Am I the only one intimidated?

Hi Nathan,

You are not alone...


Personally, I think having intimidation could mean that
you have a certain fear and respect.

I love this forum a lot but I make sure to never let my
familiarity get the better of me and to allow contempt.

So, it's not a bad thing

Asher

Hello Nathan,

I doubt you're alone. But even if you are, so what?

You put a decently-worded post together. You don't
seem stupid to me. But the only thing that matters is
how you feel.

I can only suggest you avoid having that thought in
your brain, at least consciously.

Don't associate that word with your self.

I would strongly suggest you learn and concentrate on
the fundamentals.

I would also strongly suggest you learn by doing. Read
or learn, but make a decision about something and set
sail. Don't worry about where it will take you.

Yes, I know you have a destination in mind. But the interplay
of various forces makes for non-linear navigation.

I appreciate it guys.

It's a plus that people here have patience. I have asked a few questions before and folks are pretty quick to help, simply because they know and like to share.

That's worth a million. And this help is free. You can't beat that...

Paul - Then I'll bet you won't judge me when I say I wasted five minutes yesterday trying to see where I could read my emails on the mall payphone...

I completely empathize - and I've been here a while now. The more IM-ing I do, the more I realise I don't know.

I've learned that the best thing to do is to become profficient at one thing - writing articles for instance - then look in to learning methods for developing that into other areas online. If ou try to do too much, you'll burn out and think iof quitting. Just like in the offline World, except for the odd one or two whizzkids, this IM thing is about getting wealthy slowly, not getting rich quickly - particularly if you're starting form $zero

This is normal; there's loads to learn

Try finding a few things you are good at and focus on them primarily.

"Jack of all trades, master at none" etc is a good thing I sometimes like to remember when I try and learn too much

I've been into "online stuff" (meaning everything including web development/design, IM, domaining, SEO, writing etc) for probably 8 years now, and still would only consider myself very good at a handful of things.

We can't learn everything.

Nor do we need to

LOL. That is better writing than lots of newspaper editorials I come across.

Hell no mate ... that's normal.

No matter what stage you're at, this IM business is so vast that you'll never know everything and nor do you need to. I find that I need a basic plan and model where I know I need to do XY and then Z but that doesn't mean I know much about XY and Z.

I start by learning about X then doing it. Then Y and then Z - otherwise I just start thinking too far down the line and putting the icing on the cake when I've not even bought the ingredients.

What? You don't know it all yet? Slacker! Get a box of toothpicks to hold your eyes open, hire a midget to put eyedrops in every 30 seconds or so, and get to readin'! Action shmaction. You gotta learn it all man... and NOW! For God's sake, don't do anything until you have every last ounce of IMery goodness absorbed, assimilated, and codified.

NOTE: No actual midgets were harmed in the production of this reply.

Hi Nathan,

Your OP made my day!

You really have a talent for writing - you could be writing about me, by the way! (my kids tell me I need to activate my 'Bluetooth' so they can send me stuff:confused:??)

Good luck in whatever you decide to do and keep on writing.

Karen

I'd forget about tweeting and smartphones for now and pick something basic and learn all you can about it. Certainly building a site and driving traffic and backlinking are some basics that should keep anyone busy for awhile anyway.

The more you read, the more you'll understand things. You will be overwhelmed if you try to understand everything that you read all at once. Master one thing ... then master something else.

Getting into internet marketing is really like going to back to high school all over again....There's so much information out there....NEVER try to learn all of it at once or you'll get information over load

Take it one step at a time and you'll be fine

I totally understand your feelings. I've been working on the web in various capacities for 12 years and still feel overwhelmed sometimes - okay, often. Technology evolves so quickly, no one can keep up with everything, not even close.

Don't let experienced marketers and new devices intimidate you (they smell fear and then you're really in trouble). Kidding. You're obviously an intelligent guy, and these things will become second nature quicker than you think. Don't compare yourself to people who have been at it a long time and know way more than you, because no matter what field you're in, there will be people who have been at it a long time and know way more than you.

Just learn what you need to learn to accomplish your objectives, make a reasonable effort to keep an eye on new developments, and then don't worry about it. Worry will spoil the fun - and this is fun!

That's ok. Not everyone, knows everything. Whatever you don't know or lack skills in...try outsourcing it. Top marketers do this all the time, they outsource their weakness and stick with their strengths.

Nathan what you said here IMO is an answer.

"But sometimes I just don't want to learn anymore."

What you said there is good sometimes.

Next step.... Action.

You honestly don't need to know half the stuff you may read here. Not that it's bad there are just a lot of topics here that may not apply to what you wanna accomplish.

IMO just target something and start taking action on it. And if you get stuck use the forum here to try to figure something out.

So many people will read forums forever and a day and just run around testing all the "new" stuff they see pop-up in each new thread.

Just pick something and run with it.

I don't know who first said this but it makes sense and I think of it all the time.

"If knowledge were power then librarians would rule the world"

Yes, Nathan, I know how you feel. There is so much to learn and so many people with so many ideas. I'm with you on the tweeting lol. I have a Twitter account and I get messages saying people are following me. I immediately look over my shoulder lol

Although it's a very special example of it's kind, what the Warrior Forum is when you boil it down is a place for online business owners and those interested in becoming one to discuss the methods used to make money, and the issues associated with them.

If you were to imagine an offline equivalent where high street business owners regularly met to discuss the same things, you would not expect the baker to be an expert on cuts of dead cow in the same way as the butcher would be, and you would not expect the butcher to have the extensive knowledge of cleaning chemicals that the dry cleaner has. It would also be immediately evident that the newsagent's knowledge of periodic amateur radio magazines would not be a lot of good to the dressmaker as she's running up a ballgown.

There's no need to know it all, and it's no different for business owners online. Once you've established what your business involves and it comes to need something that you can't supply, do what the grocer does when his shop needs new shutters - outsource it and pay another business to supply them instead

For the record, I wouldn't know a Tweet if it walked up to me and bit me, but I still manage to put food on the table. It's not that I'm intimidated by the idea of them, but there are only so many hours in the day and it's important to me to find time for life beyond work. I wouldn't advise knowing everything, but I would recommend knowing when to stop

Hi,

We all have to start somewhere. You can't enter into something new and be expected to know everything right away. Sometimes when I havn't been in the WF for a while I feel like I've been left behind and all sorts of new topics are being discussed, but you soon catch up.

Try to get through many of the all in one threads and gradually increase your knowledge and before you know it, you will be versed in many aspects of IM'ng, but there will always be room for improvement .

Yves

Wow - thank you so much for all your posts.

I come back on and feel like I've got a family here (and no, you're not getting Christmas gifts) and it's great.

I read so many inspiring posts, and to be absolutely honest, as I read I found myself feeling like I got what I may not have consciously known I was looking for - permission.

I think I may have been hoping to hear "it's ok" and that's what I got. Good! Since I've already mastered being an awesome dad, the best husband, giving opinions, grilling really good and being really awesome looking, I felt a little nervous at hogging all the first place titles in one more thing - internet marketing.

(Ok I'm kidding...I can only grill hot dogs.)

But truthyfully it's nice to hear what a lot of people have said. What really struck me was something that was said a few times a few different ways. It's like I'm in a place where I just happen to overhear a number of different conversations but that doesn't mean I'm expected (or should for that matter) to know and have a handle on it all.

Just because the conversation about "tweeting" for example is going on doesn't mean I MUST have it all covered.

(And I hear you cindyt - I set up an account at twitter a while back and for no reason I started getting messages people were following me too. I was pretty sure the lady at Target that stayed with me fifteen feet back and for four suspicious aisles wasn't one of them, but I wasn't taking any chances so I lost her by hiding in the fitting rooms. Take that woman.)

Anyway, it just feels good to have "permission" to let it go. Relax and work on getting better at stuff like grilling.

I also liked the comment about having tunnel vision of sorts with paying attention only to what I need to when coming here or worry about wasting time.

That's great advice.

Thanks folks...

Nathan,

A friend of mine sent me a message like this the other day...

"Come over to MySpace and I'll Twitter your Yahoo while you Google my Facebook."

Needless to say, I'm still cracking up.

Thing is, bro... all this stuff is pretty funny if you look at it from the outside; thus laugh don't tremble. You're already on a good road.

Stay strong...
PLP,
tecHead

95% of it is crap that gets parroted by very inexperienced "n00bs" trying to pump themselves up for the big release of their forthcoming WSO.

Like anything else, keep the BS filter tuned and don't take anything said at pure face value.

You'll figure out who is the real deal (hint, they're probably giving away more information than they sell).

Your post cracked me up, (you did say it was ok to laugh!)

You have two of the most crucial elements already in place.

Personality
Effective communication skills

The rest will come.

I think we all start out feeling a little overwhelmed in someways - but as many have pointed out, we find a way to focus on our strengths and move forward. No one knows it all - there is way too much to learn.

Some are lucky enough to be considered experts in particular areas, and the rest of us are still working toward that goal. There is a huge learning curve to Internet Marketing, and you should continue learning about this business for as long as you are in it or you will be left behind.

Fortunately though, there are some basics that have remained effective for many years, and will probably continue to do so. That's why it is good to learn some of those and build the essential skills before worrying so much about what the trend of the month is.

This forum is a great place to learn. Read and ask questions. The people here are wonderful and many of them enjoy helping others.

I read a book once about starting your own company. The person writing the book came to the conclusion that the best way to be successful in your own business was to have worked in the same field for years before going out on your own. There are so many small things that can make a break a brick and mortar business that it takes years to learn enough to be successful. Having been online since before 2007 I believe it is the same with starting an online business. It takes a lot of time to learn the ins and outs of making an online business work. It is almost like you need to put in the magic 10,000 hours to really learn enough to make it on your own online. Now you can cut this down a lot with the right coach just like in anything.

I signed up for this forum probably about a year or two ago, and I stopped using it pretty fast because there was just too much information.

I just came back to this forum a few days ago, and now that I've learned my path I like it a lot. At first, there's just too many people to listen to and too many paths to take, and it's impossible to know who to follow because everyone always has great ideas and different views, and it's impossible to learn it all.

For the most part, Tom Cruise just acts. Imagine if he was just lost and studied acting, filming, editing, directing, casting, managing, advertising, design, writing, and every single thing possible to study to make money in the field. He probably would never find success.

You really need to just find your path and focus in. I still consider myself completely new but I found my main path and in as few words as possible it's building a list of niche customers and selling them affiliate products and my own products.

I see that as the number 1 way to find success online and that's where most of my focus goes to, but not all of it. I like to have a lot of control over what I'm doing so I do spend extra time learning photoshop and how to design products to look nice, and banners etc.

I'm not making tons of money right now or anything, but I don't even have my main plan set up completely quite yet, and right now I'm making ZERO dollars from my main plan, and I make around 100 per month from little ideas I tried here and there while learning all this and testing different things out.

It's been about 2-2.5 years since I've discovered IM and it basically took that whole time to figure out my path, and figure out how to actually try it out for myself.

I'm guessing I'm going to learn a lot here, and so will you, but don't worry about what everyone is saying all the time because not everything is relevant to all of us.

What I think is the key to online success is also the key to offline success, and that is to start a business. Be in business. Be the man getting rich, not the man helping other people to become rich, though with IM it's good to be both ie: be a product owner and also sell your customers other vendors products that you know they'll appreciate.

Put more focus on getting someones e-mail than getting their money, because if you get their e-mail, then you can potentially get money from them multiple times throughout their life. So someone signing up to your e-mail list is more valuable than someone buying your product and not signing up to your list.

I don't know it though first hand experience yet, but I learned from the people at the top, and I believe them.

Hey Nathan, no need to feel intimidated. We all had to start somewhere. Not every black belt in Karate or Judo was born a black belt. Everything is a learning process.

I lurked here on the WF for about 6 months, reading posts and threads and learning. After about 6 months I finally dared to make my first post.

Use the search function near the top of the forum here to look up topics or IM jargon which you are not familiar with. Use Google to search for information on IM topics as well as YouTube.

Day by day you will be learning more and more. Then, before you even realize it, you too will be a Jedi Master.

Hey Nathan,

It can definitely get a little overwhelming. My advice know what information you are needing and use the search tool. It blocks out the extra information that you don't need just yet.

When starting out pick a niche and start building an email list to market to. Those are the two main things I have found once they are done the rest starts to come together a lot smoother. There is an article that helped me on CopyBlogger (not my site btw) that helped me setup my list. I hope this helps!

How to Build a First-Class Email List in 30 Days -- from Scratch

For the people here posting to nathan or quoting him. You should probably look at the date of the OP it is 6 years old.

al

Hi Nathan,
Believe me you are not the only one, it is normal to get intimidated but in general, the longer the learning curve, the more you will get out of a job. If it would be easy, then everybody would do it.
Take your time, learn the basics, take baby steps, set goals for you and you will see that results will come.

What here?.... It's hardly f*** Harvard my friend. The fact you can read and write puts you in the top percentile. If you can understand and think for your-self you are in the top 1%.

Maybe he developed those mutant powers and is monitoring this thread through telepathy.

Based on his post history, he might still be alive (Feb. this year was the last post), and it looks like he ended up getting heavily involved in Kindle marketing throughout the years. Probably safe to say he found his spot in the IM world.

One indicator among several:
http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...ml#post8153198

(And yes, I have too much free time on my hands these days).

What's even more amazing is I reported this post twice to the mods to close. But their infinite wisdom tells them to keep it open.

al