Yesterday, I wrote a rather extensive post about gaining
traffic by creating EBooks. If you haven’t
noticed, I’m trying to write about all of the free ways that you can
generate traffic to your website. That way, if you are new to Internet
marketing (IM) you won’t waste a lot of money.
Even though I can’t quote an exact figure, I read a recent article that stated 90% of the people that start Internet businesses fail within the first 90 days.
Personally, I believe the figure is even bigger than
that, so let’s face it, many of you are tire kickers. You’ll get on the IM bandwagon all wide eyed
and enthusiastic, and then over a relatively short period of time, you’ll give it
up thinking that this dog won’t hunt.
Just get on any good IM forum like the Warrior Forum, and
you’ll see posts with headings similar to this:
“Frustrated…Don’t know what to do.”
“I quit my job to pursue IM, now I’m broke…What do I do?”
“I created a product, wrote my sales page, and nobody is buying it…”
You know, stuff like that.
There’s probably a lot of reasons for this, but I think you
have to look at IM just like most other endeavors in life; many shall come but
few will be chosen. Or, as I like to
phrase it, “Many shall come but few will be committed.” That’s probably closer to the truth.
After listening to motivational speakers, reading books on
success, and trial and error over the last 25 years, I’ve come to my own
personal conclusions. These may help you
or work for you, or perhaps not. The
main factor in the scheme of things is that the ball is in YOUR court, and it
doesn’t matter how many success principles I throw at you or anyone else, it’s
what YOU do that counts.
Dieting and Success, What’s
the Diff?
Which brings me to another point. I’m writing this post in January, right after
the start of the new year. Being
fascinated with marketing of all kinds, I notice things like what kind of
magazine articles and books that are published.
Now unless you’re living under a rock, you've no doubt noticed all of
the diet and success books that come out this time of the year.
I’m always amazed at the seemingly all of the seemingly new
angles that diet plan hawkers come out with. Just take a look at this “short” list of diets. (I’m saying “short” in jest, because it is rather long, but in the
scheme of dieting it merely scratches the surface of the names and types there
are.)
DIET TIP: I can save you a whole ton of money on diet
books right now. Years ago, I got a book
from Men’s Health that was about all the great foods you should be eating. It
had wonderful full color pictures of all sorts of hamburgers, steaks, huge
salads, etc., and the recipes for them. This book had all the stuff I love to eat, and
the pictures were so enticing, I wanted to lick the page.
I remember thinking, “Now, THIS is ME! This is the type of diet I want to be on. Where men with six pack abs are telling me to eat juicy hamburgers, spaghetti and all the crap I love! Yeah, I can do this!”
Inside the first chapter, Men’s Health went over the top 10
or so fad diets that people dive into.
Their conclusion: These diets don’t
work because they are not sustainable over a long period of time. They are ineffective, and sometimes
dangerous.
Then, Men’s Health gave you THEIR diet plan:
(Drum roll please…ahem…)
Burn more calories than you consume.
That’s it. That was
the whole plan. And guess what? I tried it, and it works perfectly!
So, there ya go. I
already saved you a crap-load of moola on diet books. You should never have to buy one again.
Actually, the Men’s Health book advocated eating the right way, to preserve and
optimize your health, so that book is a great buy, and you can get it used on
Amazon cheap here:
Success Formulas Are
Like Diet Plans
Success books and ideas are the same way. Just another endless parade of books that
promise if you follow the plans they have for you, the world will be your
oyster. Many, many people have made
loads of money from that scheme, and just like diet plans, theirs will work for
you.
So here’s what works
for me, and bear in mind, I’m telling you all this for free.
#1 You need a passion, business, vocation or direction to
pursue like a laser guided missile. Without
any direction, you are just like a ship without a destination. You won’t go anywhere. It’s the same thing with Internet marketing, if
you don’t have a specific niche in mind, you won’t get very far.
(Personally, I think it’s crazy to start a full 4 year
degree without having a clue as to what you’re going to be doing after
college. If you are going to be a master
chef, don’t you think it would be better to work in the restaurant business for
a while BEFORE committing massive amounts of time and money in college?)
So, figuring out what you want to do at the onset, is very
important.
#2 You need to be committed.
You need to stick with it. You need to be like Rudy Ruettiger. You don’t want to bounce all over the place,
planning and re-planning your destination.
You want to be committed to your passion through thick and thin. Once again, I’ll bring up a few case studies
to remind you of the importance of this:
Colonel Sanders went to 1000 restaurants with his chicken recipe
before one of them tried it.
Edison tried over 10,000 experiments to get his light bulb
to work.
Commitment is paramount.
#3 You need to take ACTION.
Yeah, you can decide on where you want to go and how much you want to
get there, but without taking a ton of action, you’ll never even get
close. The best way to do this is to
plan out what you’re going to do and execute it. Many of the world’s most successful people
plan out where they want to be years in advance and how they’re going to get
there. Then they take action based on
those plans.
#4 Your attitude needs to be conducive to the goals you are
trying to achieve. As Zig Zigglar once
said, “It doesn’t matter how great of an attitude I have, I can’t run as fast
as Roger Bannister or box as good as Joe Louis, but I could do those things a
lot better than someone with a BAD attitude!”
Translation: Having a
good attitude may not get you all of the way to your destination (especially if
you have an unrealistic one) but you’ll get much closer to achieving your
dreams if you have a good attitude.
The Place You Wind Up
In May Not Be Kansas
One thing I want to add to this. If you are pursuing a dream…a really big
dream, like becoming an NBA superstar, or a top-drawer studio musician, you
more than likely set yourself up for failure.
I’m not telling you to give up on your dream, but I’m saying that you
may wind up close to or in a great position that you didn’t imagine. I’m NOT saying that is bad, as a matter of
fact, you may be better off.
I’ve personally known people that were trying to become NFL
players and wound up being athletic coaches at prominent universities. Did they make it to achieve their lofty
dreams? No, but they wound up doing
something they liked in a great job that they love.
So, my advice for anyone with a goal or ambition is to put
your back into your vocation or passion, you may be surprised at where you wind
up.
To Your Success!
Mark “Elmo” Ellis
"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"
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