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Five Essential Things New Internet Marketers Should Know

There’s no way to shortcut this. Here are the five things you need to know if you’re contemplating starting an Internet based business:

A Ferrari Does Not Equal Success

We all know a Ferrari is expensive to buy, expensive to insure and expensive to maintain. They’re also not very practical as people carriers. Owning one, or even two Ferraris isn’t necessarily a sign of success in Internet marketing. It is not a qualification for giving other people business advice. When one of these vehicles appears on an Internet marketer’s pages it can mean one of two things:

a) You’re dealing with a narcissistic personality who is more concerned with their self image than your success, or

b) They’re faking it?

There are exceptions. One Internet marketer who once owned a Ferrari thought everyone in his home town hated him when he drove it, and so sold the car and moved away. Another took the extreme step in offering his Ferrari as a prize in a competition he was so keen to get rid of the thing!

If Push Button Wealth Were So Easy No One Would Be Selling It

Last year was an all time low point in ethical Internet marketing. Many push-button systems were marketed that promised near instant wealth simply by running some software. Ironically many such products sold for as little as $49.00 at face value, and could be obtained for substantially less simply by exiting the sales page and being presented by a ‘limited one time offer’ via an exit pop-up.

There are people who develop software that is designed to provide you with backlinks, traffic, as well as place your advertisements on relevant pages throughout the Internet. It’s a world all of its own populated with characters who would not seem misplaced in a Steven Soderbergh movie. Lots of money changes hands. If the software on offer ever worked at all it’s only being offered at knock-down prices today because what worked then no longer works now. Sorry, if you pay $49 for such products you’re a bottom feeder, and will be eaten.

If Your Coach Looks Ill They Most Likely Are A Bad Example

During my time marketing on-line I’ve experienced a number of Internet marketing coaching programs. Most such programs are aimed at ‘newbies’, so called because they are entering the arena for the first time. Rarely are they true coaching programs in which participants get one on one time with their coach, but rather they work as courses in which the ‘coach’ presents some basic material and perhaps answers a few brief questions at the end of an on-line coaching session. Higher end coaching offers more useful information, but the downside is that time with your coach will still be limited especially when the coach is popular.

They say that doctors make poor patients, and this also holds true for coaches. It’s not that they’re faking the figures in their bank accounts but rather that the reason they do well is that they work hard, so hard in fact that many are visibly under pressure. A large cigar won’t distract from bags under your coaches eyes unless you want it to. Many coaches are driven to succeed by psychological forces that even they cannot understand. Whilst they may have several lines of passive income they continue to work for more than twelve hours a day. If you follow a sick looking coach have a care, separate the meat from the gristle, make money but live your own lifestyle.

You Cannot Go From Zero To $100,000 Without Paying A Price

This is not quite true, but it caught your attention didn’t it? If you’ve never earned more than $40,000 per year it’s difficult to manage a sudden bulge in your income. This is normal. You have encountered new territory and will make mistakes. If, however, you are used to earning a high salary, or have had some business success in the past then your sudden spurt of wealth is less likely to derail you.

I heard from someone recently who had made over $1,000,000 on-line and managed to breeze through most of it whilst gaining weight and making himself ill. He’s now having to build a new list and pretty much start over. The thing is though today he’s far better prepared to manage his money than before he had that experience.

There was once a program off-line called ‘Double Your Way To A Million’. The idea was that you found a coin in the road, and in a series of steps doubled your money all the way up to a million dollars. There were rules prohibiting you, for example, from using any of your own money or stealing resources such as photocopies from your employer. You simply had to double your funds with each step honestly. I never had the patience to get very far, but it’s a good game because it teaches you that the rules of making small amounts of money are different from those of dealing with large transactions.

Some Money Is Too Expensive

If you ask most Internet marketers what their most valuable asset is some will say ‘your mailing list’, and others will tell you ‘it’s your relationship with your list’. Neither is strictly true. Your most valuable assets are your style and your good name. Whilst these may not make your fortune immediately in the longer term they will pay dividends. It takes years to learn to be truly honest with yourself and others and even longer before others will be sure that they can trust you with big issues after just one or two meetings.

The problem is that when people enter the field of Internet marketing they rapidly acquire a little knowledge about basic skills, such as setting up an autoresponder, writing web-copy, and keyword research. The temptation is to consider that this knowledge is sufficient to create products, or teach others, how to be successful on-line. This is a mistake because even when others are taken in they will soon discover the lack of depth to your knowledge and never purchase from you again. Moreover, the world of the Internet is a smaller place than it seems. News of how you operate will spread and your business will suffer as a consequence.

Where Does That Leave You?

When the world dominating company Amazon.com started the computers took up so much power that the house they were in couldn’t be heated. A bell would sound everytime a sale was made and it was over ten days before anyone unrelated to the company founders bought a book on-line. Great Oaks, we are told, grow from little acorns. I’ve witnessed many businesses develop from a kitchen table, or a spare room. Study hard, lurk on some Internet marketing forums, avoid the next big thing, and above all scout around until you find a good Internet marketing coach, such as Lilach, who has been through a few of the hoops you will encounter and can shortcut your route into profit.

Guest post written by Stephen Bray. Stephen is an Artist, Blogger, Columnist, Critic, Editor, Mentor, Photographer, Psychotherapist, Speaker, Polymath. And Bloke on the Blog. For more information please visit his blog here

Please do share your comments and add any other essential tips that you think internet marketers should know about.

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Lilach

Founder at Socialable Ltd

Lilach Bullock is passionate about getting tangible results using social media. Listed in Forbes as one of the top 20 women social media power influencers. She's the co-author of "Images that Influence" (Number One in its category on Amazon). Lilach is consulted by journalists and regularly quoted in newspapers on social media related matters, including (Forbes, Social Media Today, Prima Magazine, The Sunday Times and BBC Radio 5 Live ). A keynote speaker at business and marketing seminars. If you want excellent results, more business and better visibility you can can subscribe to Socialable newsletter here.

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