Welcome!

August 24, 2009

My name is Gary Nugent and welcome to my blog. I have been an internet and affiliate marketer since 2004 and I now make a full time living online.

It’s been a hard slog to get where I am today, with a steady income each month. I’ve tried many things over the years, most of which didn’t work out for me personally. And I’ve spent tons of money on courses (physical products with CDs and DVDs), online courses, e-books and have a drivefull of useless crap (products and bonuses) that I’ve acquired over that time.

One of the most useless courses I bought was one that taught me how to build e-commerce websites. I already knew how to build sites but didn’t know anything about monetizing them back in 2004. I soon realised that the course was teaching very simple principles and was really all about tying me in to a monthly subscription to pay for overpriced hosting. So I quit the course.

Then I tried a course that taught how to sell on eBay and how to become a Power Seller. All well and good if you live in the U.S. and have access to the packaging, shipping, drop-shipping and warehouse resources needed to build an ebay business. Not much of a runner if you live outside the U.S. like I do. Another one bites the dust.

I bought and followed several marketing courses from the likes of Jason Potash. These told me what to do, perhaps even why to do something but not how to do it. It seems that a lot of online training courses leave out some very important information.

If you’ve tried to make a bit of money online, all that will be familiar to you.

One thing I found was that I was constantly hopping from one thing to the next, always chasing that elusive “get rich quick” scheme. I lacked focus. I pursued the next “Big Thing” each time it dropped into my mailbox. In retrospect, I was too eager for quick results to really give any one thing enough time to pan out.

So I took a step back and looked at what had worked for me and what didn’t. And I re-evaluated my skill set. What had been working for me was building websites and monetizing them with Adsense and affiliate marketing offers. So I junked everything that didn’t work for me and concentrated on what had.

That’s when things started to turn around for me (you can read more of my story on the About page).

So my advice to you is: pick something you like or something you have had some success with. Focus only on it and ignore all the daily make-money-this-way distractions. And give it time to work. You can’t expect results within a couple of weeks. Look at apprentices or university graduates. It takes them years of training before they become proficient in their profession. You can’t expect to become an affiliate marketing or internet marketing expert in a few weeks.

It may be a wake-up call for you, but you need to be realistic about your goals, what you can achieve and when you can achieve it. Building a business online takes time and commitment. There are no push-button solutions to getting quick, easy cash.

This blog will detail some of my experiences in the affiliate marketing world, my opinions on various matters, reviews of products I personally use and opportunities I think might be of interest to you. Feel free to comment on anything I write.

My experiences may help you be a better marketer and your experiences may help me.