If you have read any internet marketing resource ever created, you have no doubt seen simple, one sentence, pot-shot solutions to all of your problems: You will only be successful if you think you are successful. You will make money if you work hard. Think outside of the box. Content is king!

. . .If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

How can this possibly help me, you think. These people are just crack-pots! They do not actually have any real help to offer me--just general advice, which really has no practical implications for me and for my business.

This is exactly what I thought and this is now what I see newer marketers and affiliates saying. I was always skeptical of general advice. I thought success stories that ended with an exhortation to "work hard" and "make plans" and "think outside of the box" were just plain worthless.

What I now know (what I learned as I slowly became more successful) is that this "common wisdom"--which I initially regarded as foolish and too unspecific--was actually the best advice available on the internet and it didn't even cost me money.

These simple cliches make up the best possible over-arching structure of complex business and marketing plans. They arbitrate the decisions of the most successful internet marketers. And when marketers decide to be short-sighted and deny these cliches for quicker returns, they are smacked-down and brought to reality or ruin by the manifestation of these cliches.

As someone who has received many brutal, unrelenting smack-downs from the Internet, I can verify this.

So what is it about these cliches that give them such universal, lasting truth?--They ignore hype. They ignore nuance. They don't marry a fad. And most importantly, they are results-oriented.

They don't give you the specifics. They tell you what to focus on--broadly--and allow you to find the best way to nuance, build, and strengthen that simple concept, which ultimately should to be your choice, anyway. Just think: if we all tried to occupy the same niches, optimize for the same keywords, and advertise on the same sites, then none of us would be making money (and this is actually why quite a few of us do not make money).

If you create an ebusiness according to these simple cliches, you will not become wildly successful overnight. You will not find that silver bullet to turn everything around. You will simply create a solid, practical business with linear increases that achieves realistic outcomes and will one day--with enough work--become that profit-pulling empire you have dreamed of since day one.

That's great. But how do I apply these ethereal parcels of "wisdom" to my real ebusiness?--Through structural adjustments and long-term planning, the two most important parts of building a successful, long-term internet business.

Unfortunately, too many new internet marketers -- in their eagerness to see immediate results--refuse to plan anything. Instead, they rush forward, purchasing products and services and piles of nonsense that, no matter how good they are, cannot be useful unless implemented within a solid business plan.

They get frustrated. They give up. They fail.

Other internet marketers, weary of trying new plans, constantly pound away on unprofitable ideas that also will never achieve long-term results. They purchase thousands of clicks, impressions, and guaranteed visitors. They never remake the amount they spent on advertising.

They get frustrated. They give up. They fail.

They never sit down and create plans. They never follow up with those plans and revise them as they go. They make no structural adjustments to their businesses to reflect their successes and failures.

They react to everything immediately or just stagnate altogether.

But you are different. You will no longer do this. You know that content really is king. And that if you want to succeed, you really must work hard.

You know that when you make a new product, you had better be thinking outside of the box or else you will be smacked-down by those stupid cliches that make you cringe whenever someone repeats them.

So set goals and try to achieve them. Make your business results-oriented. Stop hinging your entire internet business career on a single marketing fad. Don't count your e-chickens before they hatch!

. . .And most importantly of all, always remember: if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.

Copyright 2004 Isaiah Hull