Want to Make Money Online? Then Stop Reading and Get Moving!

This guest post is by Danny Iny of Firepole Marketing.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post here at problogger.net about how Firepole Marketing makes money.

I explained that even though we’re less than a year old, we’ve already made over $20,000, and that over half of that came from offline sources.

We wanted to know how other bloggers make their money. Is it all online, or do they make their money offline as well?

In other words, we wanted to know if they were Semi-Local.

In October 2011, we surveyed 153 people; 107 who were already Semi-Local, and 46 who aspired to be. We asked a number of questions to find out what was really involved in becoming and being Semi-Local. Here are the highlights of what we learned.

How many hours per week do you work?

The first major finding was about how many hours per week people who were already Semi-Local (current SLs) spent working, versus how many hours per week people who aspired to be Semi-Local (aspiring SLs) spent working:

Notice the discrepancies on either end of the spectrum: 31% of aspiring SLs work less than 20 hours per week, versus only 12% of current SLs. On the other hand, only 15% of aspiring SLs work 50+ hours per week, versus 28% of current SLs.

Do you think people are idealizing the Semi-Local life, and expecting it to be a lot easier than it really is?

What is your take-home income?

Another interesting finding was about take-home income:

There’s definitely more money in being Semi-Local: 39% of current SLs make over $60K/year, versus only 22% of aspiring SLs. The majority (60%) of aspiring SLs make between $20K and $60K/year, whereas the majority (60%) of current SLs make between $40K and $200K/year—a big difference!

There’s some interesting data at the edges of the spectrum, though. 25% of current SLs make under $20K/year, versus only 18% of aspiring SLs, and only 2% of current SLs make over $200K/year, versus 4% of aspiring SLs.

How does one become Semi-Local?

One of the most interesting findings (to me, at least) was about how people actually go about becoming Semi-Local:

The majority (71%) of aspiring SLs expect to achieve Semi-Local status by creating an offer that is substantially different from their current offer. In contrast, the majority (60%) of current SLs did it by selling exactly the same offer to a new market.

The lesson here is pretty clear—put away all of the shiny objects, and look for new customers to buy what you’ve already got!

How long does it take to launch?

This is one of the top questions for anyone who’s thinking about becoming Semi-Local: how long does it take to launch?

There are really two “categories” of results here: the first category is “under 100 hours,” and the second category is “100+ hours.” Seeing the results in these two categories, we can draw a couple of interesting conclusions:

• Current SLs have a stronger preference for smaller projects as a means of getting going (76% of current SLs, versus 70% of aspiring SLs).
• Current SLs took a lot less time to launch than aspiring SLs expect it will take (46% launched in under 40 hours, versus 34% who believe they can do it in such a short time).

Do you need professional help?

That’s the question that we should all be asking before opening up our wallets for the latest training program on blogging and online business:

This is the most striking finding: 63% of current SLs said “no,” versus only 43% of aspiring SLs. The message here is very clear: you don’t need training, you just need to get off your butt and start working!

Do you want to see more of the numbers? Review more of the answers that the respondents gave us? Then download the full report—it’s free!

Danny Iny (@DannyIny) is an author, strategist, serial entrepreneur, expert marketer, and the Freddy Krueger of Blogging. Together with Guy Kawasaki, Brian Clark, Mitch Joel, he wrote the book on how to build an engaged audience from scratch.