“You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going” Mike Litman, Conversations with Millionaires.

Mike Litman was my first internet marketing mentor. Under his guidance I launched my first internet business – a blog about dogs.  The image above is a screenshot of the header image and an excerpt I picked up on the internet.

I liked Mike’s story.  As a teenager he and a buddy, Jason Oman, set up a local radio station and broadcast live interviews with millionaires. The show did not last but now Mike and Jason had those recorded interviews.   Years later they transcribed them and published Conversations with Millionaires which became a New York Times best seller.

The rabbit trail between my reading that book and my buying an online course from Mike is somewhat sketchy … it was some ten years ago. At the time I was looking at a way to market a consumer direct business.  I had achieved a major benchmark and was looking for ways to advance to a higher level.  The internet seemed like a good place.

I began by downloading all kinds of free info on how to create an internet business.  My idea was to digest all the info, create a system and market the opportunity or product.  Several things happened.

One:  I became a freebie information junkie.  I swear to this day that I have the largest virtual library of free content. There are others who lay claim to that fame too.  But, smart as I thought I was, I wasn’t smart enough to come up with a system that generated leads or cash for me.

Two:  What I did though was start a blog.  That initial step connected me to other bloggers.  We learned from each other and I began to make some money with Google’s Adsense.  It wasn’t a lot of money, but enough to get me hooked on internet marketing.

Three: Somehow I got on Mike Litman’s list and received an email from him.  He had a course that would teach me how to create an online business and would help me set up an online store. I jumped at the chance.  The short of the long of it was that I had a website that sold natural doggie treats that were baked by someone in Indiana and were shipped to visitors that came to my site and bought the treats. It took me months before I had all the bells and whistles in place.  I was often frustrated, discouraged even.  I just could not seem to get it right. And to this day I will never forget Mike Litman’s reply:

“You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.”

One day I was ready to throw in the towel and ditch this internet thing.  But something inside of me stopped me.   Something urged me  to give it one more chance.

I gave up trying to get it right, I just got going.

The site was Sit Booboo Sit. I put up a blog on the site. Boo Barkley became the editor.  I created an online dog personality based on my own dog and wrote in the voice of a dog.  The blogs were about dog products, toys and services.  Boo wrote about visits to the dog spa, the groomer, doggie boutiques, and even about the road trips he went on with his “mommie.”  Every blog had a review of the places “we” visited, gave tips on how to choose toys for your dog, what to look for when buying pet health insurance and more.

Traffic began to grow. Boo opened a Barkery and began selling healthy doggie treats made with natural ingredients. I found a woman in Indiana who was baking these treats for her own bricks and mortar store and began to sell them online. We struck a deal. Within a week we had our first online purchase from someone in New York.  Two pounds of our signature treat.  Two weeks later a reorder, this time for more.  Little by little we gained more customers.  Customers paid me, I paid my Indiana connection and the treats were drop shipped directly to the customer’s door.

How good was that?  All I had to do was market.

The business never became a blockbuster.  My own dog, Darby, went to doggie heaven.  Writing in the voice of my dog became painful and I just lost the motivation.  I shut the fledgling online enterprise down. It was fun while it lasted. I got a taste of online success. I learned that indeed, you don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.

That has been my mantra as I continued to navigate my way on the internet to where I am now an owner of a boutique digital media marketing agency. It’s a different online business model. Months back I set to thinking about Boo Barkley, about all the online knowledge and experience I have collected over the last ten years.  I thought it time to start another online business, teaching people how they can create their own digital business built around their knowledge, experiences and expertise. It was time to create a course.

To get this off the ground properly, I bought a course … yes, I am now a firm believer that if you want to start something the best way is to buy a course that guides you through the process.

My mentor, Yaro Starak suggested that I create such a course with actual, live, students and create a pre-beta course.  Three of my clients jumped on board.   What a learning curve!  You know, I didn’t learn anything that I did not know, but knowing and doing are two different things.  Lots of blood, sweat and tears and now I had a responsibility to my students who paid me good money so as to be able to work one on one with me.  They knew that the process was one where it was a win win and good naturedly christened themselves the genius pigs!

Each student was in a different field but all three agreed that they wanted to publish a book or two about their specialties.  As a published author with Amazon I was on familiar ground, in an area I loved.  And that is how, iPublish Books got started.

The bridge between Sit Boo Boo Sit and iPublish Books spans many years, years of experience and knowledge gained.  The site is up, It’s not quite right, but I got it going and,  … and yes, there is a course in the works!  Stay tuned.

In the meantime, hop on over to my FaceBook Page

Writefully Yours

Valentina

PS… The image above this blog is one I cut and pasted together for this post.   The header with the dog was designed for my website by a member Mike Litman’s team.  The text below I found online in the WayBack Machine.  I put the two together to create the image.  As you can see I am not a graphic designer and the outcome is a testament that I still adhere to “You don’t have to get get it right, you just have to get it going.