Back From My New Year Holiday

walk500After all the pre-Christmas festivities I needed a holiday away to recover from the holidays, and to burn off some calories!

Line-dancing and walking along the sea front in Bournemouth (UK) were just what the doctor ordered, and I cannot believe how lucky we were with the beautiful weather.

This is January in the UK!! Amazing 🙂

My friends and I were well wrapped up, but look at that blue sky! The sea was calm and the sun was bright. At the cafe I even chose an ice-cream instead of a coffee because I was so warm.

On our daily walks we did over 11,000 steps a day (according to my phone’s counter) and that was before the evening’s line-dancing started!

Where My Internet Career Started

imcareerbegan-c-400Heading along the sea-front, memories started coming back when I saw the large brick conference centre shown here on the right.

That conference centre in Bournemouth was where my Internet Marketing aspirations were ignited.

I’d seen one of “those” adverts, where for ONLY $100 you can have a 3-day Internet Coaching weekend.

Each coaching session was more fascinating than the last one – to the extent that in the “stampede” at the end – to buy the “strictly limited conference package”….. there I was, along with all the other “wannabees”….. laden down with more courses (yes, physical files) than I could carry to the car. But the sales guys helped me carry them of course!

A Year Later It Could Have Ended

To cut a long story short….. no, I didn’t become a millionaire working just 10 hours a week – and even their top man couldn’t wring a profit out of a PPC campaign to sell the fruits of my labours. (An ebook about migraine.)

Frankly it was all a bit of a disaster and after slogging away for about a year I faced the miserable facts about that project. I wonder what happened to all the other hopefuls from that Bournemouth conference?

There has to come a point when you stop wasting your time and kidding yourself that something can ever work.

On reflection, the training that was sold to me HAD worked “once-upon-a-time” – maybe a couple of years earlier. But things online change so fast that methods and projects quickly get out-dated.

Despite my disappointment I was left with a sense that making money online COULD be possible. I’ve never been able to let go of that feeling, and – stubborn to the last – have continued the hunt, with the usual highs and lows that all online marketers will experience. Still I believe that to be an Internet Marketer you need to invest in yourself and your business for the best possible chance of success.

Make money free does NOT work. If it did, I would have found it by now!

Yes, I learned a lot from that first course (on producing your own online product) – but not enough to cover the cost of the coaching 🙁

Perhaps what I missed at the time was that “THEN” it was all about “ME” and how much money I could make…. rather than thinking of serving clients, which SHOULD be the goal of any business.

Serving Clients Is In My Genes

I smack my wrists to think I forgot that, because “serving customers well” was drummed into me as soon as I was tall enough to see over the shop counter of the family business. Here’s my training:

The customer is always right – especially when they are wrong

Earl Nightingale and Being A Servant

The great Earl Nightingale had this to say about the rewards of service:

So whether you are a network marketer or a blogger or a shopkeeper, remember that your goal is to serve your clients, and success will follow.

How Will You Serve Your Clients In 2017?

Enough about me – over to you….

In the comments below, please share ideas as to how you will be serving clients in 2017.