If you’ve read any of my interviews or bios online, you may know that I’ve been working on the internet since 2000. It’s common for people who work online to inform others when they started working online. I believe that part of the reason we all do this is to raise our profile and quickly let people know that we are experienced and know what we are talking about. I can’t criticise anyone about this as I’m guilty of this myself.
What I hope you all realise is that the number of years someone has been working online is a useless statistic. It has no correlation to how knowledgeable someone is or how much success they have had. All it tells you is that at some point in the past they started a website.
It’s dangerous to assume that people who have been working on the web for many years know what they are talking about. Many don’t. There are people who have been working online for several years and they’re still trying to game Google using the same boring ass tactics (and getting nowhere in the process).
Learn all you can from the mistakes of others. You won’t have time to make them all yourself – Alfred Sheinwold
Please don’t let the length of time someone has been working online lead you to believe they are experienced and don’t let your own length of time working online blind you into believing you are always above others who started working online after you.
There are countless people who started working online after you and you can learn a lot from them. I’ve read fantastic articles and tutorials from people who have only been working online a few months. Bear in mind that a lot of people were successful offline before they started working online. Most traits that successful online entrepreneurs and marketers have are intrinsic in successful people in all walks of life.
Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones – Author Unknown
Here’s a short list of people who started making money online long after me. They all have experience in areas I would like to improve in and I’ve learned a lot by reading their articles:
- Bamidele Onibalusi – Despite being only 17 or 18 years old, Bamidele has managed to build up a successful blog about writing on the web. His guest posting rate is phenomenal and he makes between $5,000 and $10,000 through his blogging gigs.
- John Paul Aguiar – John Paul knows Twitter inside out. In the same of a year he grew his follower list to over 30,000 people and in the second year his follower count topped 110,000.
- Sam Sinton And Kevin Mackay – My friends Sam and Kevin are just getting into the blogging niche however they have been killing it with affiliate marketing and SEO campaigns for years.
- Pat Flynn, Spencer Haws & Chris Guthrie – All these guys run great making money online blogs however the it’s their podcasts I love. They podcast regularly on a range of topics and regularly interview interesting people.
- Adsense Flippers Guys (Justin Cooke & Joseph W. Magnotti) – I just love these guys. I’m always looking to improve my adsense earnings so it’s great listening to their podcasts. They everything they learn about Adsense through their blog.
You can learn a lot from people who are successful online, particularly from people who have a lot of experience in areas you don’t. Please make sure you don’t equate the length of time someone has been in the game with experience.
Kevin