Internet Marketing Tell All

Stop.

Watching.

T.V.

If you think you don’t have time to run a business online, unless you work two jobs you’re kidding yourself. If you watch more than an hour of TV per day, stop watching TV. Cold Turkey, and yes, that means online video, You Tube, all that, for at least two months. After the first month you won’t even miss it.

That includes the news. Trust me when I say that if something important happens you’ll get the chance to hear all about it another time. Most news has absolutely no bearing on your daily life. If it’s a tragedy, it’s already happened. If it’s a miracle, people will be talking about it.

This kind of advice probably seems outrageous. It did to me when I discovered this secret in 1992. Turning off the tube doesn’t just make time in your life, it creates a space for silence, and with silence often comes inspired thought.

The second easiest way is to sleep less. I hear Donald Trump only sleeps 4 hours a night. His reasoning was that it gives him a 20 hour day, and his opponents can’t compete with that on a 16 hour day. I guess I’ll never be a Billionaire, if that’s the cost. I’m a varsity sleeper, and I can do more in ten hours after resting than in 18 without.

Should you decide to go with my first suggestion and give up television, remember that it’s not forever. If you’re really a tubeaholic, think about getting TiVo and time shifting your programming. You can also watch some network shows for free online, and get others from iTunes for $2 a pop or $20 - $40 per season.

Even reducing your television consumption by half can give you plenty of extra time.

We’re often silent in internet marketing about the wrong things. Some of us keep our success to ourselves for fear of solicitous predators.

Even more of us stay quiet about our dissatisfaction, for fear of a backlash against claims founded more in emotion than fact. It takes bravery for us to state our opinions out loud when everyone is looking, but it is well worth the effort.

When you have issues to share, here’s seven ways to be vocal.

1. Find like-minded bloggers and echo their posted opinions as comments.
2. Start your own blog about the issue
3. Write an article or op-ed piece online. Be specific.
4. Write an article or op-ed piece offline.
5. Start an informal organization that stands for progress in the opposing direction (being for something better is more effective than being against what pisses you off)
6. Begin dialogue with the opposing party. See if you can reach an accord.
7. Start a new thread in a forum about it, anonymously if you must.

I remember being new. There was so much pressure. Rent: due. Cash: low. I didn’t even have groceries. The start of my business was a last ditch effort at survival, let alone success.

Those first few months, I struggled in silence. I didn’t tell my family or friends that I was in need, just scraped by day to day and begged God to let me wake up to at least three sales a week. All day, every day, I marketed. Free ad submission here, article submission there, manual traffic exchanges to build my list. Called people, emailed people, did link exchanges. Submitted manually to hundreds of directories.

As a new internet marketer, it is crazy to put yourself through the process alone. Nuts. My salvation was in the form of internet marketing forums, particularly two private ones in which we all shared our web addresses and lamented not being able to make one sale a day. We also celebrated landmarks like the first time we made a thousand dollars in one day.

Of particular help was in writing to my internet marketing idols. There were people I looked up to online that I’d never met in person, and I wanted to reach them, in the days before blogging. I’d buy their products and look for direct email addresses. It would take me two days to decide what to write. I kept my messages brief, complimentary, and included offers of help in exchange for knowledge.

This is a big, big secret, that you hear about from time to time but don’t really understand, until you experience it first hand.

The people who make it online, who have businesses that are around for years, who are the “names” in the business are the best and the friendliest people around. If you approach people with respect for them and their time, they will bend over backwards to help you get ahead.

All you have to do is ask them. Yet so many of us are so afraid of having these conversations. I still can’t get up the nerve to do interviews, even though I have an idea that, with my contacts, would make me a small fortune within about a month. I’ve been interviewed myself dozens of times, but contrary to how I appear online, I’m often painfully shy.

I’ll never forget the day I realized that I had gone beyond not being new, to being successful. It was the day I got my first email from a tentative marketer asking for my opinion. I still keep that smile in my pocket.