Beau Blackwell

This rascal lied to you!

It’s a sad fact that most people who try to make a fortune online don’t end up making much money, if any.

There are a lot of different reasons why this is, but one of the most common reasons I’ve seen is what I like to call “Field of Dreams Syndrome.”

If you’re not familiar with this Kevin Costner flick that was popular in the 90s (much like Costner himself), the basic hook is that a guy hears a voice telling him to build a baseball field in the middle of nowhere, so that long-dead baseball players will come back and play there, attracting huge crowds of fans and saving his farm in the process. In writing, that plot sounds totally insane, and seems like the basis for a zombie movie. Fun fact: I actually re-read the synopsis on Wikipedia to make sure I had it basically right, and the description on there makes it sound even crazier!

Anyway, the ghostly voice in the movie tells him, “If you build it, they will come.” Unfortunately, many budding entrepreneurs seem to have embedded this idea into their subconscious (or have been told that by hypey salesmen), and think that all they need to do to be successful, whether it’s driving traffic as an affiliate or recruiting affiliates and making sales as a product vendor, is to do the bare minimum work possible and then kick back and wait for success.

If only!

Don’t let Kevin Costner fool you (and he will, that charming rascal); successful Internet marketers worked hard to get where they are today. And then worked some more. And some more. And probably more after that.

I just attended a small mastermind and networking event for some seriously successful Internet marketers- we’re talking 6, 7 and even 8 figure people in all kinds of niches. Know what the common thread among them was? None of them were satisfied in their business and all of them were pushing to do even more. Even despite their successes, none of them had the Field of Dreams mentality that many beginners have.

I often hear, “I’ve been doing affiliate marketing for 2 years and haven’t made an money!” But when I ask those people what they do on a daily basis, it’s usually not much outside of buying programs and “researching” more. Maybe they built a blog 6 months ago and wrote a few articles for it, but don’t do any regular linkbuilding, guest posting on other blogs, or promoting new and different offers to see if something else will convert better.

The same goes for many vendors- they did the work up front to create a product and sales page, but haven’t done any work since then to actively recruit affiliates, test their copy, or otherwise get the word out about their product.

I hate to tell you the ugly truth, but there it is. Just because you built it, doesn’t mean they’re coming. They’re almost certainly not, unless you’re out there hustling and working hard to get them to you. If Field of Dreams was real, Costner would have had to do a heck of a lot more to get those guys to his field- driving to pick them up from the airport, or fighting the devil to get the dead ones back, or something a lot more than just waiting around with a wistful expression on his face, that’s for sure.

So what next?

If you’re one of those people who wonders why they haven’t made more progress by now, it’s time to ask yourself: what am I not doing to get them here that I know I need to? Chances are you do already know what those actions or steps are; you’re just not doing them because they’re hard.

If you’re going to make it in this business, it’s now or never. If you keep waiting around and hoping the success will come, the guys I was hanging out with the past few days are going to keep eating your lunch. The money’s out there, believe me. But it’s up to you to go and get it.

I want to know- what are you going to do today to get those crowds? Tell me in the comments!

Molly Lane, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Yours Truly

Wow. I just got back from what was one of the best weeks of my career- what an amazing experience!

I was in New York City to attend Joe Polish’s Genius Network Mastermind Group meeting, and to help host the ClickBank Exchange. It was the first event we’ve ever hosted, and it ended up going incredibly well. I was really excited to get to emcee the show, and got to introduce a bunch of my marketing heroes, including Gary Vaynerchuk, who I’ve followed and respected since I first saw him speak at BlogWorld years ago. It was a huge honor, and even though I ended up losing my voice from all the talking and shouting during our speed networking session, it was totally worth it!

For me, the best part of both events (and really every event I attend) is getting to meet well-known Internet marketers and get to see what they’re really like in person. It can be easy to watch marketing ninjas like Gary V, Joe Sugarman, Dan Sullivan and others from afar and start to think they’re superhuman, but when you meet and spend time with them in person, you realize that they’re not that different from anybody else in our industry; they’ve just worked their asses off to get where they are, made a ton of mistakes, and kept going until they figured out how to be great.

Hopefully I don't look too nervous!

They say you should never meet your heroes, but with very few exceptions, the ones I’ve met have turned out to be really cool people, and I’ve even become friends with a few of them. Most people in Internet marketing are genuinely friendly and helpful, and want to see other people do well. You’d expect that there would be a lot of competition and secrets between guys in the same industry when they’re at events together, but I’ve found the opposite to be true. People share what they’ve learned, what works and what doesn’t, and what the best opportunities out there are. I’m sure they probably don’t share their absolute best secrets, but hey, they’ve got to make a living, right?

I came out of my week in New York more excited than ever to be a part of this industry, made several great new friends, and caught up with people I met at previous shows but don’t get to see very often. Getting to speak on stage was a lot of fun and is something I want to start doing more often. All in all, it was an incredible experience, and one I won’t soon forget.