So you’re sick of your job and you’d like to give this internet marketing thing a try? Or perhaps you’d like to retire, but your retirement fund has dwindled thanks to the economic financial crisis and you need another source of income? You’ve heard that people can make a lot of money doing internet marketing. So, why can’t you?
The first thing you need to know is “yes” you can do it. The second thing you need to know is that there is a 95% chance that you won’t succeed. However, this is only a statistic and there is no reason why you can’t be one of the 5% who go on and make good money through internet marketing. If you are aware of the obstacles you’ll be less likely to bump into them, or even if you do, you can dust yourself off and keep on going.
There are three main obstacles you will encounter along your journey…
Obstacle number 1 – Help! Where do I start?
To have a presence on the world wide web, you’re going to need a web site. There are ways to create a web site for free, you can sign up with WordPress.com or Blogger.com. These platforms will let you put content up on the web for the world to see and even a beginner can probably work out how to do this.
Is there a drawback from doing this? Well, your website will never belong to you. WordPress is fairly restrictive as to what you can put on your site, whereas Blogger (owned by Google) can take your site down in the blink of an eye. All that work wasted!
How to overcome obstacle number one? Find someone who will build you a professional looking website that won’t cost you an arm and a leg. Make sure they will also optimse your site for the search engines, mainly Google at the moment, so your site can be found by potential clients and visitors. If they can also show you how to maintain your site so you can do all your site changes yourself, so much the better.
Where can can find someone like that? Well I can actually do all that for you…
Obstacle number 2 – The Dream Stealers
When you start your internet marketing career, you’re probably feeling very excited. You’ll have dreams of making it big. Perhaps you’ve been to a seminar where, for a small fortune, a famous Guru has offered to build you some websites that will make you a ton of money, but only if you sign up today.
If you survived the Guru seminar unscathed, you’ve probably worked out that you can do this stuff yourself. After a little while, trying to put up a website and trying to do battle with copy writing and auto-responders, you’ve probably also worked out that overnight riches probably are not going to happen! Don’t give up yet though because this is actually a good thing.
Why? Because otherwise every Tom, Dick and Mary would be putting up sites and making their fortunes. Just imagine the competition! The fact is there is no “get rich quick” in internet marketing – unless perhaps you can find a potato chip that resembles Barack Obama and sell it on eBay, but I digress…
How to overcome Obstacle number two? Find one good mentor that you can trust and follow their advice. Realise that you won’t make a fortune overnight. There is a four letter word called “work” involved in internet marketing!
Obstacle number 3 – Lack of Focus
This will attack you when you are feeling down, depressed and wondering if you’re ever going to make a penny from internet marketing. The most common form of lack of focus is called “The next bright shiny object”. Believe me these bright shiny objects are going to jump out at you from just about every other e-mail you receive. Some examples are …
“How to Be a Successful Internet Marketer in Just 7 Days”
“10 Simple Steps to Making Internet Riches in Your Underwear”
“12 Year Old Cracks the Code to Internet Fortune”
“5 little known secrets to quitting you J.O.B”
How can people be sucked in by these? Trust me, they can – you’re talking to one…
How to overcome obstacle number three? Be ruthless! Unsubscribe from all these types of emails and avoid signing up for any more. Simply follow your mentor until you see some results.
Obstacle number 4 – Self Doubt
This is probably the most insidious of all the obstacles. This is a feeling of “I’m not good enough.” “Who would want to listen to me?” “The odds are against me.” The list of negative statements goes on and on. (If I’ve left yours out please feel free to insert it here 
)
This will kill your internet marketing career before it has the chance to take off. There’s no easy fix for self doubt and a lack of confidence. You may find that you copy other marketers because you’re afraid to be original, your web pages may appear bland because you’re too afraid of offending someone or you’ll simply give up because you “know” you won’t do a good enough job.
How to overcome obstacle number four? You have to keep on and on reminding yourself “I can do this”. You’ll find your confidence increasing when you start to get the hang of what you’re doing. Competence breeds confidence. When you see the money start to trickle in you confidence and self esteem will take a huge leap!
I hope you’ve learned something from these 3 obstacles. I myself have grappled with them over the years and have overcome them, This means you can too! Success can within your reach as long as you find a good mentor, focus on what you want and never give up!
