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The short answer is, “No.”  You can effectively launch an Internet marketing career without a single dime.  All you need is a computer and an Internet connection, which does cost money, but we’re assuming you have those two components already.

Many a marketer has gotten his or her start as an affiliate marketer.  Aside from shuffling around in your attic to find something you can sell for a profit on eBay, affiliate marketing is your best bet for a zero-dollar start-up business in the Internet marketing industry.

All you need is a free ID that you can get on PayDotCom, Amazon, Commission Junction, LinkShare, or ClickBank (to name a few), and the ability to learn about free traffic sites and you can begin generating an affiliate income without investing a penny of your own money.

That said, it’s best if you save a few dollars here and there to invest in some tools that are going to make your Internet marketing efforts a whole lot easier.  For instance, you could sit around and brainstorm for five days to get a list of keywords – or, pay for a one-day subscription to WordTracker and harvest thousands of keywords in less than an hour.

You could also use nothing but web 2.0 social sites that are free, such as MySpace or Squidoo, to host your content and affiliate links.  Or, you could pony up the $9.95 one-time fee for a domain name and $6.95 a month for hosting and have your own business presence on the ‘net.

You can also spend days and weeks searching for information about how to do a task that will help you make money as an Internet marketer – such as how to master pay per click advertising.

Or, you can invest in a step-by-step guide t shorten your learning curve.  What most marketers suggest is to take a look at your budget and see what you have to invest.  If you have to start out with nothing, go for it – but set aside a few of your profits to pour back into your online efforts.

Everything you’ll invest in is built to ease your workload and hasten the procedures, so your income will increase faster and with less input from you as you learn to wield these tools in your favor.

There’s no PhD you can strive for to be in the Internet marketing industry. You have to learn as you go – on your own – soaking up information along the way.  The first thing you need to know is what it means to be an Internet marketer, because it isn’t always clear to everyone

Let’s start with what Internet marketing is not.  It’s not being a con artist. It’s not being a spam king.  It doesn’t just mean selling on eBay or having your own website and products.

In reality, Internet marketers can pick and choose from a whole host of options available to help them make money.  Your opportunities are virtually endless, and include one or more of the following:

Selling digital downloads (information products like eBooks)

• Promoting other people’s products for a commission (affiliate marketing)
• Selling on eBay or other auction sites
• Running a membership site
• Selling your online services (writing, graphics, etc.)
• Owning a website that sells dropshipped or wholesale items

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Being a newcomer to Internet marketing, you might be worried that you don’t have anything to sell.  That’s okay – most people don’t start out with anything, and you never have t stock a tangible inventory if you don’t want to.

Internet marketing creates no gender or age boundaries for you.  There are teenagers who have launched multi-million dollar companies as budding Internet marketers whose ideas sprung to life and catapulted them to instant success.

You don’t have to do anything unethical or shady to succeed at Internet marketing, and in fact, launching a respectable business with a solid reputation is the secret ingredient that will allow you to hatch an empire on the ‘net to fulfill all of your dreams and those of your family.

Before you get started in this industry, you have to analyze your own mindset to see if you have what it takes to be an online entrepreneur from conception to fully-functional success operation.  It’s not enough to say you want to make money or be your own boss.

Everyone wants those things, but not everyone can achieve those goals.  It takes a special person.  You don’t have to be a workaholic or be willing to engage in questionable marketing tactics.  You just need to have a few characteristics that are common to most successful Internet marketers.

This industry requires deep commitment.  If you’re the type to change jobs with your moods, then stick to a 9-5 gig.  You’re building a business and it takes time, effort, and tweaking to make it work.

Perseverance and a positive attitude can make or break an entrepreneur.  You’re going to have down times. Every marketer does. Something will go wrong – whether it’s a freelancer who didn’t deliver on time and threw off your launch date or a JV partnership that fell through. If you panic and shut down, you’ll tarnish your reputation as a true professional.

The great Internet marketers don’t fly by the seat of their pants. They believe in being meticulous planners.  They make schedules and plans for their day, week, month, year, and even further down the road.

They plan every step of a launch before the product development even begins.  They plan every single detail they can think of.  The more meticulous you are with your plans, the fewer things there are that might go wrong.

To become an authority in your niche, you need to exude confidence.  Even if you’re worried, anxious, or unsure of yourself, what you project must be that you have it all together – you can’t be paralyzed by fear.

Are you willing to be a student for life?  No successful marketer gets to the top and stops learning this industry.  That only means you’ll eventually become the prey of another hungry marketer who’s stayed on the ball with up-to-the-minute solutions and practices in your niche so that they can become king of the mountain when you let your guard down.

You have to know how to get from point A to point B on your journey to achieving financial independence.  Do you know what you’ll say when your in-laws or spouse questions your “career?”  If you’re a fearless marketer, the inquisition won’t bother you a bit.

If you aren’t sure how to develop a blueprint for your success, don’t know how to set and achieve goals, or have a mindset that’s not in sync with that of victory, then work on those things before you quit your day job and set off on this voyage.  You want to be mentally prepared for the ups and downs along the way.