Why Be An Online Marketer?

by Cheryl Currie on November 10, 2009

If you looked into online marketing, you probably ran into the same thing I did. Everyone has the best offer, you get labeled by your interest then bombarded with emails. Promises of making you a millionaire get pretty tiresome after a while if you lose money trying a few out. It can leave you with a pretty bad taste in your mouth and a jaded view of the subject.

So, is there any good in it?

Let’s try a new perspective. Let’s compare it to a “normal” business. Let’s say you get a small business loan and open a corner store. It’s groceries — everybody needs those — and you have a good location. The neighborhood knows you and in a couple of years you figure you should be in profit. But after a year, someone opens another store nearby. Your new cashier has been driving business away with her caustic personality and the inventory sheets reveal that you are being robbed. Gas prices just happen to rocket making delivery rates unaffordable. Your suppliers raise the prices and a new zoning law wipes out the nearest parking. The IRS wants to audit your accounts, the health department has fined you, the Board of Equalization is threatening to shut you down due to an incorrectly filled out form and a partial freeze gets put on your accounts. You can’t pay your help, you can’t pay your loan, stock runs low and you end up filing bankruptcy.

If you think that was a harsh story of woe that does not reflect the normal situation, you haven’t seen the files down at the bankruptcy court.

The first problem here is that the usual business owner has only one source of income. In this scenario, that income source depends on customers from one small neighborhood. If you thought the example of a rude cashier was irrelevant, let me assure you that in ANY business, customers will often forsake quality, price and other concerns to do business with someone they like. On the other hand, if they do not like the people they have to deal with, the price could be terrific, the quality sky-high but they will avoid the place like the plague.

How does this relate to online marketing? Factually, what’s true for a corner store is true for ANY business. Like the corner store owner, some online marketing companies offer only one source of income, limited products, unappealing people to work with, little or no training, limited areas to market in. They run into problems just like the corner store.

Would you honestly try to open a store if you knew NOTHING about groceries, zoning laws, small business licenses, or anything else that had to do with owning a business? Yet people gleefully join online marketing companies in swarms, thinking someone else will make them rich. They even make money sometimes. But untrained people not only don’t get rich, they don’t make anyone else rich either. If it all looks so complicated that it couldn’t possibly be done, then the door closes on that opportunity. Slam!

Reverse the scenario. A person decides that the greatest opportunities are in online marketing. They start training. What is online marketing? Who is successful at it? Do they offer courses? Who should I use to build a website? Do I need a website? Why shouldn’t I just buy into one of those sell my site and e-books deals? I heard somebody made $200,000 with one of those. What about getting in at the top of a pre-launch opportunity? I could get lucky, right? Why not join something that’s been around for a long time? They must know what they’re doing by now!

If you couldn’t answer all those questions is simply because you’re not trained. There are answers to all of them. You CAN know which company is best to join, what training is best to learn, what systems are best to use and, when it is all said and done, what takes you to that six-figure income that lasts and lets you retire.

Why be an online marketer? It’s GLOBAL. It’s in demand. There is no ceiling on the potential income. The rewards and opportunities are FAR better than a mere job or local business. But it doesn’t happen by magic. Training is key. Training is your new boss!