I find myself standing on a precipice. Ok, maybe that’s a little dramatic. But really, I’ve got this “nagging” thought at the back of my mind and the only way I can think to word it is “Do I want everyone to know who I am trying to become?”
By everyone I’m referring to all my friends who know me as just Dustin. Not Dustin the Internet Marketer.
You see, so far I have not really shared this blog with anyone that has known me for a great deal of time. A part of that, I think, comes from back when I very first got into sales. I always enjoyed working in sales because I got to work with people…but I HATED trying to sell anybody anything. The worst part was when you had to get your momentum by starting with your friends and your family. Not that what I was selling wasn’t something they could make good use of, but I just hated being the sales-guy to my friends and family.
In my time of working in direct sales, I have sold Cutco Knives, Kirby Vacuum Cleaners, Herbalife, and came real close to joining Quixtar. Not that there’s anything wrong with selling any of that stuff, but in each scenario it was always “practice on your friends and family” – ugh!
Well, as a budding internet marketer, I’m not trying to sell anything yet. In fact, I’m not even to the part where I find a niche and go for it yet. So far I’m just doing some reading, some learning, and jotting my thoughts and experiences as I go. Yet there is a part of me that wants to keep this separate from my “real life” and that actually bugs me.
What just prompted this was finding myself on facebook and seeing that I have friends who are just friends I’ve known since high school and then friends who are in the IM world. I was thinking, “I could post a status update letting everyone know that I’ve started a new blog” and then thinking “oh, but then all my friends would see that.” I know it’s nothing to be ashamed of! I’m not trying to do anything dishonest or illegal. Heck, I’m not trying to sell anyone anything! And yet I find myself overly concerned about what they’ll think if they see that I am getting involved in internet marketing.
From an experienced internet marketer’s standpoint – is there anything that can be said about this? Perhaps it’s some kind of fear of failure that’s doing this to me. Perhaps I’m afraid that people will think I’ll fail. Perhaps I’m afraid of what people will think if I do fail. I do know this – I do not intend to fail!
There is a certain irony in all of this. I want to do this so I have the time to be who I really want to be. Yet, I find myself concerned about what the people who know me in “real life” will think about Dustin the Internet Marketer.
“Just Dustin” and “Dustin the Internet Marketer” are really the same person! So what gives? Any thoughts?
Tags: Beginning, newbie question, Updates
Tags: Beginning, newbie question, Updates
September 29th, 2008 at 6:25 am
I would feel the same and I would hate to mix my real life with my Internet Marketing. It would be terrible. Keep it separate. Of course you don’t want to tell all your highschool friends you started a blog. How embarrassing! I’m serious.
Keep it “amongst us strangers” who only exist in pixels. That way its much easier to drop the fear of mistakes or blunders. If all goes to hell, you an always log off and step out of the Matrix.
Anna´s last blog post..Persistance
September 29th, 2008 at 11:04 am
I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one thinking like this. But now I find myself unsure of how to proceed when it comes to networking sites…I guess I create a new login and go from there?
September 29th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Hmmm, well for me I also try and separate the two for the most part. Some of my closest friends know of some of the websites I’ve shown them. They also know that I spend practically every day working on some aspect of marketing. But to be honest, they really aren’t all that interested. People tend to be so wrapped up in their own lives sometimes, they don’t really give it a second thought.
As far as old high school “casual acquaintances”, I don’t really call them up and let them know what I’m doing now. We all move on…so have they.
While I do have a few close friends in my offline world, to be honest the closest friends in my life these days are with the people living the same journey that I am, which is with their internet marketing. Seriously, I feel closer to these people than my offline friends. Unless I had a spouse or something…but at the moment I’m as single as they come. Of course my daughter is the closest person to me in my life offline.
Take care Dustin
Davin
Davin-Viral Internet Marketing Tips´s last blog post..A Viral Blog From An Authority Site?
September 29th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Hi Dustin! Very interesting post and I understand where you are coming from. Personally, I have merged those two worlds (online and offline) but not purposely or anything. It has happened over time – and it feels really strange when I know family members are reading my blog. I know that some family members have signed up through my feedburner RSS notification list and I feel a little uncomfortable knowing that they are reading! I know it is silly though. I know I could create a RSS feed for family and friends (non IM related) and a RSS feed for the rest of the IM-related stuff – but who knows if that would do any good. In the end, I know that everything about the IM side of things and about me is online and it’s too late for me to backtrack and take it all off. Plus, due to SEO – if people look me up they will find a variety of sites with lots of personal and work online stuff. Also, it’s odd but a few people who are my affiliates have created sites which are WAY too personal about me and there isn’t really anything I can do about that. They even posted pictures of all of my family members with their names and details and emails too even and half of the pics I dont know how the person even found.
So be careful! I like what Anna said – but if you end up having your own book or something then people might definitely find out who you are. You would otherwise need to create a pen name or something. 
I think you will do great Dustin. (and I also sold those Kirbys before and hate selling to people)
Holly Mann´s last blog post..Wordpress MU (WPMU) Installation Tutorial
September 29th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Interesting perspective, Davin. I guess it’s like everything else in life where you have people that you talk to our hang out with in specific circumstances. Like the fact that, for the most part, I don’t “hang out” with the people I work with.
What kind of threw me for a bit of a loop is the fact that I created my facebook account for the purposes of participating in the Thirty Day Challenge by Ed Dale over a year ago…but I was too busy to stay involved in it and somehow people I knew (friends, family) started finding me there. Already my account was co-mingled.
Now it’s turned into mostly a personal thing on facebook, and I thought “I need to use Networking Sites to get the word out about my blog” but it didn’t feel right doing it with my existing Facebook or MySpace accounts.
So I guess that’s where my post came from. A desire to network more in internet marketing, but reservations about using my existing accounts…looks like the reservations were good ones!
Thanks for the input!
September 29th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Thanks for your perspective as well, Holly!
To be honest, I kind of picked up on that about you – that is that you’ve somehow merged your worlds. I think that’s also one of the reasons I found it so mind boggling trying to figure out what to do! I know that YOU are very successful and I see how you’ve kinda just got (as far as I can tell anyway) really just one persona online. I really look up to the things I see you doing online and I am just so impressed on how much it seems to just all flow together for you!
I guess in the end I just have to find the right balance for myself and see what works the best. My current perspective is that I don’t want to HIDE anything from the people that know me because I just kinda feel like if I do that then I’m not being completely honest. At the same time…I don’t have to shove it in their faces. I just gotta find the right balance.
On a side note, Holly – when you sold the Kirby’s, did you guys have to sing weird Kirby songs that made it sound like you were part of a cult? LOL
September 29th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
LOL YES!!! It was so scary and I didn’t know what was going on!!! It was really funny because I am not a sales person at all – and was trailing along with this really big guy who was selling them for a long time.So when I started out, they let me go on some of his “shows” and help him. Some of these people were so good at it – me – not so much!!! I was also not into the singing and the cult-like stuff!
lol. I’m so glad that is over with now.
About the blog/privacy thing – another option (which i have considered doing) is using the Members Only plugin with wordpress. You can read about it or download it here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/members-only/ but that gives you more privacy to open up as much as you like but only to people who are registered as your subscribers or who meet certain permissions.But the fears of failure or them seeing what you are doing – I wouldn’t worry about it. People oftentimes have no idea what internet marketing is (some people do know) so I end up saying that I work online and I design websites. That makes sense and it part of it anyway. But when they know that I actually do more than that, people often ask me to help them a lot more. It may happen to you too.
Anyway, I am glad you shared this blog now and just make sure if you do anything – add the ALL IN ONE SEO plugin! 
Holly Mann´s last blog post..Wordpress MU (WPMU) Installation Tutorial
September 29th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Too funny, Holly!
Tell me, was this part of their repertoire when you were “in”? “Kirby will shine tonight, kirby will shine! Kirby will shine tonight all down the line…”
Oh my gosh…I will NEVER get that song out of my head!!!
Honestly, my experience with Kirby was, I think, one of those things that made my life branch a certain way. I could go on about it, but it’d probably be long enough for a whole other blog post. Perhaps I’ll share sometime!
I’ll check the members only plugin out. I’m not certain I want to lock it up that much, but we’ll see. Part of the whole point of this blog is to share the wins and losses of my new IM Journey so that a) I’ll have something to look back on and see what happened where and b) to provide an opportunity for people to learn from my own newbie moves and questions.
As for the All in One SEO plugin – thanks to Anna, I already have it! I have NO CLUE what to do with it yet…but I have it! lol
September 29th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Hi Dustin – I was going to say a lot more in my last comment but just as I was typing my husband came to get me as he had just made breakfast (dinner) for me! And I felt really bad if I would sit there typing and typing away.
So yes – I would suggest you just make another profile and invite IM friends. Leave the old profile there but just use it for non-IM stuff (when there is anything.) I’m not saying you have to hide anything.
I had a similar experience to Holly – a bit ago my husband was talking to his dad’s new wife. Co-incidentally, I worked very closely with her many years ago – from 1995 to 1997, long before I met my husband and long before she met his dad. He showed her my IM blog. I saw she was reading it and my first reaction was “OH NO!” Haha. No real reason. Just the “let me run under the couch and hide now feeling” Isn’t that weird?
And I also have a few family members and friends who have seen my sites. LIke is stated above, most of them are into their own lives and not closely investigating. I have a family member who works on a highly technical IT job in a very big company (the one that makes most of our CPUs) and she is a total pro at website design. But what I was doing was totally foreign to her.
I wouldn’t think you need to password protect your IM blog (though I can see that would be useful for some highly personal blogs.) And you will want to get traffic to it too! And since we all know you as “Dustin” now it might be a little late to change that. But maybe you could use a pen name for your last name and use that for your IM stuff? That won’t “hide” you but make you less likely to come up on a search for your “real” name. It also makes you feel like you have “two universes” and it can be nice to keep them separate.
I know Holly merged her online and offline lives. I think this has advantages and disadvantages which we all can learn from. Like was said above, find the right balance!
Oh – and on the SEO Plugin – every time you write a post, scroll down before you hit “publish” and click on “All In One SEO.” Enter a title, description, and keywords for your post. If you have done keyword research you would think with that. But for now, just enter what seems logical. This is an IM blog and most IM keywords are very competitive anyway so I would just roll with it for now. When you find your niche, it’s a different matter!
Let me know if you need help. I will be on Skype when possible (my connection is dead again, I’m in a big empty room in another area so I can connect to some random wireless connection from next door).
Anna´s last blog post..Persistance
September 29th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Anna – isn’t it funny how you can be totally and completely comfortable with what you’re doing online, but as soon as someone you know starts peeking in it’s like WOAH! DON’T LOOK!
I’ve been thinking about the pen name thing. It’s too bad I didn’t think about that way back when I first signed up for Facebook! I have the perfect pen name picked out already and everything! When I was in high school, I was absolutely convinced that one day I would be a well known comedian or actor but I wanted a stage name that was different than my real name…so I have had one picked out ever since then!
Oh well, I’ll figure something out. Of course – I’ve have done a google search on my full name…I wouldn’t have thought it was so freakin’ popular…but somehow it is! I’m not sure that even I could find me in the mess of people who are out there with my same name!
I’ll have to start playing with that SEO Plugin. I looked at it once so far and went “HUH? I Better talk to someone before I mess with that!” I’m only about half-way through Holly’s book and I’m trying to get all the way through it before I pick my next steps. I think some ideas are starting to come to me, but unfortunately I am not yet as creative as I would like to be in “this” world. Still tryin’ to figure it all out!
September 29th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
“sn’t it funny how you can be totally and completely comfortable with what you’re doing online, but as soon as someone you know starts peeking in it’s like WOAH! DON’T LOOK!”
Yes! Absolutely. It’s so funny!
All in One SEO is simple. Oh I forgot – go to your Dashboard “Settings” and then “All in One SEO” and fill in the title, description, and keywords of your blog. You can change it later. At least do that for now, it is really simple. And just fill in as above each time you write a post. It isn’t complicated. Just ignore the “advanced” parts for now.
Anna´s last blog post..Persistance
September 30th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Hmm, interesting topic. My online and offline lives are very much merged, but that’s kind of hard to prevent in the type of business I am in.
On one hand, I guess there are always risks associated with it, but on the other hand, being alive has risks. You have to weigh them and decide what’s best for you and yours. Quite frankly, I much prefer to read from people who have successfully merged the two, because I like to know people on a deeper level than just what they’re selling. That seems to work for me as well, but I’m also careful to not get TOO personal sometimes with some topics. I have a pretty big online presence between my blog, site, and the various forums I post in daily, so it’s something I have to watch constantly… but it’s also been a huge benefit to growing my business.
As for friends/family caring about your business, I’ve found that most people just don’t give a crap. As stated before, they’re wrapped up in their own lives and don’t take the five minutes to see what you’re up to. Then when they DO finally look, they’re shocked at what they see. “Oooh, wow, you do THAT?! I had no clue!”
People are strange.
Crystal´s last blog post..Operation: Randomness
September 30th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
@Anna – I guess until I actually take a closer look at that plugin, it’s going to continue to sound like greek to me. I guess when I work on my next post I’ll have to check it out.
@Crystal – That’s very true with your business. And the fact is that your real life and your business co-mingled very early on in your blog. Do you think if you had to do it over again, you’d keep it the same? With your particular product, some of your friends and family are often your customers when they find out what you’re doing. I guess it all depends on what your selling, too. I have to keep in mind that I haven’t decided that yet for myself, so it’s kinda too early on to say I wouldn’t want my friends to know what I’m doing!
September 30th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
I think I’d keep it the same. I mean, the business would not have grown like it has were it not for those connections.
The only thing that bothers me about the connection is when we have children, will I feel comfortable mentioning their names and posting their pictures on my blog, knowing how connected that is to my business? I haven’t quite figured that one out yet. I know my blog readers will be pretty ticked if they don’t get to see our baby though.
Crystal´s last blog post..What’s in a name?
September 30th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Ok – in the interest in making sure that things don’t sound “off” here –
People, meet Crystal. She is one of my “real life” friends that does know what I’m doing here because, well, she’s my wife!
Now maybe the whole “when we have children” thing sounds less awkward…LOL
September 30th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Hi Dustin!
Great blog…good content and I like the fresh clean look to your page design. I’ve read over all your posts and the comments shared and saw an interesting “common thread”…between those who had sold Kirby vacuums and didn’t like it, to your mention of almost joining Quixtar (which I did, and didn’t like it), but yet we have all found a great comfort level in IM (Oh, and you are not alone…in my blog title and post/review, I shared that I thougt IM ONLY meant Instant Messaging!
) It’s interesting seeing the “commonalities” (is that a word???) that bring people from all around the globe, to a common point….and the great thing is we have Holly to thank for it! So…Thank you Holly!
I could also relate to your post, here, about offline/online, keeping the two seperate. At the moment I have not told anyone IRL, except for my husband, about my buildiing an IM business. Too often, I find, if I am not in the position to show results and speak clearly about what I am doing, then I come off less professional than I eventually end up. We only have one chance to make a first impression, and I don’t want to waste it! Actually, knowing that eventually I do want my family and friends to see my hard work, I am using that to help keep me from straying to the “impulse” type decisions, that usually cause regret!
Great site and I look forward to watching your progress!
Until next time…
Annie T. Baxter
Annie T. Baxter´s last blog post..What About Dropshipping?
September 30th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Annie – Thanks for your thoughts!
You know, the greatest comfort that I’ve found so far in IM is the fact that, unlike the other sales jobs I’ve held, I don’t have to confront anybody and try to push them past that last “no” to get to a “yes”. I’m mostly a non-confrontational person and don’t like having to try to sell somebody something that they don’t need or don’t want. The great thing about Internet Marketing is you can do it aggressively, yet passively at the same time (at least from my “green” perspective). In other words, you can kinda put your stuff out there and see who wants it! I guess in really simple terms, it’s marketing, not sales.
I have pulled up your site and intend to read through your posts as well. It’ll be interesting to see what common threads exist between our two blogs and see how we both progress! Just by quickly scanning the titles of your posts, I can already tell I’m gonna be interested in reading every one of them!
I’m not sure I can handle both an “Annie” and an “Anna” commenting on my blog tho…so one of you is gonna have to keep silent! I am SO kidding. Don’t keep silent. MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD! (Or your type read). Whatever I mean…Keep it coming!
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:31 pm
For me, first of all…I don’t really communicate with folks I went to school with! Lol, second, I don’t really care what they think about it. Thrid, my family knows what I’m about and what I’m trying to do, and are already asking me for help lol. I don’t see a separation really, this is what I do…this is what I want to do…and this is what I plan to do.
I do however, understand not wanting everyone to know…it’s human nature. It’s like we don’t want to share that next big thing that may be happening to us, because, we don’t want it to NOT happen!
You’ll be fine, with the folks you’ve got around you Holly, Anna, and Davin! You have no choice but to succeed. When we meet up, I got a sammich for ya.
Normal Joe´s last blog post..Some Blogs Showing Love To IMwithJoe.com
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:22 pm
@Joe – one of the things that I absolutely love about your style is that you are so “real”! I actually caught myself wondering this morning if the “Normal Joe” we see in the videos is REALLY Joe or if it’s an online persona for Joe. I could be way off base, but something tells me that’s really who you are. If not, that’s fine too, but if it is, I think that’s awesome! There’s something about you that says “come hang at my crib, man!”
I found myself going back and re-reading this post and most of the comments. I’m not sure why I’ve ended up back in touch with all those people from high school, but somehow I did. It just happened. I love what Anna said about keeping it “amongst us strangers” who exist only in pixels and being able to log off and step out of the Matrix. On the flip-side of that coin, I love the concept of having it all out there and just having IM Dustin as another part of who I am as a whole that I share with everyone. What’s REALLY funny is how I find myself wanting to share what I’m doing with all the people I work with! Why does THAT seem ok in my head, but the people who I am actually REALLY still friends with from high school bothers me?
Who knows for sure…but I guess I still have time to decide all that. For now, I just gotta learn, grow, and become successful!
October 2nd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
No doubt man…yeah…that’s really me! I figured man…why try to be something you’re not? I’m just me man, that’s it! So that’s what you get. I do understand a little bit of the separation, but for me…there’s really no reason. I don’t go around saying “hey, guess what I do now?”
But if someone asks what I’ve been up to, I’ll tell them. Mostly it’s when people find me on myspace or something.
Normal Joe´s last blog post..Some Blogs Showing Love To IMwithJoe.com
October 2nd, 2008 at 8:55 pm
That’s great Joe! I absolutely love the way you roll!
You’re viral man. I watch your videos and then find myself getting into it and wanting to be like you LOL.
Too bad I’m so white I could be considered neon white!!! My theme song is Weird Al’s “White ‘n’ Nerdy” HAHAHA