Ok, so I recognize that from an IM standpoint, it would appear that I have crashed and burned. I’ve been silent on this blog for over 4 months. I have been doing a lot of soul-searching in those 4 months…and a lot of working in my offline “real” job. (We have opened 3 restaurants in those 4 months…realizing that is a little staggering!)
First of all, from a soul-searching standpoint, I’ve been re-examining my purposes and intentions regarding Internet Marketing. What is my motivation in wanting to become some kind of internet marketer? My biggest motivator, I think, is my time. The problem is I am having trouble investing time now so that I can have my time later for the things that I “really” want.
I think that poses an interesting question, though. What do I “really” want? I came to a realization at work this week. That realization is that I REALLY enjoy teaching other people what I know. Not such that I might want to be a teacher, as much as I realized I like training people to do what they need to do if I know how to do it. Wow, that sounded circular. In “real life” I work for (what’s referred in the industry as) a Quick Service Restaurant Franchisee (read “Fast Food Chain”). I have worked in the capacity of the restaurants, and I have worked in the capacity of accounting, payroll, and IT. So…I have very rounded experience in the industry. I have realized that I am most content with what I do at work when I am sharing my knowledge and experience with people in order to help them grow.
I think that’s one of the appealing things to me about Internet Marketing. Besides the possibility that I could one day be financially independent so that I could invest my time into other more fullfilling activities, there’s also the prospect that I could impart knowledge to someone who is seeking. I think that may also be a reason that I find blogging about Internet Marketing to be such a challenge…because I don’t have the knowledge and I don’t want to mislead the others who are starting out like I am.
Moreover, I am not sure what I want to “sell” if anything. It’s those “sales” that add up to the financial independence.
I went back and re-read all 12 of my previous posts before writing this one, mainly because I wanted to avoid redundant posting. But there was an interesting side-effect. I realized another couple of things:
a) I have grown in the last 4 months
b) I still have not IM goals
In the months of silence, I have been working really hard at my job. I have taken the time to read (listen to the audiobook) “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. I haven’t made “all” the progress I want in being organized, but I have taken some good steps forward.
So, I’ve made a decision. I am going to continue to move forward in Internet Marketing and continue with this blog…but for now, I’m not setting any “money-making” goals. I want to start viewing Internet Marketing from the perspective of “what can I do to fulfill myself by helping/encouraging others?”
So, there you have it. A rather lengthy post after 4 solid months of silence. Hope I haven’t bored you to tears.
On a side note – anyone have some good advice on spam avoidance in the comments? Spam is one of the things that has deterred me from “coming back”. I have deleted literally THOUSANDS of spam comments over the last 4 months. Over 1400 just this morning. I have blacklisted 20 IP addresses that seem to be the main source of the spam, but I was thinking that some kind of Captcha block might help. I don’t want to require membership to this blog to be able to comment (I don’t think), but I want to make it harder for mechanical spambots to post thousands of spam comments that leave me searching for legitimate comments that need “approving”.
