The following article was written by Ed Stas and was posted on the Warrior Forum. It is reposted here with Ed’s permission. Enjoy!

I see posts every now and again on the forum regarding either the fundamental mistakes or the fundamental steps that people need to avoid or to take (respectively) when seeking success in the crazy world of Internet Marketing. There are usually a few things that are consistent in these posts, but there are usually a few unique things as well. Either way it is all good. So, I thought I’d throw my 2 cents into the ring too. A few years ago i was a zero in the Internet realm (zero money, zero credibility, zero strategy, etc) and I struggled hard for a breakthrough. It finally came, but it would have been sooooo much easier if i had just realized a few things earlier:
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This may seem a bit like a rant, and perhaps it is: but I have come to a decision and I must share.

A successful man must dress the part.

Of course it should go without saying that a successful lady should dress for success as well, but I have to address the men here. For one thing, I am a man so I’m able to address the problems I see with men. The second thing is there are some major problems with men’s dress these days! (Ladies, not so much. Many of you look great.)
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Most marketers I know are smart people who know what they want to do…they just don’t “do it”. They either procrastinate, they get lazy, they “don’t get around to it”, or they simply don’t follow up.

Whatever. The failures I see are all the results of laziness, excuses, or allowing the “urgent” to take the place of the “important”.

So what to do? How to not continue failing, excusing, or ignoring your goals?

Here’s the simplest – but most powerful – solution I know of. I’ll give it to you in two simple pieces, the first piece being the explanation of what needs to happen and the second piece being how to do it.

1) You need to interrupt your routine, and eliminate the distractions. Make it so you have no excuses, no “urgent” interruptions, no phone calls…nothing on TV to stop you from doing what you really want to accomplish. Go it?

2) Do this by getting up a half-hour early. Simple, I know. But I guarantee you this: if you start to rise 30 minutes earlier it will change your life. Seriously.

The catch? None – except maybe the note that you should use the extra half-hour to work on your real goals. No answering emails, no wasting time!

• Get up
• Get some coffee
• Get something done!

That’s it! Best of luck….

UPDATE (5/2/09): The script originally referenced in this post is no longer available (the author, LinkyMe, mysteriously disappeared – along with his site). So, I wrote a WordPress plugin that does the same thing – only better. After you read this post, go to the Ghost Pinger site if you want the plugin.

If you read my previous post about link saturation, unindexed referrers, and third-party sitemaps (Don’t Waste Backlinks – Tell Googlebot About Unindexed Referrers…) then you probably had either one of the following three reactions:

1. What’s a Googlebot?
2. I know what you’re saying but have no clue how to do it
3. Thanks for the tip; I’m gonna do it right now

If you don’t know/care about getting your site indexed better, I can’t help you. For the rest of you, I can help you. Or rather, I’ll point you to someone who has made a tool that does exactly what I’m talking about for all future visitors to your site.

This Link Saturation Script generates the code for you – all ready for you to put on your site after you plug in the parameters. Go to http://linkyme.com/link-saturation-script/ and put in the names of any sites you don’t want to be counted as referrers (like your own site), and then put in your keywords. Click “Get Pink Hack Code”.

The next screen will provide you with the code. Copy and paste the code somewhere on your site, i.e. in your single.php or your site’s template file so that it works on every page of your site.

Easy as pie. Be sure to thank the guy who made this helpful ping script (who are you anyway??), and enjoy the benefits.

(Keep in mind this script will only benefit you going forward; unindexed referrers sitting in your servers logs still will need to be indexed and generating a “third-party sitemap” as described in the previous post is the way to do it.)

Get Ghost Pinger – the Ping Hack script WordPress plugin.

“Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.”

- Charles Caleb Colton

You may have heard this quote before, and I’ve seen it mis-quoted as

imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

The idea is that by imitating a company, you are paying them a compliment. It could also mean you are trying to show them a better way to do something – and often, the imitator really does know more or do it better.

But how does all this relate to business? Here’s another quote that might be more apropos:

“Good artists copy; great artists steal.”
- Pablo Picasso

If you want to make money at something, you can either be a great innovator or a great thief – but most likely you’ll be a little of both. If you look at all the great business leaders of the day, you’ll see that they took an existing idea and improved upon it’s original purpose or implementation.

Want an example? Apple is a prime example (Steve Jobs, specifically). There are many “improved” products from this company, but the most obvious is the iPod. MP3 players were around for quite some time before Apple decided to take all the best ideas, simplify them, and package all the existing ideas into a sleeker (sexier!) package. It became a best-seller.

There’s really nothing new under the sun (to quote Solomon). What sells is when you do the same thing as everyone else…better. Or make it seem new. It happens in everything from music (remember when Nirvana became popular?) to coffee (Starbucks) to clothing (styles often come back when a designer “refreshes” a look).

So what can you do? Stop trying to think of totally new concepts, and – instead – think of something that already exists and see if you can do anything to either…

• make it lookfresher
• make it sound fresher
• make it seem exotic
• make it more exclusive
• make it do more

It can simply become a matter of combining the functions of two or more products. Or, it could be a matter of simplifying a product to do only one thing – but do it well. (37signals is the master of doing this.)

So, next time you think “I should make one of those. I can do it better…” remember: Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.