I could have named this post “information overload”, “offer overload”, or “email overload”. No matter. If you have been trying to make sense of the internet marketing puzzle for even only a few weeks, you’ll know what I am talking about.

You are not alone. Any time this topic is mentioned on a forum or in a blog post, it draws a heap of replies from newcomers crying “me too!” and from more experienced marketers confessing “me too and here’s what I do about it”.
I have mentioned it in earlier posts I know, but it’s a topic that cannot be hammered home too hard, nor too often. It’s something that most of us are challenged by constantly.

Here’s the thing: The “make money online” niche is a lucrative pond and you have just become a fish in that pond. What you need is real food and this pond has that, but it also has many glittering distractions. By now, you are probably familiar with terms like “target market”. This target market now includes you. Remember this when you see the next glittering enticement in your inbox. It’s probably fish-bait!

The answer to distraction is Focus. Ask yourself these questions:

• What stage am I at?
• What do I most need to learn?
• Have I got something already that will help me with learning it?

If you are like me, you will already have a clutter of stuff on your hard drive; stuff you’ve never read, stuff you’ve forgotten you have, even stuff you have bought twice (yes, it’s true!)

Identify the next thing you need to learn and concentrate on it. FOCUS. Focus all your attention on it until you have it mastered.

Don’t buy something that covers a different topic no matter how “buy-now-before-it-runs-out/the-price-goes-up/my-super-special-bonus-runs-out” compelling the sales letter is. All you need right now is stuff that will help with the thing you are focused on right now.

I have found that a good way to deal with an offer for something I don’t need yet is to file it in a folder called “thinking about”. I’ll look into that folder about once a week and delete most of them. The thing about these “must-have” products is similar to the thing about the house you miss out on when buying real estate: there’s always another one.

To a rewarding internet journey,

Sue

Once you have decided you want to earn money online, you get pretty excited about it. The slick advertisers paint an appealing vision of their internet lifestyles – everything, from their fabulous mansions, luxury yachts and exotic vacations to their fast cars and designer T-shirts, has fallen into their laps while they sleep, and they never have to do a lick of work because they have it all happening on automatic. You can’t wait to join them.

And it’s true – they do have those things, and their businesses do run on automatic, but not because they did not do any work. Believe me – you have a lot to learn and a lot of work to do learning it and implementing what you learn.

So get started.
Know this and save yourself time and money – You will need a training program and a mentor.

I will say it again – You need a training program and a mentor.

Now first off, I am assuming you have basic computer skills, and if you don’t, you need to get yourself off to night school or after school classes and learn. There are plenty of online classes as well. Do a Google search for “online computer training” or something similar. You need to know how to copy and paste, how to manage documents and folders, and how to do simple internet navigation. A basic understanding of common computer and internet terms is pretty necessary as well (note to self: include a glossary on this blog). After all, if you ask someone for help, it’s good to be able to understand his/her responses!

OK, back to choosing your training program.

What are the choices?
There are membership sites you can join, and in weeks to come I plan to review some that I have joined in the past and learned a lot from. The good thing about a membership site is that you can join for a monthly fee and not be hugely out of pocket if you decide it’s not for you.
A good membership site should include a members’ forum where you can get help from other members, have discussions, voice ideas and share opinions. The forum should have a positive and encouraging feel about it. The site should provide you with tools and resources necessary to conduct your business. Watch out for the ones that require you to keep buying stuff once you have joined. Some of these are just vehicles for the owners’ affiliate products.
If you are dying to get started and don’t want to wait for my reviews, the membership site I enjoy the most and have learned the most from is Wealthy Affiliate.

You can purchase a Home Study course. These can vary a lot in quality and price as well as how they are delivered to you. Some may be accessible digitally, either directly online or downloadable to your computer, others may be hard copy delivered by mail. They can consist of either written material, audio or DVD, or a combination, and these days most will include video demonstrations of the technical stuff, and workbooks to monitor your progress.
The best ones will offer some sort of support – if you are given an email address for a support team that’s great. Some will have a support ticket system. Either way, I used to get frustrated because I did not know enough to be able to articulate my questions so that the support people could understand what I wanted help with! If you find any program that offers one on one coaching, that’s priceless!
The disadvantage of a home study course is that you are faced with a one off payment that can be pretty hefty.

Middle of the road, and the route I have chosen, is finding a mentor with a proven system for success, who is prepared to teach you his/her system step by step, and to offer support until you have learned it. I have chosen John Thornhill’s Personal Coaching Program. We are currently in week 3 and I am “totally geeked” (quoting a friend who is more techie than I am).
I am learning step by tiny step how to do one thing well. There are a lot of components to it, as there are in every method or system online. When I can follow John’s method well, then, if I still want to, I can look at learning how to implement other systems. What I am learning now will be a solid foundation on which to build more.

How do you choose?
Research is the key here. Do some research in forums and on review sites. Google “internet marketing forum” or “internet marketing training review”(including the quotation marks – if you put your phrase in quotation marks, google will only return searches that include the exact phrase) to get a look at what’s there, or, if you want to learn about a particular product, google “product name” + review or “product name” + forum. In the forums, people will discuss products pretty frankly, and if you find a forum you like the look of, sign up and ask the question. You should soon get a few answers.
A word about reviews – remember they are written in such a way as to finally encourage you to buy. There is even a tactic used where the reviewer will deliberately start out by criticizing the product, then gradually turn his/her opinion around by finding more and more reasons why the first impression was wrong! The final twist is that the product turns out to be the one thing you must buy immediately in order to unlock the vault of all those fabled internet riches! These reviews are written by affiliates, whose goal is to get their commission. Look for honest reviews that describe the product, how it helped the reviewer, and why he/she liked it. Yes, these reviews are written by affiliates also, but some affiliates are straight up and will only review stuff they feel they can genuinely recommend.

What to avoid
Stay away from any product that promises all the work done for you – website provided and so on. Unless you know what you are doing, you will still be likely to have difficulties managing the so-called business.
Avoid over-hyped promises of instant wealth for no effort – there’s no such thing.
Do yourself a favour – invest your time, effort and money in a reputable internet marketing training program that will give you a solid foundation in the basics. If you have a job, keep it until you are seeing some result from your online endeavours; if money is an issue try to find a part-time job to take the pressure off while you learn.

Stay focused
This post is already too long. If you are still here, thank you. The topic of focus is worth a post on its own, but briefly put – focus your effort on learning one thing at a time. No ebook or training program is going to help you if it sits on your hard drive gathering virtual dust!

Toward a rewarding internet journey,

Sue

If you are new to the internet marketing world, the answer to that question is probably a definite YES. You probably clicked on an ad that said “Make Money Online”, you might have been a bit cautious, not willing to part with any money until you knew a bit more about it, but that’s OK, you can give them your email address and you’ll be able to download a free report for more information.
Or, you might have signed up for a free newsletter, or maybe even a free email course.
The free stuff gets you interested, you start to get a feel for the direction you want to take and eventually, you buy a product that will show you how you can easily generate a huge income with only a few hours of work each week!
I wish!

However you got drawn into the internet jungle, one thing is certain – it won’t be long before you fall prey to what I call “information jumble”.

It’s like this: there’s so many people online peddling little 30 – 40 page ebooks that tell you what to do, but not really how, or that describe the latest marketing trick that might work for a few months (maybe, for someone who knows what they are doing). Soon, you have thousands of bits of information jumbled in your brain like a giant jigsaw puzzle tipped onto the floor and with the picture missing.

I totally know how you feel! That’s how I felt too. There’s so much to learn – affiliate marketing; viral marketing; email campaigns; autoresponders; find a niche; and what the heck is SEO or HTML?
You can’t figure out where to start; it seems you have to know all of those things at once.

Now here’s the truth of it: first, there’s no such thing as a quick way to make overnight riches without any effort. Sure, the guys who have been working online for a long while can show you screenshots of amazing earnings which seem to happen in a short space of time, but they often neglect to describe the months of work and money spent developing a product and preparing the launch campaign.
Second, there is a lot to learn and those guys had to learn it too. Most of us can’t learn all of this stuff overnight.

I was on a tight budget, so I was reluctant to part with a big hunk of money. Instead, I cautiously bought lower-priced books that were supposed to teach me whatever I was struggling with at the time. I found that did not help – there were just too many bits of the puzzle missing.

Here’s the thing: many of us start out online with little or no money. We want to get going quickly, right?
The fact is, there is a lot to learn and you have to learn it step by step in the right order. It’s no good reading up on how to drive traffic if you don’t yet have a website.

My advice is to find yourself a mentor – someone who is already successful at what he/she is doing online, who will teach you how to do the same.
Make sure you will be able to contact that person, or a support person, directly. A home study course is fine as long as there is good support if you need it.
It doesn’t have to be expensive, in fact, the most expensive training (the $$ = four figures) I signed up for turned out to be a scam!

Even if you are on a tight budget, shop around until you find something you can afford – the investment will save you money and time in the long run, and the sooner you can learn enough to get started, the quicker you will start to have money coming in.

In my next post, I’ll talk about how to choose your internet marketing training program.

To a rewarding internet journey,

Sue

So far, this blog has mostly been about my experience as a person new to the internet and internet marketing. I felt you would like to know who this person is whom you are kindly giving your time and attention. I know your time is precious, so to recap briefly:

I have spent the last three years making all the common “newbie” mistakes and wasted heaps of time and money in the process.

I would like very much to help others (that’s you) shortcut that process.

I have not made a single cent online yet. That’s mostly because I have not taken any action (very common newbie failing, which I will expand on later).

How can I help you?

I can share with you mistakes I have made in the past three years. Hindsight is wonderful! With hindsight I can see how I went wrong and how others could avoid the same traps.

I will keep a weekly diary on this blog, sharing with you my progress, experiences, difficulties, disappointments and successes as I follow John Thornhill’s personal coaching program.

Occasionally, there will be a product or service that I have found to be genuine and helpful. I will list it in the “Recommended” category and write a review telling you how it helped me and why I like it (and yes, sometimes I will earn an affiliate commission if you buy – we all need to earn money!). I promise never to make a recommendation for something I have not used, just for the money.

If you’re still reading, I appreciate your attention and I hope to offer value in return by helping you keep away from false trails on your “internet journey”.

“our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.” 

Don Williams Jr. American novelist and poet b.1968

To a rewarding internet journey,

Sue

If you have read earlier posts on this blog, you will know that I fell into the common “newbie” trap of signing up for too many lists, buying too many “how to” ebooks, not applying most of the instruction they contained because I was wasting time reading emails about more and “better” how to ebooks! You will have read how fate took over and rescued me by keeping me away from my computer long enough for the light of madness to fade from my eyes. Then I was able to unsubscribe from most of the lists, keeping just a few I had learned were worthwhile.

Fast forward to New year 2008 – a good time for a new start. There happened to be several internet marketers launching study courses for people who want to learn how to develop a business on the internet.  By now, I had a good idea of my requirements:

• No hype – I was wary of the ones who tried to push their program with a lot of hype. Presumably, they would be trying to teach me how to do the same and it’s not a style I am comfortable with.
• Support – Another thing I had learned from past experience was to make sure there would be good support, including the availability of a live person if necessary. It’s amazing how I can follow directions absolutely to the letter, yet still have something work out not quite right in the technical department!
• Logical, step-by-step plan – I wanted to be able to study at my own pace, watching how something is done then working out how to do it myself, with access to help if I needed it. I knew I needed a clear, step by logical step plan that I could follow and repeat.  

 In the end, I looked into three training programs. I chose John Thornhill’s Personal Coaching Plan.

John Thornhill is an ebay Powerseller and experienced internet marketer who has been making a good living online since 2004. I had already bought useful products from John and been reading his PlanetSMS blog with interest. I had found that he consistently gives good advice, and I like his no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is approach to marketing. He was one of the people whose list I chose to keep on with. In the past I have watched videos made by John and I knew I could follow his clear instructions, which are always supported by explanations of why you are doing something, or doing it in a particular way. I find this makes it easier for me to learn.

John promised personal attention, promised that no-one would get left behind (not even me?) and for the technical side, had a good support person whom I had dealt with in the past. I paid my money, and spent any spare time I had before the course started deleting unwanted emails – yes, thousands of them!

By the time the course started at the end of January, 2008, I had completed a lot of computer housework (yes, sorry folks, but you do have to keep your computer tidy so that you can find your stuff), and I’d organized my life so that I would be able to focus my time and energy on John’s program.

If you read my previous post, you might remember that I had reached a point in my internet life where I was an addicted, compulsive buyer of internet marketing info products, stunned into confusion by information overload, dimly aware that my whole life would be in ruins if I did not do something about it. Perhaps you feel you might be on a similar path?

I would love to be able to say that with super-human strength of will I tore myself away from the computer and broke my “habit”. Well, I can say that, but it would be stretching the truth. The truth is that fate intervened and for a few weeks at the end of last year, I was too busy with other things to waste so much time reading emails from people who only wanted to sell me stuff. Being so busy with the rest of my life made it easier to take a complete computer break. Apart from quickly scanning my inbox once a day for personal messages, I stayed off the computer and the internet altogether. I went “cold turkey”!  

Well, guess what? The world did not end just because I did not read every IM email in my inbox.

I chose five marketers whose integrity and straightforward communication had impressed me over the months that I had been reading their stuff. I unsubscribed from all the rest and immediately gained about two hours a day that were now not being wasted reading sales letters! My next step would be to find a mentor. 

By which I mean the “Internet jungle”. This jungle is pretty impenetrable unless you have a plan, a map, and a mentor to guide you. The trouble is, there are thousands of so-called plans, maps and guides which promise you easy riches, so easy in fact that your grandmother could do it. They promise you that with only a few hours of your time each week, their blueprint for success will automatically pour money into your account while you sleep.

Incredibly, I fell for this. Not just once, but many times over a three year period. The only reason I am willing to confess to my stupidity is that I now know for sure I am not the only one! 

Like many others, I became addicted to buying information products that might help me learn how to tap into the internet marketing riches that would supposedly be mine if I bought into this or that plan. Occasionally, I found something that was actually useful – just enough incentive to keep me hooked and looking for more. I was mesmerized by slick sales copy; my mouse hand was constantly veering off towards the “buy now” button.  I was an Internet Marketer’s dream customer.

Eventually, I made myself stop buying stuff. Heck, I had enough material stashed on my hard drive that I will never be able to read it before it is out of date (or I die). I was on more lists than I have had birthdays. The money is in the list, right? Well, I am living proof that this must be true – I contributed thousands of dollars to all those lists. I’ve never been brave enough to add it all up.  

But I was still a sucker for the emails that daily cluttered my inbox, and I still compulsively downloaded every free offer that came my way. Of course, to get the free stuff I had to hand over my email address, so I got onto more lists… you probably know how it goes.

When I found myself  spending more time reading emails from people wanting to give/sell me stuff than I spent on any other activity, I knew I had to do something about it. I had spent heaps (time and money), and earned nothing; I was spending so long at the computer that I started to gain weight, and developed a stiff, painful right shoulder from struggling to keep my mouse away from all those “limited time” offers. 

To complicate things, I now had “information overload”, no sense of direction, lack of focus (you can’t focus if you can’t see where you are going) and was paralysed into total in-action.

I know (from reading forum posts and so on) that this is a common situation for those new to the internet marketing world. If you are still reading this, you can probably identify strongly with what I am saying. I took drastic action, which I’ll tell you about in my next post.

Hello, and welcome to my weblog. This is my first post on my first blog and this blog is, in fact, my very first website of any kind, so I am pretty excited about it.

It doesn’t look like much yet, but for me, having something actually up and running online is a major achievement. I think I must be the most technologically challenged person to actually own a computer!

Along with about 49 other students, I am in week two of John Thornhill’s coaching program and I think that after three years and several thousand dollars thrown away on other courses, I have finally found the course that is right for me, and the person whom I want to have as my mentor.

Now, it’s one thing to have a blog, but it’s another thing to have something to write about – something that will be worth the readers’ time and attention.

I’ve decided that the story of my struggle with learning the “internet ropes” (I promise to keep it brief) and my progress (thinking positive here!) with John Thornhill’s Coaching program could offer readers some amusement and might even be helpful. If I can save others from wasting time and money the way I have done, I think that would make me feel pretty good.