You have decided to become an internet marketer.

The lights, the glamor, the income…

Maybe you have done some research.  Maybe you have already had some success in the online marketing world.

Today’s post is a list of questions you need to ask yourself.  No matter what your experience of background, you need to ask yourself these questions.  The answers will help you to formulate your plan and strategy to achieve success.

The first group of questions will help you to understand whether you should begin your work alone or whether you should consider getting help (via hiring or outsourcing).

• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• Do you want to run a single-person business or a larger enterprise? Are you a leader or a follower?  I hope you all answer “leader” because if you are really a follower, starting an internet marketing business is not in your best interest.
• Can you write copy?  If you cannot and do not want to make the effort to learn, you will need to hire or outsource.
• Are you able to perform software installations and web design sufficient for the type of business you want?  Do you know html or want to learn?  If you install a lot of software on your pc and can do simple maintenance such as installing RAM or internal hard drives, you can probably perform most of the server work for your site.
• Can you maintain your confidence and enthusiasm and the proper mindset through tough times?  Initially, it is likely that times will be tough.  It will take time to build a customer base, trust from that base, and then a client-consultant/supplier relationship.
• Do you have vision?  Do you have a strategy for attaining the reality of that vision?  You need both vision and strategy in order to become successful.

The following questions are more “nuts and bolts”.  These questions will help you to determine your vision and your strategy.

• Do you want to sell consumer goods or information products?
• Do you want to distribute the consumer goods or do you want to have someone else do the distribution?  This can apply to information products, especially if you are selling them in physical form.
• Do you want to manufacture/create the product or be a reseller/affiliate only?

Finally, I have one question to give you some idea about whether you need more research before you start.

This question is:

Can you define terms such as: adwords, affiliate, autoresponder, bookmarking, double opt-in, niche, php, ping, plugin, PPC, SEO, social media, traffic, web 2.0., etc.

If you cannot define those terms, you probably need to do more research to know whether the internet marketing game is for you and what position you wish to play in that game.

To your sucess,

Tom

In another short but extremely important post for you today, I am going to discuss how to “get your mind right” to be a success.  Quite frankly, if you do not achieve the correct frame of mind before you start your efforts, you may as well just run a cash register at ChinaMart.

What do I mean by having your mind right?

Well, there are several parts to this.

You have to have confidence that your undertakings will “pan out”.

As mentioned previously, few successes are made without trial and error.

You must:

• have confidence in your ability to work through initial difficulties.
• persevere through the tough times.

One important and very difficult part of this is that you may have to disassociate yourself from friends or relatives who undercut your efforts.

If someone is constantly deriding your ideas or your ability to enact those plans, it may be necessary to “give them their walking papers”.  Certainly, you should discuss the situation first and try to help that person or persons to see how his or her negative attitude could be harming your chance to fulfill your dreams.  Hope that person will decide to be a part of the solution rather than remaining a part of the problem but let there be no mistake: you need to surround yourself with positive persons.  Constructive criticism is exactly that… constructive; if someone derides and ridicules you… kick them to the curb.

One last thing…

Begin a program of self-affirmations.  This will improve your self-confidence.

Improved self-confidence will surely help you to “hang in there” as you build your business but it is also going to help you become more successful immediately.

You must have confidence in yourself if anyone else is going to have confidence in you.   If someone is going to purchase anything from you, that person has to have confidence in your product by having confidence in you.

You know what your own vulnerable areas are.  Write your own affirmations based on what you know your vulnerabilities are.  Your subconscious mind has far greater ramifications upon your life than you may realize.  Negative things said to us in childhood and over the courses of our lives can cause us to have a lack of confidence in our abilities to succeed.  By using self-affirmations, you can begin to reverse any negative internal talk you may have and may begin to build confidence in yourself.  It helps me.  I believe it can help you.

These statements may seem simplistic but I believe they can be effective.  Such things should be repeated to yourself each morning and each night.  Most importantly, repeat your affirmations to yourself when you start to have negative thoughts about yourself; use them as a pattern interrupt to break any pattern of negative thinking and self-doubt that you have have.

I am a confident man.

I have a competent plan.

I will persevere through tough times and turn them into wonderful times.

I will learn from experience and apply that learning to build a better tomorrow.

I will be a better man today than I was yesterday.  I will be better still tomorrow.

I am smart.

I am confident.

I have a great destiny.

I am worthy of success.

I am worthy of love.

Hmm… I fell better just having typed those things.

Repeat your self-affirmations.

Be your self-affirmations.

To your success…

Tom

Fire your ungrateful, penny-pinching, money-grubbing boss…

even if he is actually a pretty decent guy.

Then, you can start your own business and BE the ungrateful, penny-pinching, money-grubbing BOSS!

I am kidding with that one…though there have certainly been many times I have thought to myself…

if I could just get rich and buy this company, I would love to be that guy’s boss for a while.  I would even pay him twice what he was worth so he couldn’t quit and would have to put up with my treatment of him.

Is it me or have bosses become more unbearable over the last ten to fifteen years?  Was there some hidden codicil in NAFTA or GATT that requires that anyone promoted in any company to a position that manages other employees, has to have graduated from the a-hole academy?

In the 20th century, I had bad bosses but I also had great ones.  Somehow the great ones seem not to have been y2k compliant.

As you have probably guessed by now, my experiences with bad bosses over the past decade are one large reason I have determined that I am going to become an interpreneur.  I coined that word as short for “internet entrepreneur”.

But there are many other reasons to become an interpreneur.

I value freedom in all of its forms.  The freedom to set one’s own schedule is certainly among them.

Make no mistake about it, there is a lot of work to be done, especially in the early stages of building your business.  But you have much greater control of when you do it.

Your nose is not introduced to someone else’s grindstone at a time when you would like to meet with the old friend who happens to be passing through your area.

You are able to meet that friend.

You are able to attend your son’s game or your daughter’s recital.

Youare able to attend the local premiere of the new Star Trek movie.

You are able to watch (or attend) the first world series appearance in over one hundred years by your favorite baseball team.

Bad bosses and the freedom to set your own schedule are just two of the many reasons to become an interpreneur.  I will enumerate more reasons in the future entries to this blog.

But next time, I will introduce you to me.  I will begin to tell you a little about my roots, my history, my dreams, my failures, my triumphs and my tragedies.

To your success!

Tom