How I Personally Got Started Making Money Online

I often get asked how i got started making money online, so i thought it was about time to write about my journey online so far and my goals for the future.

I guess my first kind of experience online was back in the days of around 1996 when the internet was not as widely spread as it is today, and i use to log on via an old dial up connection which was the slowest Internet connection you could possible dream of! Not like today where we are blessed with blazing fast internet speeds… back then it was way way slower than it is now, and often took quite some time for websites to load.

All this was back in the day when Yahoo was the most popular search engine, and Google had not yet been born. The internet for me then was more of a gimmick than anything messing around on chat rooms and chatting on Instant Messengers to friends, i never really thought I’d be making my living with it back then… how times have changed!

From a very early age I’ve always had a very keen interest in computers and PC’s. My dad bought me my very first computer when i was just 7 years old.. it was the old commodore 64 with the old tapes you use to have to load games and applications. Soon after i had a little upgrade to an Amiga which took discs… and i used to have many hours on that thing playing video games.

By the time I’d left secondary school I knew that I wanted to get into the IT industry so i went to college to do a BTEC in IT. I was training to become a computer technician and that’s where i really learn’t all the technical stuff to do with PC’s like how to change hard drives and reformat PC’s (not that i use much of those skills these days though lol) You don’t have to be a techie to make money online!

After i graduated from college i went looking for jobs in the IT industry. Due to a lack of funds for a car and a driving license meant i was restricted to where i could work. This was because i lived out of the city and in the sticks in the rural lands of the midlands UK.

I didn’t have much luck finding the job i wanted, and instead i had no choice but to take a job as a security guard at a nearby factory. I ended up staying there for a good few years before finally it was getting to the point where i realized that this was really a dead end job with no real future.

Eager to find a way out, I guess my mind started looking for opportunities as a result of my awakening and one day while looking through a newspaper i found a tiny classified ad that said something like ‘ Man Makes One Million a Year From Home On the Internet’ and there was a URL to a site right below it for more information.

That really caught my attention, i was very interested in what this was so naturally i checked it out by visiting the website it was directing to for more information.

That’s when i discovered my first ever sales letter!

It was a business opportunity for a product that showed how to make money online from affiliate marketing. I bought the product and waited a few days for the package to arrive in the post. When that had arrived i used to watch the training while still working my day job and learned as much as i could about affiliate marketing.

The first project which i decided to put into action failed. I promoted a diet product from ClickBank.com in a national magazine in the classified ads section thinking millions of people would see it and go through my affiliate link to buy the product where then i would get a nice commission. Well the system did actually work and i made a few sales however my advertising costs were much higher than the money that was coming in… making me lose money instead!

It was a disappointing experience however i did learn a few things from it! These days i realize that failing at something is part of the growing process you need to do in order to become successful, not many people actually succeed first time around!

My next real idea was to develop a software program that would submit an affiliate program to all the affiliate directories. I outsourced myself a programmer in India from eLance.com and had the software made for free as part of a deal with the programmer that he would get a cut off the profits.

That project also failed. I did sell a few but not many! However i was kind of lucky… it was low risk investment and I did not have to pay the programmer for the software due to the deal we had. In fact i would of had to pay him almost $5000 to design the software for me had i not thought of cutting a deal with him.

Ok… so you would think by now I’d be third time lucky right? But my third project failed to! I learn’t a little about Google adwords and tried to do a few campaigns promoting yet another product from ClickBank.com. Now there i ended up losing a few thousand bucks… OUCH! I obviously did not learn enough about PPC and adwords for it to work (whoops)

Nearly ready to throw in the towel until i came across an ebook i bought for about 30 bucks about selling stuff on eBay. That motivated me enough to give this one last go at trying to build an online business. I started looking at what the top sellers on eBay were selling and noticed a few of them selling high quantities of similar product over and over again… this made a little blight bulb go off in my head. It obviously looked like they were doing well and figured they were getting the products wholesale and making a tidy profit.

By using the resources that were available on the site i could tell that there were certain sellers making a KILLING selling some of these products. I decided to do the same.. and basically just copy them. Why not? It was working for them so why not me right?

Well… I did just that. I located a supplier from China and bought a bunch of products in wholesale and had them delivered to my house. I started listing those on eBay, first it went slow but soon things really sped up. Soon enough i was doing close to $1000 a day in sales!

I was over the moon… here was finally something that was working for me and i had my own online business that was becoming a success!

It wasn’t long after that i left my day job and pursued this full time. I was finally living life on MY terms, getting up when i liked doing things when i liked and best of all no boss to answer to! This was the life! The only work i did really do was listing the items which was automated most of them time and the only real downside was going to the post office to send of the items every few days… I got fed up with that!

I really did not want to travel to the post office anymore so i looked into how i could automate that. With a bit of research i found out that i could get that outsourced to a fulfillment company that would hold my stock and send out the orders for me when i sent them the order batch every few days. Now it was nearly fully automated!!

Eventually word got out about my success throughout my social network, then a few people started to approach me asking if i would teach them how to make money online. I took on a few close clients and started to mentor them. That’s how i got started teaching others how to make money online and soon after started developing my own information products like ebooks and videos teaching others what i knew about making money online with eBay.

I started to develop a passion for helping others achieve success on the internet and decided it was time to fully put my energy into this new venture as i could see a greater potential and it’s something i was truly passionate about. I sold my eBay business for a nice sum which gave me some time to develop more products and plan my new online business in info product marketing, thats when DanBriffa.com was born.

By this time i knew I did not really know enough or could do with some more knowledge about info product marketing and decided to find my own mentor that would show me the ropes and also started studying a lot more about internet marketing. I spent thousands of dollars on products and courses and researched everything i could find.

To be honest since the very first day i found my first ever sales letter and bought my first info product i had always had the bug of being a bit of an ‘opportunity junkie’ and loved the feeling i got from buying new products, even though I’d failed a few times in the past. I knew that not every product turned out to be gold but i knew about the law of averages which meant that if i kept buying products I’d eventually find gold in one of them… as i found out with the eBay business.

Anyway, I had developed my first few info products so i needed a way to market them properly, first i decided to head back to eBay and start selling them on there but the market for Info products on eBay was fairly poor… nowhere near as good as selling the physical goods anyway.

So i started learning about list building and and finding targeted prospects for my info products. I got myself an Aweber account a place that stores email addresses and it would allow me to market products and services to them via email… your probably familiar with Aweber already if your in the info marketing biz so i wont go to much into it.

The problem was i still had 0 subscribers on my list and i needed to start finding prospects for my new business. I found a really great way to get started and that was by entering giveaways, sites that you can put your free products on so that people could opt in for the information. Later if they wanted to learn more i could offer my products and services to them.

It seemed to work ok, things went slow at first but i got my my first 100 subscribers by using this method. And also made a few sales which was pretty neat. After that i used the list that i had to start doing adswaps with other marketers online and within one year built my subscriber list up to 10 thousand subscribers. Things started to gain pace and my business was gaining momentum, i could now add 200-300 subscribers a day with no real problem and i also started doing things such as link building and article marketing which boosted things a little more.

Now I’ve been able to add thousands of subscribers to my list and sell thousands of dollars worth of info products as a product developer and as an affiliate and continue to do so.

I’m now branching out into other niches and also taking my business to the next level which i hope to take to at least $100 thousand dollars a month within the next year… I actually set that goal of $100k a month a little while back and really wanted to have been at that level by now however things did not quite turn out that way due to not being properly prepared for it.

However now I’ve got a plan to reach to that level and have been preparing for it for a while now… and I’m pretty excited to say the least.

I’ve just invested in a brand new shoppingcart system called Infusionsoft which will handle all my orders online and also allow me to start my own affiliate program, this alone will be a BIG step toward growing my business and helping me step to the next level.

On top of that i have my very own merchant account and i will not have to use PayPal anymore… which has always been an issue as Paypal take such a large percentage from you. I’ve also been traveling the world over the last two years to so many different internet marketing seminars and have learned a great deal from some of the best minds in the industry and also built some great relationships with them.

I also really want to get into software development again, after my earlier attempts failed… however i am now in much better position to do so as back in the day i really did not know what i was doing!

Looking further ahead I’ve started to research local search marketing and how i can help local businesses get more business online, which i think will be very rewarding!

Thanks to the internet i can live the lifestyle of my dreams, i can take several vacations a year, in fact I’m writing this blog post while on vacation here on the Island of Malta… And I’ve also just setup a small office here as I’m planning to come here a lot more in the future.

Things are looking better than ever and it all started with the motivation to do something more with my life… If your in the position now then I’d urge you to do something right now and start an online business… It will be the best thing you’ll ever do!

Thanks for taking the time to read my story of how I personally got started online. I hope it inspires you to take action… and i mean that. All you need is the dedication and the motivation and to equip yourself with the RIGHT KNOWLEDGE.

Never stop learning and Invest in yourself!

Yours Truly

Dan Briffa