“The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance – and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.”
Oprah Winfrey
Be a specialist
At school you had been taught that you needed to know as much as you could about all kinds of topics that you were probably not even interested in (e.g. for me the horrors were math and physics…). It would not have made sense to have been focused on just one of these subjects because if you had done that, you would not have made it to the next grade.
In Internet marketing it all is a little different. Here, you should NOT try to be the ‘Mr. or Mrs. Knowitall’ but the specialist, the go to guy/gal, in ONE area of Internet marketing. This can be e.g. an SEO expert, the software developer, a Google Adwords specialist or a copywriter or more recently, the Web 2.0 guy/gal.
Personally, I would brand myself as the software developer since that is where my expertise is. But more recently, I have also become very experienced in creating VRE (virtual real estate) websites using WordPress so I can also say that I am a blogging specialist.
Whatever it is that you do, make sure you learn as much as you can about your area of expertise. Strive to become the best you can be. Just like a doctor or a lawyer learns everything he can about his medicine or laws, you need to do the same in your area.
And it never stops. If you have a passion for something, you will like it to learn more and more about it in order to become the best.
Give me crap and I’ll let others know…
Personally, I love to educate myself about all the new ways of making money online (this is a treat of all the top Internet marketers – they never stop educating themselves!). I am the kind of guy people want to have on their lists because I am constantly buying their stuff – presupposed it’s not just rehashed material (and if it is, I’ll get myself a refund).
As long as I am getting at least one good idea from a product which can make me more money when implementing it in my own business, I won’t be asking for a refund. But give me crap and not only will I be asking for my money back but I’ll let my list know about it as well so they can avoid it and not waste their hard earned money…!
Focus on one project at a time
When I was attending the Internet Millionaire’s Bootcamp in London in October of 2006, Mike Filsaime said something on stage that I’ll never forget: “You need to focus on one project at a time”. Even though it sounds so simple, most people do completely the opposite.
Focusing on one project at a time will bring you income much quicker than trying to get multiple projects finished at the same time – something which can almost never be achieved. So the key to success is just to focus on the one project that will be bringing you the greatest revenue within the shortest amount of time.
You know, even I, as a very experienced Internet marketer, sometimes made the mistake of wanting to achieve too much at the same time. Instead of working on one project until it was finished, I was trying to handle 3-4 projects at a time. And the result was that nothing got finished in time and my income was suffering from it. Because not being able to finish a project means less income.
In Internet marketing, you better come up with new products quickly because you will soon be forgotten if you don’t. You must be the innovator, the one who is coming up with new, helpful products that your subscribers and customers want to buy from you.
(For example, that’s why I relaunched my Niche Content Websites – membership site because I saw that my business wasn’t different enough from the businesses of others who were selling the same kind of products. I wanted to get a better USP – a unique selling proposition which was better than most of my competitors by selling UNIQUE websites to people who are interested in making a living from niche type of VRE websites. This has become the solution for people who can’t design their own websites or don’t know how to implement monetization modules – now everything’s done for them…!)
If you don’t know what they want, ask them! Your products must become the solutions for their problems.
Outsource everything you don’t want to do yourself
And you don’t even have to create these products yourself. That’s what outsourcing is for. No one is expecting from you, if you e.g. have a great idea for a software tool, that you need to create it yourself. Just hire someone on Elance.com or ScripLance.com, tell him or her what you want to have done, and they’ll do it for you – at a very reasonable price.
For example, I had my AffiliateTurbo software programmed by a programmer which I found on ScriptLance. I paid about $400 for it and I made more than $10,000 from this tiny investment. And the same was the case with my Blog Promoter software. (in the meantime, I’ve sold both businesses for several thousands of $$… they simply were too work intensive as they required a lot of updates on an almost daily basis).
By knowing what you want to achieve and what your goals are, you’ll actually get there much quicker. You simply need to be the one who plans it all – it’s not necessary that you are doing everything yourself. And all the steps which are needed to get there, will fall into place almost automatically.
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(This article is an excerpt from my Revenue Blueprint ebook. If you liked the article, then why not get yourself a copy of the complete works at www.revenueblueprint.com/ ?)
You definitely bring it to the point: focus is the key to success!
I too suffered from wanting to work on many different projects at the same time until I attended a great trainig programm with Jack Humphrey and Sam Clark. Besides beeing focused you have to have a great plan with daily tasks. Might sound boring but helps to stay focused and keep away from that thousand distractions like incoming emails, etc.
All the best,
Andreas Obermüller
P.S.: Did you cancel your german newsletter or just don’t find time for it?
Hi Andreas,
Yes, a to-do list will certainly help to keep you on the right track. That’s what I am also explaining in my Revenue Blueprint ebook: It’s not enough to do just a little bit here and there and jump from opportunity to opportunity.
Being focused on that one thing that you like most is the key to success. Whether it is selling products on a direct response website, whether it is selling products as an affiliate or whether you are using Adsense to generate an income.
It all depends on what you want to achieve and how your vision for your business looks like.
And with regards, to my German newsletter ( can be found at www.powerwebmarketing.de/ebook-kostenlos ):
It’s the same reason as for the english newsletter and why I haven’t been able to produce that much content: I’ve been completely focused on the re-launch of my Niche Content Websites. But I certainly will continue my German newsletter. The problem I have with it so far is that I have not been able to grow it.
It’s still stuck at 70 subscribers or so. And as you can imagine, it is more attractive to send messages to a large subscriber base than to just a few people. But now that I have completed the relaunch for NCW, I’ll definitely work on that…
Thanks,
Detlev
Thanks for the reminder Detlev. And yes I’m one of those who look for your newsletter to screen out the latest IM campaigns. Always appreciate your opinions. I’ve been building up my basic skills over the past few years, but now realize that it is time to focus and specialize. Research and article writing are the things I love to do. Time to focus and build up some material! Thanks for the reminder. Colin