month by June. The first habit I’ll be changing is publishing one thing every day. It doesn’t matter if that thing published is a blog post, Squidoo lens, Hub, or article, I just need to do something. It takes at least 20 days to build a habit, so once I feel that this is ingrained in me, I will move on to the next habit. If I feel I’ve changed all of those habits, then I need to write down 2 or 3 more that I need to change.

One last note about changing habits, stick to only one habit at a time and don’t piggyback. What I mean is, if you’re goal is to publish one thing a day and you happen to do 7 on the first day, don’t stop for the week. This doesn’t help you change the way your mind thinks at all. If you happen to publish 7 things on day one, then you still need to publish one thing on day two and so forth. If you do everything the first day and don’t keep up with changing your habit, then by the time you get to day one of next week you will become frozen because your mind is now thinking you have to publish 7 things again.

I hope reading this post has helped you identify some things that you can do to help you along in your online business. Keep in mind that changing one thing can really make a difference, this has been one of the toughest lessons I’ve had to learn.

Do you feel that any of the things in this list are holding you back? What is it and what are you going to do to change it.

Until later,

Thank you for taking the time to visit and read my blog. If you choose to make a purchase through any of the links on this page I may be compensated by your purchase. I really appreciate your support and hope to see you back soon.

Originally posted 2011-01-25 08:24:03. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related posts:

1. My Making Money Online Quote
2. Making Money Online – My Changes for 2010
3. Making Money Online Takes Creativity