Love him or hate him, Barry Manilow has written and recorded some great songs in his day. One of them is the classic “Looks Like We Made It” which was one of his biggest hits. If you’re wondering how this can possibly tie into Internet marketing, you’re going to love this one. I saved this for last for a reason.
Many marketers wonder when they will, in fact, make it. Ready for the truth? This is going to knock your socks off. You never really do make it.
Okay, I know what you’re going to say. “Steve, come on…you’ve made it. Look at you. You’re successful. You’re making money online. How can you say you never really do make it?”
When I first started marketing online, all I wanted to do was make money, any amount of money. With the first five months being as bad as they were, I would have been happy if I made $10. It was so bad I almost cried. Well, actually, there were days when I did cry. But that’s another story.
Then month 6 came and I finally made $303. I was on the top of the world. By month 10 I was making over $1200 a month. I couldn’t believe I was making that much. It was the greatest feeling.
Today, I make that same $1200 in about 4 days. If I were to make $1200 a month now, I would probably slit my wrists. It would be the worst thing in the world to bring home an income of only $1200 a month.
Do you see how perception and expectations change? And this is human nature. Whenever we reach a certain point in our development, we always want to go past it. We keep setting the bar higher and higher. If we ever got complacent with where we were, we’d get bored. I know I would.
So in a sense, we never do really make it. That’s not to say that we can’t reach a point where we can at least breathe a sigh of relief that we’re not going to be out on the street because we can’t pay our bills, but we should have higher goals than that.
Having said that, everybody has to make their own goals. I can’t do that for you. It is my hopes that you will set your ultimate goals high. There is a theory that if you shoot for $1,000 a month, you’ll never reach it. But if you shoot for $5,000 a month, you’ll probably reach your $1,000 goal. I know that this has worked for me, but then again, everybody is different.
But to answer the statement made by the song title, making it is a very relative thing. There are people in this world who would love to have my monthly income. And then there are those who would look at it and look at me as a failure. And who’s to blame them if they’re making millions?
It’s all a matter of perception.
