I just stumbled over a video post at Michael Dunlop’s website Retire@21.com. It is a short little interview between Michael and Gary Vaynerchuk.

In the video, Gary is giving inspiring advice to young entrepreneurs, but I believe anyone can gain inspiration from this short message.

What did you think? I love the way that Gary not only tells it from his heart, but he shows it in his expressions. You know that he is absolutely passionate about helping others succeed also. That’s the kind of person that we should all be listening to!

Gary Vaynerchuk is also the author of Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion(Amazon Link). It is an amazing book that has even more great information without having you read through hundreds of pages of garbage.

I had a sort of breakthrough this week that has huge implications for my online business. It is a week I made a stand. This week I put back the BIGGEST most important part of my online marketing and online business. That is passion.

I have been online for 13 years now and have gone through several different changes along the way. Learning new skills so I can offer new services, adding and taking away services as the internet changes, and then going for a spell of just freelancing. Throughout it all I had a great deal of passion for my online marketing (I even wrote about the importance of it in affiliate marketing before), but because of some recent life stuff that passion had a sort of ebb and flow until it began to deteriorate all together.

However, this past week I got it back full force. And it was kind of an eye opening experience. The largest part of your online marketing business is not the website, the traffic, or even the size of your mailing list or social media followers. It is without a doubt your passion for success and life.

Passion Is Fuel

When you have just put in a long day and there is still a lot more work to be done, you need to have your passion high in order to keep going. Lately I’ve been putting in 12 to 14 hour days just writing for one client. At first it was great, because the money I was being paid for it was pretty good. But, after about two weeks it was becoming very apparent that I was burning out. I didn’t have time for anything, or anyone else. My family was becoming second. That’s not why I started. So, I made the decision to make a big change.

Passion Keeps You Goal Oriented

When you are feeling good about what you are doing goals are a lot easier to keep in front of you and march along towards meeting them. Even the Big, Hairy, Audacious ones. But, when it begins to wain a little, the goals begin to fade away. You still want to reach them, but they seem harder, more distant, and even less important than before.

Every few years, as the Internet changes and evolves, I update my goals in order to keep them in line with what is happening now and in the future. Lately, that wasn’t happening because I was focused in the wrong direction. Now, I am back on track and can’t wait to unleash some new things. One of those is to build a larger business instead of a one man operation. That means hiring and looking for writers, advertisers, and other consultants.

Another big goal is to build a content empire. Ebooks, courses, and blogs for getting out great information on various topics for the sole purpose of both entertaining and educating. Because I have been working so much on just one project, I began to lose sight of the goals I had been working towards. Now, however, that passion is back and my goals are firmly encamped in front of my eyes.

Passion Leads To Overcoming

I have learned through the years, over and over again, that when it seems like the world is throwing everything it has at you, that your passion for family, friends, business, and life will bring you through it. The past few months have been progressively harder for my family and I. The reason for it… my passion was beginning to falter. Today, with new eyes, I am feeling great. Things are starting to turn a corner and I am believing in only good things.

Passion does that for you. It gives you a new breath on life and the energy to continue on.

Think About Your Passion First

Your internet marketing business is only going to be as good as your passion for it. If it isn’t there, your business will begin to suffer. However, if you take a day to refocus, catch your breath, and find your passion you are going to see a tremendous difference.

How is your passion? Is it there or has it been lagging lately?

Is there some sort of special key to success that only a few people possess? At times it sure does feel like it.

There are those moments in life when you think that if you just had the magic key that would open up all the right doors for you things could be so much better.

I spent the winter months coaching three different basketball teams, all different age groups and skill levels. There was a 3rd/4th grade team, a 5th/6th grade team, and a middle school team. All boys. It was pretty hectic for a few months, and I’m glad baseball is here, but I had a great time with each team. They all had their own different “personality” as there was a different group of boys on each team.

One team was just getting started in their basketball journey. They had to be taught from the ground up the basics and fundamentals. It was trying at times, but very productive in terms of seeing the boys rise in their skill levels. They were motivated. While the success wasn’t seen in the win/loss record (they didn’t win a game), it could be seen on the practice floor.

Another team just wasn’t motivated at all. In no way did they want to rise to the level of competition they would face and were quite content to goof off and fool around during practice. It was pretty stressful and the season was not very successful.

While the third team was highly motivated. They knew what they wanted and showed it every time they set foot on the court. It didn’t matter if it was practice or a game; they went 100% all the time. You could see in their faces that they didn’t want to lose anymore. They wanted to turn things around and win. And we came in second place in our year end tournament.

Success is a product of desire.

Out of three teams, two were successful. Successful in different ways, but successful. They were successful because of their desire to be.

Internet marketing success is also found through your desire to win. As a marketing professional, I’ve worked alongside a lot of different people helping them with their online marketing. There have been great successes and some crash and burn failures. And I would say that 99.9% of the failures is a direct result of the lack of desire. (The 0.1% was my fault )

There is no “magic” word, course, ebook, person you can follow, video, or opportunity that can make you a successful person. Waiting for that special key to unlock the doors to the answers to all your problems isn’t going to happen. Waiting for sales to be made automatically through affiliate links is only going to lead to frustration. Spending all your time playing with blip.fm, buying and selling friends on Facebook, and even talking aimlessly on Twitter only robs you off time spent doing other productive tasks. If there was to be a special “magic” key to success it has to be your desire. Your want.

Success is desire. And desire leads to action.

What makes you want to succeed?

I ask this question to every client. I need to know who I’m working with and whether or not they are willing to stick it out ’til the end. If not, I don’t work with them. It’s just that simple.

This post is really to get you thinking today. What makes you want to succeed?

The teams I coached that succeeded this year had different goals. Sure, they wanted to win, but that really wasn’t the “thing” that made them want to succeed. One team had a desire to work hard and learn basketball skills and improve with each practice. The other team wanted to start a winning legacy and perform well in the tournament. And they succeeded in doing that.

My own personal desires to succeeding are multiple and varied, but the top ones would be;

Those have been the main points to what makes me want to succeed. They have been the central focus of my life and business since I began online 13 years ago. My desire lies not in just money, but in people.

So, what makes you want to succeed?

What is it that will propel you to action instead of inaction?

What is it that will keep you on track so you don’t go on any side roads?

Let’s make this not only productive for you but also therapeutic for others. Whatever it is that makes you want to succeed leave in the comments.

Affiliate marketing is discovering a new boom as more and more people struggle with the economy and are looking for different ways to supplement their income. I have recently seen a substantial upswing in the number of new affiliates needing services for their affiliate marketing business.

I began to think about what it is I’d wish someone had told me when I first began my own affiliate marketing. Of course, what was working back in 1997, isn’t the norm for today’s affiliate marketer. Today, the internet advertising world has a much different outlook that it did 10 years ago. And even 2 years ago. I finished thinking about what I wish I had known and then began to put it into today’s context.

My original list looked something like this;

1. Don’t expect big money your first week. Man, that was a big letdown.

2. Make your email list a priority. Yeah, there was a lot of marketing done by email back in the day.

3. Learn Pay Per Click Marketing. I really lost a lot of money with PPC marketing when I first started. I should have taken the time to learn PPC first before jumping in.

4. Work with affiliate products you are passionate about. I made a huge mistake for signing up for every single affiliate program out there thinking that the profits would be astronomical. Not so much.

5. Don’t buy everything that comes your way! This is where I wasted a lot of money. I thought that you positively had to buy every single product focused towards affiliate marketing. I wanted to like the big boys and figured the only way to do that was to buy their stuff. Again… not so much.

That’s what I would have loved to have been told before starting my affiliate marketing journey 13 years ago. It would have saved me a lot of time, money, and grief. Today, though I wonder if any of that would have changed. As I stated, after thinking about then I changed my focus to now.

What is it that affiliates might wish they were told when they started out in the 2009 era of affiliate marketing?

1. Don’t expect big money your first week out… or even first few months. This is a timeless principle. So many people get started with the false impression that they’re going to make tens of thousands of dollars their week online. It just doesn’t happen. It might take months, and even longer, to see some type of profit coming in from your marketing. At least “get rid of job” income. These people then get discouraged and quite before they even get started.

2. Prioritize your list… but make it your RSS list. Times have changed. While having an email list is still a viable advertising tool for your website, things are shifting towards ease of use. RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is a great way to view content from a website as they are updated. Yes, you need to have special reader, but most people are using services like Google Reader so it is becoming more and more mainstream. Build an email list, but start putting your efforts into building your RSS list.

3. Be active in social media. Here’s something that didn’t exist 13 years ago. Or even 3 years ago. Social media marketing has really made its presence known in the internet marketing world. Affiliates who are in specific niches, should make it a big priority to become involved in online groups that cater to these niches. Facebook and Twitter are great ways to find people involved in your niche.

But, finding them isn’t just the key. You need to be active in them. Make a voice for yourself and be someone who others will look to for advice and help.

4. Be a content creating fool. Content in the form of article marketing wasn’t real big back 13 years ago. But, in the last 7 to 8 years it has been a staple of affiliate marketing. Search engines pretty much rule the world and if you want your site to have any kind of authority it must be ranked high on the major ones. The only way to do that is to be a content creating fool. Articles and ebooks are a great way to add to the content of your site. Videos, however, are quickly becoming the choice of content for many affiliate marketers.

5. Work with products you are passionate about. Just as in my previous list, I really believe affiliates today must be told to do get involved with niches, or affiliate products, you are passionate about. This will help you for two major reasons.

First… you will feel like putting your efforts into something that you actually like.

Second… you have a headstart in creating content because you already know something about the topic.

Just by clearing those two hurdles right off the bat you have greatly reduced your learning curve!

Affiliate marketing can be a lot of fun when the stress level, discouragements, and frustrations can be kept to a minimum. If you’re getting into affiliate marketing, or have been for awhile, are these things that you wish you were told? What would you add to the list?

I’ve held off upgrading my blog because of what happened the last time I upgraded. I was still using 2.5 and saw all the other upgrades come and go. Even living with that little annoying blurb at the top of your dashboard that says, “A new version of Wordpress is now available.”

Well, I finally bit the bullet and took my chances and went with the 2.7 upgrade. For me, because my hosting is on Dreamhost.com, the process is pretty simple. I just click a button and the upgrade takes care of itself. So, it’s not really the upgrade the worries me, it’s my database.

The last time I did this, my entire database was corrupted and I couldn’t get anything out of it. I was, as you can imagine, pretty upset. But, things worked out, and I have (I feel anyway) a much better blog.

So, you can imagine my sheer delight when nothing happened, the blog was upgraded, my plugins all work, and I just have to make some slight changes to the theme. So. Very. Happy.

Now if it would just get to above 0 degrees for a few days I’d be complete.

Here’s the thing.

I love sports. I am both a player and a coach in several different sports. On top of that I am also the programs director for my town’s rec. center. I love sports. I watch it. Play it. Coach it.

And I always play to win.

So when I am working with someone and their internet marketing campaign, the goal is to win. Yet, there are times when I just get the feeling that the person I’m working with really doesn’t want to win. Their desire isn’t in the winning atmosphere. It’s more like, “Ehhh.” That drives me absolutely crazy.

I am currently coaching a middle school boys basketball team. We are in the middle of our season and have the opportunity to win our last remaining nine games. I know we can. In fact, I can see it. I dream about it. I breathe it. Everyone I talk to, I always mention how great these boys are and that we can win the last remaining games. But…

There are some on the team who just don’t… well…. want to win. Drives me absolutely crazy.

Online advertising is a sport that requires constant practice.

The only way to get good at anything, no matter your skills, is to practice. I am a very firm believer that anyone can be good at anything. Maybe not the best, or elite, but good. I have seen very out of shape, un-athletic, un-coordinated people become pretty good athletes because they had desire and determination coupled with visionary guidance.

Online marketing is not something that you can succeed at right off the bat. Sure, there are those times when everything clicks and things seem to work brilliantly. But, for every time that happens there are countless thousands of times when you have to sweat, bleed, and throw-up (sorry for the graphic) for every bit of traffic you receive.

Practice is essential in online marketing. Most would call it “testing”, but I like practice better. Over and over again there is tweaking of landing pages, ads, ppc campaigns, blog templates, ad positions, affiliate pages and other advertising projects that you’re never done.

That’s probably why I love it so much. I love to practice!

Online advertising is a sport that requires the right equipment.

One thing I always tell all the athletes I coach is to make sure they have the right (best) equipment they can afford. The benefits outweigh the cost everytime. For instance, in basketball I want my kids with the best sneakers they can get. Not street shoes, but honest to goodness basketball shoes.

The ones who do that always thank me for telling them to get them.

When working on an advertising campaign I will always instruct clients to use each piece of advertising material they can, even if it will cost some money to use it effectively.

For instance, some clients just want to use article marketing because it is free. I can understand that, but you’re limiting your exposure to just that medium. When you could use email ads, PPC ads, and paid placement on websites. It may cost a little more, but the benefits outweigh the investment.

Online advertising is a sport that requires a winning attitude.

I touched on this a little at the beginning of this post. If you’re not going to believe in yourself, your services, the products you’re selling, or your capacity to learn new things, you are eventually going to fold up and fade away.

Attitude is everything. In sports, in life, and especially within internet marketing. You must go forward, even when it feel like everything is stacked up against you, and believe and win. That’s hard to do when you are losing money, losing sleep, and losing confidence.

My basketball team had a game this year where we were down by 16 points at halftime. The team we were playing were faster, taller, and had two really good ball handlers and outside shooters. The boys were feeling down and had already resigned themselves to losing. I would have none of it. I told them I knew they could win. I knew that they were a good team and that the individual skills they had were far better than our opponent. They saw that I really did believe it. Their attitude changed. They went out and put on a dazzling display of basketball and won the game by 10.

Your attitude is going to determine whether your advertising campaign will be a big win or a devastating loss. A winning attitude is not an option. It is required. You must have it. There is no such thing as passive advertising. Sure, you can set up a ppc campaign and pretty much leave it when it is working good, but there will come a time when it begins to falter. That’s the point when you need to work on it. But, in the meantime you should be keeping up with the trends so you’ll know how to fix it when it begins to lose momentum. That’s where you attitude comes in.

If your attitude sucks then you won’t spend any time checking your stats, looking into buying trends for that niche, looking at your conversions, and how people are responding to your product or service. You won’t know how to fix anything. You’ll just get frustrated. But, a winning attitude will help you keep on top of all that.

Play to win this marketing game and you’ll see tremendous benefits instead of tragic losses.

Granted, I realize that a winning attitude doesn’t just happen overnight. It takes work and it takes determination. But, if you work at it, little by little you’ll begin seeing that attitude take shape. I believe anyone can succeed. Anyone can win. You can win!

The obvious question now is, “How do I get that winning attitude?” Well, that sounds like another post. You’re gonna have to check back to see how you can do that. I promise it won’t be long, but just to be sure you don’t miss it, why don’t you subscribe to the RSS feed for this site.

Remember, play to win and never… never give up.

I want to take a few moments and wish everyone a very Happy New Year!

More than that, though, I hope that each and every one of you realize your greatest dreams this coming year.

I recently spent some time talking with a few people the other day about the year that was and the year that is going to be. I have to admit that the intense excitment for their dreams, goals, plans, and other aspirations really got me pumped too.

While I had already had big plans for the coming year, I was inspired to dream even bigger. In fact, I am determined to make 2009 the year that I challenge myself much harder than ever before. This goes for both my online and offline world.

One of my personal beliefs is that you get better by doing. Even if you absolutely stink at something, the more you try it, practice it, and even rely on it more and more, you’ll get better at it. Eventually. There are some things I’ve been wanting to do, but never really got the courage up to stretch myself enough in order to actually do them.

This year is going to be different.

As I mentioned, because of the excitement that my friends’ had about the coming year and seeing their own dreams come to fruition, I have set rather big goals. I actually tore up the previous set of goals I made up last week and immediately wrote down bigger ones.

Are your goals going to stretch you this year?

Are you going to do new things this year?

Happy New Year!

I truly hope that everything you set out to accomplish in 2009 becomes reality and that you have an amazing year.

I remember the first time I looked down a river with fast rapids and big rocks. I was about fifteen and scared to death. I had only been in a canoe a few times before that, but that was in a small, calm lake. This was a river right after the snow had melted. The water was fast.

It was the local canoe race they hold in my town every year. It’s sort of a big thing and everyone lines the bridges and streets along the river route to see the idiots in the river. I was going to run the face with a friend of mine and we were borrowing an old metal canoe that had more leaks in it than the Titanic. If you were to ask us then we would have both said it was going to be a piece of cake. Today, I am not ashamed to admit I was scared.

But I did it.

I went down the river. We flipped it three times. I was completely soaked. By the time we got to the finish line we were both cold, shivering, blue lips, and ecstatic. We finished and we survived.

The last few months of my life have been pretty, well… let’s just say they haven’t been the happiest. I wouldn’t even call them miserable. It’s been worse. At times I had the same feeling I had when facing that river. Scared.

There are also times when internet marketing, affiliate marketing, running an online business, or whatever you want to call it, is also pretty scary. Challenges are waiting around the corner. Setbacks are going to happen. Frustration is going to set in. Bad decisions will be made. Money will be lost. And you will get scared. The last few months have been like that. Maybe you noticed, if you’re a regular of reader, that my posts have been pretty scarce. (I know, I broke a major rule of blogging.)

It’s not because I didn’t want to blog. Didn’t have anything to say. Or didn’t think about it all the time. It was because of some challenges I had to face. Challenges I am now glad came my way for it opened my eyes, instilled some character, taught me a great deal and showed me where I was weak.

However, that’s really not the point of this post. The point of this post is that in everything we do in our lives there are going to be times when things don’t go right. They don’t go as we planned them to go. There are going to be challenges. Unforeseen things just waiting for you.

Internet marketing is always a challenge. Even when you think you’ve got it figured out. It’s like facing a raging river in a leaky canoe. It’s scary.

The best thing you can do is to weather it out. Put one foot in front of the other and continue going in a forward direction. It’s a natural reaction to shy away from something that hurts. Or something that we know is going to be painful. Setbacks, frustrations, depressions, and failed expectancies are going to be places you will periodically visit. Brace yourself for them and will yourself to persevere.

Steps to defeating setbacks and frustrations while building your online business.

I’m not going to lie. I almost gave it all up.

There was an instant, very recently, when I almost stopped with my online career. Stopped writing. Stopped creating. Stopped everything. I was pretty fed up with what was going on in my life. But, I didn’t. I made a decision to keep going and it was some of theses things that helped me. While the heading of this section states these steps are for an online business you can use these steps in every area of your life.

Remember what you’re already accomplished. One of the things that helped me continue with my work online is remembering the things I’ve already been able to do. I faced one challenge in starting my writing career and many other challenges along the way. It would be silly of me to just quit.

Surround yourself with people who care. My family was a major help the last few months. Friends I’ve had for a long time were there when I needed a little cheering up. People I’ve met online, I’ve worked for, and have connected with in some way or another, were understanding and patient. It’s a major benefit, and incredible boost, to have friends and family around you who care.

Be thinking of the future. When you dwell on your problems you most likely stay in that problem. I have several notebooks full of dreams and ideas. I am always thinking of what could be and what I’d like to do. One day when I was feeling particularly down I bought a brand new notebook. Nothing fancy. It was just a regular, run of the mill, spiral notebook. And I started thinking, dreaming, and planning for a future. I actually forgot what was going on in my life. It was the beginning point to healing.

Reaffirm who you are. I don’t want this part to sound too arrogant or prideful. But to make the point I want to make I have to do this: I am good at what I do.

I can create, write, and plan advertising strategies for people so that they begin to make money online. I’ve been doing it for a while now and with each new client, each new ad campaign, each new marketing piece… I get a little bit better.

That’s what I’ve been telling myself for two months. That’s what you need to do to help you face challenges and breakthrough setbacks and frustrations. Reaffirm that you know what you’re doing. Even if you don’t! One of the biggest ways to actually do something is to believe you can. That sets the bar higher, your desire to learn greater, and your resistance to failure stronger.

Be grateful for the challenge. Challenges build character. They build strength. They create ideas and thoughts. They force you to grow a little bit. Sometimes even a lot. Don’t be depressed about the things that happen. Do just the opposite. Be grateful! That doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it. Just be thankful for the opportunity you had to learn, grow, and become much stronger because of it.

Internet marketing is a challenge. It’s full of twists, turns, setbacks, and difficulties. You will fail… a lot. You will lose money. You will waste a lot of time. You will most likely feel like quitting. Don’t.

Learn from the challenges. Learn from the mistakes. Jump into that raging river and keep paddling forward. You’re going to have calmer waters.

I hope this helps those who are fighting, struggling, and having doubts. I know that these steps were what motivated me to continue. I hope they do the same for you.

I have been doing a lot of thinking. And at times I look pretty much like my buddy over here on the left.

However, I do believe that getting what’s inside on the outside is one of the first steps in being successful at whatever it is you do. I recently began writing down my thoughts into posts with the goal of maybe helping others think through things and perhaps even give ideas.

This past week has been pretty hectic. A lot going on away from my online world. But, I did find time to sit down and download some thoughts. Here’s what I’m thinking about today…

The newest Wordpress upgrade is out and it is suppose to take care of some critical security issues as well as fixing some other problems. I have to admit, I wasn’t that excited about upgrading again after what happened last time.

But, I took the chance and everything seems to be working alright. At least I didn’t lose everything like before. That alone is a major plus. If you notice anything weird or screwed up… drop a comment and let me know.