I, like many other bloggers, am an Internet Marketer.

For this reason, this article might seem a bit strange – I know, and I'm OK with that.

There are many bloggers who come here to Become A Blogger because they want to start a blog about Making Money Online.

Why? Because they've been told that there's LOTS of money to be made teaching people how to make money.

Well, that's true to a certain extent. It's EXTREMELY competitive and difficult to make it in these kinds of niches, but if you do make it, it CAN BE very profitable.

It's easy to sell information products to people looking to Make Money Online. They've already bought into the idea of buying info products, so that barrier is easier to cross than in many other niches.

My Journey Outside Of “Internet Marketing”

InternetMarketing2Up until last year, almost all of what I learned about Internet Marketing came from people who taught internet marketing or from the school of hard knocks (actually going out there and doing).

Then something happened.

I was invited to speak at an event called the Savvy Blogging Conference. Before that, I had only been to New Media Expo.

Savvy was a very different kind of a conference. None of the attendees blogged about making money or internet marketing.

I met bloggers who blogged about couponing, homeschooling, wine, and other topics.

Here's the strange thing – these bloggers seemed to treat their blogs more like businesses than anything I had encountered before.

They seemed much more willing to invest into their businesses.

They seemed much more structured with the way they came up with content.

They seemed much less interested in who were the “super stars” in blogging and more interested in overall business strategy.

This fascinated me . . .

My Podcast Listening Evolution

I think there was a little bit of a change that happened inside of me at that point. I started to realize that this “internet marketing thing” was often a whole lot of hype and lacking substance.

I used to subscribe to a bunch of podcasts from people who teach about internet marketing, blogging, entrepreneurship, etc.

I started to notice something – They were all starting to sound the same.

They were all talking about the same topics, using the same kind of intro, and interviewing the same people.

The scary part for me was that I started to feel like I was starting do the same thing.

So, I started to prune the podcasts I listened to to one in each business-related category. This eventually lead to me stopping from listening to ANY business-related podcasts.

What Learning Is Like For Me Now

So, how do I learn now? Simple!

Do more than I study. My main strategy for learning is still by DOING! When I go out there and try stuff out, I learn – both from my success and my failures.

Learn from doers. Instead of learning from people who are teaching internet marketing strategy, I learn from people who are out there doing. If you've been paying attention, you'll notice that my interviews have started going in interesting directions, focusing on learning from those outside of teaching internet marketing like Toni Anderson, Rachel Martin, Lauren Greutman, and many more to come.

My mastermind group. In the midst of my doing, I sometimes get overzealous and start to OBVIOUSLY go in the wrong direction. That's where these guys come in. We get together virtually once weekly and dig into each others' businesses. By doing so, we all get to learn from each others' experiences. Not only that, but they know how to virtually “smack me upside the head” when I'm going wrong.

My Advice To You

I'm not here to tell you not to listen to any internet marketers and to unsubscribe from “internet marketing” podcasts. BUT, even if you do those things, don't let THAT be your only strategy for learning.

Take ACTION! Experience is the best teacher.

Step OUTSIDE the box. There's more to learn out there.

Take ACTION! It's so important that I had to say it again. Don't be one of those people who are lifelong learners but don't actually accomplish anything.

About the Author Leslie Samuel


Leslie Samuel a business coach for high-performing entrepreneurs. As the host of the Leslie Samuel Show, he teaches how to build an online business. "Changing the world one post at a time” is the mission he strives towards. As a former university professor, he has a passion for education. He's the founder of Interactive Biology, a blog and YouTube channel dedicated to making biology fun for students and teachers. As the head of training for the Social Media Marketing Society, he helps social media marketers get the training they need to stay on the leading edge of social media.

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