As someone who works on his laptop, and online, checking out a book like The Laptop Millionaire and doing a review on it was interesting to me.
Here’s some of the things I was looking for:
- Could it teach me anything new?
- And could it teach someone looking to work online to become a success story?
This is what I will discuss in this Laptop Millionaire review:
As someone whose been in this business for over 14 years (about me), I’m here to tell you, there is a lot of truth inside Mark Anastasi’s book (author of Laptop Millionaire) and at the same time a lot of hype to it so, if you’re someone whose considering trying this business, let me filter out the good things that are in the book and also give you a realistic expectation of what may happen should you decide to try Mark’s advice…
Firstly, Mark makes a lot of good points in his book about the big picture, which is the fact that internet marketing (IM) is a thriving opportunity with limitless earning potential. At the same time, he presents various ways you can get started. Things such as:
- Social marketing
- SEO (Search-engine-optimization).
- Paid advertising.
- Email marketing.
- And more..
To anyone who reads Mark’s book and is new to this whole idea of making money online, you’re likely to experience the initial excitement at the idea of implementing everything you read in the book.
But this is where I’d like to step in and give you the truth behind the facts Mark’s lays down. Because I was also in the beginning very excited when I learned about this business, and then I got into it and learned a lot of hard lessons.
While I eventually succeeded, it didn’t come easy for me and now I coach people who are at the starting point like I was to help them avoid the failures I hit many times.
Here are success stories of people making money via their laptops:
First off, the big picture is real. Internet marketing is a growing industry that is truly recession proof. It is also true that people can become ridiculously rich through it as well. I make a healthy income and know many millionaires and/or those who make a full time income in this business, and they are all internet marketers, who use their laptops to do this.
In fact:
- Here’s some examplee of people who make money online (They are also personal friends of mine).
- And here’s 10 top internet marketers who are truly the top dogs in this business as a whole.
- Then there’s also people who aren’t exactly millionaires but are making good money from their laptops, from home, thanks to a program called Wealthy Affiliate. I have compiled a list of these people into this article on Wealthy Affiliate success stories.
Some “holes” in The Laptop Millionaire:
While it is true that a lot of the methods Mark talks about are realistic approaches to making this happen, there were A LOT of missing pieces to the puzzle.
Let me explain:
You are basically given the big picture in this book and in some sense an “infomercial”. I say this because Mark not only explains how the industry works, but also promotes his own seminars there.
This is completely normal for marketers to do and books like these are ways to advertise to customers for future up-sells. But the price of these seminars ranges in the $1,000’s and in places you’ll likely have to fly out to.
But this is beside the point as I was trying to explain why illustrating the big picture is simply not enough. There are many tiny details to internet marketing you need to understand and Mark’s version of it is great to get you started, but the questions will come fast and there will be MANY of them.
So to give you a detailed explanation of how internet marketing works, I strongly recommend this tutorial as it’s explained very simply.
Now in addition to initial excitement people will feel upon reading this book, a common thought a lot of people may experience is that you can get rich quick through internet marketing. I’m here to tell you this flat out FALSE.
In fact this is the most common emotional plug A LOT of internet marketers and scammers use to get people to buy their overpriced and often times worthless programs (shiny object syndrome).
I’m not saying Mark is one of them, but you need to understand that in order to create the kind of life you want via the internet, you need to understand how to build an online business and in many aspects, it’s like building an offline business.
The only difference is that there’s A LOT less: red tape, paperwork, bureaucracy, expenses. In fact nowadays, you can start an online business for $0, no joke.
There are also some ideas Mark presents in the book which no longer work. Things such as buying emails from social networks and advertising is a bad idea because it’s basically a form of spam marketing, which equates to garbage results in my experience.
Finally the last thing I want to note to everyone who reads this book is the need to have proper guidance on where to go and what to do. What does this mean? Let’s say I were to give you a treasure map, but to find it, you would have to:
- Find a ship.
- Find someone with experience to sail there.
- A treasure hunter (maybe).
- A compass.
- And various other tools to get there.
Where am I going with this? Well the treasure map is analogically the Laptop Millionaire.
It’s already done it’s job in opening up your mind to the idea that you CAN do internet marketing. But without the proper guidance and tools to do it, you’re just stuck with a book and no plan on what to do and where to go.
Yes there are strategies in the book, but unfortunately, as you start trying to learn and implement them, I guarantee questions will come again and again and in order to answer them, you will need to go somewhere to ask. And unfortunately there is A LOT of misinformation and scams on the internet, so likely you’re going to get ripped off or be led astray.
So with that in mind, I will suggest to you the only place where you can get proper guidance which is where I also learned everything I needed to succeed in this industry: Wealthy Affiliate. It is basically a “school” where you learn what I like to call the A-Z of online marketing.
Fortunately unlike Mark’s $1,000+ seminars, this is much less expensive and the information ($0 :)), I will venture to say it better and the reason I say that is because I’ve had many BAD run in’s before with “Gurus” who all promised riches which turned out to be lies.
In the end Mark’s book is a good starting point to help you understand that internet marketing exists and you can take part in it. Some ideas still work while others do not. The big picture remains true. But at the same time without proper guidance, it’s going to be very difficult and expensive to put all those ideas written in the book to use. So I recommend taking advice from someone whose been in it long enough to know what works and what doesn’t.
Believe me I would never wish anyone have to go through the same ordeal I and so many have to go because of a lack of proper guidance. The stress, money/time wasted. It’s just not worth it! With all of this said, if you have any questions, feel free to post them below 🙂
Note: Looking for more great books on internet marketing?
If you like reading books on internet marketing, there are at least 2 other books I recommend that are probably even better than Laptop Millionaire:
10 Pillars of Wealth. It is my top choice.
Silent Sales Machine. This is also another great read on online business and how it can make you money silently.