Fishing for Profits (When You Think You’re Drowning)

I have worked with thousands of aspiring online entrepreneurs. Through that experience I’ve found common sticking points that inhibit their success.

The easiest way to identify the sticking point so the person can move forward is to define where they are and where they want to be.

This might seem like obvious coach-speak, but if it’s that obvious why are so many people struggling?  Especially when our inboxes are filled, everyday, with numerous offers promising “the answer”.

All of these answers sound great, but we also know that they’re a big part of the problem.

Here’s the place for you to start gaining some sanity -

Tributaries, Rivers, Lakes and Oceans

The main problem is that everyone *wants to be* an ocean.  And the people offering the solutions likely are “oceans” so they can’t identify with what you’re going through.  It’s too far back in the rearview mirror.

Let me explain.

Tributaries feed rivers.  Rivers feed lakes.  Oceans are fed by them all.

But an ocean doesn’t just become an ocean.  We all start as tributaries – and if we attempt to skip that step then we never grow.  We become a desert of failure.

As a tributary you need to master certain specific skills.

Primarily you need to learn to pick a product or two that people will buy, learn to sell it, and learn where to find the market of people who want it.

Until you MASTER the above skills you will have no success as an Internet marketer.

It’s my opinion that without mastering those skills that you should NOT be involved with the additional tasks involved with product creation, customer support, outsourcing, etc.

Just master the essential skills and begin to find your way by focusing on selling and marketing.

You become a river when you’ve developed a number of tributaries that feed you.  In essence you’ve developed a system and you’ve developed a degree of mastery in selling and marketing.

As a river your business resources and assets, including your income, begin to swell.

You can support yourself and others.  You have the automated income streams, from your tributaries, necessary to free up your time so you can begin to develop your own projects.

Now you become a lake, *after* mastering the art of marketing and selling online.  Because there is nothing worse than putting months into creating a new product without the ability to sell it.

As a lake you begin to sell your own products to the lists you’ve built with your tributaries and rivers.

And with your own product you can now grow even faster with your own affiliates whose tributaries and rivers also feed you.

At this point you literally have multiple streams of income and traffic.

Which brings you to ocean level – if you want to go there.  At the ocean level you have the size and influence to control weather patterns!  This is the level where you send out an email and it makes your mortgage payment.

And . . . nobody starts here!

My hope for you is that you recognize where you are and what you need to do to get where you want to go.  Unless you have already developed certain skillsets before starting online, then this is a progression we all move through.

If you’ve met with failure it’s very possible that you’ve tried to skip building tributaries, have not fully mastered the essential skills or haven’t compiled the necessary resources to take it to the next level.

Trust me on this one: this is some of the most valuable advice you will ever read on the road to Internet marketing success.