Transcription
In the world of making money online, there are a lot of snakes in the grass. There are a lot of people out there that claim that you can make huge amounts of money in a short amount of time. They make these videos simply preying on your fears and your insecurities. You see, right now there are too many people working too many hours and for not enough money.
Lack of funds, forced to cut back on things like medication and groceries. Make money online gurus know this and they promise you a world where money is no object. I’m sure you’ve heard many times gurus say things like live the laptop lifestyle or imagine living the life of your dreams. In this video, the bitter truth I uncovered and the lessons that I learned.
Now, this video isn’t just about my losses. It’s about equipping you with the knowledge of navigating the treacherous waters that is the make money online business. Hi, my name is Alston Godbolt with alstongodbolt.com. I create content to actually help you make money online. And not just to put money into my own pockets.
And if you want to be added to the globe, comment down below with your city, state, zip code, province, or country, and I’ll get you pinned. Now before I dive into where I think things went wrong, let’s take a look at some early warning signs that I should have saw coming. Now back when I first got started, I was a bit naive.
I believed that most of the people making YouTube videos were trustworthy and actually had the audience’s interest at heart. I actually asked myself, why would somebody make videos that they knew were lies or half truths. One clear cut sign was simply the way that they spoke. See, most of these guys claim that they made a bunch of money, and they never failed.
Everything they did just worked. In reality, the process to make money online is kind of like a W, where it works for a little while, then it doesn’t, then it works again, and then you just figure out a way to make it consistently work over and over again. Again, a lot of these guys just simply never failed.
Failed. All dumb people. Never failed. Other people had a rags to riches story. Almost every webinar that I’ve sat on is a rags to riches story, and the story basically goes like this. These guys were down to their last penny. They were ready to give up. They tried one more thing and then boom, magically that thing worked and now they’re a millionaire.
I’m not saying that these guys don’t have a rags, riches story. Just be careful when you hear it. ’cause ultimately they’re trying to sell you something. The last red flag is the fake live webinar. You know, it’s a webinar where. The host of the webinar will say, let me see you put some ones on the screen.
It’s the type of webinar where the host will say put some ones in the chat box where they’ll say things like i’m seeing a Ton of positive comments and have this fake excitement now to be honest with you Most of these webinars were created weeks or months ago with nobody in attendance Now that I’ve revealed what I should have seen as red flags, I’m sure you’re wondering, what are some of the strategies I tried to use to make money online?
Now, to be honest with you, I think everybody follows a similar path when they first get started trying to make money online. I think the first thing people do is they try and find different ways to make quick cash. You see, they’ll start with websites like Amazon Mechanical Turk, or they’ll try and complete surveys on websites like Cash Kick, or simply just watch YouTube ads to make money.
The final thing they’ll try is Completing micro tasks. Now, as I’ve mentioned several times on this channel, these sites aren’t worth the time that you put into it. Yes, micro tasks are really easy, but usually what’s easy isn’t paying well. Now, in all my time, completing surveys, doing micro tasks and answering questions online, I made probably less than 20.
After completing surveys, you graduate to looking for other ways to make money online. And that’s when you start hearing the words passive income. Now, passive income is a buzzword that some marketers use to help you envision making money. While doing absolutely nothing passive income is a buzzword that marketers use to lead you to believe that you don’t have to do anything and simply just make money online.
I’m sure you’ve heard this before push one button, make money while you sleep and simply just live the laptop lifestyle. Now in full transparency, who wouldn’t want to work five minutes per day and make 20, 000 per month. And this actually leads me to the next question that I’m sure you’re asking, where did all of my money go and why?
Now to answer this question, you’ve got to look back to where it all began. I remember when I first started trying to make money online, I jumped on YouTube and I found videos about people making money with micro tasks. And when I went back to YouTube, magically the same people at other videos, I mean that there were other better ways that you could make money online.
Now with these videos, people claim that you can make five, 10, and even 20, 000 with. Just a single push of the button. And what I didn’t realize, again, I was a bit naive, that these videos were actually advertisements. These videos were basically advertisements for different softwares and courses that they were promoting.
I didn’t realize it at the time, I was basically watching launchjacking videos for software that claimed that they could automate manual tasks. And when they automated those manual tasks, you could make money just at the push of a button. These softwares claim that they could automate things like Pinterest engagement, you could reach out to people on Facebook, and even automate the entire process of posting YouTube videos.
These softwares also often claim that they could get traffic to your website in just a few minutes, filling your funnels and helping you make money on your website. But what I didn’t realize is that most of these softwares are a violation of the terms of service of the various platforms. For example, there’s a software out there that claims that can automate your Pinterest engagement.
And the way that it works is whenever someone posts a new pin, you’re going to go comment. Comment automation is simply a violation of Pinterest terms of service. Now, once I realized that these softwares weren’t the way to go, actually turned my attention to trying to learn what the gurus knew. And then once again, I went back over to YouTube, looking for different ways to make money online.
And of course I ran into a bunch of different videos where people were claiming that you could make money online with retail arbitrage. Blogging, Amazon FBA, affiliate marketing, creating and selling online courses, dropshipping, social media marketing, and more. After watching these videos, I still felt like there was something missing and to learn about that missing piece and what it was, I can watch this free webinar.
Of course, all of these free webinars all follow the same structure. The structure basically is they have a rags to riches story where nothing worked. Right before they were about to give up, they have this one idea that they’re going to try, and if it doesn’t work, they’re going to go back to their nine to five.
Of course, that thing worked, and now because it works, they have three secrets that they want to share with you. Now looking back, I realized that these three secrets weren’t actually secrets. They were basically just elevating your emotion and Creating a selling and buying environment after watching 90 minutes of a webinar, they would introduce this offer to you.
And like always webinars claim that offer would solve all of your problems and put money into your pocket. And of course I bought them, I tried them and I failed them. Usually the courses offered same information and no support. There weren’t any Facebook groups. There weren’t any ways to reach out to the course creator to get help when needed.
Now that you’re aware of the strategies that didn’t work and where I spent most of my money, I’m sure you’re wondering about the myths that I fell for. Now, again, the myths that I fell for were based on my growing family. I didn’t really start trying to make money online until we realized that we were going to have twins.
And a few months before that, he had just moved into a 2, 800 square foot house. And I didn’t know how we were going to afford a new house, a new set of twins, all while my wife was working and going to school full time. The money that we were making wasn’t going to be enough, and I needed to find a way to make more money fast.
This actually led me to the first myth that I fell for. The myth is easy money. I first believed the myth that I could make very good money, very easy money by sitting around and doing little to no work. Easy money, which includes completing surveys, micro tasks, and watching ads, pay literally pennies. The time I spent earning pennies while other people were earning dollars still kind of grinds my gears.
Think about it like this. The creators of the YouTube videos that I watched were earning dollars while I was earning pennies implementing what they told me to implement. The next myth that I fell for was the myth of passive income. When you think about it, it’s kind of funny. The people that are telling you about passive income are actively creating content telling you about passive income, which in and of itself isn’t passive income.
And these kind of have to continue to create videos or content. Or else they’re going to lose the traction that they built for themselves. If you lose the traction, you stop making money. So tell me, is that really passive income? You got to continuously create videos or else you’re not going to see any return.
Whether it’s creating a blog, starting a YouTube channel or posting content on social media, you have to create and keep creating active income. Now there can be a point where eventually you start hiring people to do it for you. But even then, and until then, it’s all active income. Having gone through the painful experience of losing 30K, I’ve gained a ton of insights that I wish I knew sooner.
To help you avoid these costly mistakes, check out this next video where I show you step by step how to get started with affiliate marketing for free.