7 Levels of Internet Marketers

Dear Friend,

If you want to jump-start your life and your business, you have to know what type of Internet Marketer you are.

True financial success only comes to those that master this concept. So ask yourself, "Do you know what kind of Internet marketer you are"?

Have your marketing experiences on the Net been positive, negative or mixed?

I'm sure by now you want to know why you get the results you do (positive or negative) that you get when you market online, right?

If not, you should…

Let me tell you some hard facts. I have spent years around hugely successful and rich Internet marketers. I've personally helped thousands of Internet marketers excel and realize their financial dreams.

While working with many of these marketers, I discovered a simple secret. One that may be the key to your financial success.

Despite the many and varied personality types in the world (and there are many my friends), there are really only seven basic types (or levels) of marketers. And while it is common for an individual to drift a little from one entrepreneur type to another, most people will stay fixed at one level of marketing their entire lives.

This is bad news.

Far too often I see people who are "stuck" at one level of marketing. Why is this bad? I'll tell you… it prevents them from realizing their true financial potential. Sound dire? It is, but don't worry.

The good news is that anyone, with a little effort, can easily upgrade their marketing skills and realize financial stability (even you!).

The first step you need to take to upgrade your financial status is identifying what type of marketer you are. Knowing this will provide you a clearer understanding of why you achieve (or don't achieve) the financial results you want and need to realize your dreams.

With this new awareness and understanding, you can adopt (or maintain) the attitudes necessary to reach the level of marketing you want and need to succeed. You can then reinvent your marketing strategy using this awareness and take the proper action needed to realize the financial results you so richly deserve.

As you read through the seven levels of marketers provided below, I want you to know that at various times in my life, I have been at almost every single one of them. It was only as my knowledge and experience increased that I was able to upgrade to the level I am at today.

At some point while reading the descriptions of each level, you will probably recognize where you are or where other people are you know.

I recommend while reading you write down where you currently are as you discover your level, to help improve your awareness of your current strategy. This will also help you realize where you need to go.

Here are the seven levels of Internet marketers.

Level 1 - The Mooches

The "Mooches" are people at the very bottom level of marketing. They're clueless and sit around wasting their time. Most are completely ignorant of the moneymaking opportunities available on the Web. These people spend their time whining about their financial status without taking the time to evaluate what they need to do to get ahead.

Most Mooches don't have a clue about Internet marketing. If you ask them what the Internet is for, they'll say, "to chat" or "to e-mail friends" or even better, "to watch porn". You know, something useless.

They are the kind of people you see working dead-end jobs with nowhere to go. They don't like what they do and find plenty of time to complain about their job, but no time to do anything about it.

Most Mooches don't take time out to invest in themselves or their self-education. They have no self-esteem and feel that richness and financial security is out of their reach. While they may admire the achievements of others, they don't see themselves as winners. Most believe the real winners are "lucky" rather than savvy people. They may know people who are successful, but they allow their fears to hold them back.

Here's a brief summary of Mooches top traits:

• Ignorant of the Internet and all it has to offer.
• Believe the Internet is for fun not for making money.
• Lack any marketing savvy.
• Lack the motivation necessary to succeed.
• Have poor self-esteem and are afraid of taking chances.
• Believe real fortune is a matter of luck rather than skill and hard work.

My advice: Shut up, stop whining and get a damn life. No one is going to hand you the winning lottery ticket. If you want to succeed you have to believe in yourself and work hard to get where you want to be. Period.

Level 2 - The Wanna-Be

The "Wanna-Be" has ambition, but not enough. They wander around in the dark looking under stones for a magic treasure box. They want to make money, but don't have a clue how. They get sucked into ridiculous scams and waste their money on garbage ideas that won't get them anywhere. They need to get smart quick about where they need to go to turn their life around.

Most Wanna-Be marketers have heard of the Internet and know people who make money on the Net, so they are easily excited about opportunities. Unfortunately they spend most of their money on MLM and other moneymaking scams rather than chasing real opportunities.

You'll recognize this person as the kind of person who rapidly floats from one business opportunity to another, dreaming one-day money will just fall in their lap. They want to make money, but lack the drive and motivation necessary to succeed.

They are too busy spending their time looking for "get rich quick" opportunities, so they spend a lot of time signing up for "guru" mailing lists and fast money scams.

Most don't have a clue it's not their lack of money but their lack of knowledge that is keeping them from succeeding.

Wanna-be's would do better if they just took some time to find out what it takes to work smarter. Here's a quick summary of Wanna Be top personality traits:

• Like Mooches, lack real motivation.
• Want to make money but haven't figured out how.
• Fail to take real responsibility for their actions and their life.
• Believe money grows on trees.
• Easy prey for scam artists. They invest in cheap opportunities believing this will fulfill their dreams.

My advice: If your life stinks, it's your fault! Moneymaking is hard work. You have to put yourself out there, learn all there is to learn and then DO it. You can't rely on get rich quick opportunities or you will continue to fail.

Level 3 - The Pretend To Be

The "Pretend To Be" is living a lie. They pretend to work hard, to do what it takes to get where they need to be. But they don't actually DO anything. Most are perfectionists, worried about getting it right the first time. They don't realize just how much they can learn even by making a few mistakes.

Most Pretenders are waiting for the perfect time to start a new business. They don't realize the perfect time is NOW. They talk talk talk about starting an Internet business but lack the guts necessary to DO IT. Many have successful offline businesses and spend lots of their hard earned money attending seminars and buying e-books about Internet marketing.

They may lie to themselves believing that they are preparing themselves for the day they will jump in and DO something. These guys know a lot but don't take action, so ultimately they set themselves up for failure.

A good example of a Pretender is a successful overworked doctor who spends $20,000 on info-products but doesn't develop a website. The Pretender doesn't understand a key principle of this industry… You don't have to get it right the first time; you just have to get started.

They say they want a successful business, but the truth is they are afraid to step out of their comfort zone. They lack courage, and instead hide behind what they know rather than taking a chance and exploring the unknown.

Key traits of the Pretender include:

• The like to talk the "talk" but don't walk the "walk" when it comes to their life and their business.
• They lack courage and fear the unknown.
• They fool themselves into thinking they are making progress by buying more and more useless products and attending seminars. They never actually do anything however.
• They live under false pretenses, believing there is a "right" time to start and a "wrong" time. (There is no right time unless that time is NOW!)

My advice: You don't have to get it right, you just have to get it going. Get off your butt and start doing.

Level 4 - The Newbie

The "Newbie" is on their way to the fast track, they just lack experience. They have the desire to learn and grow, and may have the skill and talent necessary. They jump into opportunities with all the freshness one would expect of an eager beaver in the industry. They have done some homework, but lack the technical know how to get where they need to be.

There is hope for the Newbie. They feel excited and probably have read a few books about Internet marketing. Unlike Pretenders, they are willing to invest a lot of time in themselves. They will buy resale rights, reprint rights, licenses of many products… but lack the know how about how to market them.

They may already be making a few thousand bucks each month, but have the potential to make a lot more if they focus better and improve their technique.

They don't understand it's not the products you sell but the MARKETING that leads to financial success. It's not what you sell, but how you sell it.

Newbies have ambition they just don't have enough. The lack the technical knowledge necessary to take their business to the next level. They also believe that to succeed they have to do everything themselves, when what they really need is the help of an expert. They are control freaks that believe, "If you want something done, you gotta do it yourself."

Most Newbies have tunnel vision. They fail to see the big picture.

Key traits of the Newbie include:

• Most Internet marketers fall into this category.
• Most feel confused about the right approach to marketing.
• They think it is enough to build a dynamite site, that if you build they will come.
• They lack a basic understanding of marketing.
  
• Most of them are broke so they can't afford to hire anybody.
• Lack of vision - don't know what they want to achieve in the long-term.
  
• Lack of direction - don't know want to do next and how to take their business to the next level.

My advice: If you could get there on your own, you'd already be there. Ask for help if you want your business to rise to the occasion and if you want to reach the next level.

Level 5 - The Marketer

The "Marketer" is well on their way to victory. They are making some money. They are strong marketers. They still lack the ambition necessary however to get off their butt and do what they need to do to truly realize victory.

Most Marketers have a website or a moneymaker but don't have a business. They posses a strong understanding of marketing, copywriting and traffic generation and have a clear sense of what their audience is looking for. They are often leaders within their niche and make good money.

They enjoy a comfortable living. The problem is they are sitting on their "ass-ets" and thinking what they have accomplished so far is all they can do. They fail to realize there is more opportunity available if they are willing to put in a little extra effort.

They are more comfortable hanging out in their comfort zone. A good example? A client of mine making $10,000 a month. He is making a good living, but fails to realize he can make even more.

Most savvy marketers think they know it all and have seen it all but they haven't. They often compare themselves with Level 1 to 4 instead of Level 6 and 7. It is this low expectation of themselves that kills them.

Many have the ambition to make more money but lack the knowledge necessary to do this. Because of this they feel stuck.

Key traits include:

• Have created some success but fail to realize they can create more wealth if they apply themselves.
• Are afraid to step out of their comfort zone.
• Many are playing not to lose instead of playing to win.
• Most will excel and prosper quickly if offered guidance.
• Have the potential to take their business to the next level.

My advice: You don't know what you don't know. You can't solve a problem with the same mind that created it! Get a mentor. Raise the bar, improve the expectations you have for yourself.

Level 6 - The Master

The "Master" is a smart marketing agent. They are making good money, and can teach others how to do the same. Most are visionaries, charismatic leaders who have a good handle on everything they need to succeed. They'll fail only if they stop thinking about what more they can do. There is always more success just around the corner, if only one takes the time to look.

The Master marketers are millionaires, or at least making 6 figures a year. They are leaders in their industry. They are well versed in direct response marketing and can teach others. They have a vast amount of knowledge both online and offline and experience working in different businesses.

Most have experience working with adversity. They are high performance people who make great mentors. Most understand traffic conversion and traffic generation.

The Master marketer can get into any niche and make money, even if they don't have any affinity or experience working with a niche.

They recognize the Internet is nothing more than a medium they can use to make money. They integrate online and offline marketing. They posses a solid understanding of copywriting, testing and tacking. They build a team of experts around them and delegate responsibility to talented people.

They create a vision and strategy. They understand that less control actually translates into more control. They don't worry about managing the day-to-day but rather focus on the big picture. They empower their team to excel and create money for them.

Key traits include:

• Outsource almost everything except the marketing.
• Never stop learning - Stay hungry and keep learning and investing in themselves.
• Believe in themselves and their ability.
• Have a clear vision of they want to accomplish.
• Understand their business is there to serve them, not the other way around.

My advice: You're more than what you have become, if you allow yourself to go beyond. There is always something more you can achieve if you set your mind to it.

Level 7 - The Entrepreneur

This is where everyone should aspire to be. The Entrepreneur has already achieved true victory. They are the models that others try to mimic and follow. If you ask me, your goals should be no less than achieving "The Entrepreneur " statue.

These are the multimillionaires, the master sales people and the master marketers. They have a strong team of talented people with different expertise surrounding them.

They hire people that are smarter than they are to ensure their success. They have a clear vision for their company in the short-term (1-3 years) and in the long-term (5-10 years). Most sell their Internet business at a profit of millions of dollars.

These are the people taking their companies public. They are raising capital and selling to the public… to shareholders… but not to customers.

They have an exit strategy in place before starting something new. They recognize the purpose of a business is to sell it or put it on autopilot so they can enjoy their lives to the fullest. This is where you want to be.

Key traits include:

• Visionaries and entrepreneurs.
• Taking their companies to public.
• Raising Capital.
• Website could be making millions a year.
• Have professional managers running their business.
• Example: ebay.com, google.com, yahoo.com… etc.

My advice: Give back to society.

So now I ask you… Which one are you? Which one do you want to be? The people you know, which level are they at? Are they realizing their dreams? Why or why not?

You have to ask questions, have a firm understanding of where you are NOW and where you WANT to be soon if you want to succeed. Don't just charge ahead blindly, but don't sit on you're ass either.

If you want to succeed, take charge of your life and your financial future. Find out where you are, and what steps you need to take to be where you want to be.

Sincerely,

Dan Lok

This article was written by: Dan Lok, "The World's #1 Website Conversion Expert." Dan's the "go-to" Internet marketing genius that professionals in more than 49 different industries have turned to for hundreds of money-making ads and sales letters.

Dan has some great products and information over at http://www.websiteconversionexpert.com/

Use Forums to Build Traffic

Written by Jim from www.jimsmarketing.com

Forums can be a great way to generate traffic to your site, particularly if you're just starting out and you have a limited budget, because posting on forums doesn't cost anything. The trick is to find popular forums relating to the subject of your site that allow you to make posts and include a signature in every post, where you can indirectly advertise your site. Note you shouldn't make it look as if you are only posting to advertise your site, make sure you add something constructive to the discussion, and actually have something worthwhile to say otherwise you will possibly get banned from that forum.

So how do you find these popular forums? Well you should first go to one of the search engines, and enter "____ forum" where ____ is the subject of your site. Go through each site that comes up, read a few threads to see if they allow signatures. then if so, go to alexa.com, and check it's traffic ranking to see how popular it is. I would say any forum that is in the top 50,000 sites on the net is worth signing up for. You obviously don't want to join forums that has a traffic rank of 2,000,000 that hardly anyone visits.

This process can be quite time-consuming but it's definitely worth it. Once you've joined some forums it's time to create your sig message. This should be in the form of anchor text rather than your URL, and should include your main keyword(s). This will help you get higher search engine rankings in the long run. Don't use the same anchor text for every message in every forum, mix it up occasionally.

Now you are ready to start writing some messages. As I mentioned above, although your ultimate aim is to get forum readers to click on your sig file link to your site, you shouldn't constantly draw attention to it, or blatently advertise it. I've found the best way to get people to visit your site is by not even mentioning the link in your posts. Your aim should be to come across as an expert in your field, or to give the impression that you at least know what you're talking about. So when people read your message they will instinctively wonder what your site is, or will want to read more about you and see what you have to say. How will they get this information? Simple, they just look at your sig message below every posting you make, and click on the link that takes them to your site.

People will not respect you or your opinion, and therefore will not click on your link if you simply post spammy messages such as "I totally agree" which looks like you're just posting to get your sig message seen, or you simply post messages to lots of threads that don't add anything to the discussion.

If you want to increase the traffic you receive from forums, you could consider starting interesting threads that you think will attract many posts in the future. These really long threads can end up generating thousands of hits, and because you started this interesting thread, your opening message and hence your sig file link will get seen by potentially many thousands of forumites, increasing the chances of them visiting your site. Also you could add constructive posts to an already existing thread that has been viewed thousands of times. You will usually find a few of these epic threads on every forum.

Start using a blog to make money online

Written by Jim from www.jimsmarketing.com

If you are relatively new to the internet or know nothing about building your own site, then a blog is an excellent place to start. A blog (short for web log) is basically a site on the internet where you can post your thoughts or opinions on literally any conceivable topic. They mostly come in the form of a diary or journal, and are becoming increasingly popular with both individuals and businesses.

The best thing of all is that these blogs are completely free in some cases, and you can be up and running with your blog within about ten minutes. I've personally got several blogs running on Blogger, the largest blog site on the net, using their free service, which I can personally recommend. It takes just a few minutes to enter your details, choose a title for your blog, choose a template, and that's it, you're ready to make your first post. You don't need to worry about web hosting either as the blog is hosted on Blogger's own server.

If this is going to be your only site to start off with, then you need to know how to make money from it. There's a few ways of monetising your blog.

Firstly you can talk about specific products (make sure they are related to the theme of your blog) and at the end of your review include your affiliate links to these products. When one of your readers buys this product after clicking on your link, you will earn a commission (see affiliate programs for more details). Don't overdo it with your affiliate links though if you're hosting your blog on someone else's server, such as Blogger, otherwise it will classed as spam, and you may get your blog removed.

Secondly if you don't have any products to sell or promote, then the best way of earning money is to include some adverts in your blog. There are several of these companies offering this service, but the biggest and most popular is Google Adsense. Google will pay you for displaying it's advertisers' ads on your site, and every time someone clicks on that ad, you will get a sizeable percentage (no-one knows for sure but thought to be around 50%) of what the advertiser paid Google for that ad. Just make sure you don't under any circumstances click on your own ads or get friends or family to click on your ads, as this is a sure-fire way of getting banned from the Adsense program, possibly for life.

To get lots of people to visit your blog site and click on your links, then you obviously need traffic. The best way of attracting people is by adding fresh content on a regular basis, every day if you have time. After you make a new post to your blog, you should also submit it to various sites who pick up freshly updated blogs. An excellent site that I can recommend for this is Pingomatic.

You should also submit your blog to as many directories as possible, and get links from as many different sources as you can. These subjects are discussed in depth elsewhere on this site.

If you are planning on having a main site as well as a blog, or maybe you want to include this blog as part of another site, and host it yourself, then I recommend you take a look at the free service offered from Wordpress, that will allow you to do this. This gives you complete control over your blog as it's hosted on your own server/hosting account.