It’s a long way to the top, if you want to rock n roll. –Bon Scott

But is it worth it? Is success worth the effort and sacrifice? Most people decide that it is not.

If you decide not to decide, you still have made a choice. –Geddy Lee

I get points for gratuitous rock references, right? :)

A Word on What Success is, and What it is Not

Success is not a state, nor is it an achievement. It is not an acquisition. And it certainly is not a Ferrari or a Cribs house. It is a decision. This is what makes success deceptively simple, yet elusive. It is a decision made daily, hourly, by the minute. By the second. The perception of success, importantly, is relative.

The people we perceive to be successful are simply those people who have made the decision to succeed more often than most. We ALL have the power; some of us just choose to exercise that power more often.

A Word on Failure

Successful people fail as much or more often than anyone else. But they choose to blow right through their failures and not slow down. They succeed because they decide to do so, despite what happens. Decisions have the ability to do that. They give us focus. The decisions we make come about in an instant. And we have thousands of opportunities daily…to be a success.

Success and How it Relates to Achieving World Domination

When you make the decision to be successful…the world and any obstacle it can throw at you becomes nothing but a din…mere background noise. At that moment, everything in the world serves only to either advance your mission or your education. Every single thing that happens to you, fuels you onward. You no longer have to worry about success, because it is yours…the world works for you. In that moment, the world is officially your bitch.

That, my friends, is world domination!

A word of caution: do not mistake half-hearted wishes as decisions. If you say something like “Yeah, that would be pretty cool if I could make my blog successful” this is NOT a decision to succeed. It is merely a wish. A wish is not a decision. It is not even related. A wish is not even a distant cousin of the decision. A decision is when you say “I’m going to do this, period” End of sentence. That’s it. Notice how committed it is. There are no conditions. There are no ifs ands or buts. Say it with me now…“I’m going to do this, period.” There is power in there you cannot measure. The good news is that you don’t HAVE to measure it…all you need to do is ride the wave!

Failure is Not the Opposite of Success

Do you fear failure? You needn’t. Failure is merely a result. It is a static event. It is an outcome. Successful people are not concerned with any result or event or outcome that is not in alignment with their goals. That focus comes about as the result of a decision that is made over and over again. Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. Success is decision. Remember when you said “I’m going to do this, period”? You can’t just say it once…you have to KEEP saying it. And you have to mean it. You have to stay on task. Failure and success are simply not related to each other.

How to Obtain World Domination in 5 Simple Steps

5 questions, when asked of yourself consistently throughout each day, can transform your business and enable you to grow to any level!

Take your business, your blog, your sales, your income to the next level by asking yourself these 5 simple questions. Introspection, brutal honesty and follow through are required! Obviously, you cannot just ask the questions. You need to answer them and work aggressively to improve.

Running through these questions will keep you on task. Remember, success is a decision you make moment by moment. And you do not just want one moment of success! You want an uninterrupted succession of them! You want to stay on the wave. Most people have ridden the wave for a moment or two before, but they allowed themselves to get distracted, and they wiped out. They let their power get away from them. This doesn’t mean they weren’t successful. They were. They simply got off the wave…and failed to get back on.

In the moment you decide to succeed, success is yours…wholly and completely. But if in 5 minutes you steer in a different direction, you get off course. Use these questions to stay on course.

1. What am I doing right now?
2. If I do what I am doing right now repeatedly, daily, with intensity, for 5 years, what will be the net result?
3. Is the net result in alignment with my goals?
4. What can I do instead that will create a better or larger net result?
5. Who can do this better than me?

The Fantastically Simple Principles of Achieving World Domination

There are fantastically simple principles hidden here. The first is that in order to start accomplishing things on a larger scale, you need to make larger decisions. Base fewer of your decisions on immediate concerns and more of your decisions on long term results.

Instead of asking yourself “How can I get through this day?” or “How can I get this problem off my plate right now?” (these are decisions that get you off course), put things in a long term framework. “How is this consequential to my long term plan?” You’ll be amazed at how much time we spend on things that literally have little or no long term consequence at all!

If we spend our lives tending to details that don’t ultimately matter, what do you think the net result will be? World domination? I don’t think so!

The second principle is simple. Letting go of the details empowers you to take things to the next level. #5 speaks to this directly. As business owners, we often try to do everything because we think no one can do it as well as us. The fact is that there are likely a LOT of people who can do things as well as you, and there are likely a few people who can do things BETTER than you. An ego check is essential now and then. Letting go of the need to do everything is mandatory if you hope to be able to focus on anything of consequence.

When you tend to every single detail yourself, there is no time to step back and focus. Staying on task, staying focused is impossible, and that is when success takes a back seat to the minutia of the day. That’s when you lose your power.

Step back, focus, let go, and take over the world!

The technical aspects of successful blogging, internet marketing, seo and the like can consume you. There is a lot to learn. The flip side of that coin is that these technical aspects are also valuable. While I do believe it’s essential to take the time to learn the technical basics of blogging, I ALSO believe it’s essential to take a step back from learning at some point, and focus on DOING. The fact may seem self-contradictory, but it’s absolutely true.

The various aspects of success are very complicated, but achieving success is simple. It is not necessary to understand success in order to have it.

So the real question is this: do you want to understand every detail of what it takes to build a successful blog, or do you want to have a successful blog? It’s not necessary to do both!

In other words, you can read all day every day for the next year and still have a lot more to learn when it comes to search engine optimization, ppc, converting leads, etc. Or you can study a bit and then make the decision to IMPLEMENT on what you’ve learned. I recommend the latter.

It’s Smart to Be Dumb. Here’s why…

Why would you choose to implement when you clearly still have so much more to learn? Isn’t it better to learn as much as possible to make sure you’re doing things right? Actually, no. It’s a lot better to be out there hustling than it is to worry about doing everything perfectly.

The reason you choose to implement NOW rather than later, is because you have an idea that excites you…excitement and fun are the elements that are going to carry you through, not technical mastery. Trust me, if you’re having fun you are doing it right. It doesn’t mean you don’t have to work your tail off, but when it’s fun, it’s not really work, is it?

The Success Myth

It’s a myth that successful people do everything right…that they really have their act together…that they’re highly intelligent and sophisticated…that they’re more talented than you. It’s all B.S. The only thing necessary to get huge results is to put yourself out there. Yes, you will fail sometimes, and that’s OK. It’s also a myth that successful people don’t fail. They fail a lot. But they also never stopping hustling. That’s what it takes.

It might sound overly simplistic, but it’s just the way it is. The problem is this: most of us who haven’t achieved the success we feel we deserve just haven’t put ourselves out there enough. We may feel like we’re working very hard, but we’re working hard on the minutia of our business…we’re not hustling. We’re schlepping. It’s not fun to schlep. Schlepping does take care of minor details. But it doesn’t make big money. It doesn’t attract a large readership. It doesn’t achieve much at all in the grand scheme of things.

That’s why I’m arguing that the most important element of making your blog successful is fun. When it’s fun, you work hard, you never stop, you learn constantly, and when you fail you can’t wait to get right back in there.

It doesn’t take any less than this to make any business endeavor work, and blogging is no different.

If you want your business blog to rock, YOU have to rock. And if you want to rock…day in and day out…you simply have to be having fun. It’s absolutely essential!

You need to NOT concentrate on the small details. Don’t schlep. You need to concentrate on the big picture, and the big picture needs to be something that is absolutely exciting to you. It needs to wake you up at night because you can’t wait to get back at it in the morning. That’s what successful bloggers do. It’s what successful business owners in all areas do. They work 24/7, and they love every minute of it. Fun is mandatory.

Action is All that Matters

My hope for this post is to simply illustrate how important it is to act. Reading this blog and others in this space is a very smart thing to do, but the BIGGEST thing you can do to become successful is the simplest of all…dive in. Why? Because it’s fun. And fun is not only an absolute prerequisite to success, it’s also the most important ingredient to success. If you want this to work, it has to be fun!

Why It Really Is This Simple

The fact is you learn more by doing than by studying. Yes, you’re gonna make mistakes. Probably some really big mistakes. Who cares? The biggest secret to making a successful business blog is to make it FUN! That’s really the number one feature of any successful business venture anyway, isn’t it?

If you have a topic that you’re absolutely passionate about, launch it. Get out there and do it. If it’s fun, you will feel like me…that you have an endless amount of content you can produce, that the more you do the more ideas you get. If you’re having fun, the ideas never stop coming, your creativity is bottomless, your energy is piqued. Every new goal achieved simply energizes you even more.

And here is the key: when you are energized by your business, when you’re excited to get at it every day, when you can’t wait to see what ground you can gain every day…THAT is the place you want to be. That excitement and fun makes up for a world of not knowing exactly how to do everything.

Here are a few things you may not have considered:

1. It doesn’t matter if your site is not designed perfectly.
2. It doesn’t matter if your ads are not perfectly optimized.
3. It doesn’t matter if your blog is not 110% search optimized.
4. If you’re having fun, and you’re pouring yourself into what you do every day…success is in the bag! It’s a done deal. Maybe not overnight, but it’s as good as yours. First, if you’re having fun, you’re already a success. Second, if you’re having fun, you’re going to stick with it until things click. And the whole ride will be a blast :)

If you take anything away from this post, take this:

The answers and solutions (all the minutia) will come to you automatically as a result of your success, and your success will come as a byproduct of your excitement and enthusiasm. Don’t wait to have all the answers before beginning. Begin. The details will take care of themselves. Act.

What if You’re Not Having Fun?

I write about blogging. From a technical standpoint, a blog can be created in about 5 minutes if you know what you’re doing. If you’re not having fun, start something else. Seriously. Quit what you’re doing and do what you love. It takes hard work and tenacity to rise to the top in any niche. Make it fun. Fun first; from there, success is automatic. Besides, if you’re grinding through every day to become “successful”, you’re never going to make it. Do you really want to have a hugely “successful” blog that you hate running? Make it something you love. That way, success is yours from day one.

I don’t pretend to be breaking news here; they simply announced it this morning, and it made me want to comment on the value of the name of your business. It’s worth some thought. I personally think this is a really smart move for them. Twitter is a single site that may be big right now, but in a digital world, things come and go pretty quickly. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to base their company’s name on the name of another company that they do not control.

What would happen if Twitter went away, or evolved into something else…or what if they decided to change THEIR name? Ha. Do your own thing. That’s all I’m saying. Being thoughtful about how you name and position your business is pretty important stuff. A lot of internet marketers and bloggers skip this.

The Catch-22 of Branding Yourself: Picking Your Business Name Carefully

The event of TweetLater renaming themselves made me want to comment on how many bloggers choose to brand themselves. Most bloggers brand themselves…by that I mean they brand their personal image and their personal name. This can certainly be effective. But there are certain repercussions that I’d urge you to consider.

Why are you building your site to begin with? What ultimate goals are you shooting to acheive? These are important questions to answer. Think ahead to when you’ve been doing this a while and you want to move on to another project. Or retire, or take some time off at least. Are you creating something that can be sold later on? Are you building a site that is inextricably connected to YOU? Is that what you want to be doing?

Again, no problem with doing it that way. Just know that if you build a very successful and profitable property named after YOU, and it’s built around YOU, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to sell it to someone else later on.

Just something to consider. Plan your business…and plan for success ;)

But I think there’s something a lot more important that we should put at the front of our priority list when it comes to building our small business online. And that something is the power of 100.

For the past week, I’ve been tweeting out updates like “30 down, 70 more to go!” I’ve received many inquiries about what the heck this means, and what it means is that I have a rule, and I’ve decided it’s important to once again follow that rule.

Here’s the rule:

Make 100 contacts a day.

That’s it. Touch 100 people every day. Whether I respond to an email, call someone on the phone, send a letter in the mail…it doesn’t matter. 100 daily. That’s the rule.

Why? Because it forces me to be social. And being social is not only energizing and a heck of a lot of fun, but it’s also an essential process for building your business. In case you haven’t noticed, people rock!

Where the Power of 100 Came From

It comes from my direct sales experience. In direct sales, if you’re not making contacts you’re out of business. Well, I’ve learned to adapt to internet marketing, and here is something I’ve learned about internet marketing…a lot of us hide behind our computers.

It’s very easy to tweak on your site all day. VERY easy. I’ve done it. It’s very easy to spend all day reading blogs or studying tutorials, or God forbid, coding! Tweaking ads, the list goes on…and I’m not busting on any of these things. It’s important to have your site looking good. It’s important for your ads to be optimized, etc. But it’s MORE important…MASSIVELY more important to talk to people.

Why the Power of 100 will Transform Your Business

Why? Because no matter how awesome you are, and no matter how awesome your site is, if you’re not talking to people every day, no one is going to care. Because at the end of the day, no one cares if you’re awesome! People want to know what’s in it for them, and if you want to make money online, you need to be interested in interacting with them to find out how you can help!

Here is My Challenge to You

So here is my challenge to you: make 100 contacts a day. Do it with me! I will continue to put out my updates, and I encourage you to do the same. Are you following me on Twitter? Do it, and let’s kill this thing together! There is power and motivation in numbers! Make 100 contacts a day. It will build your business; I promise!

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

I’m using the #powerof100 hashtag to track tweets related to this program. Even if I’m the only one doing it, it’s cool. I’m doing this because I know it works, and since I write a blog, it occurred to me how cool it would be if I could get even one or two other people doing this also. I guarantee, it’s difficult to produce like this every day, and it also changes your business like you wouldn’t believe!

Like I said, I have seen many top performers over the years employ a simple rule like this, and it creates tremendous results. Bottom line, it goes along with all the basic concepts I cover on Next Level Blogger:

1. It’s very simple
2. It’s a lot of work
3. It gets MASSIVE results over time!

Here’s what counts:

• Respond to a message: email, tweets, phone calls…it’s all good.
• Blog comments: real, thoughtful, engaging ones…not thoughtless spammy ones. The point is real contacts.
• Writing a letter, emailing a friend, following up on a lead, etc.
• You get the idea…here’s the rule: it needs to be a PERSONAL, ONE-ON-ONE contact.

Here’s what doesn’t count:

• Emailing your list: if you email a bulk list of 1,000 contacts, it doesn’t count as 1,000 contacts! Emailing your list is good and necessary, but this principle is only for PERSONAL, ONE-ON-ONE contacts. The point is personal engagement.
• Spam commenting: you surely understand this, right? Any form of automation is not the point.

If you make the effort to personally engage 100 people a day on a personal level, you will see real power and real results from this. Like I mentioned, I learned this in direct sales, and I know some of the top sales people in the US literally are employing this concept right now, today, as you read this. It works! Get to it and let me know how it goes!

I Don’t Control Google. Neither Do You!

Why? I don’t own Google. I don’t control Google. Neither do you. And if we have no control over something, why would we base the success of our businesses on it? I encourage Next Level bloggers everywhere to take this  stance. Blogging is essential for every business owner, and that is why I’m writing this blog. Let SEO be what it is…gravy. Traffic is a cool thing. It greases the wheels. But don’t build a business that is dependent upon something you cannot truly control.

Don’t get me wrong, you CAN build a powerful blog that gets tons of traffic from search. There is nothing wrong with that. Go ahead and get tons of traffic, make money from advertising. It’s a good thing! But let me ask you a question…what happens when Google drops you from their index…for whatever reason?

Do you think it won’t happen to you? It happens to the best of us. And when it happens, what is your back up plan? If your business is dependent on search traffic…you have no recourse but to sit and wait. Like I said, when it comes to business, I don’t dance!

Business the Traffic are Two Separate Things

All I’m saying is that my BUSINESS and my TRAFFIC are two separate things. I encourage you to think of them as separate as well. Your traffic is something that comes in on a daily basis from a number of different sources; I hope eanestly that you do the work to establish traffic streams from many sources, not just search.

Additionally, your BUSINESS is something else entirely. Your business is:

• Your database of leads and past customers
• Email subscribers
• Contacts
• Relationships

If all my traffic from Google went away, I would still have a business. A considerable one. I appreciate the traffic Google sends me, and I’m going to continue working to get traffic from Google, but I refuse to have my business depend on it.

What if Google disappeared tomorrow? What would you do? Would you still have a business?

This is what I’ve learned:

Not One Single Thing You Do Will Make You Successful!

This is what I mean: big success is made up of thousands of tiny, almost imperceptible successes. Many new business owners and bloggers are looking for a quick way to get their blog to the top of Google. They want to find the “trick” to getting a lot of email subscribers. They want to learn the correct method of generating a lot of traffic quickly.

The Trick to Blogging Success!

The trick is that there is no trick. The cream rises to the top, period. And it takes a little time in most instances, period. I’m not saying it’s going to take years to reach your blogging goals. I’m saying there is no ONE thing that’s going to make any difference. Everything matters!

• Creating valuable content on a consistent basis matters.
• Moderating and responding to comments and interacting in a genuine way with your readers matters.
• Maintaining clean SEO practices matters.
• Commenting on other blogs matters.
• Being active in forums matters.
• Maintaining a clean and up to date email list matters.
• Keeping your blog software up to date matters.

You see where I’m going…it all matters! I don’t mean this post to be discouraging. I mean it to be motivational…I’m trying to save you the heartache and lost productivity that comes from seeking a short cut. Just get to work! Hit it every single day! Hustle! Work hard! Isn’t this how successful businesses are built? Blogging is no different. The benefits are real. The benefits are substantial. But the benefits are mostly reserved for bloggers that build very valuable blogs. And value takes time.

There is no one single thing that will make your blog rock. It’s like getting your body in shape. There’s not really a diet program our supplement out there that will REALLY create magical results for you in no time. But if you eat clean and exercise, you WILL get great results, and it won’t really take very long. It is hard work, yes. But it works. In fact it’s a LOT quicker to simply buckle down, clean up your diet, and work hard in the gym than it is to search for some kind of magical diet plan that will get you results quickly. It’s actually QUICKER and takes LESS EFFORT to just do the work!

I’m NOT saying to not be true to yourself, and I’m surely not advocating plagiarism. What I’m saying is that the model for success is likely already laid out for you. Don’t reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to!

Who’s already out there doing what you want to do? Go out and model your efforts after them. Before I started selling things online and doing internet marketing, I learned how to sell face-to-face. I started in direct sales. I learned right away that if I wanted to make any money, I needed to sell, and if I wanted to learn to sell, all I needed to do was watch what successful salespeople were doing. I basically became a stalker! I followed them everywhere. I literally sat in on their sales presentations and watched their every move. I took notes. I copied their techniques. I learned to say the same things and act the same way in front of a prospect. I modeled my behavior to match theirs in every way I could think of, and when I did this a funny thing happened. I started to make money. I started to make sales. And that’s how it started.

I found that I could simply choose what level of success I wanted and then achieve it by simply modeling others who had already done it. I started off copying the top people in my office, and within months, I had learned their techniques and was the top salesman in my office. Then I branched out and started talking with the top performers in OTHER offices around the country. This increased my performance to where I was the #1 salesman out of 1500 in my division.

This is what the CASE method will do for you when you apply it yourself to YOUR business. I guarantee it. Success is free for the taking. All you have to do is go steal it :)

The way you create wealth is by creating significant value for many other people. Whether that’s through creating jobs for others, providing hugely valuable content for others to learn from, selling valuable products that enhance the lives of many people…the net result is the same. Value leads the way to wealth.

As Zig Ziglar has said so many times, “You can have everything you want in life, if you can just help enough other people get what they want.” I’m an advocate of pursuing wealth over profit. It’s important to know the difference. This means pursuing value first and foremost in your business. When you do this, your niche will reveal itself automatically.

But there are roadblocks, aren’t there? When we actually go about the work of setting up a home based business, we run into on all-to-common situation. We see other people…those jerks…who are already doing what we want to do. This is what we refer to as “competition”. I know, it’s a highly technical word :)

Competition is a Reason to Pursue a Niche, Not a Reason to Avoid It

Know this: competition is a good thing. It is the foundation of value. It fortifies value and encourages us to create more and more of it for others. And wealth for ourselves and others in the process. If there were no competition, value would be very low. Without competition, there is no motivation to improve. So why do we look at competition so negatively?

So many would-be successful business owners will look at high competition as a reason to not enter a specific niche. To this I have a few questions:

1. What is your motivation for starting this business to begin with?
2. Are you focused on creating value for others or simply making sales?
3. Do you really believe there is an ideal niche out there, one that perfectly aligns all your talents, is fun and exciting, highly profitable and has no competition?

Let me respond to the last question first. The is no magical niche! Look, if you’re looking to start a home based business or want to take your existing business to the next level, you’re signing up for some hard work. To the others, let me say this: long term success in your business will come from creating value for others, and this may mean taking the long view from time to time.

Get Far Away from the “Make Money Fast” mentality…

So much home based business literature out there is focused on “making money fast”. Get over it! We all know get rich quick schemes are a bunch of crap. You can make great money, and you can achieve some fantastic goals, and the social media concepts I cover in this blog are awesome ways of making this a reality for you. But if you are requiring your business niche to be some instant miracle cure to all your cash flow woes, it’s time for a reality check.

You Can Prosper in ANY Niche…Go Make it Your Own

Look at my niche for example. Next Level Blogger is a blog about blogging. Do you know how many powerful blogs I’m up against in this niche? We’re talking Darren Rowse, John Chow, Michael Martine, David Risley, just to name a few. Now that’s competition! But why am I writing this blog? Why am I not running away with my tail between my legs? Because I know what I have to offer is distinctly different that these other writers. My focus is on sales training and business principles…and how to translate those skills directly to social media.  I know there is significant demand for this content, because the success of these other blogs is obvious, and it’s equally obvious the content I’m going to be covering here is not covered in depth anywhere else. Now this does not speak to a fault of anyone’s existing blog. It just speak to how opportunity works, and it illustrates how niches work. This is important.

I know you all know how great, talented, good-looking and important I am, and of course I’m going to use every strength I can muster up to make this blog as successful as I can make it, but my point is that YOU have exceptional strengths, a unique story and huge value you can add to a niche somewhere as well. You need to develop that and tap into it.

Be Passionate…Success Comes from YOU, not Your Niche

I want to encourage you to pursue the niche you’re passionate about, and don’t spend so much time researching keywords and trying to find the perfect niche. The magic is never going to come from the niche. The magic is going to come from you. At the end of the day if you want to be successful, you’re going to have to be great at what you do, and you’re going to have to create a lot of value for others. If you want to chase the get rich quick gurus for a bit more, I won’t hold it against you. But one of two things is going to happen. You’ll either become disillusioned and decide you don’t have what it takes to be in business for yourself, or you’ll decide that if you want to do it, you’ve gotta do it for real. There are no shortcuts.

The Real Deal…this is How Niches Really Work

The more a niche develops, the more it opens up to new opportunities. First there were sites on how to make money online. That led to sites on how to make money blogging. Now there are sits on how to make money blogging in real estate…see where I’m going with this? What can you add? Maybe you can write a blog about investment real estate, or maybe you can focus on something even more tight…multifamily investment property in Orlando, FL. What’s up? That’s a blog that could dominate the Orlando Florida real market right there. Then someone else could come in and niche that out even further. They could focus on providing a particular kind of financing for that type of real estate, or they could come in and focus on a particular neighborhood…the opportunities are endless. See how it works? There is no end to it. The more niches there are, the more opportunity for NEW niches there will be.

Is it too late to start a blog or get into a niche market and make your mark? Are you kidding me? It’s the perfect time.

Don’t compare your business to anyone else’s. Do what you’re passionate about, and focus on creating value. It is the only constant. If you see competition, that’s a good thing. It means there’s a lot of demand. Your business will ultimately be as unique and valuable as you are. Get in touch with your market, and ask them what they want. Believe me, if you have a market…they will tell you! If your focus is value, not sales, not making money, your niche will take care of itself, and it will evolve along with you, with value leading the way.

One side note. My recommendation to do what you’re passionate about cannot be divorced from the rest of what I’m saying. Don’t take this all to mean that you can do whatever you want and expect to be successful. What I’m saying is that any niche that you want to tap into, can be tapped. You can develop it and own your own portion of it. You can take it to the next level. It’s probably going to be a lot of hard work, and you’re going to have to get good and produce awesome content. But you’ll love doing it, and you will be successful if you go all the way.

The assumption I’m making here is that you want to succeed. And with that, I’m assuming that you want your blog or web pages to get adequate traffic to meet your goals. You want a sufficient number of people to convert into subscribers and paying customers. You want to travel the world with a margarita in your hand, hardly working a day in your life and living like a jet-setting lifestyle without a care in the world. With me so far? So how do you do it?

How to Succeed

The way you succeed in blogging, internet marketing and social networking is the same way you succeed in any other business. This is why I created Next Level Blogger to begin with. I want to get this point across to everyone in my network. Here’s the problem: there is a general mentality that comes with internet business that needs to be dismantled. Bloggers and internet marketers work at home in most cases. It’s not like you really need a corporate office or even any employees starting out. All you need is a functioning laptop and high speed internet. This is where the trouble starts. Given the low point of entry, internet business gives us some false impressions, and it’s essential we dispel these falsehoods once and for all. Here are a couple:

1. Internet business/home based business means “small”: this couldn’t be further from the truth. There are entire real estate firms operating entirely online, with no corporate offices. There are huge newspapers (the Christian Science Monitor was the first I believe, and there will be more and more) that are moving their entire publications online…and DISCONTINUING most of their hard copy newspapers. Internet business is HUGE business, not small business.
2. Working from home is easy: taken at face value, I bet most of us would be inclined to believe we don’t believe this. But look at the facts. The work-at-home industry is inundated with get rich quick schemes and frauds of one sort or another. At the end of the day, most people are looking for a quick fix. People want to make money fast. Want to know how I know this? I study keywords. I look to see what people are actually looking for, and “how to make money fast” is one of the top keyword strings in Google, consistently month after month.

Next Level Blogger is a business blog. I am creating products and services to sell, and I will certainly make sure you all know about them as they come out. That said, this is NOT the place to come for the quick fix. I come from direct sales. Door to door sales. Real estate. I learned how to sell in the real world. Face to face. I know what works, for real. I understand that web traffic doesn’t buy squat…PEOPLE buy stuff. Page views cannot be monetized in any meaningful way. If you want to make money consistently, hand over fist, online, at home, you need to run your business like a business. You need to know how to sell stuff. That’s what this blog is about.

How do you make money online? You have to adopt the habits and systems of others who are successful. This means hard work, consistency and creativity. If you happen to have the attitude that online business is easy, means quick money, can be fully automated or any such nonsense, you are setting yourself up for failure. My goal for Next Level Blogger is to fully destroy any myths surrounding how to make money online by showing in detail how to run your business like an actual business. It means more work, but it also means success. Predictable, money-in-the-bank success. Are we on the same page?

Why Most Fail

Most businesses fail. We know this. Most business blogs fail also, and failure to monetize is the reason. If you’re serious about taking your blog or other online marketing to the next level and ensuring success, it’s time to take your sales plan and make sure it’s up to snuff. This, interestingly enough, applies to Next Level Blogger as well. I’m up against the exact same standard. If I fail to provide meaningful value to you as a reader, and if I fail to monetize properly, this blog will fail. The principles are the same across the board. If you learn the basic sales and business principles I talk about here, I honestly believe it’s impossible for you to not see a dramatic improvement to your sales.

In upcoming articles I will be covering why to write a plan for your blog, how to identify your most profitable niche market and a lot more. If you have any specific topics you want covered, I always welcome input and will make every effort to make sure all questions are answered.

Thanks for reading my very first post on Next Level Blogger. I look forward to a lot of awesome conversation with you :)