Hey there and welcome to another edition of The Keyword Informer,

In this article, you and I will be taking look at the interesting nature of how online business and online business systems are much like snowboarding!

No, seriously!  This came to me after having many number of experiences on the big white hill known as Blackcomb in beautiful Whistler, Canada on a recent trip.

By the time you reach the end of this article, it will be all to clear and I bring to you a case study with me to prove what I'm saying is absolutely true.

But more on that in a moment.

This is a continuation of my earlier articles that will get you mentally prepared for the battle of reaching the kind of success you wish to encounter with your online business.

Whether that be to earn a little extra money, get the recognition you deserve in your field of endeavor, become recognized as an expert at what you do, bring hoards of traffic to your site, achieve high search engine rankings for not just one but many keywords, whatever you may wish!

So what were the two earlier articles I am referring to that lead up to this one right here?

1. Do not buy ANOTHER software or marketing product until you read this (the power to focus on one thing); and

2. Resolutions are OUT; Commitments are IN!

Have you made your commitments this year that you will stick to and follow through with?

If you have been encountering struggles (tiny or big) getting to where you want to go, perhaps this article will bring some clarity to understanding why you may not be gaining traction with whatever it is you are trying to achieve.

Here's why.

Let's go back a couple of years and begin with my background and history just prior to this recent journey to Whistler, Canada and my exciting snowboarding experience.

I have had two snowboarding experiences in 2005 up in Big Bear Mountain when my step-son introduced me to this sport/activity. Before this - I had never (I repeat) never have been on snow before but for maybe a bobsled I rode when I was a kid.

I had taken no lessons and did quite alright going out on the intermediate run. Perhaps riding a skateboard in my childhood may have helped with balance as I went down the hill. And by the third to fourth run, I was feeling pretty confident. That is, until my stepson then took me up to the top of the mount — and forget it — I was flat on my butt every single time.

So after my first couple of times snowboarding, I knew how to:

1. Break using the snowboard

2. Turn right really efficiently.

The big problem was being incredibly fearful of turning left back against the hill keeping in mind that I am a left footed snowboarder.

From those couple of experiences, I was excited enough about the sport that I went on eBay.com and found myself my own snowboard and thereafter bought some boots.

This is much like how people get about certain online software that promises to bring hoards of traffic to your site they see someone else demonstrate or a home study course that promises to bring about riches.  The person goes out and gets themselves prepared by buying the software or downloading a demo version and getting all excited about the possibilities.

So I was all ready and prepared — now I had to go and schedule a trip to try out my new equipment.

Wrapped up in a busy schedule, that winter vacation didn't occur until just this last month.

Prior to this vacation where I would finally get a chance to try out my new equipment, I began getting really excited and rushed back to eBay.com again and bought some bindings that is the part that holds my boot down to the snowboard.

Put that together with winter wear I needed to get, my expenditures began to resemble the beginnings of someone starting out a small online business:

1. Snowboard found on eBay - $195
2. Boots on sale at Big 5 - $79.50
3. Bindings found on eBay - $245
4. Thermal clothing - $79
5. Really nice Burton snow gloves - $100
6. Two pair of waterproof snow pants - $295
7. Hood to keep ears and face warm- $37.95
8. Ear muffs that can connect to my Ipod - $42
9. Winter jacket that is also water proof - $79.99
10. Still not knowing if I can turn left back against the hill on snowboard - Priceless!

So there I was having already invested a small fortune of $1153.44 and I was still wasn't completely assured that I would enjoy one of the world's most splendid and revered ski resorts in the world known as Whistler-Blackcomb.

And this is how many people approach their small business by going out, getting a loan and spending a boat load before they ever know what it is to come on the other side.

So after some bad weather in San Francisco, I finally made it up to Whistler two days later with my wife and my 8 year old. The very next day, I anxiously went online and bought my 4-day lift tickets for an ample sum of $285 (ouch!).

Here's a big smile for ya after I got up the hill in the Gondola…

Yup — there I was, ready to tackle the big Blackcomb mountain and explore the over 200+ ski runs they had.

I was GUNG HO — ready to go as they say!

So instead of getting off at the first stop on the gondola — I was already indoctrinated in 2005 by going straight to the intermediate runs and doing just fine there, so I went straight up to the second stop of the Gondola (which is three times further and higher than the first stop).

"I'll have NONE of this beginner stuff" — I said to myself — brimming with confidence.

So I got off the second (much higher) stop and scoped out which run I would take — and looked for the easiest one I could find. 

In orderly fashion, I plopped my rear end down in the snow right where I would take off and started buckling my boots into the bindings of my snowboard and was ready to go.

The moment of truth was here and I was ready to take my brand new snowboard gear and put to use all that hard-earned money I spent on this "stuff."

Here was my view as I looked down the hill while sitting on my butt…

I'll tell you — I was ready to jump right up onto my board, brimming with confidence from my first two times (ever) on the snow, and ready to just race right down that hill.

WRONG!

All of a sudden, a paralyzing thought raced through my mind and I was recalled that fact that I only knew how to break (come to a stop) and turn right on the snow and that's it!

From the view down — it appeared that I had bitten off more than I could chew (as the saying goes).

Gulp!

Was I really ready for this?  My mind strayed off into a bad place…
I sure didn't have my step-son there to guide me.  (Yes, I was feeling really alone!)

Yup — I'd have to go this on my own (and no one to cheer me on).
So I sat there to think about (as my rump roast was slowing chilled on ice from the powdery snow).

I believe I sat there for nearly 20 minutes until I got the nerve to just jump up and take what was about to happen to me over and over. (This reminds me of the first email broadcast I ever sent to my mailing list back in 2006 — which took me about 30 minutes to make sure I spelled everything correctly and crossed my "t"s and dotted my "i's.)

Yup — you got it — it was almost as if snowboarding was brand new to me the third time around — and I was in a totally different place than back at Big Bear Mountain — the first place I became so familiar with on a snowboard.

Finally — after my butt cheeks felt like they were completely frozen — I thought about all the money I spent on this gear and the real embarrassment I could not even begin to face by going back to the hotel and telling my wife and kid that daddy chickened out.

So the next natural thing occurred with the rattling fear in the back of my mind that I would not be able to carve into the snow going back into the hill turning left.

Then I just decided — okay — time to take off!

I would travel 10 feet and then — bam — on my butt.

Another 20 feet and then — argh — right onto my butt I went.

I found a sweet little escape route for real novices and that went a little better — but remember, I still had a hard time turning left back against the hill.

Yet, I was really high up on the mountain.

So my first run took me about 45 - 55 minutes to go down the hill when it ordinarily would take an average of 10 minutes to swoop down without a stop.

My rear end hit the snow at least twenty times on that first run down.

I could tell it was going to be an Advil night.

The second time back up to the same spot — I remember a beginner's snowboarding VHS tape I watched where they talked about how to carve back the other way into the mountain. I remember the instructor saying to use the back foot. So I tried that the second time down and it seemed to work — even though I ate snow the first couple of attempts.

Beat up from the constant falls, but with my chin up…

I took a break to go back to my lodge after a few hours of going up and down the hill a few times.

Got some lunch in me and then I went back for some more of the hill.  (Apparently, I wasn't done getting beat up anymore.)

Then something interesting happened.

I came back the noontime after I getting a good meal –  my nerves had settled down from the battering and butt munching I was doing in the morning — and things started to get a little smoother.

Don't get me wrong — I was still falling here and there — but it wasn't as often.

DAY 2

I started getting that carving down — where I was once afraid to turn left back into the mountain and now it was coming a little more naturally.  I felt like I had control over the snowboard.

I was still a little hesitant, but by the end of the day — I didn't want to leave the mountain. I went as long and hard as I could and went until the very last run of the day.

Finally — I started feeling like I was getting the hang of it.

DAY 3

I took a day break in between day 2 and day 3 — and got back up to the same spot in the picture up above where I first started.

Guess what?

With a day's rest in between…

The nerves came back again. I sat there for about 5 minutes and then said to myself… "What the hell you doin man? What are you stalling for? You waiting for someone to announce that you're going down the hill? C'mon! You've already done this 2 days prior — don't you remember?"

Talk about beating myself up!

As quick as I could get to my feet, I got up and just headed down.

I proceeded to crash again on my snowboard — even on Day 3 when the end of Day 1 started to get easier and Day 2 was getting really smooth.

I still had the nerves and I was still munching it hard on the snow.

But rather than give into the nerves and stall from going down the hill, I just keep blowing right passed my fear of falling and tumbling and just went for it!

The end of the day 3 — I was calmer, more relaxed on my snowboard and literally floating downhill, sometimes going balls out as fast as I could go!

DAY 4

By now, I had been on the hill snowboarding for about 12-15 hours over the past 3 days and, by golly, I was actually NOW starting to have fun.  In fact, I started to introduce some music through my ear muffs that connected to my Ipod.

I was now able to carve my board side to side and maneuver left and maneuver right and I was now starting to get experimental and go over some very tiny jumps.

No fear — and if I crashed and burned — oh well — I simply just picked myself back up and just kept going.

The nerves were no longer apart of my snowboarding experience.

Sure — I was stiff and I was taking my Advil to keep the muscle pain and stiffness down to a minimum — but by the end I was having a grandiose time.

THE EPIPHANY

And as I departed from the ski resort and was heading down the hill to go have lunch with Michael Campbell, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

This whole snowboarding experience is much like when everyone starts any new online business or begins some new business system for building a website, building website traffic, building backlinks, contacting other website owners to do Joint Ventures of content swaps, setting up a new shopping cart system to take orders, or whatever.

Whenever you do something that is foreign and brand new to you…

You're gonna fall flat on your face or your hiney a lot in the beginning.

You're gonna hit walls when you try to produce results (and this is when most people (90% of them) bail out of continuing to try).

But if you take a little beating and you get through the pitfalls and keep shifting and adjusting your methods or your plan of attack until something works and sticks — it'll all work itself out.

Heck — you could even start having fun at whatever system or online business you begin.

A flurry of memories came back to me as I left the ski resort and was heading down to Vancouver to have lunch with Michael Campbell of Internet Marketing Secrets dot com.

The same thing that happened with my snowboarding experience up above has occurred:

1. The first time I put up a website
2. The first time tried to put together a reciprocal linking system
3. The first time I did keyword research (and tried to understand what the heck I was doing)
4. The first time I tried to collect email addresses to follow-up with my prospects to keep them interested
5. The first time I started sending email broadcasts to my email list and building a relationship with people (like yourself)
6. The first time I set up a membership site
7. The first time I set up an affiliate program and tried to make it really great
8. The first time I set up a shopping cart system and completely built out a really sophisticated high-end fulfillment system that followed-up with prospects even after the sale
9. The first time I took a free keyword research system and turned it into a paid system (and had to figure out how to structure the usage of the system for the users)

I'm sure you get the point — there have been a lot of first times for me. And NONE of it came easy — and it shouldn't come really easy if it's truly worth the result you're trying to get (otherwise everyone would be doing it).

And I'm certain that you can find many different ways this can relate to your own life — whether in business or some extracaricular activity you've tried.

As I was having lunch with Michael Campbell, I told him about my insight while on my ski trip and told me he was publishing an interesting article that discusses exactly what I was telling him. One of the things he mentioned is in a book published by Seth Godin called "The Dip."

Michael describes it in his blog post titled "What is my destiny?" as follows:

In his recent book, "The Dip" Seth Godin explains that anything worth doing will have a "Dip" associated with it. Essentially the dip is the long lag phase, between beginning something, and becoming the best in the world at it.

In the beginning we are full of energy and enthusiasm. We have beginners luck and all seems to be going well.

Sounds a little like my own snowboarding experience — doesn't it?

And it's true. Anything that you want to get good at — will have a dip or a learning curve. Just be patient and allow yourself to fall a few (hundred) times.

I believe the guy who built the Dyson vacuum cleaner (the one that never loses suction) created 5,000 prototypes until he finally got it right.  Five thousand!!!

I'm not the best in the world at snowboarding yet! But I'm going to practice at it and advance my skills — you can bet on that.

In fact — in the next day or two, I'm heading out to another ski resort in Lake Tahoe that has had dumps of snow to try my luck again — and see if the smooth rides on Day 4 in Whistler really stuck!

Even athletes that get really good at their sport or professionals that get good at their business end up plateauing and need to find a coach to get themselves to the next level.

So all you need to do is just mentally expect this — and failure will never be an option.

THE TAKEAWAY

The really important thing to take away from this story is just because something doesn't work the way you want it to - whether it be software or some technique, you need to keep it at if it's something that is required to reach your goal.

If you know other people are achieving results doing what you are attempting and you are not — well then just change your approach or do something different until you get the desired result.

GETTTING OVER "THE DIP"

Thinking back, I wish I had access to a coach, a mentor, a community or some place I could just pick up the phone once a week to clear up some questions, ask for a little guidance and know that I was heading down the right path.  I certainly know I could have easily acceled at a much faster pace than it took me to really GET IT — and get through "the dip" as Seth Godin calls it.

I am so grateful that I finally got it before giving up and giving in as many people do.  And as my way of giving back, I have addressed a way for individuals getting stuck on their way toward building momentum or those who just hit a brick wall through the NicheBOT Live Call-in Show where I give a couple hours or more of my time.   By reading the comments on the Live Call-in Show page, you can tell how much I am already able to give back from my own lessons along the road to success.

And there is nothing more special on this earth than truly enlightening another individual business owner who truly wants to bust through and have major breakthroughs.

CASE STUDY

Just recently, in one of the private sites I manage, a gentleman had just purchased an up and coming info product called Long Tail Cash created by Dave Tropeano, a brilliant affiliate marketer.

This gentleman's story epitimizes exactly what we're talking about here as will be described in the breakthrough he had.

I'll let Travis explain the breakthrough in his own words:

"I've posted in here before about the importance of asking for what you want - whether it is for business or your pesonal life. You'd be amazed at what you can accomplish by just asking for what you want! Here is an example of how powerful this simple lesson can be…

I watched Dave T.'s Long Tail Cash videos and decided to give it a try. In his videos, he talks about PPC and bidding on long tail keywords (i.e. brand names and model numbers). The problem is, a lot of merchants don't allow you to bid on brand or model names. Wouldn't you know it, the first site I launched I ran into this problem. Most people would have been bummed and would have given up. Don't be that person! Ask for what you want!

I emailed the affiliate manager and explained to him that I wanted to bid on their brand and a bunch of models because I was confident I could make his company lots of money. Keep in mind, this guy doesn't know me from Adam and I am a new affiliate so I have no track record. I have no leverage. He ignored my emails for about one week but I kept bugging him. He finally replied and said that he would allow me to bid on anything I wanted as long as I didn't outbid his company!

I am the only affiliate now that is allowed to do this! And within 24 hours of launching my campaign I made a net profit of $50!

I cannot stress this lesson enough! If you want something…just ask! You may be surprised with the answer you get.

Travis"

There ya have it.

You just have to persist until you get the result you want and don't take any no's or listen to other people in the process. Sometimes you just have to be stubborn, put blinders on and block out the rest of the world's skepticism until you really get what you want.

Yeah — I forgot — you even have to shut off that voice inside your head that says it's NOT possible.

And I'll leave that with you right there.

I wish you all the success you believe you deserve.

I truly subscribe to the fact that — if you can imagine it, you can create it.

Best of success,

Jim Morris, Founder

NicheBOT.com — "Finds exactly what people search for"

Full Throttle Enterprises, Inc.