Sunday, April 15, 2007

Internet Business Tip: Why Are You Reading When You Should Be Writing?

While you are spending your valuable time reading, studying, and listening to business advice, your competitors are stealing your customers away. Don't believe me? You will after you read this.

Less Time Reading: If you have done any sort of Internet business, or any business for that matter, you have spent a lot of time reading books and listening to tapes in your field. Most of the time these information products are teaching how to sell, how to get customers, how to market, etc...

Of course these are important, and continue to be important, but, how much are they really teaching us vs. the amount of time they are potentially wasting?

Over the past 20 years I have read over 1,000 books and articles, have listened to over 1,000 tapes and CD's and have gone to many seminars. After so much information overload, I realized that none of it was really making my business grow. The only thing that was making my business grow was building up my subscriber lists, writing many blogs, writing hundreds of articles, and advertising myself and my business.

More Time Writing:
In sports, the athletes don't spend a lot of time reading how to do their sport. They spend the majority of their time practicing, building their muscles, and refining their skills. In the entertainment field, actors and musicians don't spend their time reading how to act or sing, they spend their time acting and singing.

Shouldn't it be the same in business?
The only way to know what form of advertising is going to work for you is to keep creating ads and seeing which one's bring in the best results. The only way to know how to talk to and email clients is to continually communicate with them. The only way to gain credibility in your field is to write articles.

Some of you are going to have a natural ability to write a great article. However; How are you going to write a great article if you don't know how to write well? Simple! Write 100 or so really terrible articles until you learn how to write great ones. It's like a baseball player who has to continually strike out before he learns how to hit a ball.

The more articles you write, the more emails you send out, the more content you put on your website(s), the more blogs you create, and the more message boards you give advice in, the more you're going to be known and recognized. Once that happens, you will be able to profit greatly on the Internet.

Strategic Times to Read and Listen to Business Advice:
Reading articles and listening to tapes is a very valuable form of education. Instead of tapes, though, I now listen to business and marketing podcasts (If you don't know what they are you should do a Google or Wikipedia Search.)

With that said, I will only listen to podcasts when I'm in the car, and I'll read print outs of articles and e-books at times when it is impossible for me to be doing business at my computer.

Summing it all Up:
You will be surprised at how much quicker your business will grow when you spend time creating. If you are new to Internet Business, it would be a great idea to start a journal detailing the steps you are taking. You can use this journal later, to help get ideas for creating future articles and content. Sometimes the articles on what doesn't work are better than the one's on what do.

About the Author

Carl Coddington has been an Internet business entrepreneur since 1994. He has been helping thousands of people and businesses succeed on the Internet through his highly successful newsletter at www.promoinnovations.com Be sure to get the free E-Book "101 Killer Tips To Make $1,000's of Dollars a Week"