There are two courses I believe to be particularly relevant to internet marketers are the Bits course and the Intensive Introduction to Computer Science. According to the course description, the course “focuses on information as quantity, resource, and property. We study the application of quantitative methods to understanding how information technologies inform issues of public policy, regulation, and law.” The Bits course also offers an extensive lecture series on web search, doing business on the web, and internet infrastructure. The course is arranged in an a-la-carte lecture format, so if you can just click the lecture you’re interested in and sit back and listen.

The second class, Intensive Introduction to Computer Science, I’d recommend for students who want to obtain a more solid computer science foundation. I think this course is a great starter class for new programmers and search engine optimizers. Intensive Introduction to Computer Science is a 12 week lecture series that discusses algorithms, software development, computer systems, and network security. In Week 8, the course covers TCP/IP, HTTP, XHTML, PHP and SQL. In Week 9 you’ll learn about DOM, CSS, Inheritance, JavaScript events, and Ajax. If you’re an SEO, I’d highly recommend that you go up to at least Week 9 of this course to be exposed to the material most immediately applicable to the SEO discipline. Check out the accompanying website for this course.

With either course, I think if you were to just watch the lectures while taking notes, you’d advanced your technical knowledge noticeably. And remember, both of these courses (plus several others) are free.

I Paid Lee McIntyre $20 and He Gave me back $1000

I first discovered Lee McIntyre when I purchased his Instant Internet Lifestyle video series for a mere $20 in the summer of 2010. At the time I was only making about $1100 per month online and working way too hard to do it. When I finally viewed the videos a few days later, I was stunned by wealth of internet marketing education that they contained. The Instant Internet Lifestyle was a recording of Lee McIntyre’s ‘Upside Down-Inside Out’ Workshop Sessions that took place over the course of 2 days. It contained a little over 6 of info product creation instruction, online marketing techniques, and affiliate program management strategies that I had never heard of despite being active in internet marketing for nearly a decade. Needless to say, Lee’s Instant Internet Lifestyle videos immediately expanded the way I thought about online marketing and internet business building. In short order, I implemented the strategies I had learned from Lee and nearly double my monthly earnings to about $2000 per month, easy. The Instant Internet Lifestyle videos are no hype and no fluff and neither is this review. So, if you are looking to grow you internet based business then I urge you to start by grabbing Lee McIntyre’s Instant Internet Lifestyle or the FREE Momentum Marketing System. It’s a real jewel! Check out these screenshots from inside the Instant Internet Video member’s area:

Lee McIntyre Is Helping Me To Grown By Online Business

Having seen the impressive results from implementing the bundle of online business growth strategies that I learned from Lee’s $20 video, a few months later, I decided to join Lee’s Internet Lifestyle Intensive program. Lee McIntyre’s Internet Lifestyle Intensive is every bit as rigorous as the title sounds. It’s a 12 month, 52 week course that includes weekly coaching calls, 30 hours of workshop videos, hours and hours of coaching call recordings, and weekly modules that teaches you everything from product creation to recruiting Joint Venture (JV). While I had begun making dependable a few months prior, joining this program represented a series investment for me because it comes with a premium price tag. Ultimately, I decided to register for it for the following reasons:

• I want to launch my own series of information products in the near future. Lee McIntyre’s Internet Lifestyle Intensive teaches you step by step about how to build info products and sell them.
• The Internet Lifestyle Intensive teaches you the finer points of building membership program to generate recurring income
• I identified a need to increase my knowledge of setting up and managing my own affiliate program, finding joint venture partners, building a continuity program, and building a targeted list.
• I believe my business would benefit from access Lee’s McIntyre’s resources, including – templates, joint venture partners and coaching. Basically, I think I can expand some portion of my business by leveraging his asset’s and resources.

As of the writing of this post, I am a few months into Internet Lifestyle Intensive and I must say that it’s not just worth every cent I paid but is actually over delivering in value! I’ve increased my monthly income by another $500, traffic to my website is up 500%, and I’m in the process of creating my line of internet marketing information products. In other words, my knowledge and business is growing as a result of Lee McIntyre’s coaching.

In Order to Get To the Next Level You Need a Business Coach

If you’ve been following along, this is the second part of my blog series when I introduce my readers to my business coaches and mentors. It took me years to realize it but the simple truth is that in order to make any real money online and develop a profitable business then you need access to heavy-hitter online business coaches like Lee McIntyre and Rich Schefren. I used to think (and many people still do) that a $29 video tutorial will only get you so far in this game – you learn exactly $29 worth of strategies and that isn’t nearly enough to get you noticed, let alone to compete effectively, online.

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned since endeavoring to build my own internet business is that in order to be successful you need a mentor and by mentor I mean someone who has actually accomplished what you are trying to do. You will not only need their expertise and experience on your side, but you also need access to their resources, partners, and customer lists – else you could spend years trying to acquire them yourself.

Additionally, if you’re looking to get the how-to’s of building and promoting information products you need an expert walking you through the process like Lee McIntyre. While it may sound as simple as producing a screenshot video and generating a dazzling ecover, it takes a bit more sophistication to make a truly professional information product – one that you can sells and delivers value to your members.

I am a proud client of Lee McIntyre’s premium Internet Lifestyle Intensive and I am also a Lee McIntyre affiliate. Yes, there are several affiliate links in this review. But what makes me different than all the other Lee McIntyre affiliates out there is that not only have I actually purchased his products, but they have brought me a great deal of success. I can truthfully testify to the fact that they work.

One last thing – Watch for my one-on-one interview with Lee McIntyre that I will release in August. It’s going to be awesome! If you have any questions you’d like me to ask Lee, please write them in the comment section of this blog post.

View Lee McIntyre’s Instant Internet Lifestyle

I could literally write a book telling you about the years I struggled to create a sustainable online business. If you’re story is like mine, then you know that the years I’m speaking were filled with a greater share of disappointments than achievements in regards to creating an online business. To be blunt: I was failing. Sure I made a few hundred dollars here and there by doing some affiliate marketing or product resales, but in the larger scheme of things I was truly a long way off towards achieving a sustainable internet marketing business. And that was until I saw Rich Schefren’s free webinar training. This webinar open my eyes wide open to the reason why I was only achieving minimal results despite working countless hours and spending several thousands of dollars on software products and affiliate marketing education. In a nutshell, the reason for my shortcomings came down to the fact that I was not running my business strategically. I was thinking like an “opportunity seeker” rather than as a “strategic entrepreneur”. If you don’t know what these terms mean than I implore you to view this free webinar and watch Rich to explain the difference.

Many new Internet entrepreneurs fall into the same exact track as I did. It’s the trap that Rich Schefren talks about in his free training. It’s the difference between trying to capitalize on an opportunity and purposefully creating your own opportunities. It’s the difference between letting others think for you and being a thought leader in your field. It’s the difference between having some vague notion of your desired business outcome and having a crisp and clean picture of what your final business goals are. This is the clarity that becoming a client of Strategic Profits has bought me and my business.

I’ve seldom come across people in my professional life, my academic studies, or in my entrepreneurial internet marketing activities that deliver such clear business growth insights as Rich Schefren. Whether we’re talking about a report such as his famous Internet Business Manifesto, this webinar that I think every internet business owner should attend, three hour long coaching session, or a module from the Business Growth System, each time I’ve encountered Rich Schefren’s teachings I get a new perspective on things and my business grows as a result.

Rich Schefren’s Advice to Me

When I last spoke with Rich Schefren we discussed the importance of me pinpoint precisely what I’m good at. And I must admit, it was something that I had trouble isolating at first. Think about it – in school or at work, and even in our daily lives we are taught to focus on the things that we are not good at and to work to improve them. So here’s counter-intuitive part: in Rich Schefren’s point of view trying to convert weaknesses strengths is a waste of time. Weaknesses should be isolated so that they do not prevent you from achieving your business objectives. Strengths, on the other hand, should be maximized, nourished, developed. The reason is because if you’re good at something, really good at something, it puts you in a league of your own – a level above all those who attempt to compete with you. So when you start to build your online business, because you’re leaps and bounds ahead of the competition, you’ve essentially created your own niche. In other words, you are the best provider of products and services in the marketplace. After speaking with Rich Schefren, it became clear to me that I needed to identify and build a business around my strengths before I even began to think about anything else. Strategic Profits also gives its members access to psychological testing to help them to better identify how they operate so that they can cultivate their strengths. It is this type of straightforward advice and access to resources that has helped me to an advance my online marketing business and to truly glimpse my first taste of success.

Strategic Profits Is A Business Investment

I have no doubt that Rich Schefren and Strategic Profits have put me on the road to achieving my ultimate goal of self-employment through owning my own online business. If you’re serious about building a prosperous online business – I strongly recommend that you view Rich’s free training – it will certainly change your life. But here’s a bit of warning: Rich Schefren is the real deal! He’s not a flake that will charge you $37/mo and teach you the latest Twitter spamming tactics. Rich is a genuinely effective online business consultant who has no real peer as far as I’m concerned. He has a track record of helping the biggest names in internet marketing, affiliate marketing, and make money online game of reaching incredible profits and achieving their business goals. With a clientele like Mike Filsaime, Jim Edwards, Leslie Buterin, you should view your enrollment with Strategic Profits as an investment in your online entrepreneurial education – one of the most important investment’s you may ever make. Check out the free training, and learn just as I did, why you’re business is not reaching its full potential and how you can begin achieving your goals.

I think it’s time for career-minded internet marketers to distinguish themselves by their academic credentials from those who “just do internet marketing".  This is not to say that someone who studied traditional marketing in college isn’t prepared for a career in online marketing.  Let’s be clear – I don’t mean that at all.  However, I do believe establishing online marketing as a rigorous academic program that prepares students for real world conditions is a necessary step toward greater solidification of the legitimacy of our industry. The online marketing industry has matured passed the point where being "self-taught" is acceptable and on-the-job training is sufficient.  Every other business discipline has its own recognized academic major – accountants earn degrees in accounting, human resources professionals study human resource management, operation managers study business logistics.

Of course, some areas in Internet marketing simply aren’t mature enough or don’t warrant a full degree program.  For example, the masters degree in social media marketing offered by Birmingham City University makes me scratch my head… hard.  What this university is calling a degree program could simply be condensed to a semester long course. But if executed correctly,  I think it’s a start in the right direction toward achieving greater independence and recognition for our industry.

Not demanding our own sphere of academia after a certain period of time is dangerous.  It unnecessarily exposes the online marketing field to hacks and frauds which in turn gives us all a bad name.  This is already a huge problem in the field of search engine optimization and one beginning to emerge in social media marketing where anyone can just declare themselves an expert and potential clients can’t distinguish the the good from the bad.  Practicing web marketers should not resist the “schooling of online marketing” – this is what needs to happen and it will be better for us all in the long run.

I heard these two stories on NPR (“On The Media”) over the weekend, and they so tied psychology and sociology to interactive buzz marketing that I had to share them here.  Give them a listen, before you read on.

Peruse any job board for positions relating to interactive marketing and almost always under the desired education requirement you’ll see computer science, IT, business administration, or the narrower disciplines of marketing and public relations.  It seems the interactive marketing community as a whole has severely underestimated the application of a social science degree to an online marketing career.  My undergraduate degrees are in psychology and sociology, and on more than one occasion I have found myself explaining how my training in the social sciences is applicable to a career in marketing.

To me it’s not a big leap; to others it’s implausible.  When people think about psychology, they picture a comfortable room with two people – one sitting in an arm chair taking notes, and the other laying on his back spilling his guts while paying $200 an hour for the privilege to do so.  I didn’t pick psychology out of the list of majors to become a clinical psychologist like the one in this example.  I could care less about a stranger’s relationship with his or her mother.  I started in the field with the desire to become an experimental psychologist and through empirical hypothesis testing I wanted to explore the mysteries of human behavior and mental processes.  If it helps, picture a guy in a white lab coat holding a clipboard observing people through a two-way mirror.

Similarly, I find that people are often misinformed about what sociology involves.  They confuse the discipline with social work or social advocacy when in fact sociology is nowhere as benevolent.  Sociology, in brief, is about investigating the behavior of groups and their interrelationship with the individual.  I have even argued that marketing is a hybrid of applied sociology and business administration, given marketing’s high level goal of influence and persuasion.  It’s pretty well accepted that the multibillion dollar a year industry of market research is a type of applied sociology.

You’d be hard pressed to find someone active in online marketing that would dispute the statement that social media is where it’s at.  With big brands flocking to Facebook and MySpace to transform latent customers in to brand advocates, interactive marketing firms are scrambling to adopt in this new environment.  As much in SEO or PPC, if not more so, interactive marketers that practice social media channel development must ask questions like:

1. How do we influence customers to buy our products?
2. How do we influence customers to promote our brand?
3. How do we enter into a new online community and interact with members effectively?
4. How do we leverage these social networks to create buzz?
5. How do we encourage long term retention in our customers
6. What are our customers saying to us?
7. How do we respond?
8. How do we track the reach of our message?

To my ears, at their core, these are social science questions, not computer science questions.  How companies can actually leverage observations from social science research to generate ROI is the business marketing extension of each of the questions listed above.  Unless marketers first try to understand the questions (and answers) above in the light of the specific community they aspire to influence, they will not be successful in their efforts to generate ROI.  Just because a community or culture exists online, doesn’t make it less of a community or culture.  A person trained in psychology and sociology may be more effective in uncovering deep insights about the types of people behind the screen names used on social networking/media websites than a person with a traditional marketing background.  For example, during my undergraduate years, I took classes in community psychology, social psychology, social problems, psychological anthropology, and methodology of social research.  The sum of all these courses was a solid background in how to systematically dissect, investigate, and influence the inner workings of a community.

Although, I relied on the social media example to make my argument, a social science degree is strongly conducive to success in other areas of online marketing.  In conclusion, folks with psychology and sociology backgrounds have taken courses relating to influence, motivation, perception, group dynamics, cultural studies, demographics, statistical analysis, survey design, consumer psychology, and research – all of which are important in Internet marketing.

Let me begin by saying I am not currently actively or passively seeking a new place of employment. In fact, I experience all-time high levels of elation at my current position as a search engine optimizer with Overdrive Interactive on a daily basis. But if I may be so bold, I do want to share some advice for anyone currently on the prowl for a job in e-marketing. I will not exhort for paragraphs, and I dare not offer advice about writing the perfect interactive job resume, but I will distilled my words of wisdom down to the following: You have to stand out online.

As a candidate for a job at a search marketing agency you must be able to point an employer somewhere on the Internet where you have displayed your creativity and self-marketing prowess. After all, if you cannot effectively market yourself, how can you expect to garner online attention for your clients seeking instant ROI? But too often, I have seen applicants supply the standard coverletter and resume package, but negelect their Internet credentials. And to be honest, the candidate pool for jobs in the interactive marketing field is just too competitive to not have all three tools working on your side.

I first conceived of the "resumercial" (resume + commercial) during my senior year of college, and with the help of a brilliant business student tried to monetize it. What made our little product different than the standard video resumes that were speckled about the Internet at the time was the fact that we purposely didn’t feature vapid "talking heads" singing the same ole’ "ideal candidate" song. We took a new direction and tried to sell the person as a quality name brand. This approach communicated to employers that this was no ordinary hire through both the use of multimedia and style of the production. Hence the mantra of my resumercial "Going Above and Beyond is Part of the Job" and the dramatic 2001: A Space Odyssey opening theme. Unfortunately, this was only a part-time enterprise for the two of us and eventually we conceded that we couldn’t produce custom made resumercials at a rate to sustain our new business.

The video glued to this entry is the prototype that resulted from our brief entrepreneurial endeavor. An interviewer once told me, speaking of my resumercial, "You’ve got a hell of a landing page… that’s why you’re here." As campy as my resumercial maybe, I have been able to dazzle perspectives employers time and time again simply because it’s not one of a thousand emailed resumes, but goes a few hundred steps further to offer an engaging preview of my employment with their organization. Plus the Stephen Hawking voice is good for a laugh. Enjoy!