Marketing lessons from a chinese buffet

I love Chinese food. My problem is with the chopsticks.

I had lunch with some friends today who all have pretty mad chopstick skills. Me? I still use a fork. No shame, but this has become quite the joke amongst my circle of friends. To them it comes naturally (years of practice I suppose) and they can't see why I don't bother. To me, I'm just hungry, and the fork is my solution.

Still with me? Good, because there really is a marketing lesson or two here and not just my post-lunch rant. Here it goes:

It doesn't matter what everyone else is doing, you have to do what works for you.

But, and this is key, how do you know what works for you?

Experience.

Let's bring this home into our space: Internet Marketing.

Article marketing? SEO? Buying pre-built sites or building from the ground up? CPA? and on and on. How do you know what works the best? How do you know what method or approach to take?

Again, experience.

You see, I have experience with the fork. Spaghetti. Chocolate cake. Baked potato. And it was experience that led me to ignore the chopsticks and go for the fork, in spite of what everyone else was doing.

(On a side note: focus also came into play here. Instead of wasting time fumbling with the sticks, I went straight for the big money, a big forkful of lo mein)

But perhaps you're asking yourself how do you gain experience?

We're not born with it. It is developed over time through trial and error. Believe it or not, there was a time when I was unfamiliar with the fork. There was a time when it was awkward, and unrefined. A time when it, like the chopsticks, just didn't work.

Have you ever heard people say that about Internet Marketing, that it just doesn't work?

It took time for me to master the fork, as it will take time to master the chopsticks. But in time, through trial and error, and learning and evolving, experience is formed. We grow. We change. We learn. We become better.

So the question...what does this have to do with you?

Along the way as an Internet Marketer you're going to be faced with plenty of roadblocks, detours, and setbacks. Some rice is going to fly, and some eggs are going to drop if you know what I'm saying. And you will inevitably find yourself in the great tension known to all who have gone before you, and this too is key...

On one hand, you must ignore the noise and distractions and taunts of your chopstick loving friends. You must do what works for you.

BUT on the other hand, you will never progress forward unless you take risk, unless you learn, unless you work through the unfamiliarity until experience is formed.

At times you will be tempted to throw the chopsticks down, you will be tempted to give up on your Internet Marketing dreams. Don't. Press forward. Let everyone around you work their 9 to 5 dead-end job; but you, you pursue something bigger.

Once you cross that barrier, and determine that you WILL succeed online, you'll notice another distraction though. This marketer says his chopsticks are the best, and his product will show you the fastest way to use them. Another marketer says he wants to show you a secret way to hold the chopsticks, and his strategy is really the most effective.

Shhhh.
Quiet the noise.
Your friends are jerks.

Focus on the one set of chopsticks at time. Focus on one Internet Marketing strategy at a time.

You see there are dozens of different ways to make money online, but you must ignore what everyone else is doing and do what works for you. But the only way to know if a strategy or technique works is to spend time diligently practicing it. Take this journey one step at a time. Don't bounce around from product to product, secret strategy to secret strategy. Master the fork. Then master the chopsticks. Evolution is a process, and so is learning to make a living from home.

The same is true in Internet Marketing. There are dozens of ways to make money online. But you waste time when you bounce from one idea to another. You must focus. You must persist. You must face your fears, learn something new, and even when everyone else around you says "try something different", you must keep on keeping on. Make sense?

I've got some leftovers to finish up now, so...

Until next time,
Derek