The first installment in the Internet Marketing Lessons Series.
Rather than jumping right into the nuts and bolts of starting and running your own Internet business, I wanted to first cover the mindset necessary and some of the differences between a job and business.
I’ll be starting with some basic concepts that every internet marketer needs to know about, and I’ll move on to some advanced topics that you rarely hear about in later videos.
But first things first.
In this video I want to cover starting your own Internet business from a mindset point of view. I’ll cover the actual nuts and bolts of domains names and hosting in a future video, but I think the mindset is far more important to your success. I’m going to touch on a lot of different ideas and concepts and most of these will be covered later in more detail, but for now I just want to give you an overview of what it takes.
Having your own business is a lot different than working for someone. There’s no longer someone telling you what to do. You get to call the shots. However, that tends to be a bit of a double edged sword for a lot of people. The big benefit is that you’re your own boss. The bad part is that you’re your own boss – a lot of people don’t make good bosses, especially when they’re the only person they have to order around. And when you get started, frequently, you’ll be the sole employee of your company. You’re going to need to be self motivated. There will be days that you’re just going to want to take off or not feel like working, but you really need to have enough self discipline to make sure that you do work or you won’t be in business for yourself for long. You’ll be in bankruptcy.
Next, treat your business like it’s a business. This may sound obvious, but a lot of people don’t take their internet business as seriously as they would if they had a brick and mortar store. Big mistake. Take your business seriously or don’t be surprised if no one else will. Also, hold yourself accountable and stop blaming everyone else if something goes wrong. You’ll get to success a lot faster
Even though starting an Internet business typically doesn’t require a lot of up front cost, there is still risk involved. You’ll still be devoting time and money into this business. Just because you’re on the Internet doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed to succeed. It’s just like in the real world – most people fail to make money.
One common idea you see a lot of opportunity websites mentioning is how you can make huge amounts of money by only working an hour or two a day. It’s time for a reality check here. That’s not typical. Most of the really successful entrepreneurs I know work at least 8 hrs a day. Personally, I’ve had times where I only need to work 3 or 4 hrs a day, and only 3 or 4 days a week, but there have also been times where I need to work 14hrs a day 7 days a week. It comes and goes. So don’t buy into the hype just yet. Sometimes you need to roll up your sleeves and work.
Next I want to talk about working from home or the make money in your underwear concept. Working at home can be great, I do it, and so do a lot of other successful Internet marketers. However, working from home has a downside. You need to set aside a dedicated area for work. If you have kids or a spouse, they need to know not to bother you when you’re in your work area or you’ll find yourself forever being distracted. There’s also the tendency that since you’re so close to your office that you’ll want to spend all your time there and ignore everything else. The best situation is that when you’re in your home office, focus on work. When you’re in some other part of your house and not working, stop thinking about your work. If a home office just doesn’t work out for you, that’s okay, go ahead and rent yourself a real office.
Now let’s talk about that dirty F word. That’s right, I’m talking about failure. Your first idea or business may not work out. It may take several tries before you finally find something that really works and makes you money. If something doesn’t work out for you, it doesn’t mean that you’re stupid, or that you’ll never make money on the internet. It just means that you found something that doesn’t work. Learn from it and try again.
Finally, I want to mention the need to invest in your education. I see it on forums all the time, people want to know where they can learn everything for free. Yet, these are the same people who paid $40,000 for a college education. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of good free information out there, but there is a lot of time and money that can be saved by being willing to invest in some good internet marketing courses and reading some quality books. The way I look at is this – one way or another, you’re going to pay for your education in Internet marketing, whether that be in the school of hard knocks or not, is up to you.
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