by: Gerald Zimmerman
(This will be a long blog entry – but I have something I need to say.)
There are, most certainly, times when my mind wanders way off its usual path. And for the past several days, it has been doing just that.
I can’t really explain it. I just know it is happening.
You see, I run a online internet marketing ‘company’, and it has grown slowly, with lots of peaks and dips over the past 2 years. I’m not becoming a millionaire, and in fact, I really have no desire to become a millionaire! That might surprise you, but that is the truth.
I have read hundreds of eBooks, watched hours and hours of “instructional” video’s online, talked with dozens of guru’s, aggravated friends and family with discussions that were meant to bring some semblance of order to my confused mind, tried products after product, PPC, ezine, pop-ups, and who-knows-what-else. Yikes! I have spent hundreds of dollars that, quite frankly, I couldn’t afford, and didn’t really have.
The result of that was . . .
Well, that’s where my thoughts have been taking me this week. Here’s my situation. Technically, I am retired. I have had a good life, never made a lot of money, but we have been relatively comfortable. I drive a nice car, live in a nice house, we eat well. But in retirement, I needed just a little more. You know what I mean.
I knew (and I make that a positive knew) that there was money to be made on-line. The problem, it turns out, is that finding a particular niche in the on-line marketing world is the biggest problem. Do you sell a product, like a computer, or computer parts, or ink, or software? Do you sell gadgets for the home, like you see constantly on TV (thank you Billy Mays), do you sell vitamins, do you go with MLM or stay away from that?
You sign up for a few things, and suddenly your inbox is filled to overflowing with offers of the latest, greatest, most magnificent, biggest money making, “top guru says”, “you only have 2 days left to get in on”, blah, blah, blah.
After a while, you head is filled with trash. Until – you finally sit down and do what you should have done in the beginning. You begin to analyze every offer. Look at what they say. Check out their numbers and figures and claims and hype. It can be done. Many times just checking on Google will tell you what is happening. How many people are advertising the same product or offer? How many are paying to advertise (they won’t pay to advertise for long if it isn’t selling).
I did this very exercise. I spent nearly 2 months looking at over 75 products and systems, and do you know the final result? Nada. Zero. None of the offers rang true. Sure, they sounded good. Sure, they each had a morsel of something that was usable. Sure, at some time in the past, someone, somewhere, probably made a killing on the product. But the final question turned out to be: “If it is so fantastic, why would they share all the details with me, and thousands of others like me, which would increase the competition, and cut into their own profits?”
I pondered this question long and hard. But within minutes I knew the answer. Think about it. At some time in the past, someone, somewhere, worked … literally slaved … to come up with a good plan to make some money. They developed a system, some copied from others, some original. They came up with a niche, or a product and applied it to their original system. It was, at the least, minimally successful. They made some good money with it. Maybe not millions, but enough to pay the expenses and leave a little at the profit line.
Then, the sales began to wane. Profits dropped off. They had pretty much used up the market. But it is a good idea, they said; and it should do well forever, they said. But they just need some new blood. Yours.
So, they write a sales page, develop a video or two, make some claims that are probably double or triple what reality was, and claim that they want to share their wonderful program with just a few people. Only 16 spots left. (Do you really believe that 16 more sales will shut off the spigot? Come on, now).
They spend a few bucks on PPC advertising it. They send out a series of e-mails to their list. They charge, oh, $37, $47, $87, $197. And they get a bunch of people who are mesmerized by their sales page who spend the money, and work hard to make it work. Usually with minimal if any success.
Sad story – but true. I bought many of those programs. Again, I really didn’t have the money to spend on them – I just jumped in thinking that maybe, just maybe, this would be the one!
It wasn’t.
It isn’t.
So – with my somewhat dense brain mulling all this over, I say to myself: “OK, big Jerry, what now? Are you going to make a success of this, or are you going to just fold?”
And the answer? (I’m going to say this in capital letters, which they say is Yelling online): NO. I AM NOT GOING TO QUIT OR FOLD. I AM GOING TO DO WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE IN THE BEGINNING. I AM GOING TO DO IT ON MY OWN. IT MAY TAKE A LITTLE LONGER, BUT IF I DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL, THEN IT WON’T BE SOMEONE ELSES FAILURE.
Sure, I will still do PPC, Facebook, Twitter, ezine, classified ads, and some other advertising forms. Yes, I will still write. Yes, I will still borrow on the small tidbits of information I gleaned from others. Yes, I will still bore my friends and family with my business acumen. But when I succeed, then it will be mine. Not someone elses. If I fail, it will be because I didn’t work hard enough at it.
Personally, I have chosen to sell products from ClickBank, the largest provider of electronic media in the world. They are fantastic. With over 30,000 products, there is plenty of room for me. But, you say, that’s going with someone else’s products. Yes, but I may develop an original product of my own soon. But how I market them is mine. I have promised myself, and my family, that I will no longer buy more programs, systems, ideas. I will develop them myself.
I will continue to read as much free material as I can. I will glean from it the best nuggets of information. I will not fail. I will succeed, as Frank Sinatra sang, “My Way”.
Watch out, world. Here I come.
Gerald Zimmerman is an internet marketer who sells a number of products online. Included is a course on the Golf Swing (www.golfswing.goodgraydog.info), and a series of foreign language courses (www.language.goodgraydog.info).