To listen twice as much as I speak.
Still haven't mastered that but I'm much better :)

I learned the truth; There is no spoon.

http://www.fakesteve.net/wp-content/...uoteSpoon.jpeg

Great thread. Here's one.
Sometimes you'll be really good at doing things that you don't necessarily want to be good at doing and sometimes you won't be good at doing things that you want to be good at doing.

i learned through the launch of JoshGirls that i did not take the proper steps to learn the skills needed to create & sell a program. I created the site due to my love for the content i created. Nobody else is doing it.

But i should have learned to be an affiliate first, learn the techniques to generate traffic & sales. Then i should have obtained customer feedback to tailor my content to what customers want to see. Then i should have built a clip store. If i found some success there, upgrade to a paysite.

I hold out hope that i can build off what i have created, but i need to invest far far far more work in marketing. My marketing program is a complete disaster.

That speaks volumes, seriously :thumbsup

That drinking too much, is neither big, nor clever...

Fun? Hell yeah, but not a good idea in general

Serious answer:

If you are going to sign ANY legal document, make sure you read it IN FULL before you sign it...

If you dont understand it 100% DONT sign it until an independent person has read it for you, and explained it fully...

Even then, STILL read what you are signing, incase anything has been changed.

Agreed.

I quit my advertising job and went through a phase where I would either be freelancing at the advertising company I had previously worked, or working full time in real estate sales. I always had a good salary in advertising, but was never able to save anything because NYC is expensive and I lived beyond my means. During the months of only doing real estate. there were times when it would be kind of tough because money would come infrequently. In big chunks, but infrequently nonetheless which made it kind of difficult. Not only from just a 'paying for essentials' standpoint, but because it required money to play the part and go after the clients I wanted.

After doing that juggling act for a while, there was finally an instance where a medium sized chunk of money came during the middle of a freelance assignment, which meant that I didn't NEED the money. At the same time, there were two back-to-back investments that sound as if they'd be high risk, but were absolute nobrainers (first buying DNDN and then shorting GM), so I pretty much went all in and it worked out. Then I shifted to a low risk strategy and am now able to either pay myself or reinvest approximately 1.5% of that money every month.

So, I guess the lesson to be learned is that sometimes the timing of opportunities will completely suck and sometimes they won't. Sometimes you can afford to take risk and sometimes you can't.

Case in point. After doing my site for a year and working really, really hard and learning a ton, there's a pretty good chance I may end up going back to do something similar to what I had done before at the end of the summer. Knowing that gives me the ability to take more risk in decisions involved with operating the site and whatnot. Etc, etc. :thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

A - Fucking - men

........

Here's what I have learned:

* Trust nobody at first. Feel people out for a good year to five years.

* Be sure to delegate some time to choke your competition- because given the chance, they too would do the same. Examples would be: bad-mouthing them, reporting them (in certain situations) and generally making things harder for them (just make sure you do it smartly).

* Don't spend all your earnings. Save some, invest some.

* Too much reading is wasted time, experience is better.

* Fail. Fail. Fail.

* Engage your users, make them feel special, make them loyal. USE them to promote you, even if that means you have to go one on one with every user you have, persuade them to promote you.

Recently? Not to chaturbate ...

There's some good stuff here.

Constant improvement is key, so don't ready on you laurels.

To tie up somethings others have said:
To make real money and keep making real money, you have to find some good people you can trust. Otherwise, you're just earning a wage, not ruining a business. You can't trust just anybody, though, so find the people who are absolutely faithful in the small things and they will be faithful in the big things as well.

I easily l lost a million dollars in sales by doing everything myself for way too long.

Act with crazy amounts of integrity, never taking a nickle that isn't yours, and the trustworthy people will treat you the same way.

[QUOTE=baddog;17808233]I you should not be afraid to hire professionals. QUOTE]

yes, and believe in yourself.

well it's looks like you are complete scum. thanks for the warning :thumbsup