From the moment, you, a budding Internet or Affiliate marketer types something like “I want to make money using the internet” into Google, you will be or will have been bombarded with offers of help. There will be all kinds of offers, some seemingly free, to those which cost a little money, all the way up to others which seem to be ridiculously expensive, way beyond your ability to pay.
So which one should you choose? The short answer is… “The best one suited to you”.
That’s very easy to say, but how can you decide? All of the requirements will be covered in future blog posts, but the main consideration must be affordability, closely followed by how good and up-to-date the information to be given to you will be. Will the stuff that will be thrown at you be accurate, helpful, and assist you in your quest to become a successful marketer?
Whether you are watching free YouTube videos, finding that a Facebook post is of interest to you, or you have found a guru’s exciting website; before you spend more time or money look up the video maker, or the author on Google or Bing and check for good reviews and get a good idea of the person’s popularity and depth of knowledge. You MUST ensure that you are going to learn from a knowledgeable person before you commit time and/or, more importantly, money to them.
Let me try to make the importance of this early stage in your business life clearer by comparing it to decisions my parents made during the first few years of my life
As I grew it became clear that my feet turned inwards and this impaired my balance. I didn’t start to try to stand up until I was about eighteen months old while most babies were able to walk not long after their first birthday. Even after I could stand I had to hold onto a table leg or something and I showed no signs of trying to walk until I was nearly two years old. Mum was worried, and she even came up with the idea of cutting down a walking stick which she thought would help me. When she asked the physiotherapist who visited us weekly if this was a good idea, the medical professional replied emphatically that it was a disastrous idea. “Do you want him to need a stick for his whole life?” she said. “You’ve got to be patient; he’ll walk when he’s ready to.”
Mum had confidence in the physiotherapist, and she dismissed the idea despite most of her friends and relations saying that they thought that the walking stick idea was a good one. Following future tips from the nurse, I finally started to stagger a few steps from wherever I had managed to stand by “climbing up” a table leg to Mum’s waiting arms. After I could stand up unaided I managed to walk from one side of a room to the opposite wall, then it was down the corridor, then I could make it to the garden gate. It looked ungainly, but I rarely fell, and when I did, I could stand up again with little difficulty.
I couldn’t walk for an indefinite distance unaided until I was well over 3 years old, and even then, as it remained all through my life, my walk was an ungainly one, with my feet pointed inwards and my heels rarely touching the ground. There’s a lesson in that for everybody trying to master Internet Marketing. You don’t have to be perfect to succeed. At the age of three and a half, I could manage to get myself from A to B, (as long as A and B weren’t too far apart of course). It may have been slow and it may not have looked very pretty, but it got the job done. That was the important thing.
As I grew too big for my push-chair, Mum had hoped that when she had to go to the local shops, about half a mile away, mid-week, that I would be able to walk with her. Unfortunately, she realized after our first outing that I was too slow, doubling the time it took to go mid-week shopping. “Perhaps a tricycle would help, she thought.
Mum and Dad checked with the visiting physiotherapist that it was a good idea before Dad scoured the local paper and found a second-hand tricycle for sale. Two days later, I was able to mount the machine on the pavement (sidewalk to you yanks) just outside our garden. But then another problem arose. My stronger left leg wasn’t quite strong enough to push the right pedal past its zenith so my weaker right leg couldn’t push the right pedal down again. I could move the tricycle along using a series of half-pedals, pressing down with my left leg, before back-pedaling, and repeating the process. But that process resulted in me traveling no faster than I could walk, making the tricycle obsolete.
“Oh dear,” Dad said. “Perhaps Peter could help”. Peter was a friend of Dad’s who was a keen competitive cyclist. He only lived a few houses down the road. Soon, Peter was by our side and he watched my pathetic attempts at riding the tricycle.
Peter suggested that we attach blocks of wood to the pedals to make them thicker. To this day, I don’t know why this helped, but it did. A few days later, after Dad had followed Peter’s instructions, I was at last able to make the right pedal go high enough so that my weaker right leg could push it down. I could, at last, make a full revolution, which meant that I could ride fast enough to keep up with Mum when she walked at a normal pace to the shops.
So what relevance does this true story have to your dreams of becoming a successful Affiliate or Internet marketer?
When you start on the long journey of creating a profitable Internet business you will need to invest some money. Just like any offline business, you can’t expect to start without an initial investment. Luckily for us, the investment needed to start an online business is way way less than the investment that is needed to start an offline business.
You will need at least website hosting and an autoresponder. (More about these in later blog posts). However, your biggest and most important investment MUST BE paying for a mentor or joining a scheme where you can get help whenever you need it, and, believe me, you WILL need help again, and again, and again. So it is very important that when you ask for help, your mentor, or his assistants not only give you the best and most up-to-date advice available, but also you have the confidence that the advice being given is the best and most up-to-date advice available.
After a small stroke when I was 60, I’ve needed a walking stick, but if my mother hadn’t had access to the advice of an expert physiotherapist I may have needed a stick from the age of 3 to 60 as well, and I would never have been able to play golf. Thank goodness my mother had a source of good advice, and that she had the confidence to dismiss her own idea and follow the advice of her mentor. That’s why all budding online marketers, including you, MUST have a mentor to ensure, amongst other things, you don’t do something wrong in the beginning that will hinder your progress forever.
Similarly, Dad had confidence that putting blocks of wood on the pedals of my tricycle would help me use it properly, although he had no idea why, because he trusted the knowledge of his good cycling friend, Peter. This simple move made Mum’s and my journey to the shops much easier. This can be compared to my mentor advising me of a new proven software, which would make my journey to success as a marketer much easier.
The mentor I chose, at the fourth attempt I may add, is the writer of The Iceberg Effect book advertised in the right-hand sidebar to this and all my blogs. But who you choose is up to you. My only strict advice is that you MUST choose somebody, and try to take less than the 4 goes I needed before you alight on the one best suited to you.
Cheers
Phil
Hi Thanks for telling your story, I would love to know what made the other Gurus not work out? And what makes the latest one the right one? What has been the most significant difference in results between to other and the latest one?
Tony recently posted…Applying The Lipstick!
Tony,
I’m afraid that you will have to wait until I reach the point in my journey when I am blogging about my particular Affiliate Marketing experiences until I answer that question in detail. In summary, one changed his focus to in-person joint meetings, in a different country to the one I now call home, a second didn’t provide products but pressed his clients into developing their own, a third was an out-and-out spiv, getting him to pay commissions on time was like pulling teeth, and the fourth was Dean.
Cheers
Phil
Phil, I thoroughly enjoyed your story and I’m grateful I came across it to read it. I’m in a similar position as you and I’m relatively new in the affiliate marketing world, having decided myself to hire a mentor as well. I can’t imagine taking this journey without proper guidance of someone I trust. It would be simply too daunting. On a complete side note… it sounds like you had absolutely amazing parents. They were quite wise to listen to the right people on your journey.
Thank you Lauren,
Yes, my parents were amazing, they were so supportive, but, at the same time let me live my life the way I wanted to live it. It’s great that you found Dean so early in your journey, I wish that I had found him earlier in my journey. Anyway, now that we are on the right road, it’s onward and upward.
Cheers
Phil
Phil,
Like the obstacles you have faced in life required you and your family to become resourceful. So must a person that is seeking to build an online marketing business. Tony Robins says one of the number one reasons people fail is a lack of resourcefulness.
One of the ways to be resourceful as an online marketer is to hire a mentor and tap into their resources. If one is unable to tap into resources i.e. money, mentors, networks and so on, it is going to be along road and the chance of success is greatly reduced.
Great advice on finding a mentor.
CJ
Thank you Cj,
We are both in a good place having Dean and his team holding our hands as we stagger down the road to success.
Cheers
Phil
Hi Phil,
Great post! I personally realized that you save a lot of time to just pay for a mentor’s premium coach program and skip the low expense small courses. With the small courses/training, you might gain information, but at the end of the day, you don’t know how to implement all the information you just learned.
You are also right about finding a good experienced coach that has good reputation and with up to date information. That was a mistake I made years ago. I didn’t do my due diligence before choosing the correct trainer.
Albert recently posted…Content After My Return Home
Thank you Albert,
We are both in a good place having Dean and his team holding our hands as we stagger down the road to success.
Cheers
Phil
I like your “…best one suited to you” answer for deciding on the way to go with makeing money online. Obviously the ones doing eCommerce will tell their way is best. Same with Drop-shippers and as well the affiliate marketers.
While you have some good tips, I’d like to offer one more very important criteria. What ever you choose, you must feel that there is a passion for it. I mean, if your heart is not into it you will likely not put in the consistent effort required to stick with it until it works.
I wish you well with your journey and if you have a good driving force with your”why”, I think the fourth time will be a charm.
Robert Klein recently posted…Elephant in the Room
Yes, Robert, in my opinion, Dean, backed up by his team, is the best mentor for Affiliate Marketers, but he/they may not be the best choice for Internet Marketers in other niches. However, the introduction of the A.S. platform may change that opinion. I will be returning to the subject of mentorship in a later series of blogs, and “passion” will certainly be mentioned in the relevant blog post. My “why” is simple. Earn enough to be able to afford at least three bottles of beer every evening.
Cheers
Phil
Phil, a very touching story of your childhood. Thank you for sharing that. It’s wonderful when you have parents that listen to good advice or try things because they want the best for you. The physiotherapist was quite right if you started using a stick then you probably would have your entire life. That’s the whole point like you mention you have to learn from experts you have to learn from people that know. Very good point around getting a coach and a mentor based around your personal story that you shared with us. I wish you all the best and I look forward to your future blogs and your successful business. Thanks, Atif
Thank you. Atif,
Yes, it’s amazing how many similarities can be found between the problems we come up against as Affiliate Markers and the problems we face in everyday life.
Cheers
Phil
Phil,
I completely agree that finding the best online money-making or business option tailored to you is key. We’re all unique with different expectations, right? Having a mentor is an absolute game-changer. I’ve had my fair share of starting businesses without success, and looking back, I realize the missing piece was having a mentor. The guidance, direction, and shared skills from a mentor can truly be the secret sauce to your success. I’m genuinely excited to be on the sidelines cheering for your success!
Sherri
Thank you Sherri,
Yes, I’m happy for all of us who have ended up with Dean and his team as our mentors. I’m sure that it gives a head-start on our competitors.
Cheers
Phil
I like what you say about “the best one suited to you”.
Everyone is different and what suits one person may not be suitable for another.
The problem I see today is a lot of marketers saying bad things about other methods in order to get people to join their program.
Alan Lim recently posted…Warning! This May Cause You to Fail Before You Even Started
Hi Alan,
You shouldn’t concentrate on what potential mentors say about their competitors. You should concentrate instead on what their current clients say about them.
Cheers
Phil
Hi Phil,
Great post! I love how you use your life experience in physical challenges at a young age and relate them to online business. Especially when referring to the importance of a mentor’s role and feedback! Awesome!
Until your next post!
Denny
Yes, Alan, I agree entirely. I’m worried that too many people will quit their job too early. Then give up on their strategy and end up having to look for a new 9 to 5 job, with the disadvantage of having to explain to a potential future employee at an interview, why they quit their previous job.
Cheers
Phil
Thanks Denny,
I’m only up to the age of 5 now, so I’ve got a long long way to go. I hope I can think of enough useful things about online marketing to compare with my lifetime experiences to make it to the present day.
Cheers
Phil