Don't buy into the rat race!

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"There are just two kinds of relationships in this world, parasitic and reciprocal."
-- Michael Reardon, famous free climber.

It's interesting to observe the current wave of people attempting to make money online.

Many of them are not trying to create something of true value and add to the wealth of the world.

They are just trying to get the money.

Now I'm not criticizing anyone for wanting to make lots of money as fast as possible. Who doesn't? There's nothing wrong with having dreams and wanting freedom.

I'm just saying that you would be much better off developing a brand, a reputation, real skills, real knowledge and top quality products.

This is part of the reason I will have nothing to do with the current trend of creating "internet garbage" with no value - like much of the article spinning, twittering, re-blogging, automated content generation and the like.

It is a rat race.

People are caught up in an incessant "gold rush" mentality which is as futile as it is senseless. Someone yells "gold over here" and they all rush over there.

Recycling of content or gaming Google to get a little traffic may put a little short-term cash in your pocket (if you are lucky), but if this is your modus operandi, you have completely missed the point - and the real wealth.

Brand, reputation, real skills, real knowledge and top quality products are the true foundations of any sort of real power. It's called being a producer, rather than just a consumer.

If all you did was try to game Google, you might have made a few bucks - but then at the next algorithm change, where will you be?

Back where you started.

Not only that, but you will have learned little of real value. You will have trivialized your education into avenues of pointlessness. You will have balkanized your expertise and your acumen.

This is the real meaning of the phrase "Even if you win the rat race you are still a rat." Real wealth starts within, and starts with health, skills, knowledge, wisdom and other inner assets. And bear in mind - when people see parasites, what do they do? They roll up a newspaper and give them a good whack. Or worse.

It's interesting that people trying to "get rich fast", don't get there as fast as people who concentrate on delivering the goods and building a solid empire built on real foundations and over-the-top value.

It may just be that the shortest short cut of all is to do things properly.

Reputation

The really successful Internet Marketers first of all develop top class skills, knowledge and tools which they can then deliver to others in the form of products and services within the context of an automated sales and customer acquisition mechanism.

They concentrate on providing quality, value and usefulness - and develop reputation through this, rather than through hype-driven "reputation management".

Reputation is a force in business more potent than a thousand followers on twitter. It may be the thing that ultimately leads to thousands of followers - but it is your true "worth" that is the important thing at the end of the day. You should aim to actually be valuable, rather than just to gain followers.

Reputation is the thing that makes your phone ring two years down the road, whereas if you offer no real value or quality, none of those twitter followers will even remember that you exist.

You become what you do. And I'm absolutely certain that it is what you become that will be the true deciding factor in whether you achieve - and sustain - real wealth.

I've written about this topic in much further detail in my book Secrets Of The Rich.

The Aha Moment

As part of my early research and entrepreneurial efforts to "get rich", I created many web sites. Some were successful and made money. Some sucked and didn't.

But then one day I noticed a pattern that was absolutely striking. It was what they call an "Aha" moment and it blew me away.

The sites that had made me the most money were actually the ones where I provided the greatest value to the visitor.

Simply seek to make web sites and content that make people incredibly grateful that they found you. These will be your winners. Do some real research, get some real knowledge and create something brilliant. Go beyond in what you offer. Seek to thrill the people who find the site; to over-deliver.

Make the "deal" on the table for visitors to your site, the best you can possibly make it. This will involve doing more work, creating more free giveaways, putting more effort into learning. But it really will pay off more than trying to get something for nothing.

I once had a one page ringtone web site that made me thousands... all based on the fact that I gave away a load of ringtones completely free. It was a genuine offer; and I used my own musical content so there were no copyright hurdles to overcome. People loved my web site. They started visiting in droves, linking to it of their own accord. There was no scam. No trick. No empty promise.

It took some effort and some study to create the content and to work out a nice delivery mechanism with Javascript previews and stuff. And of course I did some market research, keyword research, some search engine optimization and so on.

But my initial focus was bang on target, and I hit the bullseye.

It did not really hit me until later, that when I had conceptualized the site, I had been completely focused on creating a site that people would get excited about, that would help them out. I was thinking about them - and it worked.

It was the perfect model of an asset: Something you have created that works for you to earn money by providing value to others.

In the end, a big ringtone company APPROACHED ME completely out of the blue and offered to buy the site!!

I'd made money while I slept every night for months from the advertising on the site - and then I sold it for a four figure sum. Not only that but I had increased my knowledge and skills in the process.

Not bad for a few days work.

There is unlimited opportunity to become wealthy by providing what people need.

-- Alex Newman

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© Alex Newman 2011