When you’re blogging for money, do you keep your fries front and center?

Huh!!!

Read on:

“Don’t ignore the fries,”

Those were the words I was hearing on the phone.   My friend Nelson called me this morning and we chatted away.  He’d just returned from Hong Kong and we were doing a bit of catch up as he asked me about business.   He always does.   I told him about my progress in internet marketing.

“Has it replaced your network marketing income yet?” he wanted to know.

The answer was no and a further confession that the network marketing business wasn’t getting much attention these days, in spite of being the primary source of income for me.

He then took the time to tell me about MacDonalds, how they keep introducing new items to their menu, how they experiment with eggs and salads and coffee and even different types of burgers.

“But” he said “They don’t ignore the fries”

Meaning that the fries are a profitable staple item and they don’t fool around with them – in other words the fries always get attention at MacDonalds.

Nelson and I go back a long way – back to the days when I was still in Corporate and so was he.  He was the local big honcho for a major insurance company and I was an executive with a Fortune 50.  Often we shared the elevator on the way up to the floor of  our respective offices, down for lunch or when just calling it a day.  We became friends.

Years later we started a new Toastmaster club – one that met on Saturday mornings.  Neither of us had any toastmaster experience.  Each of us felt it was a good personal development for the coming year – and well, why would we want to join a club when we could start one?  We were told that no one would come to a toastmaster meeting on a Saturday morning.  The maverick in me was being tested.    Nelson was unflappable.  We went ahead.   Not only did they come but they came from as far away as an hour’s drive away!  Today it is one of the most successful clubs here in Vancouver and until recently it was the only toastmaster club that met on a Saturday morning in all of British Columbia.

Over  the years we each went through some good times and bad.  It is that same unflappable demeanor that took that Saturday morning club to success that helped Nelson weather some real tough challenges.   Sometimes I feel that my decision to become an internet marketer is akin to the decision to start a toastmaster club on a Saturday morning.  The probabilities of success are not exactly a given but the maverick in me is still alive and well.

Nelson is never short on advice.  I respect what he has to say.  I hope that at  times I return the favor.  He wasn’t telling me  anything I did not already know.  We joked about it.  He too likes to try out new things and told me that the penny dropped when he was filling out his tax return… the biggest contributor to his bottom line is still his insurance business.

In marketing you learn that even though you want to add a new product, a new source of revenue, you never do so at the expense of an income producing item. The only time an income contributing item is up for discussion is when the new product has replaced the income of the old one.

This is true in anything we do in business.  If your desire is to earn an online income because you want to escape the tedium of the 9-5, don’t even think of throwing in the towel and going full time without first building a strong and viable online business.   Build it up on a part time basis while being the best employee that you can be.  Block time.  Work it.  It won’t happen overnight – guaranteed – but you will begin to see increments of progress and one day there it is, an online income equal to that of your employment!

Along the way you will be making many decisions.  What affiliate products to promote.  Which ones to continue with, which ones to drop.  What marketing channels to use.  Which ones to increase, which ones to stop.  Whether to develop your own product.  How to joint venture.  As you navigate through the intricacies of business  don’t forget to ask yourself the question:  what is my french fries?

It is when your online income  equals that of your employment that you will have an enviable choice to make:  whether to stay as an employee and continue  your internet marketing on a part time basis, or to become a full blown entrepreneur.  You might surprise yourself and find that the job you hate isn’t so hateful after all.  It’s amazing how people see things differently when faced with a choice driven not by need, but by success.

But until then, don’t ignore the fries!