I tend to agree with Rob on many of his points, and will add that although a college degree is not necessary to be a success, it definitely opens doors that would normally be closed in the brick and mortar world, especially in the world of programming and software development. I know this first hand, as I teach at the university level in web engineering and web development. But that said, that has nothing to do with working on line.
I know many successful people who work strictly online, that do not have degrees, or for that matter any formal education past high school.
Working online takes a special set of skills that many people do not have, even though they may fool themselves into believing they do. Lets look at a few of the important ones, it may surprise you to realize that many of them have very little to do with actual product knowledge.
1. Persistence - understanding that you are probably not the that one in a million person that will be successful on their first attempt is good starting point. Find a topic that you are interested in and experiment with different types of landing page designs, presentations, give a ways, etc, and build a your mailing list. Use multiple types of pages and designs to find which ones are most successful. This will take time but everyday you will build more knowledge as to what works and what does not for your particular audience for your particular product.
2. Dedicate Time - work with your products, blogs, articles, tutorials, everyday. Regardless of what type of products or information you are relaying work with it daily, this does not mean that you have to add new products everyday, it does mean to add to your knowledge everyday, constantly build your skill set. Read articles, write articles, become a member of groups and organizations that work with your type of products, get your name out their, become known in that niche. Again this takes time but is well worth the effort.
3. Accept that there will be failure - Know going in that you are going to fail at some aspects of what you are trying to do. That is life, shit happens. When you are working with your site or presentation of your products understand that one size does not fit all. You have people that will be very critical of what you are doing that tend to think they know everything about your product. Weigh their comments and criticisms constructively. Take the information that you have been provided peel out the information that can help you succeed and discard the rest. Do not take it personal.
4. Know your audience - constantly build your knowledge on the type of people that are interested in your product. Understanding your audience and targeting that audience will really help you build that contact list that will lead to increased sales in the product that you are developing.
5. Set goals - Don't go in to this blind. Set realistic goals that you want to achieve. I have been using goals for many years in many of the things that I do. I set them for weekly, monthly, 60 day and 90 day goals. I tend to keep them limited to 90 days as normally circumstances will change long term goals based on the how the short term goals have gone. Many years ago, while working as a Director for a Fortune 50 Company, I developed what was called S.M.A.R.T. goals, for the organization. It has really taken off and are used by many companies today. S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely. If you keep your goals written down, and they qualify under the SMART goal process, that will keep you on track and help you achieve your end goal.
One thing I would like to point out. Working with the CMS's that you have discussed is a very over saturated market. There are many organizations, and individuals that are working that niche. Also if you do some research you will find that people and organizations are moving away from CMS systems due to security and configuration issues. With all the concerns on data security the bigger CMS systems have not been able to keep up with the security changes needed to keep their systems secure. Just something to think about, as you begin your journey.
There is so much more that I would like to say but time is limited. Good luck with your journey, and let me know if there is anything I can help you with.
