Are these five issues confusing you, too?

"Sun Tzu - Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."

6. Do not confuse tactics with strategy. Many people will talk about specific tactics in the context of a strategy. For example, using SEO to promote your niche sites is not a strategy.

A strategy is the framework that supports & gives direction to the tactics you use to accomplish your goals. Tactics are the methods & actions you take to implement a strategy.

So for example, lets say your goal is to become a leading authority & trusted advisor in the remote viewing niche. Part of your goal is to generate 10 subscribers a day to your email list. You guesstimate that you will need at least 100 targeted visitors per day to achieve that goal.

Your break those 100 visitors down to 5 targeted keywords. You now decide on the appropriate TACTICS that are be best suited to target those 5 keywords. For example your tactics might be to create 5 highly optimized landing pages and use SEO in combination with forum marketing and blog commenting.

Creating 5 landing pages, using SEO, forum marketing & blog commenting are all tactics.

By separating tactics from strategy you can make better decisions and changes if & when they are needed. Understanding the difference between strategy & tactics and creating your marketing plan with that knowledge will help you maintain better clarity & objectivity in the tactics you use & in interpreting the results you get.

Do not confuse failure at a tactic as being a failure as a marketer: Just because you try something and it doesn't work does not mean that you aren't cut out for this business. Heck, it might not even mean that the thing you tried is bad. It just means that in one case things didn't go your way. Take whatever lesson you can from said action and get back on your horse. No pity parties in this business.

Good ones! Alexa's post reminds me of another:

9. Do not confuse SEO fodder with "high quality articles." Enough said, methinks.

9. Do not confuse being busy with being effective

Is what you are doing right now actually help you achieve your goals or not?

Oh, we're numbering these? Well, this is 10. I guess (unless someone posts faster ).

Do not confuse time spent on the Warrior Forum as time spent as an "Internet Marketer": Sure, this is a fun place to hang out and learn a bunch of stuff. Just because you are on here posting all day though does not mean you are suddenly going to turn into a super whatever you want to be. To get where you want to go, you will have to actually go out and work for it...at least for a little bit.

Hey Becky...

Nice to see you posting. You should do it more often. Great food for thought.

@ Lexy... enough of the avatar changes. This old boy can't cope!!

do not confuse subscribers with customers - just because someone signs ups up to receive your freebie offer does not make them a customer.

do not confuse a good customer and a bad customer - some customers deserved to be fired. likewise, some customers deserved to be taken care of at almost all costs.

do not confuse automation with automatic money. - automation makes your life easier by helping you to do repetitive tasks. automatic money - does not exist.

do not confuse having knowledge of a subject with understanding something - A few days ago, I was watching the news, and a student was debating that adding government regulation didn’t really hurt small business. When a small business owner stood up and asked him how many businesses the student owned, he reluctantly answered none. Then of course the business guy asked the obvious question, “how the hell do you know what affect regulation has on business when you have never owned a business” The point is that while the student had probably studied the topic, he was ill equipped to answer questions by people who were actually on the front lines of the topic.

Don't confuse dreams with goals. You can start with a dream...but you have to add specific steps that have deadlines and measured results. Dreams stay in your head...goals require action.

Rose

Do not confuse a WSO stating "a tried and tested top secret marketing strategy which will guarantee you one BILLION dollars every ten seconds" as something that will even make you a dollar and which you can probably already find on the net for free.

Don't confuse activity with money making activity.

Don't confuse your role in the business... you are not a webmaster... you are a marketer.

Do not confuse A make money online blog with making any money online

Do not confuse anyone's do not confuse statements for written in concrete facts.

George Wright

Do not confuse your Google #1 Ranking with a guarantee of always being #1.

Do not confuse statistics with useful information.
Sometimes they are just statistics.

do not confuse me! lol

thanks to all the poster so far i need a reality check and seeing this thread put me there.

also do not confuse me with the real Elvis i cannot sing!

Do not confuse hype and BIG RED LETTERS with honesty.

Dang, I'm outta thanks... and there are some great contributions here! You guys are awesome.

(Do not confuse an OP who's run out of thanks with an OP who doesn't care about your contribution! )

Do not confuse "what I do" with "what works."

At best, it is "what works for me." More often, it is "what worked once that time you were looking." And even if you understand how well and how often it works, you may not entirely understand why it works.

And that goes for "what you do" as well, and "what he does" and "what they do" and all of that. Yes, I know you'd like to be a Pepper too, but success in business is a little more complicated than cracking a can of delicious refrigerated beverage.

Don't put too much stock in the spotlight shining on something that works. It may never have worked before; it may never work again; there may be a small army of stagehands making it work behind the scenes. It may even be just a special effect because it doesn't really work at all.

And even if it does work, remember: even a blind dog finds a bone sometimes. That doesn't mean blindness helps you find bones, so don't go racing off to poke your eyes out.

Do not confuse get rich quick schemes with building a stable income.

After all, just with anything else, if you really want to make a good, steady income from IM, you have to dedicate time and effort to it. Things do not typically happen overnight. Success happens after trial and error, and lots of it.