One of the secrets to online business is learning how to manage your time. If you don't do it correctly (or not at all), a million little distractions will tie you down so that it 'seems' as if you're getting something done but you're really frozen in place. This is an appropriate subject to bring up with regard to bringing in Global NPN as an optional, second program for those involved in the Team OceanSwell co-op for TrafficWave. Getting this off the ground has taken a solid 30 days, during which (other than going to work every day) I have done very little else. It hasn't exactly gone as 'smoothly' as I had planned either. In particular - the two-phase Pre-Team-Build idea that I had.Notice the title of this blog, 'My Internet Marketing Journey'. If you skim through all the posts in this blog, you will notice several things. The first, of course, is that I like to write - when I have the time, that is! The second thing you will observe is that I have recommended and/or actively promoted online programs, tools and systems in the past that I no longer use or are currently defunct. But the most important thing of all is that the blog posts are a written history of what I've done and had to say about it. I haven't deleted any of them. Why am I telling you this? Because in Internet Marketing terms, I'm already an 'old timer' who has experience to share... for those who will pay to attention to it. I'm not a guru or an expert on anything. In fact, I really don't know very much about Internet Marketing. That's the truth! Worse still, I'm not very tech-savvy at all. I STILL can't build a website, the latest high-tech social networking and SEO techniques are all incomprehensible to me and I don't even know what 'skype' is. And yet (apparently), I'm one of those famous 3% that you always hear about - the ones who actually succeed online.
The reason that I am starting off the Team Update in this way is because I have had SO MANY people shouting at me over the last 30 days about how things 'should' work, what I 'should' be doing and how 'fast' I should be doing it. My point is this: I'm not sitting in the OceanSwell Towers, overlooking the Hudson Bay, with a busy office staff managing my online empire. I'm just some guy in Texas who works in a hospital and got interested in online affiliate marketing awhile back and decided to make a study of it. As of today's date, I earn over $1,000.00 a month online in my spare time. I have accomplished this in basically three(3) ways: 1) Communicating well - through personal emails to prospects, the various autoresponder series that I have written and (of course) my blog posts. 2) Ideas that no one else has thought of. This is the most important one of all, since original ideas are one of the Golden Keys to actually earning money in business (online or offline). And BTW, they don't always work! 3) Designing ads that convey my new ideas and compel people to click-through and subscribe to my AR series and learn more. That's why the TrafficWave product is so important.
That's about it. That's the 'grand secret' to my success.
Now, if you aren't a writer, you don't have ideas of your own and you can't create compelling ads, then you are looking at joining some existing marketing system that supplies all of that for you. But even that isn't enough for most people to have any success with. And that is why we have Team OceanSwell. And for all those who tell me how 'I'm doing everything wrong' or 'not fast enough', I can say with authority that they are wrong. First of all, if there's a faster way to build matrix downlines, I'm all ears. Tell me all about it. Better yet, do it yourself, show me how to do it right and I will learn from YOU! As for 'doing it wrong', three recently crashed Team-Builds come to mind: TE Teams, 4u2earn and SuccessQuick. Am I criticizing the people behind those ideas? No, though the founders of two of those programs have criticized me directly. The bottom line is that Team OceanSwell is here and they're not. So who's the expert? I don't know... you tell me, because I'm dumb.
Look at GDI PowerPath. This month is their one-year anniversary. My wife (Juli) joined in August of '09 (and I joined in January of this year). '$9,000.00 a month within one year' sounded pretty good a year ago! Juli's GDI check this month will be about $50.00. Is she complaining? No. Is she sending them emails every day 'demanding answers'? No. Because she and I both know that things don't always work out the way you plan them to and we're all learning as we go along. I haven't even gone through the Rotator yet. In fact, I think I'm number 140, or something, in line! But GDI PowerPath is STILL HERE, and that tells me everything I need to know about them - i.e. they're for real. In fact, they're actually only just now getting the systems into place that they've been thinking about for a long time. There's that word again... TIME. This business takes time. Also, things change rapidly online and that often requires you to change your tactics, which takes even more time!
And one of the things that aggravates me the MOST are people who come into Team OceanSwell and bombard me with daily messages about 'how long' it's taking them to get direct affiliate referrals through the Team-Build process. As incredibly annoying as that is, the question itself is comparative. 'It's taking a long time', compared to... what? Medical imaging school (combined with all the pre-requisite classes, hospital volunteering, etc.) took three(3) years. It took an additional seven months to secure employment! Did I mention that I went back to college in my 40's to achieve this? Do you know what it's like to try and support yourself while going to school in mid-life for this length of time? Do I think that it 'took too long'? No, because it took as much time as was required. And I run into people at social gatherings who will inevitably make a comment along the lines of 'Oh, you're lucky to have such a nice job in this economy.' Really? 'Lucky'??? If I'm 'lucky' in life, it's because I'm not in one those hospital beds that my patients occupy.
I don't mean to ramble but people need to understand the REALITY of online business and what to expect from the Team OceanSwell co-op. It ain't gonna' happen overnight!!! And if you can't treat this as a business, at least treat it as an investment. And if that still doesn't satisfy you, then go away and don't bother me, because that'll be best for both of us. The absolute worst thing about managing a large group of strangers online is the incessant whining and complaining - and believe me, it never, Never, NEVER stops.
It's now officially part of the Team OceanSwell co-op. And what I'm going to try and do right now is answer the bulk of the 'questions' that I've been getting showered with on a daily basis - for the most part, from the several dozen people who email me EVERY.SINGLE.DAY.
1) "Do I still need two accounts?" You don't have to open two accounts anymore. The two account thing was part of the 'Pre' Team-Build idea that I designed so that everyone involved could have an immediate profit position before we actually started advertising this. That's done with now and was moderately successful.
2) "I don't have signups under my second account. Why?" Instead of the 75-100 people I thought would be interested in this, it was HUNDREDS! When I got behind on answering every email and assigning links, Didi stepped in and started passing out links on her own in order to speed things up. That helped a lot, but it disrupted the sequence of assigned links. It solved the immediate problem of people screaming that things were happening 'too slow', but it created a whole NEW chorus of screaming that people 'weren't getting their signups' as I (Rusty) had planned them in advance.
3) "When will I have my turn in the Rotator?" You won't have your 'turn' in the traditional sense because we are employing something new with the optional NPN program - a revolving URL. In fact, there's going to be more than one and the the FIRST one will be for those who don't have directs yet or have only one. Those Team Members are the priority right now - especially if they were part of the 'Pre' Team-Build and got skipped in the initial chaos.
4) "What Ads should I be promoting?" All that you have to do is continue to promote the same Team Ads that you've always promoted. Individual Team Leaders are changing their ads and AR series to mention the optional NPN program. I still haven't changed mine yet because I haven't had the TIME.
5) "I haven't heard from you in days. Why?" First of all, I have a job and I don't sit in front of the computer 24/7 answering emails. Secondly, many people send me messages with lists of 'questions' and demand answers to each and every one of them. Typically, emails like that can take 20 minutes to type out an answer for - and that assumes interrupted time. So think along with me. If it takes 20 minutes to craft a personal reply to an email, then I can do three of those an hour. If I have four hours of time available, then I can answer 11 more similar emails in an evening. Over the last 30 days, I have averaged over 300 personal emails a day in my inbox.
6) "Why is this taking so long?" It takes as long as it takes. It would have come together much faster if everyone had followed my instructions, been patient, and done what they said they would do. The Internet isn't a machine where you can insert a coin and a gumball rolls out. It's a simply a means of communication - between people with different motives, motivation and levels of intelligence. That's all it is and that's all it ever will be. While I would LIKE to spend the bulk of my time developing new ways to market and promote our Team-Build, I'm not allowed to do that because I am forced to spend most of my available TIME responding to people demanding to know 'what's taking so long'.
Anyway, my next task is to begin designing new Team Ads and to audit our NPN organization as it currently exists. One extremely complicated thing about this program, as it applies to the Team-Build, is that it is a 5-Level matrix. That means I'm blind below the 5th Level. Not only that, I don't have the TIME to do a daily audit of the downline that I can see! For this I need everyone's continuing assistance.
Here is what I need EVERYONE to do if you are part of the optional NPN Team-Build. I need for you to tell me how many directs you have currently and who they are. I also need everyone to notify me when somebody goes Inactive in your downline so that I can take them out of the Rotating URL immediately. Please know that I will not respond to these emails!!! But I need this data right now and on a continuing basis in order to manage a large team on levels far below my level five! Without a Team effort, this will not be possible.
Please, my TIME is limited. Help me make the most of it so that I can help you build a real online business.
Total time to create this blog post: about 3.5 hours
