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On the 22^nd September 2011 I took a call from Randolph Smith (Randy – check his blog out here) in response to a simple e-mail request asking for information about the John Thornhill One Month Mentoring Programme.  At last, a live person who understood the frustrations of setting up an internet business.  The advice I was offered was excellent.  It was thanks to Randy, and I do owe him a debt of thanks, that I have progressed to this stage.  So, as you can see, I have a blog, I have a twitter account; a facebook and other social media networking forums with which I am becoming slowly linked will follow.  I am in the throes of product development and learning more about the world of the internet marketer.  And this only happened in the last two months, some 3 years and 10 months after becoming aware of setting up an online business.  So, am I making thousands of $, £, and € that lots of internet gurus claim I should and will be making?  No, not yet, but I know I’m at last on the right tracks.  It just takes a little bit of self belief, an enormous amount of patience and a self determination to keep going.  If you want to do the same as me then check out the free report at the top of my blog.  Simply add your name and e-mail address.  Who knows, it could change your fortunes too!  For those of you who want to learn more and follow my online progress then do keep checking in.  I will be happy to share my ups and downs and I will still be in touch with oodles of you out there for a helping hand – thanks for your time – Dave

Months/years passed and although I kept getting a variety of e-mails about online PLR materials and quick systems to success, this time I wasn’t so keen to part with any money.  It’s now August 2011 and well into to my 3^rd year of being an expert internet novice and no hoper!  Then matters began to change – a new enlightenment you may wish to call it.  But this time, back to some familiarity with a bit of a difference.  What I hadn’t realised in the previous 3 years plus of internet ‘heartache’ was that I had become a little familiar with some of the jargon.  I had joined quite a few free affiliate programmes, was looking at the Clickbank market place, had generated some money through the 90-Day Powerseller Challenge and had built up a phenomenal amount of PLR freebies.  But, I was still standing still.  With a new fervour I took action once again.  I signed up to a number of programmes, namely a ready-made site set up around a niche on real ales which you can check out here, although this is also going through a weekly step-by-step set up but gave me a web presence overnight and, of course, Multi Profit Websites which you can check out here as well.  However, the big event was just around the corner.  Time for another coffee!

Saturday 19^th November should see myself and close friends escaping the day-to-day doldrums and heading up to Robin Hood’s Bay for a taste of real ale and traditional pub fare.  My interest in real ale goes back years, guess it was the Sam’s Smith I started out on in my local when most beers where hand pulled.  Moving through University, into work and to the present day my interest has not waned.    So, to help celebrate real ale and the activities of our little network who meet up I have been working on another site to begin to popularise what we do, when we are likely to do it and recall the events in the off-chance that others my wish to enter the same hostelries that we recommend.  The link to the site is here – Best Real Ale Trails.  Why not check it out and let me know what you think.  If you have any real ales to talk about, pub trails to share or anything to offer with regards to this very pleasant social activity then please get in touch.

Cheers!

What I did next was change tack.  I bought into the £2.99 Powerseller DVD on eBay and pretty soon was churning out DVD copies of ebooks which I priced at £1.97.  For a while I was selling quite a few and although the income was ok, about £300 a month, my costs where about £250 a month, so not much of a return there!  However, I knew deep down that although this was right, I was somehow missing a trick.  And I was!  Here was an opportunity to begin the process of building up my customer database.  This was the key.  So, in a way, I was achieving a little bit of success.  However, having got the data base growing, what next?  The answer it appeared was to get more PLR products, adapt the sales pages and offer out more information products at higher prices.  Only, I didn’t know how to do this outside of eBay.  I knew that Aweber had been mentioned in lots of the information products I had on my hard drive so I headed in that direction.  The idea here was to build an auto responder.  Whilst the Aweber videos were helpful, I was still missing an important link.  In reality this meant that I was no further forward, but had a reasonable data base building up.  It seemed, the only option left was to rethink my online marketing strategy!

So why did it take me 3 years and 10 months to get to this point?  I think it’s called running round like a headless chicken.  Back then I learned that the key ideas to building an online business were to get a domain name, a domain package, pick a line of interest i.e., a hobby, get loads of free or very cheap PLR products that tie in with that hobby, build a customer data base by giving away free products about that hobby which was hopefully a hobby of the customer data base being set up and then entice that same customer data base to buy ‘higher-end stuff’ and finally sit back and watch all the dosh, the lucre, wonga, greenbacks, bucks, dollars, etc, etc, etc, – just watch it all roll in.  Only,    …   it never happened!  Sort of reminiscent of relying on loads of promises only to be let down at the first hurdle – and let me tell you that those hurdles were huge – there are lots of them still out there as I speak!

By the end of my first year it was quickly dawning on me that perhaps I wasn’t set out to be an online marketer.  Why, I did not know as it appeared that everybody was making some kind of money and had some on-line activity except me!  So, to cut a long story short, I went into temporary retreat mode realising that at least I could fall back onto an old and trusted friend to restore a former online presence I had enjoyed in the 90s and early 00s – eBay!

However, I quickly noticed that since I first joined in the mid 1990s it had become increasingly more difficult to sell on those old records, books, CDs, DVDs and video-tapes to the ‘downloadable’ and instant gratification generation!  To top it all, it had become increasingly customer and feedback focused, with ‘Power Sellers’ appearing to take over the whole eBay experience along with their 1000s of positive feedback comments and eBay shops galore.  Let’s face it, I was simply out of my depth and, to a very large extent, still am as is evident by my customer feedback count – check this out.

It was quite clear that I needed a different strategy.  In fact, I really needed some help.  It came to dawn on me that what I needed was someone to show me the ropes, a sort of mentor figure I could relate to.  Someone who would take me by the hand and lead me through the vast internet wilderness to a place where I could safely sit at my desktop or netbook and simply churn away a couple of hours an evening slowly gaining confidence in the task ahead whilst making my online presence a reality.  So, did I gain the right mentor and confidence to be an internet blogger and internet marketer?  Guess you’ll have to wait for my next blog posting!  Time for a coffee I would suggest!

If anyone had mentioned to me that it would take the best part of 3 years and 10 months to get an online presence with all the help and support around at the time I would have told them they were bonkers!  However, here I am some 3 years and 10 months later setting up my first blog post on my first web site!  For those of you out there who have now got an established on-line presence I guess the pain of what I am about to discuss will come as no surprise!  So, how did it all start you may ask?  Ok – have you got 2 minutes?

It was one of the days when although there were plenty of the typical daily duties in front of me to be getting on with, I simply needed some downtime, which for me is flicking through the numerous TV channels that the various media and broadband giants provide.  However, tonight, I was in shopping mode!  Eventually I entered the dark and mysterious world of the ‘Shopping Channels’.  Yes, you guessed it; this is what you call serious downtime.  Within minutes I was captivated, like some hypnotic member of the audience of a Derren Brown show and suddenly my thoughts and feelings were on display!  In front of me was a guy explaining how, with a little effort, a computer and a Want and a Need to change my lifestyle, that far flung riches were not very far away.  I was hooked!  I joined up, received the monthly workbooks and some 4 months later went to one of those ‘weekend’ events in Brighton to be joined by what appeared to be thousands of other ‘wanabee’ millionaires entranced by the opportunity to completely change their lifestyles.

To not put too fine a word on it, I was blown away be the speakers that were paraded before us and, like a lamb to the slaughter, lost no time in getting in on the act.   However, here I am some 3 years and 10 months later setting up my first blog post on my first web site!  So why did it take what seems like an eternity to get to the starting line?  Look out for my next blog post to find out more!