When you have been making a full-time living online for more than a decade, many people are curious about how you did it. So I am often asked:

What three things have led to your long-term success online?

If you asked twenty different people this question – you would get 20 different answers. So let me put in a disclaimer that this may not be their answer – but it’s mine.

The three things that have served me well from Day One until present day are:

Live Events

My first day in business I flew to a conference in Phoenix. It was a “lab” for the National Speakers Association and had less than 100 attendees. But those who were there were the movers and shakers in the organization.

I went back for every lab for the next two years. Partly because I was learning to build my speaking business and partly because of the great contacts I made.

Not only did I have an opportunity to get to know them, but they got to know me. And when it was time to invite someone to speak or chair a committee – my name was in the hat! In fact, by the end of the second year, I was on the Faculty of the Tech Lab!

I repeated that Live Events model with Internet Marketing. I attended every conference I could find. And soon the speakers recognized me, mentioned me from the stage, and invited me to lunch and special get-togethers. Not too long after that I started speaking on the same stages.

While we talk about the ease of doing business online, the true relationships are forged in live events. If you want to accelerate your business – be there!

Just a note – Armand Live is coming up in Las Vegas Sep 21-23. It is a great networking event. If there is ANY way you can get there, be there! In fact, you can come as my guest.

Partnering With Strong Players

No single person knows everything and no single person can do everything. The sooner you recognize that, the faster you’ll make more money.

I know that one of my strengths is logistics (getting things done in an efficient way, often behind the scenes). There is always a need for these skills – particularly with busy, high-profile people.

Remember, I got to know many of those people in the live events. So it was a natural course for them to ask for help and for me to volunteer to help when I saw a need. I was okay with letting them take the limelight while I worked in the background. We both made money.

At other times I took the lead and partnered with someone who had marketing skills I didn’t have or technical skills I lacked. In that case I took the “front man” role and they did the background labor. We both made money.

Regardless of the role you take in any partnership, make sure that what you will do, how much you will spend, and how you will split the profits is clearly outlined. In fact, for one of the partner projects I had with Connie Ragen Green, we created a product on exactly how we structured one successful partnership after another in JVs Made Simple. If you plan to partner with someone – get this product first!

Teleseminars

I earned my stripes online with teleseminars. It was a natural way for me to use my teaching skills and there was a huge need for an organized, non-hype-y teacher in the Internet Marketing arena.

Teleseminars were the main way I built my list – offering free teleseminars on various topics. I even hosted First Tuesday free teleseminars where I opened the lines and anyone could ask anything.

I got a lot of product ideas from those teleseminars. And I created a lot of products using teleseminars.

Naturally as the technology evolved I started doing webinars. But had I not had such a strong start with teleseminars, it might have been more difficult.

Find one technology that you enjoy and are comfortable with, then learn it well. It may be teleseminars, webinars, or YouTube videos. The important thing is to do enough of them to create a critical mass that will ground-swell into your growing reputation.

Your Three Things

Your three keys to Online Success may be different than mine. I’d love to hear what three main activities you use to build YOUR business – just share them in the comments below:

Have you ever had the experience of seeing that someone else was named to “The List” for your niche – and find yourself asking “why not me?” After all, you are more qualified. You have done more work. You are more successful. So why weren’t you named to the list?

It has to do with visibility. And visibility is totally within your control. Here are ten things you can do to raise your visibility with the “list” makers.

1. Look around the site that sponsors the list. Determine who they target as their market. And subscribe to their email updates so that you become familiar with their marketing approach.

2. Submit an article to their publication. If they don’t have a link ready to accept publication, contact them and ask if they take outside articles. By being proactive, you’ll immediately get their attention. Read More→

Information comes to you in multiple formats. You’re listening to teleseminars, the audio replays, watching webinars, reading email, ebooks and articles. There is rarely a moment when you are not consuming some type of information. And all of this leads to information overload.

Information coming in is great when you are in a learning mode. All of us have had the experience of getting excited about a new topic – then consuming everything we can get our hands on to learn more about it. It may have been your new puppy, your new car or your new computer. Regardless of the topic, you recognize the symptoms – insatiable curiosity and appetite for information.

The problem with that behavior comes when you don’t step out of the learning mode into the action mode. You see the symptoms in every area of interest – someone becomes a Learner – but never seems to take action. Particularly in money-making endeavors like real-estate investing, business opportunities and making money online, this is a self-defeating pattern seen in a lot of “newbies.”

So what is the cause of this problem – that someone continues to learn but never earns? In fact, it seems that the longer they are in a topic, the less action they take.

Their information pipeline is full. And until they can clean it out and “reverse the flow” they are stuck. Read More→

We talk a lot about the “possibilities” online – how you can become rich and famous practically overnight. Yes, a lot of it is Hype – but you know what I mean. Everyone is trying to get you to achieve at your top level.

Under ideal circumstances we all WANT to be the best we can be – but what if you just can’t do it all right now? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else address this, so I wanted to give you what I consider the “minimum” you can do online and still keep up.

Here are the things you MUST do every week to be sure you are still participating. Read More→

Credibility is defined as “The quality, capability, or power to elicit belief.” No place is credibility more important than online.

After all, when you visit a website you don’t know anything about the person behind the site. Are they honest? Do they provide quality information? Will they deliver what they promise?

Obvious credibility takes on added importance when you make your living as an expert. You must assure your site visitors that you *are* an expert – and that you are *the* expert with whom they want to do business.

So how do you assure the site visitor that you are credible – that they can believe what you say? That you are the expert they seek? Here are five ways to get started.

1. Publish articles in your area of expertise. Not only should these article appear on your website, but they should also be on others’ sites. That means you want to distribute them via article sites, such as EzineArticles.com Articles are an easy way to display your expertise – and build your credibility.

2. Provide questions and answers on your site. People love to get advice from an expert. Not only do your prospects return to read your advice, but the search engines do too!

3. Host teleseminars and webinars. By serving as the host you can tailor the content to your target audience’s needs. You can invite the guests your prospects want to hear from – and you’ll automatically gain credibility by being associated with these guests.

4. Offer an online course. Whether it’s via email, teleseminar, webinar or an online learning system, a course puts you into the role of instructor – and expert. Your credibility automatically rises.

5. Write a book. Polls reveal that one of the professions held in high esteem is “author.” When you introduce yourself as an author, there is an automatic rise in your credibility.

Start today to implement these five steps – and watch your credibility climb.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to help more people become successful online. You see, my background is as an Instructional Designer. In that profession, we interview experts to determine how they think and how they do what they are an expert on. Then we take what we learn and turn it into good instructional materials – to teach other people to do what the experts do.

That’s why I love helping people get started online – because I’m helping them recreate what the experts (aka the Internet millionaires) do.

So you can imagine the amount of time I spend on this question:

Why do some people come online and make money – and other people spend years and thousands of dollars NOT making enough money to cover their costs?

Obviously I have some ideas of my own, but let me ask YOU – why do people NOT make money online? What holds them back?

Please share your ideas and comments below