The Secrets to Internet Marketing Success
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The Secrets to Internet Marketing Success

Secrets to Internet Marketing SuccessHey guys, today I thought I’d share with you the epiphany that I’ve had over the past month working my new businesses and helping others with their Internet and Social Marketing.

The fact of the matter is, the biggest secret out there is action.

Action?!? That’s it?

Yes! Over 90% of the people that I talk to always give me a line of excuses and reasons for their failures. In fact, the absolute number one reason they are failing is failure to act.

See, these guys and gals are in a vicious cycle of constantly learning. Learning itself is fine, however, if all you do is buy books, courses, seminars, and pay for consulting from guys like me, well, you are still going to fail. They think that all of the research is absolutely required before they can even dream of starting a website or business. They are paralyzed by the fear of failure or negative perceptions.

Please do me a huge favor over the new 2-4 weeks. Come up with a plan of action of things you will set out to accomplish. I don’t care if it is launching your first website, or setting up your first email campaign, or establishing your business self on social media, just set out, and do it. Now.

Here’s the excuses. But Scott, I can’t design a professional looking site like you have. Scott, I have no clue how to write email marketing campaigns. Scott, I don’t know what to promote. Scott, I’m not sure what to sell on eBay. Scott, I need a logo first. Scott, I don’t know how to create a landing page. Please STTTTTOOPPPP!

I hear this over and over again. To tell you the truth, it is quite frustrating. You know what the issue is? Your desire for perfection. When I got my start online 16 years ago, I spent my first year perfecting a site before I launched it. It failed. If I had the ability to go back in time, I would have thrown that perfection mantra right out of the window and started producing sites left and right, ugly as they may be.

Here’s the deal. You probably come from a world of working for other people at a 9-5 job. Your boss fed you tasks for the day and you completed them to the best of your ability. Over time, your boss criticized you because “we don’t pay you to think” so you went out of your way to follow orders and became a robot.

In the business of Internet marketing, you need to completely change your mentality to be a forward thinker, a person willing to throw a site online without it being perfect, and a person willing to learn by failing.

You see, there has been no course, or guru lecture that has helped me more than the lessons I learned by failing. I’m telling you, right here, right now, start taking action and put down all the courses, books, and website materials and set out to create your first website.

Once you have a site online, then you start creating the original content that ties you to your business. You start creating a fan base who wants to know more about you, your history, and your knowledge. From there, then you can start worrying about cleaning up the site design, perfecting your email campaigns, and testing various landing pages, color schemes, etc.

The successful people I have coached over the years in business marketing are the ones who hung up the phone, removed all of their distractions, and got to work building their first sites. By following their course of action, their first sites were ugly as heck, but they continued making content, continued marketing their website to others, and then after a short time, they started making money, with some of the ugliest websites I’ve ever seen. Now? Well, they took their money earned, reinvested it into a professional design, reinvested it into further education, and now they are Internet marketing rock stars.

You need to stop focusing on being perfect and start a massive action plan, immediately. You’ll thank me later, trust me.

Words on failing. Guys, you need to remove the negative from the word failure and realize that your failures are quite simply moments to learn from. Think of it this way, say you are married and you want to see that awesome blockbuster in the movie theater. You ask your wife or husband “Hey hun, can we go see XYZ, it looks good!” and they return with “Not today dear, I’ve got a headache and it would just make it worse.” That’s a simple exchange right? You’ll probably shrug it off and move on. Right? Well, in business, it is the same way. If you are trying to get someone in your business or to order your shiny do-hickey, and they tell you no? Treat that rejection the same way! “Well, they said no, it isn’t the right fit for them, I wonder if Sally would be interested (to go to the movies with me or, in business, enter my business/buy my product)?”

Take your failures, bounce it off of you, and move on. Whatever you do, don’t take failure personally. Everyone in business experiences failures, however, it is the ones who pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and continue forward that succeed.

Anyway, I hope this post inspired some of you out there to stop the learning cycle and start taking action. By taking action, congratulations, you’ve stumbled on the secrets to your future success.

About Scott Buehler
 

Scott is the owner and founder of Top Five Advisor. He specializes in business to business products and services. He offers digital marketing services to any local business that wants to drive traffic and customers from the Internet including search, pay per click and social media marketing. This page is maintained by Scott Buehler.

James Wirshing - February 27, 2014

“Massive Action Plan.” I really LIKE that concept!

Oona Houlihan - February 27, 2014

Funny quoting Colin Powell – after all the hard preparation for the Iraq war a few hundred thousand dead civilians later he had to admit that there was no casus belli in the first place. I hope we’re not emulating this kind of preparation and research in our SEO efforts as Internet entrepreneurs. As for failures: most Internet people do not recognize them, that’s the problem imho. It’s not easy, when starting to publish or advertise on the net, to spot a failure until months after the fact, with the delays in SERP positioning, slow growth in Alexa and other rankings, erroneous backlinking reports and what else is out there in (un)helpful tools that only show pertinent results after a site has already “made it”. So, to turn it on its head: I think people need often to first fail on the Internet to understand how to diagnose failure. Unfortunately, many then give up instead of (as you say above), putting failure into the category of learning and growth.

George Feelgood - February 27, 2014

There are no accidents.. so said the wise tortoise in “Kung-fu Panda.”
I think small businesses are overwhelmed by the thought of adopting new technologies. It can be paralyzing to some – and YES, action is the antidote.

Interesting take on the subject!

Carl Davies - February 27, 2014

Taking action in what we learn? – It’s the all way to succeed. If it’s blogging then you need content published 20 + a month. Successful blogs do this cause they know about action taking… 🙂 Kindest, Carl

Kristin Drysdale - February 28, 2014

Great-scott, you’ve pierced me! Lol, I feel like you were writing directly to me heart… ouch! It’s going to be hard breaking my addiction to the “learning cycle.” But you’re completely right. If we wait til everything is perfect, we’ll never get started for two reasons : (1) “perfect” is a subjective and transitive term, and (2) there will always be more to learn. ~ Thank you for sharing your inspiration!

    Scott Buehler - February 28, 2014

    I write from experience. I used to be in a learning cycle that kept me from my dreams. As soon as I started pushing projects out and “fixing” later, my dreams were realized. Keep on truckin’ Kristin!

Gotch - March 23, 2014

I like your approach and think that I should use it for promoting my business on web.

Bruce Haines - April 1, 2014

Spot on Scott! In fact, I preach that to my down line constantly. I call it “take massive action!” Excellent post! Keep it up

michael dorey - April 8, 2014

First thing I want to say is…Thank You Scott! I’ve been stuck on “Information Overload” for the last year! reading every Internet Marketing book, article, secret, tips, tricks…you name it! I been stuck on YouTube watching every how to video, consulting every so-called “Guru” to try to learn the BIG SECRET about making money online. Ironically, I found your site and this article by searching, once again, for “IM Secrets” but now after reading your article I have FINALLY seen the light…I’ve had what alcoholics refer to as a “moment of clarity” or a “Spiritual Awakening”…I need to take action! I know for a fact thattons of people that get into this game have the same problem and that is probably why most end up failing…I am so happy that I came across your article before it was too late for me and I ended up falling by the waste-side with the rest…So, again I would like to Thank You! I am now headed over to design my “Massive Action Plan” and set some real goals for my business. I vow to stop being such a “Perfectionist” and FINALLY….TAKE ACTION!!!!!!

    Scott Buehler - April 8, 2014

    Hi Michael! Your comment here means more to me than you realize. I appreciate you taking the time to share this epiphany moment with me. This was my primary struggle earlier on and once I stopped trying to perfect everything and just started trying things, my world changed. The gurus all learned from trial and error, your experience, after watching all their trainings and videos, still will be a lot of trial and error. This is business, we try hard, we fail, we fail again, … and again, and then we hit massive success. Congrats brother. Join Team Tygr with DS Domination for $20 to get access to more of this type of training that you can use in any business. Yes, the team is about eBay Dropshipping, but I’ve got a whole Internet Marketing section that might interest you.

Elisabeth - May 11, 2014

Wow Scott!

I’ve read a lot of advice articles over the years – both online and in print – and I have to say, this article that you’ve offered has been the best one out there for me. Your words poked me right in the rib and struck me right in the heart! Like many mothers, I have focused on raising my 2 beautiful kids for the last 18 years, which meant that I have had to tweak and change my work goals to fit the needs of my family.

Although I have enjoyed all of the positions, projects and experiences I have taken over the years, it has left me without a clear vision of what my next career goal should be. Your article helped me to see that I have been in Learning mode for way too long and need to take more action now. Although I have taken baby steps (started a blog, a Twitter account, joined a writing group and started writing), I realize that the only barrier that is keeping me from taking bigger steps toward my career and life goals is the fear of failure – the fear of looking like I don’t know what I’m doing.

Despite how many times I’ve told my kids that it is okay to fail and that failure is inevitable, I wasn’t drinking the same coolaid I had been dishing out to them all these years. I realize that now, and, like any addiction, the recognition is half the battle. It’s still hella scary, but with encouragement like yours and a little more bravery, I know I’ll get there. Thanks for the poignant reminder.

    Scott Buehler - May 12, 2014

    Hey Elisabeth, wow, awesome comment. I’m glad to help you as this very information was taught to me and helped me drastically. You might also enjoy my most recent post about self improvement and helping others. I hope you don’t mind, but I formatted your post to make it a little easier for everyone to read (without any editing to the actual words you wrote).

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