I have to be completely honest with you – if you’re just starting out with no cash flow that you can tap into…how often you get paid is extremely important to the success of your Internet business.When I first started out, I didn’t understand this concept. I didn’t have much seed capital. Heck, I didn’t have much capital to buy a pack of seeds. However, I had drive, determination, and all that. I had a sort of business plan – my plan was to make money writing content-rich sites. That was it.

Since I didn’t have a whole lot of money to invest in the process, I just worked my fanny off and put significant chunks of money into creating those websites. In essence, I basically was living from project to project so that I could create my IM business.

I would complete a freelance project, receive payment via PayPal, and spend the money right away. I would then repeat the process when I needed money to pay my designer to build another site. This was a stressful way to operate and was depressing because it took me a long while to ever see any of that money manifest.

I mean, it took me three months to even see an AdSense check, and that was for $100. The brainstorm came when I didn’t have any money to purchase my daughter a present for a friend, because it was “invested in my new sites.” Oops.

At that moment, I realized that I had to diversify my efforts and stop relying on this shaky method. I had to have a different plan of attack.

I needed IM projects that paid short, middle, and long term. This way, I would stay motivated but I didn’t have to always tap into my freelance income right away. I wouldn’t be living project to project. I wouldn’t need my clients to fund my business because my business could fund itself.

Let me explain a bit further. I still put effort into building content-rich sites; however, I now use the money obtained from the sale of my eBooks (short term) and affiliate checks to pay my designers and meet my immediate needs.

Then, when I choose I can use the money in my IM fund (every month I transfer 30% of my income into a separate checking account) for any other ideas. Like the purchase of a website to flip, master resale books for my membership site, whatever. This new plan is less stressful and more motivating.

Therefore, I strongly suggest that you combine this innovate approach to your IM business, too. Make sure that you get paid short, middle, and long term. Short-term options are freelancing, selling PLR, MRR, or your own articles or reports, eBooks, client membership fees, etc. Middle term includes affiliate programs that pay every two weeks, and long-term payments include places like AdSense and Kontera that pay monthly.

With this methodology, you’ll have different revenue streams that pay at different times and you’ll be focused, motivated, and less stressed out, just like me.

I have to be honest with you. I had been attempting the whole Internet Marketing thing for about a year before I really started seeing any results from my efforts. It wasn’t that I didn’t try to achieve greatness. It’s just that I kept being pulled in so many directions that I didn’t know where to turn.

Every single day, I was bombarded with all sorts of messages from this guru and that one. The more I signed up for “free offers,” the more I received ones that required money. Just about everyone seemed to achieve success but me.This person kept touting this product and this one kept saying, “No, you need this one.”

As a newbie Internet Marketer, I kept right on buying eBooks and courses looking for the newest and best thing that would make me the next internet millionaire.I would then get all excited, read the book, try it out half-heartedly, lose interest and move on to the next thing. The result? I was spinning my wheels getting nowhere fast. After a year, I had accumulated about $4000 in debt from all my reading material and was startng to think that Internet Marketing was a total waste of time. Then, by divine intervention, I found the book by Dennis Becker called 5 bucks a day, which changed my life.

This book was exactly what I needed. It was about focusing on small monetary goals (like 5 bucks a day) and putting all one’s focus into that one thing. Then, once that one was done, I could move on to the next.

With hard work and focus, this would inevitably grow into huge financial gains. In addition, this book taught me the importance of setting goals, doing what needs to be done, and getting it done NOW.

It also gave me lifetime access to a great forum where other struggling newbies were trying to make their first dollars. The great thing is that Dennis wrote from the perspective of someone who had been where I was. It was like with every word, he was talking to and directing me.

I highly recommend 5 Bucks a Day to newbies and experienced IMers. If money is tight, you can purchase the book only, but I have found the most benefit in the book and the forum combined.

About a week ago, I received a notice from a prospect that was referred from another client. This lady wanted to retain my services for a small “test project” in which I was asked to write two short articles of 500 words each for her newsletter.From the very beginning, I had a bad feeling that this client was going to be a royal pain in the rump. First of all, she was super cheap and kept complaining about my price of $50 an article. Then, she told me that she had previously hired another writer and had to rewrite all of her stuff because she honestly didn’t feel as if they were able to write to her standards.I listened intently, but had an uneasy feeling. I then told her my payment terms of 100% upfront (sometimes I offer 50% down and 50% upon completion but not when my intuition tells me otherwise). Well, she accepted. I was still hesitant because she was a friend of one of my favorite clients, but I committed myself to doing a great job.

Big mistake. My initial intuition was right. Not only was this client unclear about what she wanted, she complained the whole time. Two short articles turned into four once she didn’t approve of the first two. Then, to make matters even worse, she still wasn’t pleased with the revised articles.

Now, here’s the kicker. This client didn’t even have the audacity to tell me herself. Instead, she waited an entire week and then asked her “assistant” to email me. Her assistant then wrote telling me that she would no longer be utilizing my services but that I could keep ½ the payment. I couldn’t believe it. No note from her, no chance to redeem myself or even resolve the issue. Nothing but a note from her administrative assistant.

Anyway, I did what any rational person would do, I had my assistant write her a letter. I told her that I would be sending her a complete refund as I don’t accept

partial payments when clients are not happy with my work. I then explained that I wished her the best of luck in future endeavors and would keep the work and publish it as my own.

Next, I edited it and submitted the work to Associated Content, spun it and sent it to Ezine Articles, and you know what? I am very happy with myself. After all, I spent my precious time and energy on this lady’s project and the articles were darn good.

In essence, I made lemonade out of lemons and feel good that I didn’t have to sacrifice my principles for money. Thank you, Internet Marketing, for this. A year ago, I would have sold my dignity for $50.00 – now I know the value of my work and will use the work to my benefit.

So, I’ve been a member of Elance for over nine years now, and I typically receive my payments via electronic deposit. I stopped receiving them via check a long time ago because it took too long and I was always scared it would get lost.Anyhow, I recently noticed that I could apply for a debit card and decided to try it out.

Apparently Elance, through their partnership with Payoneer, now offers members the option of receiving their money through a paid debit card.It took about three weeks to get approved for the debit card, and I received it about a week after getting approved. The card was blue and had a fancy Elance logo.

It was pretty cool to see my name with Elance next to it. For a moment I imagined that I owned Elance and was a millionaire, and then I imagined that I was a corporate partner or an employee of Elance with corporate privileges. Heck, a girl can dream, can’t she?

Here’s what I found: Elance’s debit card deposit isn’t instant. In fact, it may be slower than bank deposits. Heck, it seemed to take longer for the money to credit Payoneer after Elance sends it to them. The delay is caused because you have to wait for Elance to send the money to Payoneer, then you have to go to Payoneer and release it to your Payoneer account. It then takes two to three days for the money to post there. This costs $1.50 extra that is debited from your account.

The only way to avoid this extra step is to make the release at Payoneer immediate. You’re then charged $4.50 every time, and the money is available within two hours.So, here’s what I think…the Payoneer Elance card is NOT faster than bank deposit and costs you more money, but I still like it for my IM business.

Here’s why: I use it to budget my IM costs. You see, every month, I set aside 30% of my freelance income to build my IM business. Therefore, I transfer 30% from Elance to Payoneer and then use the Elance Payoneer card to cover my IM costs. This way, I never go over my budget. I then transfer the remaining freelance funds for spending purposes. This method works for me and keeps me from overspending!

Just about every single day you hear Internet Marketers commenting on the importance of choosing the best niche and how you’ll fail if you don’t pick the right one. Some of them advocate picking a niche based on one’s passion, whereas others advocate picking a niche based on the ability to make a profit. My belief is that you should do a little of both. Here’s why.

To me, it makes absolutely no sense to spend all your time writing content for a niche that you hate and it also makes no sense to write content for a site that won’t make you any money. Either way, you simply won’t get it done and will simply procrastinate because you’ll end up losing interest.

As for me, I’ve learned to only choose to make or purchase sites in niches that I have an interest in. When I make a niche site, I choose niches that interest me and are “hot.” I do this by visiting my local newspaper stand, eBay pulse, Amazon, Yahoo answers, or google.com/trends and then using Niche Inspector and Wordtracker. If you want to use a free tool, use http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com.

Next, I input my prospective niches and find about 100 keywords and put them into an Excel spreadsheet. Then, I perform a detailed comparison where I look for keywords with 300,000+ or fewer competing sites and ones that get searched at least 500 times a month. Next, I go to Google and make sure there are at least 7–10 advertisers (as displayed in Google). Then, I head over to namecheap.com and make sure that the primary keyword is available as a domain name. For instance, if I was building a site on dog training for smarties, I would choose www.dogtrainingforsmarties.com.

Last but not least, I make sure that my prospective niche can be monetized in several ways. For instance, I look for complimentary affiliate products, eBooks, or books by visiting Commission Junction, Amazon, Clickbank, PayDotcom, etc. Then, once the niche meets my specifications, I go for it. I then build five pages of solid content, submit five articles to the article directories, and, if it looks like a winner, I go all out by creating more articles, social bookmarking it, etc.

In all, picking a profitable niche isn’t brain science, folks. Just choose a niche that interests you and is profitable and get her done. You can’t make money if you don’t get started. Just like anything, you’ll have some winners and you’ll have some losers. The key to success is to get and stay in the game and keep chugging along with a process that works.

Now get on out there and build those profitable niche sites.