By Terry Dean

Are You a Brand Name or Generic?

You need to ask yourself that question. Be honest.

The answer to this one question determines to a great extent whether you will be successful online.

If you're just another face in the crowd, you're in serious trouble in the online marketplace.

Two people can place the same type of ads in the same places...and have completely different results from each other. One succeeds. The other one fails.

Which one will you be?

I've been teaching budding online marketers now for years. I've seen thousands of customers who have immediately jumped on what they've been taught. They read it or heard it and then applied it. Many of them received results within days or weeks.

I've seen beginners become successful in less than a month online. I've seen others spend thousands of dollars on products...and attend seminar after seminar. Although they achieve minor success, it's almost as if they can't quite seem to breakthrough.

It's always as if they're standing on the top of a ladder and real success is just barely out of their reach. Sure, they may earn a few hundred dollars or even a few thousand dollars here and there. They just can't seem to ever breakthrough to the next level.

During the past few months I've been asking myself the same question over and over again, "What makes one customer widely successful while another one doesn't quite make it."

They both have web sites. They both run an opt-in email list. They both use all the free advertising available. They both place paid advertising.

Yet, one achieves success so much quicker than the other.

It all comes down to this.

One of them listened to the information, applied it, and combined their unique personality to everything they did. The other one just went through the motions.

One developed a brand name. The other was just another generic marketer in their field.

This is the difference.

The Internet is too big and filled with too much competition for you to just be another face in the crowd. You have to stand out from the crowd as different and as unique.

While there are many ways to do this, I want to start you off by teaching you one of the most important.

You have to be a personality.

Your business online isn't just about your products, your services, or your web site. It's about people. It's about you connecting with them and developing a bond.

Remember this. Your goal is not just to generate customers. It's to create fans. A customer is someone who buys once. A fan is someone who buys everything and recommends you constantly to others.

You'll never be able to do this as long as you keep yourself hidden.

You have to step out into the limelight and let people see who you are. Let them know where you're from, what you're passionate about, and what you can do to help them.

Don't just tell them about your product or service. Tell them about yourself as well.

If you're promoting someone else's product through an affiliate program, then do an honest review of the product or service.

This doesn't mean ask the owner of the program for a review you can publish. This means YOU write the review yourself...in your own words.

Write it just like you were telling me about it on the phone. Tell me what you liked and what you didn't like. Forget being an awesome advertiser for the moment and just write the review. People who read the review then go to the affiliate site to see the ad.

When you publish an ezine, write an editorial on the top of EVERY issue. It's OK to publish content from other writers, but it's not OK to use that content in the place of yourself. You still have to have your personality in every issue.

You should be telling them how you feel about the subject. Reveal something that happened in your life this week. Let everyone know your opinion on what's going on in the world.

Every time I talk like this to people, they immediately come up with a few complaints...such as:

"I Just Can't Write."

I'm beginning to lose patience with this one. Neither could I when I started. If you believe some of my critics, I still haven't figured it out. Every single issue of Web Gold has somebody sending in an email of the grammatical problems from the issue.

So what?

When you first got on the bike, you didn't know how to do that. When you first got behind the wheel of a car, you weren't an expert. The best NBA player had to start by missing shots.

Do you know how to talk? If so, then you have a beginning. You start with this and improve. A year down the road from now you may look back at your writing and say, "Yuck."

You have to start somewhere...if you care about being successful online.

"I tried that and People Complained."

I'm sure they did. I've never accomplished anything without someone complaining about it.

People will unsubscribe themselves. They may write nasty letters. They may tell you how awful you are.

Let me give you a hint. Those same people who have a problem with your personality are the ones who are too afraid to ever accomplish anything themselves.

I've received lots of those emails. People can hide behind an email address so things come through which would never come through in person. It's part of the game.

It all depends on how much you want it!