I have been living in a number of countries over the years ( i am 27yrs old and originally from the UK ). I have lived in Spain for 3 years and will probably be returning there around July 2013. I am currently in Sydney but before i set off back to Spain I will be travelling through Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, India, UK (need to visit parents) and then finally Spain. As well as these being really amazing places to visit there is also another reason why I am going to these countries. I intend on making this long trip possible financially by earning money online but after months of research i feel there is a need for somebody to tell some truths about the whole thing.
So.. I have read post after post online and rented a few books on "Passive Income Streams", "Earning your Money Online", "How you Live Abroad and Earn your Money while you Sleep" and there are so many lies, exaggerations, lots of "get motivated" speals which very quickly just turn into self help ramblings.
You see the people publishing these ramblings know that a high percentage of people looking for "passive incomes" on google are the people who either hate their job, hate their life's or are looking for a way out.. and the books / blogs / posts / DVDs / Seminars about earning passive income is a very good way of attracting those people and selling them worthless products.
Then the books / DVDs that people buy are full of self help nonsense telling people things like "get out of bed and follow your dreams" with very little actual helpful information. Then two years later, when the buyer hasn't made their millions as promised, they will feel down and blame themselves for not being motivated enough. Maybe they will go and buy another self help book to make them feel better.
But..
Amongst all the people buying into the idea of getting rich quick is people like me. People that actually just want the information, statistics and facts about methods that have worked. If there is a chance of just making 5 euros per day that is constant and doesn't take much work then why not?
They must know some useful information, they seem to market themselves well enough. I don't really want to hear comments such as "you have to get off your a$$ to make things happen in life". This is not valuable information. I want to hear which are the best websites to market my product, is it worth constantly changing the words in my website on an attempt to rank slightly higher on page 5 of the google search? Is the whole 'passive income online' a scam to drive people to buy books on passive income when the only people making any money is the people selling the books? - and this is not even passive income when you see the amount of work they have to do when promoting their books with seminars, weekly youtube videos, new blog posts everyday. It all seems very desperate and greedy and like a new age pyramid scheme which should be just as illegal.
So on the off chance that I am wrong.. I did take their advise - I got off my a$$, and went to a seminar on "internet marketing and passive income streams". I went in with my girlfriend and our friend we had met in Spain. We all tried to go in with an open mind but also remembering to hold on to our common sense as we entered a room possibly full of manipulation and practised persuasive techniques.
The seminar went on for over three hours. We had this larger than life American guy, who was on stage, telling us all how much money he makes while he sleeps etc etc. As expected, the majority of the seminar was just him trying exciting the crowd, getting people motivated by shouting things and encouraging them to go on stage. It seemed to work and the crowd were all enthusiastic about all this money we were all about to make. (It felt more like one of the religious events you get in America where they are healing people on stage as opposed to a seminar on marketing). He was flicking through his slides so fast it was hard to write things down, but we did manage to get some interesting points and some useful tools that websites offer that I wasn't previously familiar with.
We had to leave early as, towards the end, he started selling his product which he was offering for a repeatedly discounted figure throughout the show that ended up being down from $7900 to $3000. A product that just built websites for you so you don't have to do it yourself. It was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen and the fact that he was offering a free “goodie bag” to go with it only enhanced my belief of how worthless this product actually was. Before I left, I saw at least 50 people had already stood up and gone to him to sign up! We made our excuses and quickly left the building.
I must leave my first post there as I really just wanted to make people aware of the scams that are out there and how manipulative some of these people are. As they are telling you how easy it is to make money and market something and they are selling you the idea more and more, they are marketing to YOU. YOU are their customers and probably their only true income in some cases.
Like i have said i did manage to take a few interesting points, a few things he slipped out seemed like good information and before I leave in two months to go on my journey through Asia and back to Spain, I am going to put some of the information to test and hopefully I can make money while traveling with the intention of not paying a penny for the whole trip. I want to share with people as I go along and i will post up information and can tell you straight up what is working, what is not working, how much I am making, or how much i have lost. Then we'll know. Obviously I have saved up a little bit so hopefully I won't get stranded somewhere with no food! Even if I just make 1000 euros in 6 months at least it means I have some flights paid for. Anyway, for those who did, thanks for reading. Enjoy the rest of your day!
Exactly what Im talking about...