Internet Marketing is a fascinating ‘occupation’ but like any career, job, it’s not without its drawbacks.
For 2 out of the last 3 years, we’ve been on holiday / vacation with 400+ other Internet Marketing colleagues, friends, acquaintances and joint venture partners. Spending a week in the winter cruising around the Caribbean tends to let down guards, enhance existing relationships, let you make new friendships and get to know not only Internet Marketing peeps, but also their families, making it a well-rounded relationship. (It can seem a little disconnected if relationships are mostly virtual. That’s one reason why we go to a lot of conferences, seminars and workshops, not only in Internet Marketing, but also in our other niches of Property or Real Estate and Personal Development.)
One of our fellow Internet Marketing cruiser group has just quit his J.O.B. in London and gone full-time into Internet Marketing. He asked the question, what do yo wish you had known when you went full-time into Internet Marketing? What life lessons have you learned?
The key findings for me with respect to a full-time living from Internet Marketing were:
- Get a great mentor early on, not years down the road
(Many thanks in my case to Tracy Repchuk (below), Rich Schefren & Mike Filsaime in Internet Marketing, plus Jonathan Jay and Peter Thomson plus Rich Schefren again, in business and marketing in general)
- As with mentoring, read about how others have achieved success, however they define that.
I’m a lead author and co-editor of the Amazon best-selling business and personal coaching book ‘Ultimate Life Lessons’, www.UltimateLifelessons.com, together with my wife Eve Grace-Kelly and our friend and former mentor, Tracy Repchuk. Jonathan Jay kindly wrote the foreword for us. 6 of TV’s Secret Millionaires, from the programme of the same name, are featured in there too! - Treat IM initially as a job: don’t go off in a haphazard fashion on different directions.
(Gotta watch those Internet Marketing folks: they’re pretty good at getting us to go after the next shiny object 😉 )
So, treat a project professionally as a ‘corporate’ project. Set goals, tasks and deadlines.
Despite being a former Project Manager, with blue-chip clients such as
- WH Smith
- UK Central Government (the Cabinet Office)
- the NHS
- J Sainsbury’s Head Office
- Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs
- National Power
- the European Commission in Brussels (project managing the creation of the Single European Market)
- NatWest Bank
- Deutsche Bank
- Robert Fleming
- Digital and ICL
I didn’t treat my Internet Marketing projects as ‘proper projects’ as much as I should have in the early days. I’m much more rigorous now. (Our project management book can be found here.)
- Focus & don’t procrastinate.
(Our Focus book is available here.
Our book on Overcoming Procrastination will be available here July 2012.)
- Use tried & tested time management techniques.
- Ensure you keep fit & healthy! You’ll be more productive & won’t damage your health.
- Keep a good (for you) work-life balance. This way, you lessen your chances of burn-out.
(See our blog here for more tips on this.)
- Outsource early on. (We left this quite a way down the line.
Now, we wouldn’t be without our VA (Virtual Assistant) & web development & SEO team!
For free tips on what to outsource and how to outsource, see our reports here.) - Work out what success actually means to you! Don’t go chasing someone else’s idea of success. Create your own vision of success. For our fantastic value online coaching programme, Ultimate Personal Success, please visit here.
I hope that’s useful and lets you learn from my early mistakes in going full-time into Internet Marketing.
Best wishes,
Vinden Grace