It's now about 1:45 and you're due back at office for an important 2:00 o'clock meeting. You can't afford to be late. If you hit traffic lights just right, you'll walk into conference room right on time.

But you don't hit first couple of lights just right, and you're starting to sweat.

Then at 1:55, half a mile from office, you see blocking arms coming down just as you're pulling up to a train crossing. A freight train lumbers into view.

Now you're really sweating about being late.

Ever had that feeling? Not fun, huh?

That's feeling most people in news business live with. Not just once in a while either.

Every day.

Unless you've been through it, you can't imagine gut-wrenching and hand-wringing that goes on as a deadline approaches and you're battling to get your column written, your radio report ready, or your TV live shot on air.

There are constant challenges --

Journalistic: Is my information accurate? Have I confirmed it? Is there anything important I'm leaving out? Will my competition have something I don't?

Human: there are other people screwing up their jobs all around you, but you still have to get yours done as if everything and everyone performed flawlessly.

Any links that appear in body of article or in resource box must be hyperlinks and should be made active if they are to appear on a web site or in any archive available from Internet.

Rights are not granted to use this article in any e-book or any compilation of articles without express written permission of author. Please contact author if you would like to use this article in any other manner:

mailto:davidson@rapidbizsuccess.com

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THE VICTORY LAP by Charles Davidson

Today's Track: Stop Wasting Time and Money by Promoting Wrong Thing

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Hi there! Welcome to another issue of The Victory Lap. Here at Victory Lap, you'll learn how to kick your business into overdrive.

There's no hype or fluff here. Just down and dirty, white knuckle advice to steer you toward fast track. No advertising. No gimmicks. No shameless promotions. Just stuff you really need. Plus a kick in seat to get you to shift into high gear.

Sit down . . . buckle up . . . here we go . . .

FORGET EVERYTHING ELSE

Your opt-in list is THE most important marketing tool you will ever have. It is foundation for everything else you do on Internet.

Forget about affiliate programs. Forget about web sites. Forget about advertising. At least for right now.

If you are starting out in online marketing - or if you've been doing this for a while - you need to spend time focusing on your opt-in mailing list.

Here's why:

THE DOWN 'N' DIRTY MBA

Here's all you need to know about business . . .

Business profits depend on a transaction between a business and a customer. In order to make money online, you MUST have customers who make purchases from you.

Whether you sell products or services, you need customers. If you promote affiliate programs or network marketing opportunities, you need customers. If you are going to make money online, you need customers.

Get point? You gotta have customers. 'Nuff said.

Most people understand this concept, but they still make some major mistakes when it comes to Internet marketing.

CHRYSTAL: A CASE STUDY

Let me tell you about my friend, Chrystal.

Chrystal heard about how easy it is to make money online. She started surfing for money-making opportunities and stumbled on a

few affiliate programs she thought she could promote and make some good money.

So far, so good.

Chrystal copied some of pre-written ads from affiliate program web site to use in her advertising campaign.

She changed all of URLs to include her unique referral ID number and then started placing free classified ads all over Internet. The first few days, she threw everything into it. She spent hours at computer typing in her ads.

Every day for three weeks, Chrystal checked her stats. Every day, she was disappointed that her hit counts were not getting bigger and bigger. Worse yet, her sales remained at zero.

You can imagine how Chrystal felt at end of those three weeks. She was about ready to give up. Her hopes of an Internet fortune seemed to vanish right before her eyes.

Sound familiar? Many people take this exact same approach to Internet marketing. No matter what affiliate program you choose, no matter what advertising copy you come up with, results are same. Nothing.

ABOUT TO GIVE UP

When Chrystal came to me, she was ready to give up. I listened to her story and I was glad she hadn't thrown any money at her online marketing. At least she had focused on free advertising sources.

Would her results been much different if she had spent money on advertising? Maybe. But probably not.

Chrystal and I sat down for a long talk about different approaches to Internet marketing. As I explained about opt-in lists, I began to see a light bulb go on in her head. She began to make connection.

She had been doing it all wrong.

STARTING OVER WITH A NEW STRATEGY

That night, Chrystal went home and started putting together an online ezine she could use to build her opt-in list.

It only took her about an hour to create template and put together a few bonus gifts she could giveaway as an incentive to subscribers. After that she spent another couple of hours promoting her brand new ezine.

When she launched her ezine, she only had about 20 subscribers.

She advertised her ezine all over Internet - even to many of same places she had advertised before. Her list began to grow. Slowly and patiently she grew her list until it had a few thousand subscribers.

Now, this didn't happen overnight. Overnight success only happens when people don't see days, months, or years of hard work that happened before.

It took Chrystal many months of hard work and constant dedication. She worked hard at putting together her ezine. She tinkered and fine-tuned it. She made it something unique and special. She was proud of her effort and she enjoyed telling people about it.

And then something happened.