2014 Success Guide: Part 1
2013 has been a challenging and eventful year for me. 
It's been a year that has seen changes in career, life goals and most importantly thinking and mindset.
While not always easy, it has been very exciting and the possibilities moving forward have given me new energy and sparks of creativity that I thought were long exhausted in myself.
As the year draws closer to close, I've been attempting to better focus myself on what and how I wish to proceed in the year ahead ( Lord willing ). This has lead me to put some of these ideas in writing as my own version of a road map or success guide in relation to my online efforts.
At the risk of boring you to tears (lol), I've decided to share these musings with my brothers and sisters here on WA.
If you find them helpful, then they will have more than served their purpose. If not just ignore them and please forgive my wasting your time.
Either way I wish you much success in 2014 ! :)
God Bless,
Mark
Introduction
The Internets impact on every aspect of our world is hard to overestimate. It has changed not only the way we buy and sell, it has in fact reached into the very fabric of our society and impacted the way we understand our world, the way we learn and the way we communicate and relate to one another as human beings. The visceral speed of thought has been given voice in our world by modern communication platforms such as Twitter and Facebook which connect millions of us together with the push of a button marked “send”.
Changes in scale of this magnitude almost always accompany changes in our expectations as well. No longer is it necessary to stand in long lines waiting for the next volume from our favorite author at the local bookstore. No, now we can order that volume, weeks in advance and it will both be shipped directly to our door and be in our hands on publication day, or it will be delivered, again with the push of the send button, within seconds of its publication to our electronic gadgetry.
While there will always be those that prefer the more traditional means of doing things, the fact remains, once the majority of consumers have changed their expectations the producers of products have little choice but comply with those expectations or risk extinction.
Here I feel obligated to the traditionalist reading this to reassure them that there are still some things that haven’t changed. One universal truth in business that never seems to go away is this: people won’t buy what they don’t know about. This is where Internet marketing comes in.
Whether you’re a retailer selling a particular line of products or a service provider making your living online, the internet is a great place to do business. Internet marketing basically involves using various tools and services to let your business reach a wider base of potential customers. Good Internet marketing will bring in a significant number of clients, keep them interested and then make some of them more than happy to purchase your products.
A poorly thought out or implemented Internet marketing program, however, will be a complete waste of time (both yours and your prospective customers) and money. You could even end up doing more harm than good to your online business efforts if the marketing strategy is not given the proper planning needed at the start of the campaign.
You may be surprised to learn that most people who fail in their Internet marketing strategies do so not because they lack the knowledge of technical capabilities. Some marketers are quite adept with SEO (search engine optimization), website design and other “geeky” skill sets.
The reality however is, all of those will make no difference if the would-be marketer does not know how to properly apply those skills with the appropriate mindset towards his or her target audience.
The essential question isn't “How slick and pretty can I make my website look?” What is it then ?
“How do I make myself stand out from everyone else marketing out there?” and closely related to that one, “How do I change strangers into friends? Friends into customers?”
If we have a clear understanding of the answers to those questions, our prospects for success in 2014 will be greatly enhanced !
In Part 2, we'll begin to seek out those answers.
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Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. :) Thanks for the follow as well.