the system

What I'm working at here at Beadle Glitter is Internet marketing.

I'm supposed to be developing a product, and a following, and building a personal brand.

You're supposed to come to me for information about how to get ahead, and I'm supposed to sell you stuff that helps you do that.

I'm not too confident these posts are doing the job. It's a little hard for me to tell, but I suspect they're just too difficult. I'm not getting any feedback, and seems like a confirmation of my doubts. I think it may be.

It's OK, up to a point, because these posts are also a way for me to take notes, which I feel is important. In that way, it's working, even though I myself find the posts quite difficult, and I don't know how effectively I can go back and review them.

In another sense, regardless, they're practice, and in that sense I come away feeling like I'm building something.

Also, whether they work as some kind of reminder to me or not, I'm preserving material in them, and I think I need to come back and mine them and move that material into other places where it can function more effectively.

So, I'm trying to make money on line, or I hope to, and toward that end I'm reading everything I can, and watching all the videos I can, and listening to all the podcasts I can listen to. I'm exploring every web site on the subject that I can explore.

Of course, there's a ton of material out there, and I've yet to get a result from anything, period.

Everything you encounter promises you something, the potential of really big results. I believe these promises are genuine, that it actually is possible to get those big results, and that people are actually getting them. I also believe it is not all a giant scam, at all. I believe this is actually beneficial work, for society at large, but it's true the way that works, according to my theory, is maybe overt in a certain sense, but it's also subtle. The marketers tell you - I was told this yesterday - 90% of the people who try this won't achieve anything, because we can give you a certain amount of insight, but if you are going to get results, you have to do the work.

As I say, I have no results, thus far. But I would also say I haven't been very disciplined about doing the work. Right now, I think I'm making progress with that, so I'm doing more work, maybe a lot more work. But as I write today my results remain somewhat baffling.

Yesterday I looked at a number of sites I have open in tabs, and I especially focused on one where I set up an account a few weeks back, but that was as far as I got, and since then I haven't been able to figure out what to do next. Yesterday, at that site, I was able to find a short course for people getting started with the product, and I watched three of the four videos. They were fairly packed with what were, up to a point, definite suggestions, but only up to a point. The topic was affiliate marketing. The company offers a wide array of products that we, as affiliate marketers, can promote. But the videos were saying you can't just pick a product and splash it out there. You have to create a product of your own, and attract an audience, and then you can promote their products using that as a platform. I feel a long way off.

You're supposed to build a blog. This is my blog, and I think I've come a long way with it, but I have my doubts anyone would actually read it. The good thing, I suppose, is, these posts will recede into the blog's history, and maybe future posts will be more on point, and it'll work that way. Also, though, the blog is supposed to be just part of a system, that is, a system for reaching out to people and, I guess, becoming part of their lives. I need to look at some new tools, and figure out how to use those, it seems. Actually, too, it looks like I need to make some investments. I'm using free tools to build this blog, but those other tools aren't necessarily free.

That course pointed me towards another web site that I took a look at. It pointed me towards a number of other sites, but I took a look at that one. And it's a massive site. I'm not at all sure what to make of it, though it does look powerful. I selected one small part of it - actually, it's a big book, but a small part of the whole site - and started looking it over. I'm not sure what to make of that, given how minimal my progress is thus far. But I'm taking the position that if all I can do is a little at a time, I need to do my best to at least do that. Maybe it can snowball.

And, in the late afternoon, I watched a podcast. That's a small breakthrough. I scheduled it, and then I did it. I did it while I worked on dinner, so I did kind of double my effectiveness.

These guys offer a little suite of Internet tools, and they are all into Network Marketing to bring customers to their product. Well, that's the one guy, and then the other guy has had success selling for them. But what that other guy has been doing is quite advanced. He'll build a tool of some kind that works with the other guy's product, and then sell his tool, and, by that means, the other guy's tool at the same time.

So I'm thinking, boy, I'm interested in building software, but I'm not nearly at the point where I can build something for the public. And I've been thinking about asking these guys for help. I kind of thought I really couldn't or shouldn't, and I thought maybe if I knew more about them that would help, but I couldn't find anything to read on their site, just the schedule for their webinar. So that was why I made a point of attending that.

Well now the guy is saying, you know, if you just write to us "I don't know what to do, tell me what to do," we can't do that. You won't hear back from us. What you need to do to get our attention is produce. You have to sell our stuff. And the other guy was saying "I never, ever write to someone asking for help. If I'm having trouble figuring something out, I do the research, and I work on it until I figure it out."

Woooooooops!

And he's saying "asking for help isn't leadership. Helping people is leadership."

Well, I am trying to do that, here, though I think I'm still rather in a muddle about it.

I will say this has given me an idea. A few weeks ago I followed some links and found a local marketing company, and I looked at their site a bit, and I was thinking about asking them for help, but I kind of knew it would go nowhere. Today I'm thinking maybe I can offer them some help. That might go better.

Anyway, after dinner last night I told my wife "I'm going to bed," which I did, but I took my laptop with me and ended up watching videos about day trading, for quite a while. I followed the links and actually watched everything. One of the links, which was random and an ad, introduced me to a very esoteric tool I rather like the look of. And I've been up now since very early, working on these posts, so I'm getting a good start on my day. I've produced my writing for the day, such as it is, already, and now I have the whole rest of the day to work on my reading, and maybe some correspondence.