I can’t count how many post titles like this I’ve seen on my favorite forum (I didn’t make up the title). What generally follows is that the OP (original poster) elaborates in often great detail on a strategy they’ve used (or stumbled upon) to make a lot of money in a short period of time. In an attempt to be helpful, they encourage other forum members to ‘just do what I did and you’ll get the same results’.

But there is a fundamental problem to that way of thinking. And as well-intended as these step-by-step strategies are, they can serve to badly misdirect their primary audience – the Internet Marketing newbie.

So when a new thread appeared (adjacent to this one) posted by a newbie who felt overwhelmed with information and not knowing what direction to go in (is it any wonder?) I felt compelled to formulate a response. What follows is what I submitted to that thread, with minor edits to remove irrelevencies:

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Hello,

You’ve gotten a lot of great advice in this thread, but I think there is something you should do FIRST before anything else. And that is…

…to reflect upon what you want, what you’re good at, what you love to do, what interests you, what population you want to serve. THIS will be the foundation of your business success.

You see, one of the traps that is so easy to fall into is that we read about someone’s success here on the Warrior Forum ($1300 in 2 Hours – or whatever – you know what I mean) and we make the mistaken assumption that if we just do what they did, we’ll achieve the same results.

Well, maybe that’s true – OR maybe not. No matter how ’step-by-step’ a plan is laid out, unless it is congruent with our own inner system (beliefs, desires, skills, passions, etc.) we are not likely to succeed.

So it would be wise to take the time to consider WHO YOU ARE in this equation, and to seek out a business model that is consistent with your own goals, not someone else’s. No matter how well written a guide to article marketing may be, for example, if you HATE to write, and/or you don’t have the money right now to outsource, pursuing it as ‘your’ model will be an exercise in frustration.

We put the cart before the horse when we buy into someone else’s successful model and try to ‘do what they did’. Don’t try to fit YOU into someone else’s model. Rather, find a model that fits YOU.

And don’t buy anything else until you’ve figured that out.

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What do you think? What about this rings true for you? Leave a comment; I always love to hear from you.