Web Success Diva

Get Real … Or You’ve Already Lost.

January 21, 2008 · Online Business

… Seriously. Get real about your expectations and use a bit of common sense… It never ceases to amaze me what people will make a conscience chose to believe — hanging onto hope, at all costs — even at the requirement of shoving all sense out the door.

So, let’s start with the scenario and then we’ll bring you back down to reality.

Client? Expert consultant, intelligent, personable, and a very good candidate for online branding. The current mindset that is likely to make me lose my mind? The idea that its all in the numbers and visual presentation in design. Build it and they will come mentality… Shoot them a little digital note (ezines) once every two weeks, put up a nice and pretty website, and voila… You’ve got online success… kind of like a Blueprint for Success…

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What’s the deal? Our goals, from my perspective as an online marketer include building her online brand (a cohesive solid brand based on her expertise, not informercial hype); slowly build her opt-in list with qualified readers, keeping her list based on quality not quantity; build her online network of content; move her into residual, passive income as a part of her revenues (expanding beyond the hour/$ equation thereby expanding overall revenues).

Her goals, due to the inadequate training she’s received as part of a sandbox online regarding the reality of online marketing. There is a lot of crap out there. There are a lot of programs, basically MLM formatted, that make a very few people very little money. At some point it can not be all about the money.

The clash? Our company, and really everything we do, is based on the belief that we can help people create success in the area of work they are passionate about, money being the obvious benefit, but certainly not the key driver.

Why am I tripping on this? Well, the problem is, when you’ve been sold the “magic pill,” “exclusive blueprint,” or whatever the info product of the day is — your mindset is such in the wrong direction, your not able to make good, real decisions about how to market yourself and your offering… Your starting out the gate, with the wrong reality. When I come across this person, who’s had little success online, the conversation is very lengthy…

Reality? Reality stinks. Alot. In the real-world, there is no magic pill. There are, in very small numbers, those hits that no one can explain. And in all other cases, there is an instance of an entrepreneur who had an online epiphany, working very hard all along the day.

Reality includes the internet’s ability to change, sometimes on a daily basis. Changes as far as where your audience is, what they are searching for, what they are conversing about, and more can change very quickly. Rules and guidelines can change just as quickly - each have a huge impact as to how you continue to use services. For example, Scribd changed their linking policy, turned the so-called Web 2.0 community upside down, opportunities where lost because most did not understand the change. Google started to index the new Squidoo pages, and therefore became a super, duper opportunity to get conversational traffic, which typically converts at a much higher rate anyways.

The solution? We’ve become a lot more selective about who we work with, so that valuable client time is not hindered by having to correct or re-build. We interview clients in such a way as to make sure we are all on the same page from the start, making the working relationship so much more easier to manage.

The internet opens the door to many successful stories… our goal, as a company, is not to build a “15-minutes-of-fame” presence, but to build one that is built on a solid foundation - one that carries well into the future. In other words, build the darn thing right - from the start.

To Your Success,

Maria Reyes-McDavis

Web Success Diva

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