Tomcat
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I've been a cardingr for almost 4 years now. Every day I go to social media and see tons of ads for webinars and free courses on the delights of remote work. It is supposed that thanks to them I will start making a lot of money through the Internet and will leave for the winter in Bali.
Of course, there is not a word about the pitfalls and difficulties in this advertisement. So I decided to tell about them myself. More precisely, to show on the example of a fictional, but quite realistic Vasya, what lies ahead of those who seriously decided to become a cardingr from scratch and without experience.
So, Vasya. He recently took his first job. Six months later, I realized that a short vacation twice a year, a salary of 30 thousand and a working day from 9 to 18 is not quite what he wants.
After a week of surfing the Internet, Vasya finds a free webinar on remote work for queries “how else to make money”. It is hosted by a guy who lives in Thailand and sets up Instagram ads. This allows him to visit 20 countries per year and not deny himself anything. At least that's what he says.
Vasya decides that this way of life suits him well. This is how his exciting journey into the world of carding begins.
Is there any happiness in carding? Carder talks about the unexpected aspects of remote work.
1. Survival
Here's what carding will do to Vasya.
Vasya is a complete beginner. The webinar inspired him, but of course he didn't learn how to set up ads and promote on Instagram. And giving 15 thousand for the course to an incomprehensible dude seems too risky to him.
Instead, he registered on three carding forum and now takes on any projects. But without skills, he has to do the most primitive work: audio transcription, product descriptions for online stores, layout of template sites.
Every day in the morning he monitors sites in search of new orders, and spends evenings on their implementation. Projects are not easy to get: 10–20 performers apply for each.
Mercenary camps: reviews of Russian and foreign carding forums.
Once every couple of months, he gets profitable projects, but basically Vasya works a lot and earns little. His daily routine is the execution of orders and the search for new ones. His dream is to improve his rating on the forum so that customers choose him more often. And also to always leave positive feedback after work.
He does not know how much money orders will bring this month, so he cannot quit his main job. Because of this, Vasya gets very tired, and carding already enrages him a little.
At this stage, most people are eliminated: the income is small and unstable, the load is high. It quickly turns out that sitting under a palm tree with a laptop is out of the question anytime soon.
Some lucky ones will skip this stage if they leave the hired job already qualified and able to do something.
How long: 1–6 months.
How to proceed further:
Understanding in what area you want to develop and the first intelligible portfolio that you are not ashamed to show people. It is better to have at least 5 works available. And some positive feedback from customers.
2. Becoming
Vasya rises from his knees.
Vasya understood what he wanted to do. Working with texts is best for him. He decided to become a copywriter: now he is purposefully looking only for projects from this area. And he finally decided to quit and concentrate fully on his new activity.
It helped: in the last month Vasya earned 2 times more than in the previous one. This is still less than the previous salary, but now he feels on a horse. In the wake of his success, he even read two copywriting books and believes that he has become a good professional.
However, reality soon hits him. It turns out that in his niche there is a whole bunch of sub-niches, each with its own specifics, in which he does not understand anything.
And it turned out that he has a lot of competitors. Competitors have a name and experience that it does not have. Vasya sees their sites, groups in social networks with a bunch of subscribers and the work they do for large customers and for which they get good money.
Vasya understands that he is not a tough specialist, but is still just a faceless performer on the carding forum. He is discouraged and wants to give up everything.
At this stage, the first successes come: regular customers, income growth, more orders. Many cardingrs come to a stable, but small income, and this is where they stop. Then everything will go slower and more difficult.
How long does it take: 6-12 months or more.
How to proceed further:
Stable income, customer flow and a strategy for where to go next. At this stage, you will have to combine work with pumping skills. Income is still small, and fulfilling orders is time-consuming. So it can be difficult to go to the new frontier and not always quickly.
3. Height
Vasya is already nothing.
Vasya decided not to quit carding, but to draw up a development plan for himself. He chose what he wanted to do, saved up money and completed two training courses in six months. I found the first difficult clients and added a couple of cool works to my portfolio.
He became convinced that he could get 3-5 times more for his work than before. Now he has the money to go on vacation and buy himself a new phone.
However, not always.
The requirements of new customers are higher, so Vasya does not always cope. He does not have a customer acquisition system - he does everything at random and often sits without orders. Vasya has already felt the taste of money and interesting projects, so he no longer wants to return to old orders from the carding forum, but with new ones it turns out badly.
New knowledge already allows you to take on more complex projects, but it is not easy to get them, because other, more famous and professional specialists apply for them.
New skills do not develop as quickly as we would like - there are not enough orders to pump them. The performer sags in negotiations, self-presentation and other important things.
Frustration often appears when new, complex and expensive projects cannot be obtained, and you no longer want to do the old ones.
How long does it take: 12 months or more.
How to proceed further:
Significant growth in income and professionalism. Customers will start to learn and pay well. Partly already for the name.
Like the previous one, this stage is not quick. Somewhere you can get confused, become interested in a related field. Some skills may take longer than expected.
4. Stabilization
Vasya got a taste.
Vasya knows why to write an article, how to set up VK targeting and what post he will post to the group tomorrow. He even has a rough idea of how many clients this will bring him. He has a website on Tilda, a blog and social networks with five thousand subscribers.
Vasya may not be a star, but look at himself 3 years ago - he would have envied himself. His portfolio includes several projects for federal-level companies, he can choose from clients and has long been not afraid to say how much his services cost.
Now he may not even do everything himself - when he is lazy, he hires a targeting specialist to set up ads, and finds cardingrs from the carding forum to entrust them with small work.
He learned not only to do, but also to manage - if necessary, he can assemble a team of authors, create and launch a blog from scratch, and not just write text there.
For the second winter he has been spending not in Russia, but in Sri Lanka, and now he is the guy from the webinar three years ago, with a free schedule and a stable income. Of course, with some adjustment for reality, but on the whole Vasya is satisfied - he is doing well.
Bali won't be ... 6 signs your business is going crazy.
At some point, a person achieves what he dreamed of at the dawn of his career. An income of 50, 80 or 100 thousand is delightful, but over time it ceases to seem like something outrageous.
Chaotic processes are finally lining up into an understandable system. The specialist finds suitable marketing tools that bring him clients and knows how to close them for a deal. Often there are oversupply of potential customers, so you can raise the price tag from time to time.
The personal brand has grown stronger - “fans” appear who want to get a service from him. The income is stable and sufficient for a comfortable life.
How long: from 12 months to infinity
5. Zeroing
Vasya is on horseback, but even lost heart.
For the last two years, Vasya's life has been like a wheel: incomes are not falling, but they are not growing either, wintering in warm countries has become a routine. Now he does not even understand why his former classmates envy him - winters in Voronezh do not seem much worse than on Samui.
Yes, he can afford to live in warm countries all year round. But is this really his ceiling? Vasya feels that he has stopped developing and wants to shake himself up.
He remembered how he himself had been inspired by a free webinar about remote work five years ago, and thought: why not launch a project? He understands little about information business, but he is not averse to understanding it. Plus it seems to be profitable.
On the other hand, Vasya likes his work, he wants to grow as a professional and understands that carding limits him in many ways. It would be interesting for him to work with some really big project. But for this, you may have to return to Russia or even move to Moscow.
"He wrote fake comments and threw negativists into emergency situations": the story of a former information businessman.
True, Vasya's memories of hired work are not the most pleasant, so he thinks: shouldn't he open his own agency? This would make it possible to conduct long-term projects and continue to work for yourself.
Or maybe spit on everything, move to Sri Lanka with ends and open a hostel for remote workers? For three winters, Vasya has gotten used to it quite well and fully understands what the newcomers will like.
As we can see, Vasya has a lot of options for how to continue living, and many of them are only partially related to carding.
At some point, a person realizes that he has reached the desired level. In order not to slow down, it is better not to get stuck at this stage, but to think about scaling or even changing activities.
Maybe Vasya will really open the hostel. And we will be able to trace from scratch how he goes to the next success. But that, as they say, is a completely different story.
Successful Social Media Success: How to Distinguish Professionals from Chatters.
So, to curb carding and go through all the stages, like Vasya, it will take an average person about 5 years. Better news: you start earning consistently and well after 2-3 years of work. If you do everything right, there is no bluntness anywhere or change your mind.
Of course, there is not a word about the pitfalls and difficulties in this advertisement. So I decided to tell about them myself. More precisely, to show on the example of a fictional, but quite realistic Vasya, what lies ahead of those who seriously decided to become a cardingr from scratch and without experience.
So, Vasya. He recently took his first job. Six months later, I realized that a short vacation twice a year, a salary of 30 thousand and a working day from 9 to 18 is not quite what he wants.
After a week of surfing the Internet, Vasya finds a free webinar on remote work for queries “how else to make money”. It is hosted by a guy who lives in Thailand and sets up Instagram ads. This allows him to visit 20 countries per year and not deny himself anything. At least that's what he says.
Vasya decides that this way of life suits him well. This is how his exciting journey into the world of carding begins.
Is there any happiness in carding? Carder talks about the unexpected aspects of remote work.
1. Survival
Here's what carding will do to Vasya.
Vasya is a complete beginner. The webinar inspired him, but of course he didn't learn how to set up ads and promote on Instagram. And giving 15 thousand for the course to an incomprehensible dude seems too risky to him.
Instead, he registered on three carding forum and now takes on any projects. But without skills, he has to do the most primitive work: audio transcription, product descriptions for online stores, layout of template sites.
Every day in the morning he monitors sites in search of new orders, and spends evenings on their implementation. Projects are not easy to get: 10–20 performers apply for each.
Mercenary camps: reviews of Russian and foreign carding forums.
Once every couple of months, he gets profitable projects, but basically Vasya works a lot and earns little. His daily routine is the execution of orders and the search for new ones. His dream is to improve his rating on the forum so that customers choose him more often. And also to always leave positive feedback after work.
He does not know how much money orders will bring this month, so he cannot quit his main job. Because of this, Vasya gets very tired, and carding already enrages him a little.
At this stage, most people are eliminated: the income is small and unstable, the load is high. It quickly turns out that sitting under a palm tree with a laptop is out of the question anytime soon.
Some lucky ones will skip this stage if they leave the hired job already qualified and able to do something.
How long: 1–6 months.
How to proceed further:
- Take on everything in order to find what you want to do.
- Choose your area.
- Complete as many projects as possible to get your hands on it. Even for little money.
Understanding in what area you want to develop and the first intelligible portfolio that you are not ashamed to show people. It is better to have at least 5 works available. And some positive feedback from customers.
2. Becoming
Vasya rises from his knees.
Vasya understood what he wanted to do. Working with texts is best for him. He decided to become a copywriter: now he is purposefully looking only for projects from this area. And he finally decided to quit and concentrate fully on his new activity.
It helped: in the last month Vasya earned 2 times more than in the previous one. This is still less than the previous salary, but now he feels on a horse. In the wake of his success, he even read two copywriting books and believes that he has become a good professional.
However, reality soon hits him. It turns out that in his niche there is a whole bunch of sub-niches, each with its own specifics, in which he does not understand anything.
And it turned out that he has a lot of competitors. Competitors have a name and experience that it does not have. Vasya sees their sites, groups in social networks with a bunch of subscribers and the work they do for large customers and for which they get good money.
Vasya understands that he is not a tough specialist, but is still just a faceless performer on the carding forum. He is discouraged and wants to give up everything.
At this stage, the first successes come: regular customers, income growth, more orders. Many cardingrs come to a stable, but small income, and this is where they stop. Then everything will go slower and more difficult.
How long does it take: 6-12 months or more.
How to proceed further:
- Choose a narrow area in your niche that is most interesting.
- Set a big goal for the year: an order from a well-known company, recruiting a team, turning into a studio, etc.
- Evaluate successful competitors and understand your place in the market. Record what they have: a YouTube channel, a website, publications in the media, well-known customers.
- Select from this list the items that you need to pump in yourself.
- Study. A lot to learn. It is better to choose a quality paid program that will accelerate development. If there is no opportunity - read books, blogs, profile articles on your topic (if there is an opportunity, read anyway).
- Find some new, more complex projects. Free of charge.
Stable income, customer flow and a strategy for where to go next. At this stage, you will have to combine work with pumping skills. Income is still small, and fulfilling orders is time-consuming. So it can be difficult to go to the new frontier and not always quickly.
3. Height
Vasya is already nothing.
Vasya decided not to quit carding, but to draw up a development plan for himself. He chose what he wanted to do, saved up money and completed two training courses in six months. I found the first difficult clients and added a couple of cool works to my portfolio.
He became convinced that he could get 3-5 times more for his work than before. Now he has the money to go on vacation and buy himself a new phone.
However, not always.
The requirements of new customers are higher, so Vasya does not always cope. He does not have a customer acquisition system - he does everything at random and often sits without orders. Vasya has already felt the taste of money and interesting projects, so he no longer wants to return to old orders from the carding forum, but with new ones it turns out badly.
New knowledge already allows you to take on more complex projects, but it is not easy to get them, because other, more famous and professional specialists apply for them.
New skills do not develop as quickly as we would like - there are not enough orders to pump them. The performer sags in negotiations, self-presentation and other important things.
Frustration often appears when new, complex and expensive projects cannot be obtained, and you no longer want to do the old ones.
How long does it take: 12 months or more.
How to proceed further:
- Focus on marketing and self-promotion. It is necessary to create a system for attracting customers. Develop your own resources, advertise yourself as a specialist on different sites.
- Complete as many complex projects as possible. The truth is that at this stage, the specialist does not always reach the expensive projects that he claims to be. You can do an internship, work for less money, or barter.
- Find your clients. Decide who you want to work with and with whom you don’t. Understand the needs and values of the right customers and offer exactly what they want.
- Learn new skills. New projects are always about complication. You may have to master new programs, learn how to typeset or assemble a team for projects. Knowing the client, it will be clear what skills will be needed.
- Formulate the conditions of your work. It's time to put up a comfortable price tag, prescribe the amount of work that you do, choose which projects are worth taking on and which ones are not.
Significant growth in income and professionalism. Customers will start to learn and pay well. Partly already for the name.
Like the previous one, this stage is not quick. Somewhere you can get confused, become interested in a related field. Some skills may take longer than expected.
4. Stabilization
Vasya got a taste.
Vasya knows why to write an article, how to set up VK targeting and what post he will post to the group tomorrow. He even has a rough idea of how many clients this will bring him. He has a website on Tilda, a blog and social networks with five thousand subscribers.
Vasya may not be a star, but look at himself 3 years ago - he would have envied himself. His portfolio includes several projects for federal-level companies, he can choose from clients and has long been not afraid to say how much his services cost.
Now he may not even do everything himself - when he is lazy, he hires a targeting specialist to set up ads, and finds cardingrs from the carding forum to entrust them with small work.
He learned not only to do, but also to manage - if necessary, he can assemble a team of authors, create and launch a blog from scratch, and not just write text there.
For the second winter he has been spending not in Russia, but in Sri Lanka, and now he is the guy from the webinar three years ago, with a free schedule and a stable income. Of course, with some adjustment for reality, but on the whole Vasya is satisfied - he is doing well.
Bali won't be ... 6 signs your business is going crazy.
At some point, a person achieves what he dreamed of at the dawn of his career. An income of 50, 80 or 100 thousand is delightful, but over time it ceases to seem like something outrageous.
Chaotic processes are finally lining up into an understandable system. The specialist finds suitable marketing tools that bring him clients and knows how to close them for a deal. Often there are oversupply of potential customers, so you can raise the price tag from time to time.
The personal brand has grown stronger - “fans” appear who want to get a service from him. The income is stable and sufficient for a comfortable life.
How long: from 12 months to infinity
5. Zeroing
Vasya is on horseback, but even lost heart.
For the last two years, Vasya's life has been like a wheel: incomes are not falling, but they are not growing either, wintering in warm countries has become a routine. Now he does not even understand why his former classmates envy him - winters in Voronezh do not seem much worse than on Samui.
Yes, he can afford to live in warm countries all year round. But is this really his ceiling? Vasya feels that he has stopped developing and wants to shake himself up.
He remembered how he himself had been inspired by a free webinar about remote work five years ago, and thought: why not launch a project? He understands little about information business, but he is not averse to understanding it. Plus it seems to be profitable.
On the other hand, Vasya likes his work, he wants to grow as a professional and understands that carding limits him in many ways. It would be interesting for him to work with some really big project. But for this, you may have to return to Russia or even move to Moscow.
"He wrote fake comments and threw negativists into emergency situations": the story of a former information businessman.
True, Vasya's memories of hired work are not the most pleasant, so he thinks: shouldn't he open his own agency? This would make it possible to conduct long-term projects and continue to work for yourself.
Or maybe spit on everything, move to Sri Lanka with ends and open a hostel for remote workers? For three winters, Vasya has gotten used to it quite well and fully understands what the newcomers will like.
As we can see, Vasya has a lot of options for how to continue living, and many of them are only partially related to carding.
At some point, a person realizes that he has reached the desired level. In order not to slow down, it is better not to get stuck at this stage, but to think about scaling or even changing activities.
Maybe Vasya will really open the hostel. And we will be able to trace from scratch how he goes to the next success. But that, as they say, is a completely different story.
Successful Social Media Success: How to Distinguish Professionals from Chatters.
So, to curb carding and go through all the stages, like Vasya, it will take an average person about 5 years. Better news: you start earning consistently and well after 2-3 years of work. If you do everything right, there is no bluntness anywhere or change your mind.
