Reporter vs Expert

There are basically two types of bloggers in the world – reporters and experts – and some people perform both roles (usually the experts, it’s hard for reporters to become experts, but it’s easy for experts to report).

If you have ever taken an Internet marketing course or attended a seminar specifically for beginners, you have probably heard about the two different methodologies. Whenever the business model is based on content, and if you blog for money then the model is based on content, people are taught to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.

I’ll be frank; you want to be the expert.

Reporters leverage the content of the experts and in most cases people start off as reporters because they haven’t established expertise. Experts enjoy the perks of preeminence, higher conversion rates because of perceived value, it’s easier to get publicity, people are more likely to seek you out rather than you having to seek others out, joint ventures come easier, etc. experts in most cases simply make more money and attract more attention.

Most Bloggers Are Reporters

The thing with expertise is that it requires something – experience. No person becomes an expert without doing things and learning. Bloggers usually start out without expertise and as a result begin their blogging journey by talking about everything going on in their niche (reporting) and by interviewing and talking about other experts (reporting again).

There’s nothing wrong with reporting of course and for many people it’s a necessity at first until you build up some expertise. Unfortunately the ratios are pretty skewed when it comes to reporters and experts – there are a lot more reporters than there are experts, hence reporters tend to struggle to gain attention and when they do, they often just enhance the reputation of the expert they are reporting on.

Don’t Replicate Your Teacher

If you have ever spent some time browsing products in the learn Internet marketing niche you will notice a pattern. Many people first study Internet marketing from a “guru” (for lack of a better term). The guru teaches how he or she is able to make money online, and very often the view that the student gleams is that in order to make money online you have to teach others how to make money online.

The end result of this process is a huge army of amateurs attempting to replicate what their teacher does in the same industry – the Internet marketing industry – not realizing that without expert status based on a proven record and all the perks that come with it, it’s next to impossible to succeed.

Even people, who enjoy marginal success, say for example growing an email list of 1,000 people, then go out and launch a product about how to grow an email list of 1,000 people. Now I have no problems with that, I think it’s fine to teach beginners and leverage whatever achievements you have, the problem is that people gravitate to the same niche – Internet marketing – and rarely have any key points of differentiation.

How many products out there do you know of that all claim to teach the same things – email marketing, SEO, pay per click, affiliate marketing, and all the sub-niches that fall under the category of Internet marketing. It’s a saturated market, yet when you see your teachers and other gurus making money teaching others how to make money (and let’s face it – making money as a subject is one of the most compelling) – your natural inclination is to follow in their footsteps.

If the key is to become an expert and you haven’t spent the last 5-10 years making money online, I suggest you look for another niche to establish expertise in.

Report on Your Process, Not Others

The secret to progress from reporter to expert is not to focus on other experts and instead report on your own journey. When you are learning how to do something and implementing things day by day, or studying other people’s work, you need to take your process and what you do as a result of what you learn, and use it as content for your blog.

It’s okay to talk about experts when you learn something from them, but always relate it to what you are doing. If you learn a technique from an expert it’s fine to state you learned it from them (and affiliate link to their product too!) but you should then take that technique, apply it to what you are doing and then report back YOUR results, not there’s. Frame things using your opinion – your stories – and don’t regurgitate what the expert said. The key is differentiation and personality, not replication.

Expertise comes from doing things most people don’t do and then talking about it. If you do this often enough you wake up one day as an expert, possibly without even realizing how it happened, simply because you were so good at reporting what you did.

You Are Already An Expert

Most people fail to become experts (or perceived as experts) because they don’t leverage what they already know. Every person who lives a life learns things as they go, takes action every day and knows something about something. The reason why they never become an expert is because they choose not to (which is fine for some, not everyone wants to be an expert), but if your goal is to blog your way to expertise and leave the world of reporting behind you have to start teaching and doing so by leveraging real experience.

Experience can come from what you do today and what you have done previously; you just need to take enough steps to demonstrate what you already know and what you are presently learning along your journey. I know so many people in my life, who are experts simply by virtue of the life they have lived, yet they are so insecure about what they know, they never commit their knowledge to words for fear of, well fear.

Blogs and the Web in general, are amazing resources when you leverage them as a communication tool to spread your expertise because of the sheer scope of people they can reach. If all you ever do is talk to people in person and share your experience using limited communication mediums, you haven’t much hope of becoming an expert. Take what you know and show other people through blogging, and you might be surprised how people change their perception of you in time.

Reporting Is A Stepping Stone

If your previous experience and expertise is from an area you want to leave behind or you are starting from “scratch”, then reporting is the path you must walk, at least for the short term.

Reporting is a lot of fun. Interviewing experts, talking about what other people are doing and just being part of a community is not a bad way to blog. In many cases people make a career of reporting (journalism is about just that), but if you truly want success and exponential results, at some point you will have to stand up and proclaim yourself as someone unusually good at something and then proceed to demonstrate it over and over again.

Have patience and focus on what you do to learn and then translate that experience into lessons for others, and remember, it’s okay to be a big fish in a small pond, that’s all most experts really are.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:

www.BlogMastermind.com

When economic times get tough, everybody feels the need to cut back. Budgets are trimmed, people are let go, and every penny is spent as effectively as possible. People tend to want to stop spending money when they’re not making as much. While this is not the time for frivolous spending, it’s certainly not the time to stop spending on your marketing efforts. Your Internet marketing techniques can be an inexpensive way to drive sales during these tough economic times.

When retooling your marketing techniques, think about making them more streamlined but still keep them comprehensive. You’ll want to think in terms of marketing campaigns, giving you an overall package of materials to present, emphasizing key components of your product or service. Try to define your goals for the marketing campaign and tailor your actions toward achieving those goals.

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We’re all feeling the effects of the constricting economy these days and everyone is talking about how to survive this downturn in events. Many financial questions that we thought we had answered have popped back up again. How am I going to pay for my kid’s college? How am I going to fund my retirement? How am I going to find the money to meet my monthly bills? It feels like the whole world is financially out of control right now, and everyone’s looking for some sense of how to rebalance and find their way.

Many people are looking to find ways to augment their salaries. In order to keep jobs, some companies have opted to cut employee hours instead of eliminating positions. While this is a great idea for the good of the many, it sometimes can be devastating for individuals who have already stretched their paychecks as far as it can go. When those paychecks come in smaller, it can really hurt! In this instance, people are looking for a way to make money that can fit into the job and lifestyle they already have and they’re looking for something that doesn’t take a lot of up front capital. Internet marketing fits the bill.

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Times of economic difficulty can cause stress and anxiety. The list of worries is long. Will you have enough money to meet your monthly bills? Will your home be safe in the mortgage crisis? Will your retirement account recover from the stock market meltdown? What about college accounts for your kids?

Foremost in everyone’s mind is the idea of job security. Is your job safe? For some people, the answer is no. They’ve been laid off or they’ve had their hours cut back. If you’re still employed, you worry about how to protect yourself if the worst happens and it’s your job that gets cut.

For some, a career change is enticing. There are certain jobs that are fairly recession-proof. Healthcare, for example, is a place where jobs are in steady supply. Healthcare is a service it’s difficult to cut back on. Many people think about retraining for a new job, such as nursing. But retraining takes time and money. What can you do now?

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Many people out there are looking for a good way to make a little extra income online or how to make money through online advertising.

For the purposes of this article, a legitimate online business opportunity would be defined as an actual business that could be worked either full- or part-time and provide extra income.

One of the hardest parts of the process is simply knowing, where to begin. Most people don’t even know anyone who has a successful online business, and therefore no one to lead the way. This is the dilemma of millions across North America who are also looking for some way to earn extra income through their computers in a legitimate online business opportunity.

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It always sounds so good when you hear or read about it. Be your own boss! Work from home and set your own hours! Pull in handfuls of money every day! It’s easy to get swayed by the hype and the headlines and get sucked in by the momentum of jumping into a home based business. But before you make the leap, take a look at some factors that just might make or break your home business.

Who Are You?

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There are basically two types of bloggers in the world – reporters and experts – and some people perform both roles (usually the experts, it’s hard for reporters to become experts, but it’s easy for experts to report).

If you have ever taken an Internet marketing course or attended a seminar specifically for beginners, you have probably heard about the two different methodologies. Whenever the business model is based on content, and if you blog for money then the model is based on content, people are taught to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.

I’ll be frank; you want to be the expert.

Read the rest of this entry

In every bloggers life comes a special day – the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else’s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader – you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that’s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers.

These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called “traction”, which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.

Top 10 Tips

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Being open to new thoughts and ideas will give you the chance for new opportunities. For example, a number of people have been seriously rethinking their careers and adjust their lives because of the recession. Some of us began looking for businesses that can actually thrive in these conditions.

It is these businesses that increase and expand, no matter what the situation is. These types of businesses that are successful during these times, and don’t fall, under the weight of the recession, are called recession proof businesses. Such businesses include debt collection agencies, auto repair, healthcare, pawn shops, credit counseling and internet marketing.

Home Based Business

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The Law of Attraction has its roots in history, but the modern version of the Law of Attraction is essentially this: your thoughts determine your reality. What this is saying is that the quality of your thoughts, whether they’re positive or negative, will determine the direction your life will take, either positive or negative. Positive thoughts attract positive actions. Negative thoughts garner negative outcomes. So how do you get something you really want? Think about it in a positive way.

The Law of Attraction stems from theories developed in Quantum Physics. Thoughts have energy. The energy from those thoughts attracts like energy. You need to focus on four steps in order to control your thoughts and develop your ability to attract positive energy.

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I was facing with a decision with my career, should I try to salvage my career or try something new. I choose to try something new. I decided the Internet was for me. I would become an Internet Marketer and replace my income no problem. The trouble is it didn’t exactly work out that way. Here are some examples of how I tried to making money online. If you have tried any of these techniques and became successful, please share your secrets.

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When I mention business systems to you, what comes to mind? Do you think of an IBM mainframe computer sitting in a big room in the middle of your building? Do you think of expensive, highly specialized software? That’s what many small business owners imagine. And they think it’s not for them. If that’s what you think, you’re only half right.

How You Do It!

Half right because expensive, highly specialized software is probably not for you. Half wrong because good business systems most definitely are. A business system isn’t hardware or software. It’s the way that you do any part of your business. It’s how you do things. You are using systems all the time, you just may not be using them efficiently.

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