Do You Have What It Takes?

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do."

By Bob Bly

When you hear about all the folks who are making thousands of dollars a week by selling information products on the Internet... and "working" only a few hours a day...
... it's tempting to want to jump on the bandwagon.
But before you take the leap, it pays to think about whether it is right for you.
On the surface, Internet information marketing sounds like everybody should be doing it. Of course, if that happened, who would fix your car... or trim your hedges... or prepare your tax returns?
But not everybody is going to go into Internet marketing - as attractive as it sounds.
Should you?
Let me start by saying that, as an Internet information marketer, what you will be selling is useful knowledge on a specialized topic. Therefore, if you already possess this specialized knowledge, you are in an advantageous position.
According to info marketer Gary North, most people do, in fact, have some specialized knowledge they can turn into a business.
"You possess a lot more knowledge than you think," says Gary. "In many cases, that knowledge is valuable to those who don't possess it."
If it's not immediately obvious to you what specialized knowledge you possess that other people would pay for, stop and take a personal inventory.
On a sheet of paper, list your formal education... degrees... job history... skills... hobbies... and interests. One or more of the items on that list most likely can be the basis of a profitable Internet information marketing business.
Are you articulate? If you can express yourself well, that, too, positions you for success in the Internet information marketing business. You do not have to be a great writer. You just need the ability to express yourself clearly and concisely.


Another thing that gives you an advantage in this business is a strong desire to make more money than you are now making. That's important, because there are a lot of people who publish online (blogs, articles, books, fiction) without caring if they make money by doing it.
These dilettantes (and I am using the word in its literal meaning, not as a pejorative) post their stuff on the Web and give it away for free. Their reward is knowing that people are reading or looking at their work.
But putting up a website and posting content to it is easy. Getting people to pay you for it is a bit more of a challenge.
An interest in making money from your intellectual property will give you the impetus and motivation to do the extra work it takes to create and sell information products online. (I teach the entire process in my home-study program: The Internet Cash Generator.)
Have you studied copywriting? You do not need to be a good copywriter to have a successful Internet marketing business. But you do need the ability to know whether a promotion written for you by a freelance copywriter is any good, so you can tell the writer how you want it fixed.
If you are a good copywriter, that's a bonus, because hiring top copywriters is expensive - and by writing your own sales copy, you can avoid their fees.
As a subscriber to ETR, you have gotten a lot of articles on marketing. Have you been reading those articles? If so, you have yet another advantage. Because the key to success on the Internet is the marketing, not the content creation.
Quality content is important. But the people who make serious money online do so because they are good marketers, not because they are good writers.
Many people who love to write are enamored with the "creative" part of it, but aren't good at the business side of things. If you go into Internet marketing, you will have to pay more attention to the business side. In particular, you need to know what you can realistically expect in terms of results from your promotions.
You do not need to have an aptitude for math. With Internet marketing, figuring out your return on investment (ROI) is very simple and can be done with a pocket calculator. But you do need to be conscious of revenue coming in and money going out. Starting and running an Internet marketing business does not cost a lot of money, but the cost is not zero.
The one thing you absolutely do not need is experience with computers or technical ability of any kind.
The most important skills for an Internet marketer are (1) marketing, (2) copywriting, and (3) communicating (the ability to create content in writing).
I advise Internet marketers to outsource all the technical tasks. That includes setting up their website, installing their e-commerce software, broadcasting e-mail marketing messages, maintaining their subscriber list, and designing their information products.
You can get people to handle all these tasks at dirt-cheap prices. On websites such aselance.com and rentacoder.com, for example, you can find all the help you need at prices so low they will astonish you.
Even if you can do the technical stuff, I advise you not to.
Why?
Because with the limited number of hours you have available each day, you need to spend your time on tasks that give you a maximum return on time invested (ROTI).
The tasks with the highest ROTI revolve around thinking about your business and planning new products and marketing campaigns.
The technical stuff has the lowest ROTI. To be frank, it's a waste of your valuable time. And the less efficient you are in running your Internet business, the more difficult it will be for you to achieve the "Internet marketing lifestyle" - making a six-figure income while working only a few hours a day.
So ask yourself:

• Do I have useful knowledge of a specialized topic that people will pay for?
• Can I express myself clearly in writing?
• Do I have a desire to earn more money from what I know?
• Can I develop some skill in copywriting?
• Do I understand the fundamentals of Internet marketing?

The more "yes" answers you gave, the better equipped you are to turn your knowledge into dollars.