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Beware The
Newbie Syndrome
© 2004 By
Willie Crawford
Hardly a week goes by when I don't get a
call from an on-line beginner, a "newbie," who wants to
consult with me on their business concept. Often, they
haven't started building a website, so they've reached
me at the perfect point in the process. Very often
they're really excited by the possibilities that they
see, and the ideas that they're generating.
I'm sure, at this point, all of the sage old-timers are
sitting their nodding. We were the same way when we first
started out. We somehow start looking to the Internet as
the answer to how we could earn some extra income or
as a way to escape from our old JOB. When we started
looking around the Internet at what was offered our heads
started spinning.
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To the newbie reading this, I'm no way making fun of you. I
earn part of my living from teaching you, so I have the
utmost respect for you. In fact, if you take a look at the
obvious, big successes in "Internet Marketing" today, you
will notice that many of them are relative newbies.
Some, like Yanik Silver or Alex Mandossian, seem to
have come from nowhere. Actually, both of these guys have
very solid foundations in direct marketing, so when they hit
the Internet they only needed to apply what they knew from
the offline world.
What is noticeable is that many of us follow a set pattern
when we start building our Internet empire. There is a
"syndrome" that we all seem to get, and it has killed
more than a few businesses. Let's look briefly at that
syndrome.
The first symptom is the thought that we have discovered
something new, or that we are the first one who has thought
of a given idea. Notice I said "we," because I went
through the syndrome myself :-)
As we notice all of the products or services that we can
become affiliates for, we get the brilliant idea of creating
a site that compares them all. We decide that we will
educate the next batch of newbies about which ones are the
best. So we get busy building a website that's like a
supermarket, where the Internet marketer can find anything
and everything.
This first symptom indicates that we haven't done enough
research. If we do our research first, we'll see that there
are already THOUSANDS of sites just like the one that
we are thinking about creating. If we dig a little deeper,
we'll also find the owners of these sites on discussion
lists and forums asking how they can improve business. That
should be your first warning sign that the
"supermarket-type-site" is generally not the answer.
BEAT the Cold Winter of 2007 ARIZONA'S NEWEST WONDER
Kartchner Caverns State Park opened in 1999. This stunning limestone cave system is one of the top in the world. Visit Sunny Southwest this cold winter |
The next symptom one often observes is
the newbie actually hears someone say, "Find
a problem and provide a solution to it."
A few then go back to the supermarket model
since they're trying to solve the problem of
helping other Internet marketers be
successful. What's basically flawed in that
idea is that they're trying to teach
something they... usually, haven't learned
yet.
A second problem with this approach is that
they're choosing to compete with those
who're already very entrenched and have
often been marketing competing products for
5 or 6 years. Why go up against
them? Learn from them, and then approach
the market from a different angle.
Others with symptom number two, dig a little
deeper and recognize that there's a huge
market for information products. They look
at WordTracker or other keyword
research tools and see that people are
interested in golfing, fishing, kids,
health, better romance, making or
saving money, etc. So they decide to build a
site on one of these topics. So far
so good, but...
When they decide to develop that "golf"
website they decide to target
"everything golf." They jump right into the
fray, build a huge site, and to get some
immediate traffic, they start bidding on
Overture, or Google, for the keyword
"golf."
"What's wrong with that?" you ask. A better
approach would be to pick a tiny niche
within the market and then cater to it. For
example, maybe just create a site for
golfers with physical handicaps and offer
products to make it easier for them. Or
maybe just focus on vacation packages to
resorts with great golf courses. If you're
going to use pay-per-clicks to drive initial
traffic to the site, bid on obscure or less
competitive 2-5 word phrases that are
searched on, but which won't cost you a
fortune per click.
BEAT the Cold Winter of 2007 ARIZONA'S NEWEST WONDER
Kartchner Caverns State Park opened in 1999. This stunning limestone cave system is one of the top in the world. Visit Sunny Southwest this cold winter |
Here's the piece of the puzzle missed by many
newbies and even some old-timers... You must have a
website with a tested and proven, predictable
conversion process. It does absolutely no good to
drive tens of thousands of visitors to your site if
they leave without buying. So take a good look at
the whole experience offered by
your site.
Begin by asking yourself, "What is the path a
visitor takes as he lands on my homepage or landing
page?" What steps does the site lead him to take?
If the site doesn't lead your visitor down some
path, don't waste your money on traffic generation
until you fix that! Your visitor needs to be told
what to do when he gets on your site.
If he is confused, overwhelmed, or turned off by any
aspect of your site, that's the problem that you
need to fix first.
A third symptom that I see newbies display is
that they get a fancy, self-replicated website with
all of the bells and whistles. They are so
impressed with this magnificent monstrosity that
they just know anyone that they send to the
site will be too. They are so impressed by
the fact that the script running the site inserted
their name or ID number that they want to show the
world.
The cure for symptom number three is to sit back and
ask yourself, "So what!" All that matters is that
your visitor sees how this site is going to make his
life better... and that should jump right out at
him. If he has to spend 30 seconds watching a flash
intro of the company icon, and reading about
the company's president, he is probably just going
to leave. DON'T make your visitors have to work to
become your customer. DON'T waste your time
promoting a site that forces them to work. It's too
difficult.
There are many other symptoms of newbie syndrome. We
don't have the time to go over all of them here. A
final one that I will mention is just the idea that
you've discovered an untapped market. When you come
up with an idea for a product, and you see no real
competitors, look carefully before you start to
"fill that gap." Ask if there's really a market for
what you have in mind. Often, others will have
tried what you're thinking of and given up. You can
often find remnants of their efforts as warning
signs.
We've looked at a few symptoms of newbie syndrome,
something that most of us go through. What's the
cure or preventative? It's doing thorough
research. It's understanding the website
conversion process. It's testing little things and
then only rolling out a project when test results
indicate that this is the prudent thing to do. Test
small before spending a lot.
I strongly suggest that practically everyone I
consult with read the ebook, "Small Changes: Big
Profits," by Paul Hancox. It explains how making
very small changes in your promotions, or to your
website, can often make incredible differences. It
also explains how to easily test and track
everything. You can get a copy of this ebook at:
http://TheRealSecrets.com
I mentioned earlier that some newbies succeed very
fast and surpass many old-timers who been
trying to build an online business for a long time.
I've just revealed their secret weapon. They test
and track everything.
If you don't track the results of all of the
different things you're doing, you have no
real way of knowing how well you're doing. Many
old-timers know this, but STILL don't do it. You do
it, and not only will you cure yourself of
newbie syndrome, but you'll be able to see
"measurably" that you are succeeding!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Willie Crawford has been teaching others how to build an
on-line business since late 1996. Frequently featured in radio, magazine
and newspaper articles and interviews, Willie teaches the average guy
what the top marketers are doing but seldom talking about. Willie
provides detailed how to information in his newsletter, through his
personal coaching, and at his annual how to workshop.
Subscribe to Willie's free course at:
http://williecrawford.com/.
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