You are reasonably happy in your 9 to 5 job. So what if it is sometimes more like 6 to 10, it is no big deal. There is enough money to cover the bills, give the wife and kids some nice treats, life is OK.

A little extra would be nice, though, wouldn’t it.?

Then it starts. The siren song leading you to a place of promises, dreams, sidewalks paved with gold, unlimited wealth. You are ready to listen. How about $50,000 a week for 4 hours work a day? Good for starters. Or even better, earn $40.000 overnight, while you sleep.

You will find literally hundreds of Gurus ready to brainwash you into signing up for their particular set of dreams. That is what they are really selling, dreams…….and hope.

Your eyes glow, your heart beats faster, you can’t sleep at night. At last… the answer!!

Welcome, my friend, to the world of internet marketing.

The siren song has led you into a big blue ocean of hopes and dreams, where there are lots of much bigger and cleverer fish, and a good many sharks. Can a little tiddler survive?

One of the first things you notice is that you are no longer an ordinary member of the human race. You are now a member of a sub-species…a newbie. There, you thought you were just a beginner! No, No, the internet has its own language…..

Bombarded on all sides ….. to eBay or not to eBay, affiliates, eBooks…it just goes on.

There are two possible endings to this story. I think we all know what the first could be, so let’s ignore that and concentrate on the positive…… The Happy Ending.

You write that eBook that becomes a cult bestseller around the world, is translated into 60 languages and solves the world economic crisis at a stroke. Or you find that one amazing product that solves every crisis the world has ever known. Climate change is reversed, Icelandic volcanoes stop erupting, and Jeremy Clarkson becomes a polite pussycat. They create a new Nobel Prize especially for you.

Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Ron Woodham come to you for advice. Barrack Obama sends Airforce One to fly you to the White House for an urgent consultation. You are a sensation on MySpace, Youtube, Facebook. In fact, there are so many hits on your Youtube videos that their servers crash and they have to upgrade them before reloading the videos.

Congratulations, you are no longer a newbie. You are now officially a Guru.

But that, dear reader, is another story for another day!

When you begin your Internet marketing career, the very first thing you hear over and over again, is “FIND A PROFITABLE NICHE”. I have put this is capital letters, because, to an Internet marketer, this is the Holy Grail, Paradise Found, and winning the lottery all rolled into one!

Finding a profitable niche is one of the most discussed subjects in Internet marketing and can be a scary prospect for the newbie. Everybody talks about it, everybody has opinions on it, and the poor newbie will have many “rabbit caught in headlights” moments just thinking about it.

But the hard fact is, if you have a product in mind, and you don’t find a niche market for it, then how much success are you going to have? Not a lot. The days of just putting a product up on the internet and making sales without effort are long gone. Now extra effort is essential.

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The most difficult  part for many people starting out online trying to make some extra  cash is having a product of your very own to sell. Having your own product is the best thing you can do eventually to make a name for yourself and build a business.

The next best thing for many is to become a licenced reseller for a product. In most cases this will allow you to resell, reprint and distribute a product and keep all the sales.

However, this can be a confusing issue for beginners, as they struggle to understand the different licencing terms that go with a reseller package.

Here’s a quick overview of the different rights:

Giveaway Rights

You are free to pass on the ebook or software at no cost to anyone. You sometimes are not even allowed to sell it. You can find these rights usually stated at the beginning of ebooks or somewhere in the software file.
Giveaway rights are good for the end user as long as the content is quality and helps those who use it.

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Ah yes, THE LIST!!

You have reached the point where you have chosen your niche, and are excited about this great product that you are keen to put before your hungry crowd. You are about to set up your website, and you can’t wait for the orders to come pouring in.

But you keep hearing these nagging voices saying things like “The Money is in the List”,or “Build Your List”, and every bit of advice you read that is aimed at newbies goes on about building a list.

Now here is where you can make a huge mistake. You are really keen to get started on making all those millions of dollars that the gurus have promised you, and you don’t want to spend precious time building a stupid list.

So let’s think this one through again, shall we!

What Exactly is a List?

Simply put, this is a list of customers, or more specifically in Internet Marketing terms, a list of email addresses through which you can contact potential customers.

If you have ever needed to enter your email address before purchasing or downloading something from the internet, then you will certainly have ended up on someone’s list.

As a newbie internet marketer, I have no doubt that you have already signed up for numerous lists yourself. All those free reports and downloads that you thought would be so helpful, have resulted in dozens of emails and offers flooding into your inbox every day from people who have captured your email address.

Why do I need a List?

It is no longer possible just to set up a website and run a comfortable business selling one-off products. This is not a way to build a long term and sustainable business.

The reason to build and use a list is to gradually build up a base of regular customers to which you can market your products and services.

As the internet expands, and more and more people are turning to Internet Marketing as a career, so it becomes necessary to learn new skills and develop new approaches to marketing and customer relations. This is why learning to build and nurture a responsive list is essential to your online success.

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Words of wisdom from the beginner’s Guru himself……

 Ron Woodham

I guess you are new to Internet Marketing, otherwise you would most probably have skipped this article.

But you are reading it, and I’m very glad, so welcome aboard and join our happy band of other Newbies (and nearly-Newbies) who are starting a business – but who are finding it all rather daunting.

No doubt you have your own preconceived ideas about Internet marketing.  Perhaps you’ve read various articles and books that tell you it’s all going to be a breeze – but you quite simply don’t know what to do next.

Perhaps you have a friend who has tried, and maybe not succeeded in this business, and maybe this friend has been giving you their advice on “how to start” – or if they’ve had a particularly bad experience, advice on “how to avoid it at all costs”!

Time and again I’ve seen newbies jump right in at the deep end, before carefully considering everything, and without any proper help and guidance. One thing’s for sure – you will be so much better off if you are shown how to do something, and not left to flounder around on your own. Firstly, it helps to have the correct mindset for success, so throw out all those preconceived ideas, and let’s start again.

Perhaps you’ve already “had a go” and tried selling something, either offline or online, but it’s not sold, or maybe you’ve only had one or two sales.  Something is just not quite right. You know you need to do something different, but you are not sure exactly what.

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