When you know, respect and live the fundamental truths of life, your journey becomes easier and your load much lighter.
Here then is part 1 of the fundamental truths of online marketing, of life, and of the universe. Okay, maybe they’re not so grand as all that – I’ll let you decide.
Golden Rule #1: You are responsible for your own success. Daunting, isn’t it? When you fully realize that you and you alone are responsible for your success or failure – that you’ve no one to blame or congratulate but yourself – it can almost take your breath away. However, this can also be the most empowering realization you will ever have because you realize that your destiny is in your own hands. It is up to you to make this the life you choose, not the life you settle for.
Take this a step further and you’ll find that you are also responsible for your own happiness as well. You can choose at this very moment to be happy or unhappy, regardless of your circumstances. You can choose to reach out to others or not, you can choose to get up early to work on your business or not – everything is in YOUR hands – it’s up to you to take full responsibility for your life and your success.
And if you’re saying to yourself, “I already knew this,” then allow me to ask you a question: Have you blamed anyone else in the last 48 hours for your own failure or shortcomings? Have you thought something like, “If only my spouse would ____, then I could _____?” Or “If only my parents had ____, then I could have ____?” It’s human nature to want to place the responsibility on others, but it’s the mark of someone destined for great success to take full and complete responsibility for their own life.
Golden Rule #2: Do what you’re good at and you’ll unlock the door to personal and financial success. (And if it’s also the thing you love doing, so much the better.) We all have our own talents and aptitudes, and when we follow those instead of trying to be what we’re not, we’re already halfway to success. When you do what you’re good at and what you love, you naturally enjoy more energy and more happiness, which propels you further and faster down the path to success. And the passion you demonstrate for your area of expertise is contagious – your readers and customers will sense it and want very much to be a part of it.
Imagine 2 people entering a niche – one because he knows there’s money to be made in it, the other because she loves it. It’s rather obvious who is likely to experience more success, isn’t it? Personal and financial success are far easier to access when you’re doing what comes naturally to you.
Golden Rule #3: If you’re not improving, you’re falling behind. Staying ahead of your online competitors isn’t difficult – you simply need to improve one aspect of your knowledge or business every single day. And it’s in this constant improvement that you will find pride, confidence and security. Not to mention the fact that you will become the go-to person in your niche.
Golden Rule #4: Give to receive. No, I’m not necessarily talking about giving away your knowledge or products, although there are times when this can add greatly to your business. Rather, you want to always be on the lookout for ways to add value to people’s lives, especially the lives of your customers. Dedicate yourself to solving their problems or making their lives better, and you’ll be rewarded many times over. To paraphrase Zig Ziglar, give enough people what they want and you’ll get what you want.
Golden Rule #5: Be really really good, or possibly even great – but forget perfection. You’ve heard that money loves speed, and that’s especially true on the Internet. So while you want to put out great products, well written emails and so forth, never expect them to be perfect. Get them done and get them out, not sitting on your computer waiting for the day you perfect them.
Golden Rule #6: To succeed you MUST believe in yourself. The belief you can and will succeed always proceeds progress and success. In other words, to achieve it you must first believe it, and that goes double for believing in your own abilities, self-worth, creativity and perseverance.
Golden Rule #7: The fastest way to increase belief in yourself is to make immediate progress. You might not yet believe that you can build a multi-million dollar empire on the net, but do you believe you can take the first step in that direction? Then don’t hesitate – take that first step and then the next, and with each subsequent step your belief in yourself will continue to grow.
Golden Rule #8: Focus on accentuating your positives. If you’re really good at writing content but you don’t like the technical side of online marketing, find someone to handle that aspect for you so that you can concentrate on content creation. If you’re working in three niches but you only enjoy two of them, sell the third website and just focus on what you love doing. And if you’ve got a bad habit like spending too much time on forums, replace that habit with something you like equally as well, such as writing emails to your list. When you focus on growing the positive rather than eliminating the negative, you’ll make progress much faster.
These are the first 8 Golden Rules of Internet Marketing. Next month we’ll tackle part two, but in the mean time you’ve got your hands full with these. You might want to focus on one rule a day for the next 8 days and see how you can use them to improve both your personal life and your online business.
