Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonalds, once said, “When you’re green you grow, when you’re ripe you rot.”
Interesting concept. I think what he was getting at is when we think that we’ve arrived, we start to coast and the problem with coasting is, we can only coast when we’re going down hill.
Whether building websites, writing articles, in SEO, PPC or video production/audio engineering, just when I start to think “I’ve finally mastered this” or “Now, I’m officially an expert at that!” something happens and I realize I’ve still got a long way to climb.
It’s amazed me to find that when I’ve had the opportunity to meet some great Internet marketers, they don’t appear to have “arrived”.
They’re green. In fact, these big hitters don’t even see themselves as gurus.
In this context, allow me to share with you an idea we call the teach-ability index.
We can grade our level of teach-ability on a scale of 1 – 10.
A 10 would signify that you’re ready to absorb new ideas and Internet concepts like a sponge. At the other end of the spectrum, a 1 would indicate that you’re totally unteachable – a know it all.
Now, if you were to be honest with me right now, where do you sit on a scale on 1 – 10 on what we may call the on line marketing teach-ability index?
Regardless of your current position, here are a few ideas that you can go to work on immediately to get further down the green end where the real on line growth occurs.
1. Read
Just 15 minutes a day.
How to close. Increasing conversions. Drive more traffic.
Did you realize that successful netpreneurs have recorded ‘what they did’ and ‘how they did it’ to succeed on line in books?
“The Adweek Copywriting Handbook”, “Landing Page Optimization”… “Call to Action” to name a few… And people won’t read them. Why?
There’s a goldmine of rich resource available to you. Just buy a book and read… 15 minutes a day.
Tap the treasure chest of ideas. This small discipline repeated daily could make a major difference in the profitability of your on line business in one or two years time.
A word of caution. Rarely do you need to spend 2 or 3 thousand dollars for an on line marketing education. I’m not saying don’t, but if you’re tight on money you can often get better information just by reading good books on the subject.
2. Observe
Who did what? How did they do it? Why does their site look like that? How does it read and what triggers have they used? Simply put, success leaves clues.
I’m not saying here that you should rip off somebody else’s ideas. I’m simply suggesting that if something works, there’s a reason for it.
People who succeed on line do certain things. Watch closely and discover so that you can get on the right side of the laws of success.
3. Study
OK, I know that this one’s getting a bit heavy but to be successful at anything you need to study.
Study your craft.
If you want your site to convert at twice the rate of what it’s currently achieving, study conversions.
If you need more traffic, study traffic.
If you want to be a really successful on line marketer, study successful on line marketers.
Don’t leave your success to chance, make it a study.
4. Listen
When you come across someone who is successful and willing to share, it pays to listen.
Don’t let their wise words go in one ear and out the other.
I heard an interesting statement recently. “Wherever you are, be there.” Good advice.
We have become multitasking creatures nowadays but suffer attention deficit disorder as a by-product.
Thankfully, we can relearn this forgotten art.
What is the writer saying? What’s the core message underwriting what’s really being said?
Get your antennas up.
Remember, we have two ears and one mouth.
5. Share
This may sound like a contradiction to point 4 but I’m coming at it here from the angle of helping others.
If you really want to grow and expand, give.
Givers get.
How does this work? I don’t have a clue.
What I do know is that when we help others and give of what we have we seem to help ourselves in the process.
Well, I guess we get to go over the information again and we get to revisit the basics. Maybe that’s why it’s so powerful.
If you’ve picked up a few good ideas along the way, share them.
The dead sea in Israel is dead because it takes water in but doesn’t give any out.
Helping others is a great way to stay green.
In closing this green approach to web marketing post, you may not realize that the great mountaineer, Sir Edmund Hillary, failed on his first attempt to conquer Mount Everest.
Rather, he left some of his climbing buddies dead on that hill.
Months later, the New Zealand Government decided to hold a special event to celebrate Edmund and his closest yet to the summit expedition.
You can image the shock when they asked him to make a speech. Instead of waxing eloquently about how he almost made it to the top, he marched on up to the picture of Mount Everest they’d posted on the wall and started pounded on it while shouting at the top of his voice, “Everest, you have conquered me this time… But know this. I will conquer you next time because you have stopped growing but I am still growing.”
The lesson here is when you’re in a growth posture – the best of your life is yet to come.
Wishing you more success in your online endeavors.