www. stands for work, work, work!

August 15, 2009 by Russell Hall
Filed under Articles, Momentum, Newbie Help, Web2.0, internet marketing

It never ceases to amaze and intrigue me how many people embark upon some kind of Internet venture or other and then expect some kind of magical "Internet" formula to kick in and start rocketing them, their product(s), cause or business to dizzying heights of success.

Never before has any other form of new media had this kind of phenomenally mesmerizing effect on so many people,.. I mean, we must be talking "millions" of people here that have this kind of expectation that they fully expect will come to fruition close to as they’ve imagined it or even better.

shovel-businessman My observation is that it’s the Internet itself that’s responsible for creating this kind of "lemming like" mass hysteria. Certainly there have been many very successful Internet marketers that got involved in the "early days" of the mid to late 1990’s and made an absolute motza in online sales. Added to that is the next generation of Web1.0 marketers that followed in the steps of their mentors and also did very well indeed.

However,.. you’ve got to remember that back then it really was the early days,… kind of like the California Gold Rush where anyone who could afford a bucket, a pick and a shovel and was prepared to do a bit of digging could strike gold without too much effort, but as is the case with all gold rush experiences,- once the mother-load vein has been farmed, the hard and the smart work begins in figuring out the best ways of finding new tracts and even better ways of using leveraging to get it out.

So there’s a kind of echo that’s still ringing out loudly in the ears of lots of folks out there that "thars gold in them thar hills",.. the hills of course being the "Internet",.. and to be plainly factual about that… it’s a fundamentally true statement. The problem lies in the fact that there is still a misconception that striking it rich or making more than enough to sack your boss is an easy task that can be achieved within the first 90 to 180 days online.

I’ll be the first to say that YES,.. it is entirely possible to achieve those kind of results. I personally know of several "new comers" that in the past 2 to 3 years alone have achieved astonishing and consistent results from a virtual standing start, but the thing that distinguishes these people is that they all worked really hard and really consistently to get to where they are now. It seems that those that have broken into the good money have all established some quite stringent work practices and routines that have allowed them to achieve their success!

In my opinion, anyone that has a plan to buy some kind of "business in a box", "turnkey website" or start hawking around the same old rehashed PLR e-info that everyone else has, is just kidding themselves about ever being able to become financially independent or even replace their income online.

What about Web2.0,… doesn’t that make the whole task so much easier now?

My quick answer,… "no way Jose". Don’t get me wrong, I think that Web2.0 and the evolution thereof is a fantastic thing,.. but it needs to be basically understood and then a working and/or marketing strategy has to be created around that which then needs to be RELENTLESSLY worked on until the results and the networking power becomes activated enough for it to make any real difference.

Whilst many people have already figured out which elements of the Web2.0 network they need to be working that will be most suited to their marketing or promotional objectives, there are just as many and more that have not or haven’t even got a clue. The point here is, that with so many new Web2.0 sites starting up (many of them are very good too) it’s impossible for you to have a profile and be active on every single one of them (or even half of them) unless you had a team of diligent and objective focused virtual assistants working for you. At the moment, most people tend to to using a combination of *blogging (including commenting on similar niched blogs for exposure and some backlinks) *Facebook, *Twitter, *Youtube/Metacafe, *Linkedin, *Friendfeed (now owned by Facebook), *Squidoo, *Hubpages, *Forums, *Article submissions. However, to put in the required time on each of those on an average daily basis not only requires a clear schedule to be drafted,.. but several hours each day just to keep such a network alive! I take my own example and say that whilst I’m not afraid of hard work (most of which I really enjoy anyway) and long hours, I just cannot keep up with the demands that my "Web2.0 network list" requires,- well certainly not to the level that would be considered as suitable or consistent enough for me to be satisfied with.

If you’re one of those people that’s been led to believe that simply by setting up a Facebook profile, a Twitter account, a Youtube Channel and a WordPress blog that you’re now on the "network" and you can just occasionally post and tweet content as you feel inclined and the whole Web.2.0 machine will kick in and do the rest, then you’re just a time bomb waiting to go off. A time bomb of frustration, disappointment and debt (yes it costs money to start an online business and stick with it,… for some poor uninformed folks… that’s WAY too much!).

Yes,.. WordPress is great,.. and the search engines and Google love Wordpress sites and blogs because they’re typically very reliable resources for street-level knowledge and information that people are looking for. But it depends on your content.,- if that’s not consistent reliable regular content then you can forget about it having any real impact on your site’s or blog’s performance from a ranking perspective. Sure you can get the best SEO expert in the country to tweak your blog with all the latest plugins and do keyword analysis and make sure your posts, categories and initial content are full of all the keyword rich content, but if you don’t continue to back that up and keep the snowball rolling you’ll soon find yourself scratching your head and relegating your blog to the "could’ve-been-great" graveyard where 80% of blogs all end up.

It’s kind of interesting that in the offline world, a common international statistic (in capital driven economies) is that 85% of businesses would fail within the first 5 years and 50% would fail in under 2 years. Is it then any coincidence that those figures are not only echoed online but also amplified? I was visiting Darren Rowse’s blog at http://www.problogger.net/ this week and noticed that he had a poll running in his right sidebar. The poll asks whether you have a blog and for how long you’ve been blogging. I found the results very interesting and they just confirmed my anecdotal evidence that I’d assumed had been the case for some time. Considering that Darren’s blog has a very wide readership and attracts what I would consider a very broad spread of "typical" bloggers and IM aspirants, I thought that his poll results (spread over 5,075 voters at time of this post) represented a reliable slice of the blogging and blogger perspective.

You can go and see for yourself (just take the poll and click "View results" to see) that the first 3 categories represent over 50% of the voters. Those categories are 1) "I don’t have a blog". 2) "Less than 3 months", 3) "3 to 6 months" and the total number of them being 2,610 is therefore 52% of the total voters. So therefore we have a clear indication that more than half the people either "preparing to start a blog" or having "started a blog" get to a period of about no more than 6 months before they either give up or kind of continue to limp along without realizing the goals that they started out with. Even if that assumption isn’t entirely correct, then one thing is clear, and that’s the fact that only 28% of bloggers have been active for more than 18 months. I wonder how many of those 28% of bloggers have achieved the successes and objectives that they started off with? I’d like to wager that it’s quite low and that only a small proportion of those blogs could be considered as being truly successful or mainstream fixtures!

I’m coming to my real intended point in this article which is that most people (probably 85% to 90%) embark upon their internet venture wearing rose colored glasses and expecting some magical Web2.0 formula or Internet phenomenon to sweep them up to success without actually having to break much of a sweat. When I look at all of the successful online marketers and professional bloggers they all appear to have one thing in common,.. they work their tails off in order to achieve and maintain their successes. For sure, all of them are applying outsourcing and Virtual Assistant practices (some on huge scales) in order to get their results,… but the common fundamental ingredient and theme is there,… it requires WORK,.. "www. work work work" in order to achieve online success and any kind of niche domination.

I read recently that Rich Schefren (you can Google him to discover he’s a much respected and very knowledgeable online (and offline) businessman), brought up the topic at one of his recent seminars at which many of the the Internet’s top marketers and performers were present,.. and that topic was along the lines of ,.. How realistic is it to believe in the notion of the "Internet Lifestyle"? (That "lifestyle being,… sipping Margaritas on an island resort while your clickbank and Paypal accounts keep churning out the dollars for you). The combined consensus of the delegates present was that that lifestyle (on a permanent or semi permanent basis) was a myth and didn’t really exist. The reason for that is that it takes work (and some genius strategies) to get there,..and it takes work to stay there…even if you do take some time off for a long "holiday",… the work is always there waiting to be attended to or waiting to be pumped to the next level if you want to keep the kind of dollars rolling in that your business and lifestyle now demands!

Here’s my advice to anyone that’s in that early starting out phase (for me its a "re-starting out" phase). You need to identify your best or most productive Web2.0 network sites to focus on, which you can do with research, and a bit of testing (if you have successful competitors or know of any like-styled businesses, watch what they’re doing). Then make a schedule for posting content to those sites and stick to it (make it realistic,.. but make sure its really regular). If you can afford to outsource some work to a VA (Virtual Assistant) then do that, but if you can’t just make your plan and stick to it. That will mean performing some routine daily tasks (write them down in a schedule) even though you might not feel like doing them,… and you WILL feel like you’re talking to yourself for the first 2 to 3 months (or more) whilst you’re getting little response or comments to you blog post, articles & Tweets etc. The thing is that during this time many people are watching and waiting for a time when they feel it’s a safe and reliable proposition to enter your "conversation" and become a part of it. The problem for most people is that they don’t have a clear and committed objective and they just come to a grinding halt once their enthusiasm has faded away (usually within the first 3 to 6 months!).

In conclusion: if you’re not prepared to put some real work into building your online presence and creating a groundwork of trust and credibility then you should stop dreaming and wasting your time on every other out-of-the-box get rich program that comes out because although some of those programs can provide you with good ideas and information and tools,.. the main ingredient needed is YOU,… putting in the work.

I’d love to hear your views on this and perhaps if we can get some conversation happening it will provide some worthwhile support for our readers and also encourage me to post more articles going into more detail on this topic.

Until next time…. Cheers,..and have a great day!