Learning Isn’t Doing - I Must Take Action
There are aspects of my work life that I find very easy and pleasant, and others where I’m conscious I have some real weaknesses. One of my greatest failings is that I enjoy learning about a new subject — a new internet marketing technique for instance — much more than I enjoy getting down to work.
I can read and read for hours about article marketing; AdSense arbitrage; affiliate marketing; PPC campaigns; niche blogging; list building; and on, and on. I’ve become quite an expert on many of these subjects, although I’ve no list and I’ve done precious little affiliate sales.
I’m not sure exactly why I find it so hard to take action. I don’t think the pop-psych generalities are necessarily accurate in my case … I’m certainly not afraid of success, nor do I believe that I’m incapable of achieving good work.
Part of the problem, I believe, is that I like to fully understand something before I start working on it. I’m one of the mythical customers who actually reads the manual … I’ve never been willing to just jump in, get to work, and learn new software as I go. At least, not in a situation where the results actually matter; if I’m investing time and resources in order to make money, I don’t want to get things wrong.
This caution isn’t necessarily a bad trait, as I learned when I moved from print design to web. I spent my first year as a Web designer cleaning up the disastrous mess left by my predecessor, who built the corporate Web site before he’d learned the unbelievably complex software he was using (Lotus Domino, for any recovering tech-heads reading this). Because “Domino boy” didn’t know what he was doing at the beginning stages of the project, the foundation of the site was fatally flawed … but too much had been invested to give up. He just kept piling bricks on sand.
However, one day he unexpectedly quit, landing the site in my lap. I imediately came up with a plan of action:
- I spent 10 minutes reading the first paragraph of the Domino manual;
- I forced myself away from the open window, through which I was about to plunge rather than keep reading;
- and then spent ten days running through a tutorial to teach myself Dreamweaver.
Once I knew what I was doing I rebuilt the site simply & beautifully from the ground up.
But when it comes to my attempts to earn money online, hesitation is really getting in the way. There are so many opportunities out there, and I’m reluctant to invest lots of time in any one thing before I know if it will pay off. But on the other hand, I understand that there’s no such thing as overnight success online … that only exists on sales pages for dodgy ebooks!
Clearly, the answer isn’t to buy yet another ebook that will teach me how to succeed online; I’m not short of those.
Instead, I need to choose a clear path and start moving down it. I thought I might have got it with Michael Green’s 20-20 Challenge, but rightly or wrongly I’m suspicious of whether it will work. I don’t want to divulge the “secret” since that seems unfair to Michael, but in broad terms; he suggests recruiting JV partners early in the product development stage, and preselling the product at a serious discount in a kind of countdown to launch. Both of these techniques sound terrific for established marketers with a track record, but not very feasible for beginners.
So, I’m all ears! How do I get focused, and start working? What would you do in my shoes?
14 Nov 2007 tuppy
Well basically what you do is wait for someone to post here that provides such a comprehensively credible answer that there is no doubt in your mind that their solution will work.
Of course their answer also has to include sufficient inspiration to keep you motivated for the duration of what it takes to implement their completely awesome faith-creating plan.
Naturally their plan must include some basic bill-paying income component that is generated within 1 or 2 weeks of commencement of the plan.
Finally it must be easy, simple, original, Google legal, not porn or pharmaceuticals, be do-able without a web site and not require any of the typical hard-work that those not “in the know” have to do.
Since I relate all too well to you say I will keep a close eye on the posts here.
Waiting … I’m ready now … still waiting … won’t be long now … come on now … show me the money … uh …
… say, do you get much traffic here?
My traffic’s not bad for a blog that had it’s first post less than two weeks ago … but much less than I get on several of the niche blogs I write.
And no, I don’t expect to have a ready-packaged answer set in front of me with a pretty ribbon on it. I can open up any guru-mail if I want one of those.
I’m more interested in learning how other people chose a direction. How are you making money online? How did you choose your route over another?
There’s an incredible amount of information being poured into the internet marketing space, and decision-making is difficult when one’s still learning. I’m curious how other people reached their own decisions.