1000th Blog Post: Success Journey

Recently, I realized that I was coming up on the 1000 entry on this blog. I thought I could have a little fun with it and so asked my friends on Twitter what they thought I should do (by the way, if you don’t follow me on Twitter, do so cuz my friends there often get advanced notice of stuff , get to give feedback on what type of resources to provide AND I even hire biz help from there) . They wanted to know more about my road to success AND also to see some of the notable blog posts I’ve made along the way (if I have indeed, made any ).

I’ve incorporated both the success journey with links to old blog posts for you here…

A Little History

Although I started my online business in March 2002, the first post on this blog was on July 17, 2004, so it’s taken just over 4 years to reach this milestone, but I made it. That first blog post professed my ignorance at what blogs and RSS really were, but I sure was excited about it.

I Started Inexperienced & Clueless

I honestly had no clue when I got started online. I was just a new mom, determined to find a way to earn a living from the Internet, so I didn’t have to go back to work. I had no business training or education (although my B.A. in History & Archaeology helped in terms or research and writing skills) and it didn’t much look I was destined for success.

But that didn’t stop me.

I took that lack of experience and mixed it with my :

Drive to succeed (which actually more like my REFUSAL to fail).

Willingness to work hard.

Willingness to make and learn from my mistakes.

…and things started to shape up quite quickly, but I was far from perfect (no kidding!). At first, I worked just too darned hard (and finally, in 2005 decided it was time to leave the rat race and announced my semi-retirement plan here ). But I soon realized that a lot of that I called work, was really just time wasted.

I Fell into the Traps a Lot of People Do

Yes, I pretended (although in my mind, I really believe it) to work by:

Searching for the latest and greatest way to make money online. You know, that endless late night search, considering the craziest money-making schemes or garbage like this that I warned others about and even more illegal schemes like this. Thankfully, I avoided most of this stuff, but when you’re tired from sleep and hungry from success, it CAN sound tempting.

Mistaking popularity for business success. I was lucky right off the bat. I was able to generate plenty of traffic, have a popular site people linked to and spread the word about, but a lot of that popularity did not translate to profit.

Not tracking results. I was so hooked on being popular, networking, etc. that I wasn’t paying attention to what activities were actually productive for my business. I thought it was all important.

Not evaluating and reworking my plans. Because I wasn’t tracking anything and wasn’t paying attention what was working, obviously it was tough to decide where my focus really should be and which activities I should shave off my to-do lists.

Was a little afraid to sell. For the most part, I took quite a passive approach with my market and fooled myself into thinking that they wouldn’t buy or couldn’t buy all the stuff I wanted to buy. I was just plain old wrong.

But There Were Some Things I Did Right

Even through those stumbling blocks, I did do something right and I think that this one thing really helped me overcome those other problems…and that’s:

Not being afraid to invest in my business. I knew it took money to make money, so I did just that. I invested in:

Tools I needed to run my business (shopping carts, autoresponders, software, etc.)

Educational products to cut my learning curves and break some of the bad habits I mentioned above.

Outsourcing the help I needed to manage my time better and get things done that I couldn’t do myself.

Eventually, I Transformed Myself into a More Focused & Product Online Business Owner

There were a few steps involved in this process including:

I stopped that endless and fruitless searching: Slowly, but surely I saw what was working in my business and focused on that. I learned to ignore all the other shiny objects out there.

I became results oriented: Sure it was nice to be popular and to help people, but simply having a busy forum, a popular blog and online friends just didn’t pay the bills. I started to really pay attention to what was producing the $$$ and focused on those things.

I said enough of this nonsense and started actively selling. I have a business because I want to make money. No need to apologize for that (even though I was just getting over it in this April 2005 post) . I realized I could still help people and make money at the same time. This realization eventually gave birth to the whole Internet Marketing Sweetie concept (you can see the original post announcing the Sweetie stuff here which was on the AliceSeba.com blog at the time. The full transformation to Internet Marketing Sweetie came in April 2007).

And hey, do you remember this post when I was actually Stripped of my Sweetie Status, but had to stand my ground?

I continued to study copywriting and marketing - and of course, incorporating those concepts into all aspects of my business. I studied and applied lessons from Dr. Ken Evoy, Michael Wong, Armand Morin, John Reese & Michel Fortin. I am so thankful for having found them and learned from them.

So, as I corrected some of my early errors, my income and business grew steadily. But you know what? I still kind of felt I was flying by the seat of my pants. I had plans and a more focused schedule, but a lot was still done on the fly.

In the Past Couple of Years I’ve Turned Even More Focus to…

Planning & scheduling: This means most products are planned a year in advance and then detailed planning is done at least one month in advance. This includes knowing what my role will be in all the projects, assigning tasks to my team, etc.

Even more emphasis on evaluating & adjusting: I never keep doing things for the sake of doing them anymore. There is constant evaluation in what I do and my entire team does. Adjustments are made every step of the way. Here’s an interesting post about cleaning house in your online business.

And that’s in a nutshell. Those are the core lessons I needed to make turn my business into a full-time income without the more than full-time work trap that many self-employed people fall into. THAT is what success is to me.

More Stuff: Some More Blog Posts of Note

If you can’t get enough of this stuff, I bookmarked a few more of the popular blog posts over the years. Read, absorb and apply…where appropriate. Most of these go hand-in-hand with the stuff I wrote about above.

What are you doing with your eggs?

Do you know your ABCs?

But I’m not trying to build an empire

I’ve tried everything and I give up

What will you absolutely do differently in 2008?

Web 2.0: If you don’t know every site, you’ll die

If I give too much content for free, people won’t buy my information product

When you just don’t feel like it

3 thoughts on why you shouldn’t worry about the A-List

It’s time to refuse freebie services and consulting

“I can do it better myself“

Could this be the problem?

And for a chuckle, please enjoy…

How many Internet marketers does it take to…