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By James Burt, Online Marketing Expert
You start your own info marketing business. You work hard.
You make money. You repeat this process and success comes
back time and again. Seems simple, right?
Well, maybe in a perfect world. Life doesn't always work that
way though. You might not always get success and have to
really work hard to sustain it. It's tough to deal with that
sometimes.
But one thing that you can deal with is "critics." That's right.
Even in info marketing, you are going to get what writers,
visual artists, architects, movie makers, and other spotlighted
types get regularly -- those pesky people who pick apart what
you do and evaluate you against their own personal criteria of
good or bad.
Criticism and evaluation are necessary, no question at all. But
sometimes people's reactions to something can get abusive and
overtly tough, and send the party they are criticizing into a
state of confusion. If you haven't already encountered people
offering their thoughts on your business, you most likely will.
But once again, you can deal with it. You can know what sort
of critics are going to come your way and what they are going
to say. This can soften the blow of what they say and how you
can counter their angrier criticisms.
One common critical tagline is kind of funny and worthy of
a teen comedy: "Hey man, your stuff sucks!" Or, more
eloquently: "Your ideas and info are a little stale at this point." This type of critique is not engaging at all. It makes you feel
pretty low and that, while others might like all of the hard work
you do as an info marketer, there is someone who doesn't and
who is heckling you from the side. However, it can be positive,
too. Maybe your info content, designs, or products could use a
bit of an overhaul and actually be made better. Maybe you need
to take some time to generate some fresh ideas for your content
and all its related products. Maybe the critics have some ideas
they can pass along. If people are willing to heckle your info
marketing business a bit, take it in stride and consider what can
be done to improve your business.
When things go bad, you are likely going to have someone say: "Your stuff has failed! What now?" A product doesn't sell or
some money you directed in a particular way has proven itself
wasted. If you've done it by yourself, you fix the matter alone.
But if other parties are involved, they are going to want you to
come up with a solution fast. In order to beat them and their
angry remarks, you are going to have to think fast. Take a good
amount of time for an action plan to solve the matters that have
gone awry. Proceed calmly and with an objective to resolve
everything.
If failure happens once, there's a good chance that it will
happen again. It's sad, but it does happen in the same way the
death of a loved one or bad economic times creep up every so
many years. With that, you might get the classic line: "Why do
you bother?" This is pretty disheartening and truthfully a bit
irritating. Asking this is like asking a stockbroker why she does
her job or a film director why he does his. Sure, it's a tough
profession, but these people do these jobs because they enjoy
them. It's as simple as that. If you get this from family,
associates or anyone else close to your business, just calmly
point out that this stuff does happen, but success happens more
frequently. You bother to do your job because you love it and,
with that commitment, you are getting back on the road to
success quickly. If they wish to help, they can. But if not, they
have to step away and let you get on with it.
I should mention that a lot of the time critics are not your
typical slick-haired, glasses-wearing journalistic types. They
are often your friends and family. They say the things they do
because they actually care about you and your livelihood. But
good intentions or not, you have to be the one to thank them for
the concern, but also to say that you are going to march on with
your business.
Making mistakes is only part of the info marketing game.
Learning from them and moving on is the more important part.
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