How To Beat Marketing Burn Out And Disillusionment

An Online Marketers Occupational Hazard

Once Upon A Time

Many people set out on their Internet Marketing careers full of hope and enthusiasm. However, within a year or two reality sets in and hope turns to disappointment and the enthusiasm wears off. What goes wrong and how can you get back on track ?

The Wheels Start To Come Off

Ironically, trouble starts with one of the Internet's greatest strengths: information. Or more precisely information overload. As you research opportunities, so called "experts" tell you "how to do it", "when to do it", "where to do it" and offer you expensive tools and resources to help you do it. You get confused from the widely available advice and your progress suffers from lack of a consistent easy to follow plan. Then just as you're getting your head around the information, your family jump in telling you how you are no longer any fun.

They tell you that you spend far too much time at the computer, and they want to know why you aren't earning any money. Feeling their doubts, you start to doubt yourself. But you struggle on, produce your first web site and ask a favorite forum to review it. Back come the opinions and advice on hundreds of things you must do to improve it. You write your first e-zine, but being your own harshest critic you know it stands improvement so you delay publicizing it and getting subscribers until it is just right.

It has now been a year or more since you started and you still haven't made any "real" money. Your early hopes and enthusiasm are being seriously tested. You are losing focus and your desire to carry on, to take action seems low. If you recognize this person, start with the basics, and use the following four steps to get back on track.

Go Back To Basics And Answer The Fundamental Question

Success as an online marketer starts with a simple belief. You must believe in yourself, your talents and know your destiny. It is this belief that will sustain you when the wheels seem to be falling off. From the very beginning you must have goals that drive you onwards. Your goals are derived from the answer to this fundamental question.

"What do you want to achieve as an Online Marketer ?"

You must find the one answer to this question, that is :

• Simple - Can be explained in three or less short sentences.
• Clear - Well defined, and unambiguous
• Personal - It must satisfy a deep personal desire and you must strongly believe that you will achieve it.

Set SMART Goals and Plans

Once you have the answer, you must set long, medium and short-term goals.

Your short term goals must be detailed and explicit, your longer term goals can be less detailed , but they must all be SMART.

• Specific - Each goal addresses a single, clear issue.
• Measurable - How will achieving the goal change anything.
• Achievable - Each goal must stretch your abilities, as you reach for it
• Realistic - Each goal must be rooted in real life which is why the starting point is to find the answer above
• Timing - Give yourself deadlines to achieve the goals

Once your goals are defined you must design a plan to achieve them. Plans are the vehicle by which you achieve your goals.

Refer to your goals and plans frequently in order to :

• Ensure you are on track
• Ensure they are still valid
• Give your motivation a boost

Schedule It And Do It Right

Next, create a schedule of activities, that you must achieve each day of each week. My weekly schedule requires me to write an article each week, update site content, and do more work on creating my own products. My daily schedule involves posting messages on public forums, responding to my e-mail in a structured manner, addressing any customer issues, building my Opt-In list and making time for my family. I use Timesheets lite available from http://www.timesheetsmts.com/ to schedule my daily activity.

These daily and weekly tasks are all aligned and geared to helping me achieve my short-term goals. In turn my short term goals are geared to helping me achieve my medium term goals and so on. By setting your schedules in a similar way, you develop discipline, you learn how to pace yourself and you allocate time to all the activities that demand your attention, including most importantly your family. Remember despite your improving self belief you must ask questions when you come up against obstacles. Asking for help early on avoids many lost hours in trial and error, resulting in less frustration.

Support Networks

Working alone is lonely, and we all need support from people doing the same things, people who understand the issues and problems we are going through. Public forums are a good source of information and answers to questions, but they offer little by way of personal, and immediate support. Support in this context is better if it comes from a small private support group.

You can build your own support group either on or offline if you live in a place where there are many other netpreneurs. However for most of us this offline support route is difficult and unrealistic. Hence at Simply easier we will soon be implementing a number of support cells where people will be able to use web cams, and msn to chat and form remote, but practical support networks. For more details check into http://www.simplyeasier.com and look out for the support program announcement.

Conclusion

Burn out and disillusionment with online marketing, are an "occupational hazard" for many marketers. Getting back on the right track requires that you :

• Go back to basics and answer the Fundamental question
• Set detailed SMART short, medium long-term goals and plans
• Schedule your daily and weekly activities and align them to your goals
• Find and join, or create small support networks

Use these four steps and get back on the right track today.

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