I’m back.
First off – thanks to all the guest posters, they were of pretty high quality I thought and I enjoyed reading them (more than my own posts, even 
). Also, thanks for the birthday wishes – unfortunately, my email inbox has been jammed with emails (more than 1,000 legitimate ones over the last week – mainly because of the ’secret’ method release and various other things) so if you’ve sent me an important email and I haven’t replied – it’s because I haven’t seen it or have seen it and forgotten about it.
Although the break was good, it’s great to be back; it’s also great to see that TUK finally broke the 700 subscribers mark. Next up will be trying to aim towards 1,000 – that may be difficult, but we’ll see. Of course, the easiest way to reach the 1,000 mark is if you guys help out; so please send people over here if you like the stuff you read. 
Today what I wanted to do is ask you guys about a question that is pretty important in blogging, especially the internet marketing niche where proof is everything. If you’re running a blog teaching people to do stuff, and you cannot do that stuff yourself – you’re not going to last long.
On most blogs you read – even this one – you rarely see failures. People will talk about their successes, most notably their big ones; however, when was the last time you saw a blogger admit he had royally screwed up?
I had a huge failure recently – considering that things have been going pretty good of late, with metrics constantly increasing – it was the launch of a new project which you will not hear about after this post.
I had an idea, as I have a lot of them – when I get ideas, I tend to believe that they are amazing and that all of them will be successes – now, of course that’s not true. Anyways, I had an idea involving social marketing and a specific CPA offer – one that I thought would make me loads of money without having to spend it.
This was a week or so ago – I worked for the best part of a day (10 hours or so) setting things up, tweaking the landing page, testing things to make sure there wouldn’t be any problems… at the time, I honestly thought I could have an early retirement just off this project.
The project grossed $1912.67 in its first 24 hours.
Isn’t that super? That’s almost $60,000 per month, right?
However…
The money I spent on the project was $1905.35
So… ten hours of setting things up, a day of promoting it… and I get a net profit of $7. You work out the hourly rate for that one and you’ll get the same reaction I did… ouch!
I’ll probably work on it a little more over the next few weeks, but for now I’m just taking a break with it… to me, that was a huge waste of time and I don’t like wasting time
However, the one thing I have learned over the last month and a half is that social networks are easy as hell to make money off. Try playing around with them, and you’ll be surprised (I’m not just talking about this projet, but others I’ve done with social networks over the last 1.5 months). You have to be creative and unique – some half assed copied rubbish won’t do well, but if you hit it right you will make money. How creative and unique you are, of course determines the amount of profit you make.
What I learned was that if I had tested things a little more, and waited for some time, I would probably have made more money – I was so sure that this was going to do well that I set it up just before I went to sleep, and by morning it was too far gone to change much.
Despite being on a break though, I did have a pretty decent success this week – making almost $3,000 for about one hour of work (related to website flipping). I will put up a post this week talking about what I did to make that money, something pretty simple that any of you guys can replicate. Stay tuned
Above, I’ve talked about one of my biggest cock ups in my internet marketing career – how about you? I asked this question a few months ago, but it’s always interesting to see what readers are up to – what is one of your recent failures, and how did you take it?
August 18th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Still haven’t had any big failures yet, but maybe that’s just because I haven’t done anything till now
Rajaie AlKorani’s last blog post..Buzz Theme Officially Released
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August 18th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I make mistakes all the time, but never done something so bad that it would have cost me hundreds or even thousands. Well I have been wasting my time a lot.
I started(trying) to do money online.. about two years ago. And I finally started seeing it coming around a year ago. =P All my things have been pretty succesfull after that.
BlackhatWay’s last blog post..Flipping an image host
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August 18th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Good one TUK, as for me…I think the one I messed up on the most was my video site I was going to start for marketers. It seemed so logical lol, start a video site just for marketers…to promote!
Yeah well, we want to promote on sites that attract others than just marketers hugh? lol…yeah well, not to mention the host who was supposed to be a “video hosting provider” was crap…so, I scrapped it.
Seemed good at the time…I was such a noob lol
Normal Joe’s last blog post..The bloggers I see and a little link lovin
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August 18th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Well, I don’t have any failures because mainly I haven’t taken up a big project till now.
You really are great, because you are admitting your failures which is not so easy.
Ganesh’s last blog post..Do you want a Free Domain Name?
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August 18th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
It depends, Jason. Look at it this way. TUK is all about honesty and knowledge-sharing.
Other bloggers are more to showing off their earnings. These “other bloggers” will definitely not be so honest.
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August 18th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Failures? NOOOO! Nobody fails in this business
Seriously, most of my failures are selecting and promoting the wrong niches… Most often, it is trying to promote something very generic like MILF porn and thinking my spin on it will make the difference.
Usually, the further you go down the rabbit hole and get specific, the more profitable it can be. The challenge is making sure there are enough people interested in your very specific niche.
Welcome back.
Sell Porn Make Money’s last blog post..Where Should I Start To Sell Porn? Try My First Sex Teacher
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August 18th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I haven’t had any major failures in my online carrer yet, but I really haven’t handled anything major so that is probably why I haven’t had any major failures.
Faint’s last blog post..How To Make Your Own Beer
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August 18th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
I write about my failings as well as my successes. If you never fail, you just never seem human. If you post your failings, your readers can connect with you because they’ve probably failed making money online too. I think just being honest with your readers will take you places
Alex the Freelance Twin’s last blog post..A one year review of WidgetBucks
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August 18th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
When I started out with my blog, I was really hell bent on helping people make money online. Notably single mothers and fathers and people trying to make it through college on their own working crap jobs to pay the bills.
At that time I had never heard of John Chow, Problogger or Shoemoney… Actually my first MMO read was JohnCow.com and I thought I could do better than they did for teaching people how to make money.
Onto my failures… I seen this infomercial on tv one night about buying and selling wholesale. A company called SMC. I figured I could teach people how to sell the stuff on eBay and it would be a good venture.
I signed up for the silver package which was $24.95 plus $15 shipping and handling and another $39.95 a month for 11 months.
When I got the box of sales material and catalogs… I was petrified. For every 1 product that was worth selling, there were 100 that were totally bullcrap you would find at a dollar store.
So I made a list of good products and got descriptions and pictures… I posted them on eBay and quickly found that there were 30 of the same product and the low profit margin was making all us SMC sellers slash prices by just pennies to make a sale.
With eBay and Paypal fees, low profit margins on selling online… I made a total of $68.52 in profit after about 2 weeks of work.
So not only is this a failure of concept, it’s also costing me $39.95 for the next 8 months. Their refund policy says I cannot get a refund because I already started selling and used the material. I cannot stop paying because they report on your credit report. Or so they tell me.
A total failure that keeps on costing me.
CreatingRevenueOnline.com’s last blog post..Top Commentators & Related Posts
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August 18th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I think I am actually going to re-post this on my blog as a failure because you are right… you never see anybody posting about failures. I think it would separate you from the greedy MMO blogs if you showed that you are trying and failing at some and succeeding with others.
CreatingRevenueOnline.com’s last blog post..Top Commentators & Related Posts
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August 18th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I write my failures alongwith what has worked for me as honest opinions. This is the only way you ll connect with you users and have a loyal following..Of course its going to take time to build the loyalty
WebTrafficROI’s last blog post..This is now a “DoFollow” Blog
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August 18th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I don’t think I had big failures yet, but like Rajaie it might be because I have done nothing but write on my blog, try to start some new websites that are still being finished, and help other people out waaay more than I should.
I am not sure if you should always reveal your failures, though as failures are the key to success, showing your failures might be the key to being shown success.:)
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August 18th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Glad to have found this blog, very strong advice for a newbie like me to blogging. I seem to have been writing about challenges more than successes lately in the world of entrepreneurship. I’m in the franchised restaurant business though, and it is a tough gig…especially in Michigan.
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August 18th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Funny you should ask.
My post this morning was showing just such a screw up that I was guilty of.
I’m sure I lost millions because of it. \g/
I think your readers will enjoy it.
Rich Hill
ps: glad you’re back.
Rich Hill’s last blog post..Beware of Mind Altering Substances while Attempting to Become a Domain King
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August 18th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
They should. Its added help so that people won’t try what the entrepreneurs failed at. No waste of time.
G’s last blog post..RnB is now, December
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August 18th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
I haven’t really delved deep into internet marketing yet, my biggest failure cost me $75, which I spent on two wordpress themes that wouldn’t interest any sponsors, and which I couldn’t resell. Now those wordpress themes are just sitting on my hard drive, I’ve tried to sell but haven’t gained any decent interest. I’m annoyed at losing $75, but to a lot of you, $75 is peanuts, right?
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August 19th, 2008 at 12:20 am
Well my first domain flip I made $50 from. I then spent $80 listing 3 new domains and only one sold FOR $20!
So I made a pretty big loss there.
Ive done the same thing with website flipping too.
Ryan @ Smarter Wealth’s last blog post..Attempting a Bigger Site Flip
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August 19th, 2008 at 3:39 am
I have a lot.. But well this one is something that I despised the most…
so adult sites are profitable right? so what i have done is purchase a pretty established adult site on dp for $400… then the project never really took off because i know little about pornography(considering the fact we’re a Christian)… My friends do know a lot but they have very little knowledge on intrnt mrkting… so after about a month i have sold it for $250… great roi
Melvin’s last blog post..The Importance of StartUp Income
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August 19th, 2008 at 4:50 am
One of my biggest failures was trying to create a site to rival eBaumsworld. I had my wordpress theme, my domain name, hosting, banners, graphics, everything. Then it went very wrong.
Had lots of problems with the Wordpress theme and formatting the posts. None of the videos were actually HOSTED on my server, they were all videos from Youtube, etc. And it was hard for me to come up with the daily posts and make all of the thumbnails, etc.
So I gave up on it. Worst part about it is that I didn’t even try and sell it.
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August 19th, 2008 at 6:20 am
I remembered this from a mentor, “An error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.” The good thing about the internet industry is there is always so much room for improvement. The only real hindrance to improvement is the creativity of our imagination.
Dulcenegosyante’s last blog post..Join FlashMint Contest and win $100-800 in easy Cash
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August 19th, 2008 at 6:36 am
Congrats on breaking 700 subscribers!
I would think that most MMO gurus fail all the time. I read a blog post earlier that mentioned the 80/20 rule which states that 80% of your work will be a waste or failure while 20% will be successful. Most bloggers don’t ever bother to mention their failures. By exposing your failures I think you will gain more trust from your readers.
BTW, a late Happy Birthday!
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August 19th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Hey TUK, congratulation on breaking the mark of 700 subscribers, you did very well in the blogging idol contest…
It’s truth that many bloggers don’t share their failures, it could create a kind of bad reputation for them, in a way it could discredit them.
I am on the side of the bloggers who share their failures, I like to be honest with my readers and to give honest reviews about the programs I have tried.
Being honest with your readers will give you more credibility when you share a network with them.
Mr. Javo’s last blog post..By: Blog for Beginners
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August 19th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I think my biggest failure would be my blog altogether. I had the wonderful idea of tracking my journey to online riches, good or bad, in this blog to prove to other people that they too could make money online. Problem is I didn’t know how to get people to my blog. I put google adsense on there so I couldn’t put it in the traffic exchanges like I was used to. I did put it on my social site, MyLot, but only a few people actually used the link to read it. I started thinking that I was a failure myself, because I couldn’t get a single soul to read my blog.
I think this is a wonderful idea, letting people know about your failures instead of just your successes, this way people have a realistic view of what happens in online business, that its not either all peaches and cream or complete failure.
I’m revamping my efforts now with my blog, I took adsense off of there, and wrote some new material. I also am going around and trying to get linkbacks to my blog, and I am working with sezwho. Hopefully I will be able to realize some success this time, which me luck!!!
drknlvly6781’s last blog post..Yes, I’m back… To stay this time
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August 21st, 2008 at 2:38 am
[...] was reading a post over at TUK today where he was talking about a recent failure he had. I decided to post my making money online [...]
August 21st, 2008 at 12:34 pm
All this talk about failure made me want to post about success. Reverse encouragement!
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September 11th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Personally I think they should disclose it so that other people don’t make same mistake again in future
SEO Tricks’s last blog post..Namecheap September 2008 Coupon
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