The Knowledgeable Newbie -or- The Broke Guru

October 16th, 2007 | 6 comments

What is a newbie anyway? If you’re knowledgeable, but just haven’t found what works are you a newbie? I don’t think you are. The fact is, many many many people know quite a bit about Internet marketing, but still don’t make much money.

I see it all the time in forums, on blogs, social media sites etc. People who obviously have at least some knowledge, but complain or just state that they’re still making little to no money online.

So what the hell do I need to do??

For the true newbie

These are the guys and gals who really are new to all this; go learn. Sounds bad, but that’s the best advice anyone can give you. There’s no secret, you just have to find what’s appealing to you and learn all about it. Dig through this blog, the Warrior Forum and elsewhere until you know the basics. Once you have that come back and read the following:

For the knowledgeable newbie or the broke guru

Let me tell you, I was in your shoes for quite some time. However, I have somewhat of an excuse, although not too valid when you look at Tim Gorman; I was in the Army when I began so I didn’t have much time to devote to this. But judging by the way I ran my business, I have a feeling the first year and half or so wouldn’t have yielded much income had I been out of the Army anyway.

What was I doing wrong? I didn’t have a schedule. I didn’t have a plan. I wasn’t organized. I didn’t know what I was going to do next.

Then one day it clicked and I started doing things differently

1. I set aside a certain amount of time every single day (excluding weekends sometimes) and used that time. There where and still are many days when I didn’t feel like doing much. I felt like checking my email, checking my earnings (if there were any) etc. No matter what I FELT like doing, I made sure that during that set time I did something constructive. Before I began doing this I was “working” in the living next to the TV. Needless to say I wasn’t very productive.

2. I set a schedule. Whether it was a report, ebook, webpage or something else, I set a date and time to work on it.

If you have an idea make it happen! Don’t keep thinking about it, telling yourself “I need to do this” over and over.

3. Every time an idea popped into my head I put it in a notepad document. That same exact notepad document is still on my desktop and I add to it just about every day. Some of the ideas turn out to be bad ones, but many of them work out and bring in cash in the long run. The way my memory is, if I don’t write them down I’ll most likely lose them for good.

Seems simple enough and it is. If you’re like I was, your problem is that you don’t take action. You simply must organize things. You must have a routine and you must write down your ideas.

Treat it as a business and believe in yourself. Set up an office and be confident and I promise you, you’ll go from a knowledgeable newbie to a knowledgeable guru.

6 comments

YC
16th October, 2007 at 7:55 am

I know what you’re talking about Josh, because I too spent years thinking about things but always stuck in that zone, all because I never took any action. It was just day after day of how does this work? Will it work for me? Should I try? Even when I did take action, I did not set myself any definite goals and deadlines.

Things are moving better now that I fixed those. Recently I actually found myself spending way too much time on this and overextending myself. That was another lesson in itself.
WarriorBlog
16th October, 2007 at 10:34 pm

I only started making money when I stopped reading forums, blog, and doing lots of research…of course learning is important, but taking more action helped me learned way more important knowledge.

Scheduling is important too and setting goals.
Snoskred (3 comments.)
16th October, 2007 at 11:05 pm

Time management – Josh you may be interested in a post I did recently on this because it has some ideas in it you might want to try out for yourself.

Time Management

I’m with you on the notepad but can I suggest you check out editpad lite which is free? It allows you to have text files in tabs and is a much more powerful text editor than notepad. I’m crazy about it.. It also minimizes to the system tray and you can just click on it when you want it back as a window.

Cheers!
Snoskred
Josh Spaulding
21st October, 2007 at 1:16 am

Thanks Snoskred, I’ll take a look at the post and editpad, thanks!
Marc
22nd December, 2007 at 1:29 pm

Boy did you hit the spot in my case. I could write endless ebooks that regurgitate all the stuff I learned. (maybe I should write PLR about internet marketing) I’m taking some action now but even so, I fall back into these learning binges where nothing gets done. I think it’s because learning is passive and safe in terms of risk.

I think that if the successful marketers wrote in detail about their daily work schedules, it would give some insight into how to structure my own day. The number of hours worked should be included so that I’d be inspired/shamed into working my own tail off.
Registry Cleaner Review (6 comments.)
31st August, 2008 at 7:21 pm

Article quote: “For the true newbie. These are the guys and gals who really are new to all this; go learn. Sounds bad, but thatâ€™s the best advice anyone can give you. Thereâ€™s no secret, you just have to find whatâ€™s appealing to you and learn all about it.”

Boy, you hit nail on the head there, Josh!

I spent the first six months of my adventure in Internet marketing just sorting through all the information (both good and bad, helpful and unhelpful) attempting to make some sense of it all. I can tell you it was no fun at all. Your head is spinning in several directions all at once, and you’re wondering if you’ll ever figure this out.

Some people make money with one system (or business model) and others make money with another! Adsense is still alive; Adsense is dead. Who do you believe? Some are just trying to get naive people to buy into their hype while providing material that can be had for free! Others provide information that is outdated or just plain misleading, hoping to keep people guessing about what works. After a while, you begin to see through the BS and stop wasting your time reading those long hypie sales letters.

It all boils down to recognizing that what works in the brick and mortar, three dimensional world, also works in the hyper galactic cyber space of the Internet. You have to have a good product and be promoting it to a market where there is demand for that product. It’s not the newest and latest I.M. (or whatever) product coming down the pike. It’s simple supply and demand for good products that solve problems. This is what real people buy.

From there, whether you use a CPA marketing/income model, Adsense ads, affiliate marketing, or just plain selling your own product, you eventually need, as you say, to “find whatâ€™s appealing to you and learn all about it.” And then, of course, begin to take planned and disciplined action.

Your post is a good wake-up call to those who still believe (as so many hypie sales letters lead them on to believe) that something will just be handed to them on a plate without their having to do any work at all. It just doesn’t happen that way, and yet people want to believe that it can.

Thom