After punching in all the figures from my affiliate cheques into the calculator, I pressed “=” and the number on the screen shocked me.

“Huh?”

I reset my calculator, punched in the numbers again, pressed “=” and waited with bated breath…

“103,789.85″

I rubbed my eyes so hard they turned bright red…

“Dude!”

I mean, sure I knew I had a streak of great months but there were a couple of lousy ones as well… So the 8 numbers on my calculator screen came as a pleasant surprise indeed.

Now of course, such things only happen in dreams or to “lucky” people, right?

NOPE…

The following affiliate cheques show that it’s not a dream.

S$11,751.04 cheque from Commission Junction (Jan 2009)

US$2,455.56 cheque from Clickbank (Jan 2009)

S$9,817.83 cheque from Commission Junction (Feb 2009)

S$10,912.26 cheque from Commission Junction (Mar 2009)

S$11,722.99 cheque from Commission Junction (Apr 2009)

US$1,026.20 cheque from Amazon (Apr 2009)

S$12,332.47 cheque from Commission Junction (May 2009)

S$8,238.46 cheque from Commission Junction (Jun 2009)

S$15,710.43 cheque from Commission Junction (Jul 2009)

(… and so on and so forth… )

And those who know me personally know that I’m just a regular everyday normal guy…

In fact I’ve never had any luck with the lottery or lucky draws and the only prize I’ve ever won in a contest was a pen… when I was like 11 or something.

And that’s the beauty of the internet and why I love it so much – It doesn’t discriminate.

Anyone with the burning desire and motivation to succeed can get started making good money online.

All right… now that we’ve dispelled those common limiting beliefs, let’s get down to what I did to make IT happen, shall we?

1) I worked on my mindset first

95% of newbies fail online.

Now, that’s only a conservative estimate… some have put the number closer to 99% but I choose to be an optimist.

While there are tons of reasons why many new internet businesses fail, generally we can attribute it to a mindset problem.

Knowing this to be true, I started investing heavily in courses/seminars to work on my mindset (plus knowledge and skills), as soon as I left my job in end May 2007.

Suffice to say, transitioning from an employee to an entrepreneur requires a complete paradigm shift.

Here, I’ve identified 10 Success Principles that helped with my transition.

2) I took massive action

Of course, going to seminars and courses alone is not enough.

Many people think that just because they have paid $5,000 (or some other insane amount of money) to attend a seminar that they are set for life…

*Poof*

The cheques are going to come flying in faster than you can count them… and your life is going to instantly become better…

*Pop*

I’m sorry to burst your bubble… but it just doesn’t happen that way.

And if you think that, then you will end up like all those people out there jumping from one seminar/course/product to another, looking for that “magic pill” to change their lives (you know who you are!)

I was like that once…

Until I learned that For things to change, I must change first.

And massive change requires massive action…

3) I got into niches I’m passionate about

I bought hosting and a ton of domain names and started wordpress blogs on my own domains.

I started documenting my thoughts about what I learned from books, ebooks, seminars, courses, audio and video programs, coaching sessions and personal observations primarily on my personal development blog and gradually built up a sizable reader base.

I also spent a ton of money on google adwords to to bring in traffic as well as to research good, profitable products that would enhance my readers’ lives.

Along the way…

4) I became an expert

By freely sharing what I learned… what I know… and introducing great authors/speakers/mentors and quality, life-changing products to my readers, I established credibility and trust.

Of course, I was experiencing positive changes (especially when it comes to wealth manifestation) that were visible to everyone as well.

That helped build up my authority.

Soon, publishers, marketing/book agents, authors and speakers started emailing me to send me their products and to talk about Joint Venture (JV) opportunities.

The most common question I got from them was “How big is your list?”

Frankly, up till the middle of 2008, I had no list at all… Sure I had readers but honestly, I didn’t have a clue who they were or how I could stay in touch with them… other than praying and waiting for them to re-visit my blogs and leave a comment.

And since everyone that was emailing me was asking about “the size of my list“…

5) I started building my mailing lists and delivered massive value

I went to AWeber and signed up for an autoresponder account. The step by step instructions were great and I got my first list set up pretty quickly.

The challenge then was to get people to sign up.

So I had to create an irresistible offer.

I put together an incredible resource – 101 powerful affirmations – and gave it away for FREE.

Then I took my best blog articles and loaded them into my autoresponder so that my subscribers will continue to receive quality emails on a regular basis.

Occasionally, I’ll send out a couple of promotions… but I’m pretty selective about that because I want only the best for my subscribers.

And to drive traffic to my squeeze pages/websites, I buy ads on google as well as tie up with JV partners.

Now, someone once asked me… “How did you build a email list of over 5,000 subscribers?”

My reply was and still is: “One subscriber at a time…” (no magic pill ya?)

6) I sit back, relax and wait for the cheques to come in

Once the system is in place… as long as my google ads are running smoothly, my websites are up (that’s why you need a reliable web host), my autoresponders are working properly (…and a trusted email marketing software provider)…

I’m pretty much free to do whatever I want.

And that explains why I can seemingly “do nothing”, travel around the world, party everyday… and still get cheques in my mail.

Well now you know…

Of course, this is the really simplified version of how I made S$103,789.85 in pure internet revenue from affiliate marketing in 2009.

I conveniently left out the part where I spent the first 7 months of my life, after quitting my job, testing everything out with no success, tearing my hair out while friends and family members kept telling me I was wasting my time and to just give up and move on… and all the time, effort and money to figure this sh*t out… because you aren’t here to hear that, are you?

=)

To the good life…

P.S. This is the part where I ask you to subscribe to my internet marketing blog if you want to learn more about internet marketing and making money online…

… and my FREE personal development email newsletter for practical tips and inspiration to help with your mindset shift…

P.P.S. Feel free to leave a comment…

Hi, Shun-Jian here.

So, I started this internet marketing blog because a lot of people know about the success I’ve enjoyed online and have approached me to ask different questions on internet marketing and making money online.

Instead of answering them one by one, I thought it would be a good idea to collect your questions as comments on this blog entry and answer them (in days to come) on this blog so that more people can benefit at the same time.

Now what I need you to do is to help me help you.

Please tell me by leaving a comment at the end of this blog entry:

“What do you want to know about Internet Marketing and Making Money Online?”

It would help tremendously if you can phrase your question(s) as specifically as possible because questions like “How do you make money online?“, for example, are too broad to be answered meaningfully.

So, what’re you waiting for?

This is a rare opportunity for you to ask me your most burning questions on internet marketing…

Seize it and fire away!

P.S. If you know anyone who’s struggling with internet marketing and can benefit from this, feel free to direct them here by sharing this blog post with them!