#1 Reason Why Most People Fail To Make Money Online

Do you know what’s the #1 reason why most people fail to make money online?

The #1 reason is indecision!

They can’t decide if internet marketing is for them. They are getting mixed messages from everywhere, messages like:

“You can make a million trading the stock market.”

“You can achieve financial freedom with MLM.”

“No, I think I should be a REAL brick and mortar businessman. Internet marketing is not a career!”

One of the secrets of success is that when you make a decision, everything else will fall into places. It’s one of the secrets of the universe, as important as the law of attraction.

The tough part is to make a decision.

If you haven’t made up your mind that you’re going to create a full time income from internet marketing, I hope this article can help you to make a decision today.

Ok, let’s compare Internet Marketing with Stock Trading, MLM and a Brick And Mortar Business.

I’ve been through all the 3 other options and I believe I’m qualified to share with you my experience.

Internet Marketing vs. Stock Trading

I see stock trading as a form of wealth management. You should learn how to park your extra money in the stock market to get better ROI (return on investment) than putting money in fixed deposit.

But trading the stock market full time is a bad idea, unless you package it into a business, especially an online business. If so, you’re back to the idea of internet marketing.

The truth is most stock trading experts make money teaching people how to trade stocks! They create courses, software and books to teach people and make huge profit from there.

In stock trading, there is no sure-win. If you get a return of 50% consistently, you are considered an expert.

But do you know that you can get 1000% ROI in internet marketing? For example, I can invest $200 to get freelancers to rewrite articles, create a website and build links. In the years to come, this website will easily earn me more than $2000. That’s a return of more than 1000%!!!

My risk? The worse case is I break even. These days, I hardly have a website that lose money. It’s just a matter of time before I break even.

My advice is, trade stock if you are interested, but spend more time building your online empire because you can get better ROI at lower risk.

Internet Marketing vs. MLM

The dream of MLM (Multi-level marketing or network marketing) is that you can achieve time and financial freedom. This is the idea that most MLMers will try to sell you.

To me, the true value in MLM is mindset training. Success is all about mindset. Good MLM companies have good training that can instill the millionaire’s mindset into you. This is something internet marketing can hardly achieve.

Other than that, I really can’t see any advantage over internet marketing.

If you talk about financial freedom, internet marketing can definitely give you financial freedom. Online income is definitely more passive than MLM income. In fact, you can have multiple streams of online passive income, which makes it more stable than just 1 source of passive income.

If you talk about time freedom, MLM can give you time freedom ONLY after you are successful. During the process of team building, it’s hell!! Your working hours are nighttimes, Sundays and public holidays. These are times when your family members are free but you are not!

Internet marketing, on the other hand, gives you time freedom EVEN before you are successful. You still have to work hard, but you chose when you want to work. You can work when everyone is sleeping. Or you can work an hour and play with your kids for the next hour. It’s all up to you.

Moreover, if you truly believe in the power of MLM, you should explore online MLM instead of the old-school brick and mortar MLM. The old-school MLM is really a time waster.

Internet Marketing vs. Brick And Mortar Business

Ever since I tasted the goodness of online marketing, I’ve never thought of doing brick and mortar business again!

I started out running traditional business and it was a relief when I converted my entire business to online. When I ran my offline business, my mind was all about how to pay my rental, my staff’s salary, how to bring in customers etc. I hardly have time to think of business strategies and expansion.

But online business is almost stress-free. When you are small, you work alone. There is no worry of office rental and staff cost. You spend most of your time thinking of business strategies and how to expand your business, which is definitely more important than working hard to pay bills!

Another important difference is in offline business, you can hardly find people who are willing to show you how to make money. But in online business, many people (too many in fact) wanting to show you how they make money. Some of them may charge you, but you are talking about $47 or $97. That’s cheap!

Final Remark……

I hope I’ve been impartial in my comparison. I’ve been on both sides of the equation and I just hope that my experience can help you make a better decision.

Remember, regardless of which decision you make, once you make the decision, everything else will fall into places for you!

64 thoughts to “#1 Reason Why Most People Fail To Make Money Online”

    1. I struggled with all these as ideas of making money myself and decided on internet marketing because it lessen the headaches of running a traditional business. It’s a total wake up call when you are on the other side as an employer trying to run a business and manage employees… no fun. Internet Marketing is the way to go. Thanks for a great article.

  1. Another great article. There are people as we speak who are trying to make a decision right now on some kind of new opportunity. Hopefully they will see this article before the make their informed decision.

  2. Hi Kenneth…You are right on the money about IM. Compared to the time, effort and money it takes to start other types of businesses, internet marketing is a snap. One proviso though…one has to be able to concentrate on one of the 5 “legs” of this business each day (or divide the time between each one) in order to be truly successful. My recommendation? Concentrate on building a list (how many times does this have to be said?) first, promotion next (either your own or another person’s) of a product. After these two “legs” are set up to run automatically, the rest comes pretty easily.

    -Do or do not…there is no “try”- Yoda

    Make an Impact!

  3. I just added the link to this blog on my website.
    Thanks for the possibility to get referrals in this easy way.
    It will help me to reach people who are interested in working from home..
    Marketing seems to be a key to finding those people.

  4. Hi kenneth…that a good advise for me to give my dicision. The problem is money now. Does your program need lot of money

  5. For Marja…There is another really good way to reach your target audience (people who are looking for additional income through internet marketing) and add them to your responsive list. I just posted it on my blog and it’s at the very end (last 8 paragraphs). I think this will really pay off for you.

    1. Thanks, Jay, for the idea. I am testing the key word now, and will see what happens. Not so long ago I submitted the site to many search engines through Profit Mart.
      As far as I can understand, the right key words can make wonders!

    2. You guys make it sound so easy and I have been trying to make money online for the last 2 years or more and I just can’t make it right now I am planning to open a cook shop but what I just read is like it’s not a good idea because I quite my stressful job a couple a weeks ago and I don’t want to work for no one else I am so confused

  6. Hi Kenneth,

    Well done!

    I just want to add something.

    In you article you said,”when you make a decision, everything else will fall into places.”

    I think it’s only half of the truth. A conscious decision is of course the most important first step.

    But it’s not enough, if you have limiting beliefs on a subconscious level that will sabotage everything you are going to do in your online business.

    So, it’s important to use a conscious decision AND a healthy,
    supportive belief system as a ‘TEAM’ for achieving true,long lasting success.

    Hope this helps.

    Peter

    1. I think you are right about making a decision but you also have to stick to that decision for several years without getting sidetract or joining different programs every month.

      You also need a plan and execute those plan one by one.

      The other major factor why so many people fail is that they don’t have what it takes, they simply don’t want to work period. They don’t have a clue how much hard work is involved running an online business.

      As Peter said having a strong supportive belief system is equally important.

      If you believe you can do this, you can but if you believe everything is a scam and won’t work, it won’t work.

      Great article.

  7. Personally I’m doing both Mlm and Internet Marketing.
    For me Mlm is about more than money, especially the social side of it, which I can’t satisfy by just sitting at my computer.
    As you wrote in your article, the training, mindset and positive thinking of Mlm are also very important to me.
    However, I have been using internet technology for years to support and build in Mlm and the combination of a big list and having the right contacts, can give very good results.
    For a long time I have been wondering which is most lucrative,
    Information marketing or Mlm, I still haven’t figured it out,
    so I’m still doing a bit of both.
    My blog is an example of this hybrid model.

  8. Any MLM is a complex business model that seems to defy the average person’s ability to properly envisage and evaluate. Its structure is based on infinite distributor group growth, which in logic is not possible to sustain. As we are dealing with a finite market for finite products, with a finite number of people, finite geographic areas and finite advertising resources, whilst encouraging massive recruiting, it is inevitable that competition within an MLM must eventually over-run the majority of distributors and cause them to give up, or “fail”. In other words, a true MLM is self-limiting in its growth by its own design.

    As MLM presentations dwell on the “up” side, and never reveal the “down” side (the failure rate of distributors and the cost to fail), to prospective recruits, people will only learn from their own experiences. As a result, over a period of nearly 50 years, MLM boasts untold millions of business failures world wide.

    FACT: A minimum of 995 out of every 1,000 MLM-ers will LOSE money in MLM.

    How many times have you purchased leads for your business, only to find out that most of these leads had no interest at all in your products or services? How many times have you purchased business opportunity leads and found that 99% of them were tired of getting business opportunity phone calls and are abusive to you when you called?

    Avoid the number one reason people fail in a new business. It is NOT because the company, product, or compensation plan is bad… they fail because they eventually run out of people to talk to about the business!

    http://www.trivita.net/13135639

  9. For Marja,

    Thanks Marja…testing is another aspect of any successful enterprise. Witness Coke, Ford, Pampers or you name it. Whenever I run an ad campaign I use one ad as the one I want to work and another using different keywords. It’s also critical that any web page (landing page) that’s being promoted have the right keywords in the “head” tags. If a primary landing page is a generic one from a company, it’s probably best to build your own that leads to that page. In the case of Trivita I looked at the page source and there are no keywords listed, so it’s essential to know what keywords to use, which can be deduced from the number of times a word appears on a page. I use the Firefox browser and by right-clicking on the page I can click on “Show keyword density” and get an exact count of how many times it appears on the page.

    Enjoy, or in the words of Yoda of Star Wars fame…
    Do or do not…there is no try.

  10. great post kenneth! =) for sure, doing business online is definitely hassle-free than an offline business. looking forward to more great articles from you!

  11. I have been doing Internet Marketing for about 2 years and I realized there are many ways to drive traffic online. I was wondering what are your top 3 traffic generation methods do you use to drive traffic?

    Here’s my top 3
    1. Joint Venture
    2. Article Marketing
    3. Blogging

    What’s yours care to share?
    ————-
    Simon
    Click Here To Get Your Free Blogging Theme

    1. It depends on what kind of website I’m building. Different online business model will have different traffic generation methods.

      I started online with no resource, no leads, no JV partner, no reputation and my #1 traffic source is advertising.

      When I master SEO, search engine becomes my favorite traffic source, article marketing being an important strategy.

      When I have some reputation and network, JV is of course the easiest traffic, but they are short term traffic.

      Below are my top 3 ‘long-term’ traffic:
      1. SEO
      2. article marketing
      3. viral marketing

  12. MLM never works. It’s a failing business model that used to work in the past. Try to do that, and you know that you will always be at the shorter end of the stick. The winner is always at the top of the pyramid, and the losers are those below him/her/it.

    As for IM, there are such things called Resell Rights. And depending on how much has been worked on, it does work… … if you are a professional. Which simply puts off all those working people or students out there who all are struggling to even make a cent. Tell me if there is any Singaporean student or non-professional – 18 to 22 year old out there making millions (excluding business and geniuses, for obvious reasons).

  13. Thanks Kenneth for such a knowledge full article.
    Online marketting not only enable us to increase our customer base but alos sectors like share and subscriber’s reslutant factor will boost up.
    It also helps to earn money by working from home which dosn’t require much qualification or experince apart from having proper knowledge about blogging.

    _______
    Alex

  14. Thanks Kenneth it is really a good article.
    Online marketing is a good means to earn money from home and it does not need much qualification except having proper knowledge about blogging

    ______________________

    angelia

  15. Thanks Kenneth for such a good advice,this will help people lots.
    Online marketing is easiest source for People who wants to earn some additional money and they should take a good and planned decision for this poupose.
    _____________________
    Mark

  16. Kenneth for imparting such a good and knowledge article you really work hard but you includes a topic like MLM(multi-level marketing) which was a failing business theory that has worked in past. Recents theories include blogging which is the best way to contact customers.

    __________

    Eugen

  17. People fail to make online money because they are not good decisionmaker. They think that MLM is more fruitful than online but the fact is that online marketing is a better source of earning money as it does not requires any investment just require knowledge , time and hardwork.

    _____________
    Angelia

  18. A number of times people fail to come out with a proper blend of work and pleasure, this results in their faliure.

    ________________
    Samuel

  19. I have been working in online marketing for last eleven months but as far as my experience is concerned lack of planned and good decision leads to the failure of people while earning money online.

    ___________________
    Mark

  20. I will NEVER fail at online marketing because I Buy Customers –
    Not Leads. When I want my Business to grow – I buy more customers. Failure is not an option with this Company.

  21. Thanks Kenneth for such a purposeful article
    Most of the people are indecisive how to make money but the comparisons made between the different popular ways of earning money with online marketing is a very gud one and after reading this anyone could really make it out why making money online is easier than doing it in any of the other ways.

    _______________

    Scott

  22. Blogging is the best way amongst of thousand ways of generating income with online marketing as it provide good amount of income along with lesser cunsumption of time.

  23. I don’t know if I can say that the number 1 reason for people to fail is indecision, that may be true, but I have never thought of it that way, I think that it comes from bad advise, or outright scammers, like some websites say “make 10000 dollars a week” if only you had my system, yeah ok, most so called systems are a way of back end selling, thats it. Someone goes to the internet to try to learn how to make money online and someone is going to try to sell them some sort of ebook, or system.
    The reason there are so many motivational speakers in mlm is because the companies have to keep their distributors motivated for a long time because of the attrition rate.
    Another reason people fail in MLM is because of the lead companies that sell leads.
    1. Never Buy Leads
    2. Buy Customers Not Leads

    Number 1 way to drive traffic
    SEO organic SEO

    Case in Point: if you go to google and search the following phrases, look at the sites on the front page, yes everyone. there is something in common with everyone of the websites on the front page.

    xooma leads
    watkins leads

  24. I switch my career from being a stock trader to becoming a internet marketer, now being the of two website. The best part in internet makreting is the freedom of time, you do have to work but there is no stipulated time. Moreover its involves less risk.

    —————
    Ryanphilips
    http://www.unproduct.com

  25. Nice post Kenneth, this post will help a lot people to get succeed as far as success in online marketing is concerned, though there are many reason but dicision making is one of the most important reason why many people fails to earn money online.

    ___________________

    Stanley
    http://picnicspot.com

  26. There are some rules of every work as it is online money making is also have its some rules. Online money making requires the sound knowledge about the recent trends & topics and good writing skill. It is a easiest way of earning money. People who do not have good knowledge about the blogging and online marketing will fail to generating money with online money making.

    ________________________

    Mary
    http://ypicnicspot.com
    picnicspot

  27. Information overload is one of the dilemma for the newbies. They’re too many option and business models.

    They can’t “FOCUS” in one business model before they succeed in that model. They always follow the market fad and jump from one bandwagon to another. Even worst they’re indecisive and “Never Take Action”. They became “NATO”-(No Action Talk Only)member. :)

    To Your Success
    Bryan Hee

  28. This rings so true. I ordered, read and sent back the Donald Trump class in December ’07. This was his number one reason as well. So, I stepped up to the plate and am seeing the rewards of my efforts. All be it slow, it is still growing.
    Bill

  29. I think you are right one your post. Anyway I’m seeing it is also happening on the IM world. Internet marketing gurus are making more money from teaching others especially the newbies to make money online. Unfortunately as we know that only 5% really make it. The average has been like that for a long time and it doesn’t looks like to get any better. Is that guru’s fault or newbies. Children just can’t be bad adult without the parent being bad parent first. Just my 2 cents.

  30. I never made a dime online until I actually slowed down and began to focus on one thing. When I did this, I actually began to learn more. At first, I was trying to do so much, I knew very little and I was very overwhelmed. Great information here.

  31. Hey Kenneth
    I believe your right on the mark. Indecisiveness brings many people down, even taking your article a little further, that same indecisiveness on the product they choose to promote, has a huge impact on their success. Many continue to program hop always learning but never coming to a complete knowledge of anything they are doing, which has a chain reaction to how they promote, thus success is ever fleeting. Great article.

  32. Kenneth, there is an underlying cause of indecision. Don’t yell at me, but the main reason folks can’t or won’t come to a decision is laziness. Making hard decisions is work and most folks (in the US anyway) don’t like to work. Don’t take my word for it. Walk into a crowded McDonald’s and you’ll hear a lot of comments like “I just can’t decide”. Why? It takes brain work and some of us have very lazy brains. And making a life-changing decision to really succeed at Internet Marketing is really hard for some folks. I know because I train people to get off their mental duff and work. Work to set realistic goals of 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, 2 years (gad! that’s work!), work on finding the right program for you (more work?)…well you can see where this goes in the end.

    1. Hi Jay I really have to agree with you on that as well, I don’t know how often I have closed of on something in the early days because it just got too hard and moved on to the next program or offer. Dumb as that was I preferred to pay for something than have to think for myself. That was until I realized what it was costing me. Since I took that stand against my natural inclinations, I have been fortunate enough to turn everything around to the point where I the internet has become my only income source. Well said.

      1. Hi Ray! Just now getting back to you. Been doing a lot of work on a couple of pages for one of my sites (there we go again with the (WORK)where I’m going to offer all of my current books from my MVS membership site. A cohort and friend of mine had trouble grasping the notion of “work to succeed” so am teaching him. I can always tell from an email promotion whether or not the sender is going to have any success at all by the way it’s formatted; no name at the bottom, no unsubscribe link, etc. I always reply to them (of course you know how to clik on the address bar in Outlook Express and then on properties to find out the email address of the sender, right?) and let them know of their boo-boo(s). Work.

        If your interested in seeing some of the work I do with folks who’re struggling, email me and I’ll give you an idea of what I’m all about.

        Thanks again for the comment.

  33. Most of the peoples want instant results. They read some Internet Marketing ebooks or video tutorials today and they expect to be making money tomorrow.They treat these ebooks or video tutorials or home study courses like some kind of magic pills.When they don’t see instant(or fast)results,they whine and get demotivated.

    _____________________________

    Rahael
    http://www.picnicspot.com

  34. There are many norms formed for making money online which are to be followed by every blogger. Mostly people fail to make money online on accout of :
    1. It requires perfect knowledge of latest trendz and topics.
    2. It requires good writing skills.
    3. The matter should be relevant and up to be trend.

    ___________________________________

    Zennith

    http://www.picnicspot.com

  35. There are 5 reasons why most people fail to earn money online are as follows:
    1.They want instant results
    2.They are VERY lazy and they don’t want to work hard
    3.They give up too easily
    4.They don’t know where to start
    5.They try their hands at everything
    _______________________________

    Rachael001
    http://www.picnicspot.com

  36. Through blogging people can make money easily. It is easy to start with everyone can do online marketing there are various way for making money online.
    1. Web advertisement
    2. Social networking
    3. Blogging
    4. Link exchange
    Many of blogger are fail during blogging because there many stratigies of making money on line.

    ___________________________________

    Kevin
    http://leadsleap.com
    leadsleap

  37. It is not enough to just “blog”. One has to have a specific topic to blog about and stick to that under whatever tag or keyword you’re using. For instance: One of my blogs is about Internet marketing and all of my posts are aimed at one aspect or another in that field, whether it’s email marketing, article marketing, what have you. The same goes for web advertising, social networking and link exchanging.

    This goes back to my earlier comment on indecision. If you cannot decide what it is you want to accomplish with your work, and believe me, “to make money” is a wrong-headed approach as it is not very specific, then you won’t get very far in this business.

    Another short note on blogging, never, ever put more than 2 links in a blog post. More than that and your post becomes a blatant advertisement and people being lazy just won’t click on every link.

    Cheers!

    Jay

  38. Kenneth,

    You say is true. We just spend a few hours with a computer in a day especially at night where the return is money. No hard work except the early stage, no body knows except our family, and no taxes!

  39. I hate MLM marketing and I have decided I will focus on blogging and try to connects the dots to add many income streams.

    Thanks again for great information but I expected a bit more.

  40. People do forget that on the internet things are a little different from the outside world and thus requires a change of tactics suitable to their cause. Good points

  41. Hi there Kenneth,

    You really talked some true things that most of people do not realise, that making money online is not as easy as they think, it needs a lot of hard work.

    Regards,

    Clay

  42. Greetings ! From my experience I will say that now it’s too hard to make money on the Internet. One of the reasons is not knowledge and as always from the side are people who are not themselves able to earn and are looking for where to find work in life. Themselves are not able to think or think anything, but they are looking for something from a neighbor or from a friend. Shorter looking for everything on the side and will never give a job to others. Tell me that this is not true. Yes such people have them is 95%. They are always on the sidelines and watch the process observe and give a comment – usually negative. It always frightens a beginner on the Internet. But this time it will change everything. It is important to find the project that pays – this is the main step. But the most important thing is to understand the newcomer that 1bit costs 1 penny or more. Further simply it is possible to learn to consider how much is a picture or an offer or banner with a link on the space. It’s like a car in the garage. The price of the garage and the price of the car. Rent of land where there is a garage. Gasoline for the car. If all this sorted out then it is not difficult to understand where the money is coming from on the Internet. When it will be obvious. Then you can act and earn money. Why should someone listen. There is no fear. You can act in any project. All tools are in the project. Kenneth did everything for everyone and for the beginner and advanced user. The guys here are a gold bag. The task is to unloose and use. The dream of any marketer. Thanks if there are questions – I will answer.

  43. Thank you for an informative and helpful read i appreciate it. For me one of the things i grappled with when i first started was writing. I mean i hated it. Even while i was earning how to. Some time later it dawned on me, writing, whether its an article, email, newsletter, ad etc. It your was to personally be apart of the process. The whole process.
    Once you really give yourself fully to your online business, you will then began to enjoy the whole process and not just cashing the check :)
    Here’s to your profitable online experience
    Manni

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