Here are 10 tips for internet business newbies that may prevent you from falling in a heap. Review them on a regular basis and try to stay focused on planning ahead.

1. Stay Positive & Don’t Give Up
One advantage of creating and building an online income is that your business is "open all hours" so you work when and for as long as you want. Some regular tasks can be run on auto-pilot, offering a less stressful working environment and giving you more time to spend with family and doing the good things in life. However, when first starting you business, it may take many months or more to get to that stage. The earlier days of the learing curve can be quite long and tiring. In order to be successful, try to maintain a positive attitude and be persistent and committed. Beware of ‘Get-Rich-Quick’ schemes which will eat into your wallet and often show little results.

2. Keep a Journal
Keep a journal and list things to do, ticking them off as they are completed. Update your journal regularly, so you remember what you’ve done, how effective (or not) it was and how you can improve. Remember that failures are not the end. They simply give you lessons to learn. Just try different methods and strategies.

The past week or so has been hell. I applied to change service provider , but wasn’t told that there would be up to 21 days when I would be without an internet connection. What!? How can anyone, trying to build an online business, survive for that long?

After 2 days of complaints and pleading, I was offered a temporary dial-up connection to keep me going in the mean time. Great! That’s a start. At least I’d be able to update my blog and keep abreast of my emails. The lady at the help desk started issuing instructions to guide me in setting up the dial-up modem.

Some hours later, after trying everything, including telling me to delete my previous System Preferences, she said that she’d exhausted all her knowledge and suggested I call a Mac technician. Then I was left with a "busy" tone on the phone. The operator was gone. I was left stranded with no connection, and no email account.

To add insult to injury, my last TWO years of emails (28,000 plus) have gone, floating somewhere in cyberspace, or perhaps they no longer exist at all, anywhere. That’s bad.

The Alex Jeffreys live coaching course has now come to a close, after 2 months of intensive and highly charged training. Many of the students have become well established in their businesses and the rest are well on the way.

The experience has been life-changing to say the least. Alex is such an inspiration! He encouraged us all to push outside our comfort zone and to also understand that there will be times when we fail. He calls it "failing forward". Like learning to ride a bike, when you fall off you don’t just give up. You just pick yourself up, dust yourself off,  get back on and try again. It’s the only way to learn. The time will come when you can ride like it’s second nature (Look Mum, no hands!)

In the real world, success doesn’t happen overnight. Alex Jeffreys was once a newbie with absolutely no experience in internet marketing. He admits to failing many times. He went to seminars, asked questions, aligned himself with experts, took risks and never gave up. In his first year online he made $100,000 and in the second year he reached $600,000. His target for this year is one million and he’ll probably exceed that.

Advice for newbies

If you are an absolute newbie seriously considering starting an online business, it can be a very steep learning curve. While some will learn quite quickly, others will struggle with overwhelming confusion and some will simply give up.

On the internet there are a million and one irresistable distractions that will take you off on tangents and a shipload of ebooks and "clever" programs you will be tempted to buy. There will be a host of hyped-up emails flooding your inbox, telling you to buy this and try that or make money while you sleep. You may find that you are spending your money on stuff that either you’ll never use or doesn’t live up to its promises.

It’s so easy to get caught up in all this stuff. We’ve all done it. I’ve spent thousands of dollars myself and had nothing to show for it.

The best way to start is to follow a plan and take it at your own pace. There are ways to establish an online business with very little investment, if you know how. Alex Jeffreys’ coaching has taught me more in a few weeks than I learned in the previous 18 months.

A large part of my time is spent on investigating the many ways of getting traffic (visitors) to my blog. It is an ongoing challenge for every internet marketer, regardless of the niche.

I have been reading articles at ezinearticles.com, joining forums, reading & adding comments to other high-ranking blogs. I’ve been posting my video on video sites and commenting on high-ranking YouTube videos. I’ve joined Twitter and several social media sites. Generally, I’ve spent a lot of my week trying to encourage people to visit my blog. I even submitted an article that was published in an e-zine.

I looked into a number of traffic exchanges, but concluded that for all the time and effort involved, it would only bring reluctant visitors, who are only in it to advertise their own message, for free. One really needs to stand out in the crowd, to grab anyone’s attention. They may not be the kind of people I should be targeting.

So I had to stand back and take a look at what I have to offer to my visitors. As I re-read my blog, and watched my video (for the Alex Jeffreys Video Competition) the message of "wanting to help people" came through loud and clear. (I’m pleased, because that was my initial intention.) So I’ll continue to encourage and help newbies if I can.

If you need more motivation in business or life in general, then I recommend these free tickets to the Seminar - Breakthrough To Success .

If you’re serious about self-development, expanding your knowledge, maintaining inspiration and drive, and enhancing your career or business, it’s very beneficial to attend seminars whenever possible.

Not only will you pick up new ideas and priceless information, but you’ll meet amazing like-minded people who are on a similar mission. You also get the opportunity to network, make new friends, broaden your contacts and even promote your own business and products.

I attended a fantastic seminar late last year, which gave me the inspiration I needed to start my online business. It was called "Breakthrough to Success Wealth and Power Weekend " hosted by Christopher Howard, an internationally acclaimed expert in accelerated change technologies and leadership. It was a powerful and exciting weekend of personal growth and transformation.

At the seminar Chris led us through some amazing empowerment exercises and simple tasks, to assist in creating our lives the way we want, by expanding our self-concept - to reach our highest potential - not only in business, but in our personal lives.

Well! The Alex Jeffreys Video Competition is starting to heat up, with some fantastic new entries emerging each day. The students have excelled themselves with some very novel entries. You really must check them out. The showcase is being updated as often as possible (there are three dedicated pages jam-packed with entertainment, comedy, 3-D animation and education).

Our beloved Alex Jeffreys is going to love it. He’ll have a hard time picking a winner, but he will surely see how much he’s loved and respected by his devoted students. The rest of the world will also recognize his "rock star" status and his reputation will sky-rocket!

With 12 days to go before the competition closes, there is still plenty of time for new entries, particularly in the "Most Creative/Most Content" category, so let’s hear from the other 400+ students. Go for it guys!

The "Alex Jeffreys Video Competition" has proven to be a wonderful catalyst for so many. If you don’t own a video camera, you’re bound to know a friend who’d loan you one for this exercise. Alternatively, you can use Power Point or even download Camtasia for free from many sites. Perhaps some of the students could tell their stories about the making of their videos and methods used and post it on their blogs. There is still plenty of "blog-hopping" going on.

I have been trawling YouTube to find all the entries for the Alex Jeffreys Video Competition . I searched on the keyword "Alex Jeffreys" and then sorted by date added. This way I hoped to find all the entries that had the keyword tag entered in their title or in "more info".

I have included all the videos on my blog on dedicated pages. Click on the tabs at the top. (I only included those uploaded after the date of module 5 coaching session.) This should make it easier for everyone to view them.

I did notice that some students omitted to enter their blog address in "more info". It’s not too late to edit/update your info on YouTube. It may help to get more traffic to your blog.

If I have missed yours please comment at the end of this post & I’ll add it. (You may also want to review your keywords/tags to include "Alex Jeffreys".) Thanks for Garry Parkes ‘ blessings. Although he is doing something similar, I’ve added the video titles and blog names. That way , you can visit one another’s blogs to get your links.

One great way to advertise is marketing with video . This week I had a lot of fun with my daughter who  interviewed me about my online business and Alex Jeffreys.

I’ve never made or edited a video before. I haven’t even used a video camera, but after plunging in the deep end, I eventually worked out the basics and put together this 5 minute piece which includes me doing some pole-dancing! (Please don’t be too brutal with your critique - after all, I’m no spring chicken.)

However, after my video had been on YouTube for just over 12 hours it had already had 79 views, which is great advertising for my blog. Not bad for a novice. I’m very pleased.

So if you have a video camera, it’s well worth the effort and a lot of fun in the process and you can be as imaginative as you like. There are a number of other sites that you can send your video, such as Google Videos, Yahoo Video, Viddler and heaps of others. Do try marketing with video. I’m getting excellent results!

Brought to you by www.SharpMarketingMethod.com

Welcome to the new age of marketing . If you’ve been following along since the first post, you’ll now have the solid foundation… the undercoat… the primed canvas… the online real estate. Your challenge begins NOW to build your business - at your own pace.

There will be many things to learn along the way and many hurdles to jump, but a whole new world will start to unfold. If we all take a leaf from Alex Jeffreys’ book, we’ll have fun with it and enjoy the journey. Challenge yourself. Enjoy the research. Think outside the box. As Alex Jeffreys says, "start small… think big."

Make sure you have a plan, take action and tick the "DID" tasks off your list as you go. (Alex Jeffreys has a "Did" List.) To help with planning there is a great free software called FreeMind that you can have a bit of fun with.

A new age of marketing has begun and thanks to mentors like Alex Jeffreys and Rich Schefren, we are privileged to be amongst the first to ride this new wave. The timing has never been more perfect.