Do you really care what other IMers are doing?

Hi Marian,

Don't you see the irony?

I'm not knocking you Marian. In fact it's a compliment.

I would rather hear YOUR point of view than Gary Vaynerchuk's. I don't care if he has more money than you or I, he doesn't actively contribute here - he might be in a different league therefore his opinion might be less appropriate for the average warrior.

YOUR opinion is valid, so offer that instead of Gary's.

I agree with the theme of Andy's post. In this forum, there are too many people that seem conditioned to follow others and act like if they don't obtain a blueprint or a mentor they will be lost.

If you go back a very long way, we are all probably from the same 'family'. Think about it. And that hairy bunch didn't have any blueprints but they managed to expand to the 7 billion or so that are in the 'family' today.

Someone had to 'imagine' the internet in the first place. So if we should copy or follow anyone, copy/follow that person by using our imagination and creating brand new stuff from brand new ideas all day, every day. It's the most obvious shortcut that everyone seems to want to avoid.

Hi Andy, great post!

I think a lot of it is just human nature... Online/Offline, all the same!

The very successful companies/marketers, again Online or Off, very often, target these
folks!

I play golf with a good friend of mine and in the last 10 years he's probably purchased
12-14 drivers but he never worked on his swing!!!

He gets the same results... or even worse, he shoots higher because he needs to "adapt"
his new tool to his swing!

He's not going to start hitting the ball like Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus because
XYZ inc. is saying they use this club and not that club.

This can be said for any new shinny course/product that comes along in the Internet
Marketing world... work on your swing first!

Kindest Regards,
Pete

I'm not trying to sell anything - just help people so I don't see the need to sugar coat it, there are a lot of people diluding themselves that they're building a business when they're just dabbling and copying other people in the hope that they'll suddenly make easy money.

There are a lot of ways to make money that I just don't do because I'm lazy or not interested in them - but they'd work for someone else. Also there are people making money doing things I have no interest in and wouldn't work for me because I wouldn't have the discipline to do them.

Copying other people just because you have no plan of your own is a really bad way to start a business because at best you'll end up aiming at their goals - and you have no idea what they are.

Ok - I'll make the videos, I can take a hint

Excellent post Andy!

All newbies should make clear for themselves what they actually
want to focus on.

If it is affiliate marketing, then forget about everything else until
you have mastered driving massive traffic.

If it is product creation, go create your own products and learn to
sell them through your own funnel.

And so on.

Don't get lost in the ocean of information about all and everything
that has to do with making money online.

Pick just one strategy, or business model, and do only that until
you have strong online presense within that model.

Don't care about others business models, mind your own business,
become knowledgeable, become a master. FOCUS!

Good ones too

Thanks Becky.

You're right - that one is a biggie.

Many people have no plan and if they actually looked at what they were doing in the cold light of day it would be obvious why they're not getting the results they want.

Whenever people come to me and ask for help in their IM efforts it's always easy for me to see what they're doing wrong - some of that is experience and outside perspective but sometimes they just never really got 'real' about it and looked at it from a common sense angle and asked some probing questions about whether their expectations are in-line with their actions and what will come from them (or even if they can tell what will come from them).

you'd never be able to start an offline business like this but so many people try it with the online business because they expect to fail so they don't start with a solid plan.

Looking for others to tell you what to do is a great way to have someone else to blame when it doesn't work.

Andy

Andy, there is so much I've wanted to say in reply to your post and a lot of
the replies here that I don't even know where to start.

Let me begin with "caring" about what other marketers do.

There are 2 kinds of caring.

The first kind is where you cling onto every little thing that John Doe does
in the hope that one of those things will make you some money. This is
what leads way too many people to jump from one thing to the next. It is
the reason why, in the MLM community, the average retention for a
program is about 90 days. People have no patience and when they see that
the program that has promised them the moon doesn't pan out, they move
on to the next one.

The second kind of caring is where you observe what's going on to see
what changes are taking place in the community. This is critical if you're
going to stay on top of things. Imagine that some law goes into effect
that greatly affects affiliate marketing, such as the new tax laws for
certain states in regard to Internet sales. If a smart IMer figures out a
way to make the best of these changes or even monetize them, isn't it
in your best interests to see what they're doing and, if nothing else, test
it for yourself? You may be leaving money on the table, or worse, seriously
hurting your business if you don't.

Point is, we don't live in a vacuum. We need to keep our eyes open or we
end up getting left behind.

Now, in response to the discussions on the employee mentality. This is
another big problem with people who "think" that they want to run their
own business online. They say that they want the "freedom" to work when
they want, but the problem is, they don't have the "discipline" to work
when they have to. The reason is simple. They don't have a boss looking
over their shoulder telling them what to do and when to do it. And from
what I've seen, not everybody is cut out to force themselves to get out
of bed and tackle that to-do list...if they've even made one.

As far as a business plan. How many people are even qualified to make one?

As an employee, it's not something you ever had to worry about. Now, all
of a sudden, if you're out of work like I was, you're forced to think in ways
that you've never had to think in before. Without training, how is this
even possible? I went to school for 4 years, got a degree in marketing and
finance and yet it still took me 3 years of fumbling in the dark before I
finally made a REAL business plan. The average Joe doesn't have a prayer
in that department.

As for John Taylor's comment about caring about what marketers do if
you're going to do business with them...absolutely.

Reputations can be ruined by associating with the wrong people. So for
that reason alone, I want to know every little thing that so and so did.

For example, when the forced continuity stuff was going on, there were
a few people who took some heavy hits. At the time, were you not aware
of who they were and got involved with them, you might have been the
victim of some nasty press yourself.

Again, we do not live in a vacuum. And while I agree that ultimately, those
who succeed are the ones who truly think for themselves and are
themselves, you can't bury your head in the sand. To me, that's just
professional suicide.

Anyway, that's my million dollars worth on the subject.

It's good to be back.

Hey Andy - stirring up the hornet's nest again I see!

I absolutely agree with your core premise that blindly following others is a bad way to model success. You don't start out from the same place they did, so you are very unlikely to end up where they are.

However, I do 'care' what others are doing - so that I can take the bits that look promising, adapt them to my personality and see how their idea can be made to work inside my frame of reference.

The trick is to apply thought.

Without that added element you are at best a sheep and at worst a lemming.

With thought you are an innovator and an entrepreneur.

There is nothing wrong with watching and listening and learning from other people, so long as you realize that what you are seeing is their way. It works for them, but may need some adaptation to work for you.

So perhaps the biggest guru of the all is Paul Anka who wrote:

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!

Martin

That's how anyone with half a brain creates a plan.

There are always lessons you learn and changes you can make to improve things based on lessons you learn along the way, so any plan without the flexibility to change it when needed is likely to end much less effectively.