The Tinkers Academy Conversation

More About Internet Marketing Reluctance

Many of you who have commented in this blog before, are those who have experience with Internet Marketing. But, I know that many others of you are novices in the use of Internet technologies. Now it is time for the novices and newbies to participate.

Something seems to be getting in the way of embracing these Internet technologies for putting your message out to a growing number of customers. I suspect it might be several things. Let me tell you what I have seen with my own eyes.

I started working with computers in 1966. I continued working with computers as an IBM Programmer Analyst. Part of my work there was to support engineers, writers, and others in the use of computer technology to perform their work tasks. For many years in that job, I supported those who were preparing manuals about the hardware and the software. At that time, IBM was the second largest publisher in the USA (of course, the government was the biggest publisher, by far). And even after I left that job in 1980, I have continued to use computers in my work and support others who were learning to use computers as one of their primary tools for their profession.

For me, my experience in high-tech cultures was experience-building and skill-building based on my education in Anthropology (BS, 1972), Educational Counseling (MS, 1977), and NLP (1977-1980). When I left IBM in 1980, I started a consulting career, which was founded on a linguistic tool I created. This tool (the LAB Profile) was a functional application of Chomsky’s Transformational Grammar (MIT, 1952). I continue consulting and coaching with this tool and I continue working with those who are struggling as they adopt new technologies.

Common Ways We Hold Ourselves Back

1) One of the common things I have seen is that many people are late adopters of computer and Internet technology because they don’t have enough information about it. They have some fear that they will break something and so they have reluctance about doing it. For some this reluctance is severe enough to look like a phobia.

2) For others, it is more philosophical. They don’t yet understand the meaning which computers represent in the lives of people. Because they don’t yet have the experience of computer use, they cannot connect yet with the impact computers and Internet are having in people’s lives.

3) And for some others, they have a strong focus on people and relationships and they don’t have much use for technological things. They only feel ’successful’ when they are working directly with individuals or small groups in a face-to-face manner. They don’t see how this computer and Internet technology can replace (or augment) the direct, human connection they need to be working with, so they feel fulfilled in their profession.

4) And even others have a reluctance about marketing and sales in general. Their difficulty is not about the technology, directly. It is much more about selling.

Please comment on these:

• Are you in one (or more) of these groups holding yourself back? If so, which ones?
• Do you have some other frame-of-reference about why you have not fully embraced Internet technology for getting your message out?
• Is your desire to get your message out strong enough that you might want to let go of your reluctance?
• If there was a free opportunity for you to let go of what holds you back, would you be interested in doing that?

Your comments, now, can go a long way in helping me prepare that free opportunity. So if you would like to participate in this, make your comments, here, so I know what you need.

Rodger Bailey

PS: Depending on how you got to this blog post, you have a couple of ways to leave your Comment. On is to make your comment where you see: “Leave A Reply” at the bottom of this page. If you don’t see that, then click on the highlighted “Comment” to get to the “Leave A Reply” form.

PPS: If you want ongoing participation in this conversation, Join the Conversation, and I will notify you of all new posts in this blog. There are some free ebooks and other materials which you get when you join.

Internet Marketing Reluctance

From my latest round of email, online, and offline discussions I have found that in the personal growth, self-help field (in this case, SelfGrowth “Experts”), there are a large number of people who make their living helping others and who are essentially Internet-illiterate. They know they ’should’ be using the Internet, but they are reluctant or are otherwise slow about adopting it.

I don’t know how many or what percentage of Self-Growth “Experts” are late in embracing Internet technology, but I notice that there are hundreds of SelfGrowth “Expert” pages which have been claimed and named, but which have not had any entries made. And, in our Mastermind group of SelfGrowth “Experts,” our members are often asking each other for how-to advice for their Internet Marketing activities.

I’m just wondering how we can help those in this personal growth & self-help field find ways to improve their business and leverage their expertise for wider distribution of their messages by using technology. Are there ways of using the Internet to get our messages out to more people and would this benefit them?

In conversations they say that they have tried one or two things on the Internet and they have yet to figure out how to make this new-fangled technology work for themselves. So, they continue to orient themselves into their one-to-one and small seminar arena.

Internet Marketing Problems and Concerns

Here is a list of problems and concerns I have recently noticed in this community with respect to adopting Internet technology into their businesses:

• Internet Marketing is confusing for them.
• They do not understand what to do or how to do it.
• The things they have tried did not work.
• They object (emotionally and/or ethically) to many of the popular Internet Marketing techniques.
• They feel overwhelmed by the complexity that seems inherent in the Internet in general and in Internet Marketing in particular.
• They are afraid they will lose the one-to-one personal connection with their clients.
• They do not see the benefit in using Internet Marketing, because their calendar is already full.

I’m developing another video to talk about this aspect of the SelfGrowth Expert community. Maybe by working together, we can all help each other improve our impact on the world. I think that by using the Internet we can grow our individual impact.

Comment About Internet and Internet Marketing

Will you use the Comment link at the bottom of this post to expand all of our understanding of this issue? Whether you are successful with Internet Marketing or not, will you tell us about it?

1. With respect to using the Internet, what have you tried that worked and that didn’t work?
2. Do you think that you ’should’ be using the Internet for getting your message out?
3. Do you think that Internet Marketing is helping your personal growth / self-help business?
4. In addition to the list of problems and concerns I showed before, what are your problems and concerns with Internet Marketing?
5. On an Expertise scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is “Internet guru,” and 1 is “have trouble turning on my computer”), what is your current level of Expertise with computers and using the Internet for your business?
6. If you decided to improve your level of computer expertise, what form of learning traditionally works best for you: classroom, video, mentor, individual projects, group projects, one teacher or multiple teachers, demos, trial-&-error? Please explain situations with computers and Internet where your learning was successful.
7. Is there anything else you think is important about this topic of adopting Internet Marketing for your business, or Internet Marketing in general?

Rodger Bailey

PS: Comment now while you are still here. I’m listening.

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