I’ve been dabbling online for about three years, joined John’s “Powerseller Challenge” about a year ago. It was just one of many products I spent money on but did not apply myself to. I was an Internet Marketer’s dream customer, buying every new thing to land in my inbox and focusing on none of them. They say “the money is in the list” – this is surely true if you have people like me on your list!

Over the months, John began to stand out as someone who knew what he was doing. I liked his honest, friendly approach, so when his Coaching Program became available, it was an easy decision for me to sign up. I thought the price was fair, and I was pretty sure I would get value for money. I was right.

In 16 short weeks I have gone from being technologically incompetent to having two blogs up and running (go here to have a look at the other one), a product created (you can view sales page here) and listed on clickbank, a bonus product and a 7-day minicourse related to my product, complete with its own landing page ( minicourse opt-in ). I had to start a second blog, because the niche I chose for my product had nothing to do with Internet Marketing, which was the subject of this, my first (and now somewhat neglected) blog.

The Coaching Program has certainly been intensive, but I loved the fact that I could follow along at my own pace. My technophobia slowed me up a bit at times, but it didn’t matter. All the material I needed was there, and if I struck a problem (as I did several times) John and Daniel were easily available to sort me out. At no time did I ever feel that I was left to flounder along on my own.

The main presentation of course material was by video. Each video was short and devoted to only a single, small step, which made it easy to find what I wanted when I needed to go back to refresh my memory about something. A handy checklist provided each week made it easy to be certain I’d completed all the work necessary before advancing to the next stage.

I have progressed from being someone who could barely do more online than press the “BUY NOW” button, to being someone who has researched a market and chosen a niche, chosen and purchased a domain name, can set up and manage a Wordpress blog, create material and upload it to the internet, manage an autoresponder account, list items on clickbank, create material for affiliates, create my own product, write a sales letter and create a sales page, write articles and submit them to article directories and much more besides. This all feels to me like an enormous achievement. My confidence level has soared.

I can thoroughly recommend John Thornhill’s Personal Coaching Program to anyone who is ready to learn the Internet Marketing ropes.

I have plenty of other stuff to get on with though.

My big triumph this week was getting my sales page finished and uploaded. That was so exciting! It actually looks like a real one – LOL.

How do other people ever get everything done, I wonder? I have been so focused on the sales page, not forgetting that life in the physical world must  also be maintained , that I have fallen behind with posting to my two blogs. I suppose when you actually know what you are doing, you get more done more quickly.

Week 8: we are supposed to be creating our sales letter (Did I mention I had finished my ebook?). John warned us we might find this difficult. Well I can tell you, I have really struggled. We have good course material, and goodness knows, I have read through enough sales letters during the last three years – I should be able to write one no trouble.

And I am, really. It’s just taking me longer than I imagined it would. I’m used to just writing like you would speak. I mean, you don’t think about every word or sentence you are going to say when you are talking  (well, there are times when maybe we should, I know…) to someone, and that’s how I generally write best. The words just come, and I write them down.

Now, I am having to stop and ask myself if my words will be having the effect I want them to have on the reader. I am having to think about what I am saying. Once I have to stop and think, the words don’t flow.

Perhaps there is my answer: I should just write, then go back and edit afterwards. Meanwhile, I am firmly of the opinion that once I have some income from all of this, someone else will probably be writing my sales letters!

Not me! I’m happy as a mouse in the pantry, head down at my computer. I’m in catch-up mode now. My product (an ebook) is almost complete – just needs finishing touches, and I’ve been creating my second blog. This one is on the topic that matches my book.

I’m happy because I am so much enjoying this course, I feel I am learning a lot and that I have made some progress at last.

It was a good exercise to repeat the blog building process. I went back through all the relevant class material and naturally, it was all much easier the second time around. I did make one serious mistake, though. I was careless, and I managed to delete an important file from my blog template! My blog looked very strange after that!

An email to Daniel (John’s techie support person) soon had me sorted. It took me less time to correct the problem than it had to create it in the first place!

If you are new to the internet and thinking of buying into a “how to” course, I can’t stress to you enough the importance of good support for your queries. In this regard, John and Daniel have never let me down, always replying promptly, even over a holiday weekend. 

I hope they both found an opportunity to have some “time out” from computers and coaching students.

To a rewarding internet journey

Sue 

John is very reassuring, saying it won’t matter if any of us are a bit behind, as we will easily be able to catch up. I do like it that I can work at my own pace. It would be much more difficult if I were having to keep up with live lessons. I want to produce the best product that I can, so it does not make sense to me to rush this part of the project.

Another problem I have is that this blog is about my progress on the coaching course, but my product is totally unrelated to anything to do with internet marketing, so I really need to create a whole new blog.

With that said, I had better get on with it.

Toward a rewarding internet journey,

Sue

In short, I am running out of time. I’ll bet I’m not the only one.

Therefore, this post is not only late, it is short. There’s no point in waffling on if you have nothing much to say.

So for now, I’m back to my book, and a few more hours of reading, note-taking and, with any luck, some writing as well.

Toward a rewarding internet journey,

Sue

This week has brought a huge buzz of excitement for me!
We have started to create our own product.
Firstly, we read Paula Brett’s excellent book about writing an ebook – Emergency Surgery – Operation ebook. (See My Review). It’s an excellent, easy to understand  guide for anyone who is wanting help with getting ideas, or wanting a system to follow for getting a book written.

We developed the title of our product and ordered the domain name and the graphics.

The graphics were what caused me my big buzz. At John’s recommendation, I ordered them from Planet Divinity. It was my first time buying professionally designed graphics and I was a bit wary of parting with my money, but I decided there was no point in doing the course if I was not going to follow advice. So I paid the very reasonable fee, filled in the order form, sent off some of my own photos for the designer to use and waited to see what I would get.

I did not have long to wait. One friendly email communication from the designer (about my photos) and a mere 48 hours later I had my web page template, complete with buy now button and a few other incidentals, and my product cover in two sizes.

To say I was thrilled with the design is an understatement. It is gorgeous! The colours are just as I had visualized them and my photo that I was not sure would be any good just leaps off the page with energy.

I am very pleased I followed John’s advice to get professional graphics. It saved me hours of struggle and got me a great result I could never have achieved myself. As for Planet Divinity, I am so impressed with their service they will be my graphic designers for life.

I have not found this week easy at all, not because of any weakness in the course material, but because I suffer from something that many new aspiring internet marketers are plagued with – self doubt.
It goes like this (I’m sure you will know what I mean): you make lists of all your interests, hobbies, skills and so on, looking for something you might be able to educate, inform, or help people with. It has to be something that there is a group of other people passionately interested in and willing to spend money for. Then, if you are like me, you think “Oh, why would people want to learn from me? What qualifies me to set myself up as an expert on A,B,or C topic?”

Thinking like this defeats me before I get anywhere near started. Over the last three years I have learned that actually, I know a lot about several topics that I can help others with. I love to do research (so that I can find out more), I can write well enough and in a readable style, but, more importantly, I have learned that I must build a relationship of trust with my readers. My future success will depend as much on this relationship as on the quality of  any material or information I will offer, although of course, I must provide information and products of high standard and value to my subscribers in order to sustain the relationship.

So I banished all self-defeating thoughts, worked through all of John’s exercises this week, I’ve chosen my niche, and I am having a lot of fun doing research. There is plenty of information on my topic available for free on the internet, but finding it takes more time than most people have spare. I figure that bringing the salient points together into one place should be useful enough to people that they will be happy to pay for a product that will save them many hours of time.

My topic is in a field where large companies have deep financial investments and many experts offer strongly opposing opinions. I know enough about the topic, from personal experience, to easily make choices when confronted with conflicting information; I’m confident enough in my knowledge to pass those choices, and the reasons behind them, on to my readers; I’m not involved in any associated industry or profession, so I can offer readers the information from an objective viewpoint.

Now, I did not set out to be teaching others how to start an online business, since I have not yet done that myself, so my topic is in another line altogether. That means I will have to create another blog (it will be good for me to go over that again and see how much more quickly I can do it this time). With that said, I had better get started.

To a rewarding internet journey,

Sue

To recap: In the first week we made the preparations for creating an online presence. I used to think the first step would be to build a website, but no, it turned out there are a few things to achieve before you get to that. Choosing a domain name, for instance.

In week 2 we learned the steps involved in creating that online presence – so much easier than everything I had tried in the past. Somehow, I’d got the idea that the first thing you need is a website. Well, a blog is a sort of website and it turns out that it’s dead simple to set up, especially when you have these very clear videos to follow that John has made for us.

In week 2 we also started making our first posts and signed up for Google Adsense. I had heard of Adsense before, but I did not really understand how it works. I’m learning.

I am wondering if one ever needs a “real” website. It will be interesting to find out.

This week has been much more technical than the first two weeks, but once again, thanks to the clear explanations in John’s videos, I did not find any difficulty in getting everything up and running. Google Adsense became a bit more clear – it’s all those little ads you can see scattered about the blog in little groups called “Ads by Google”. They are meant to match the contents of your blog or site. I was amused to see the first ones that appeared. They were all about French cooking or learning to speak French. I changed the title of my blog from simply “sue-french” to “sue-french’s internet marketing journey” and started to get some ads that were more relevant. John told me not to worry about it – the ads will gain more relevance as my site becomes more established.

The other major things we covered this week were getting an autoresponder service (Aweber, which seems to be rated as best by most marketers) and adding the opt-in form you can see at the top of the page.
As well as this, we carried on posting to our blogs.

I have found this very satisfying. At first I was worried I would not have much to say. I had no idea what I would write about. I didn’t really believe I had anything in me that I was expert enough to teach anyone else about and did not think anyone would be too interested in just reading about me, or about my life. So I followed John’s suggestion and planned to write about the program. I just wanted to get started. That’s one thing I have learned over the last three years – you go nowhere if you don’t start.

Well, something magic happened once I got started. Suddenly the writing was easy, and now it’s hard to stop. And another thing – totally unexpected, this – I realized that I have actually learned a few things over the last three years and that I will feel less as if I have wasted those years if I can pass on a few tips to others. That’s how I got sidetracked away from posting my diary about John’s coaching program.

I’d love to get a bit of feedback, so if you’ve got a comment or a question, go for it.

To a rewarding internet journey,

Sue