What Internet Marketers can Learn from Dexter - Dexter's 3 P's

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Ah, the lovable serial killer Dexter. I am willing to bet that he is more than one Internet marketers guilty pleasure. Some people are repulsed, by the crass portrayal of killing and killers and some just take it for what it is - entertainment.

When Dexter works his craft, there are several lessons/ideas that Internet marketers ca learn from him.

Preparation

Even if you have only seen one episode of Dexter, you will know that his preparation for the kill is almost a ritual in itself. Very planned to the last detail. It is this preparation that allows him to not get caught.

I am sure that you can see where I am going with this as relating to Internet marketers. Most articles will touch on preparation as getting your domain, setting up your sales page or blog. There are thousands of articles with these details, but here are two that are often overlooked.

Prepare to Succeed

What will happen if your step into Internet marketing is a huge success? Bigger than you could have ever imagined? People even use the word viral when they talk about your site! Although this is every marketers dream - Internet and otherwise, there are some problems and opportunities that come along with success.

Do you have the time to be successful? If you are working a full-time job and are trying to also dabble in Internet marketing, your activities are already like a part-time job. If your marketing starts demanding full-time hours, do you have a plan? Since you cannot create more hours in the day, you only have a couple of options:

Quit your day job

Very risky, but depending on the level of success of your venture it might be the best choice. If you have a husband or wife MAKE SURE that they are informed and on board. Hire some help If you are lucky, your spouse will be totally into what you are doing and will be willing to be the help and relief that you need. If not, decide if what you need can be done by a Virtual Assistant. You can look at sites like eLance.com or odesk.com to find virtual assistants to do just about anything to help you and your marketing efforts. Automate Try to find innovative ways to automate some part or parts of your business. It will take time to figure out what you can automate and how to do it, but consider it an investment in your business.

Prepare to Fail

I am sure that this one is not at the top of the Internet marketers list when starting a venture, But it should. Everyone fails at sometime or another. You cannot always hit home runs or throw touchdowns (insert any other well-worn sports analogy here). What will you do if nobody looks at your blog or buys a product? You have to decide up-front what you will do if something like this happens.

Will you just thow in the towel?
Will you try to find another niche?
Will you give yourself a set time frame to either succeed or fail and make decisions then?
Will you study your offering an revamp it so that it will be successful?
Will you find more time in your day (see above) to make better and better?

These are just some questions that you must ask yourself at the very beginning of your marketing. Some might say that this step is just planning to fail. But I say that is a crucial part of success - knowing the next step just in case.

Do you think that Dexter does not have a "Plan B" in case things don't work out like he planned?

Patience

With serial killing and Internet marketing, patience is key. If you jump the gun and make rash, ill-timed decisions, bad things can happen. In one episode of Dexter, he and Jimmy Smit's character had become friends. Turns out that he was of the same mind of Dexter. Dexter taught him how to do what he does. Everything is going find until Jimmy Smit's character tries to go out on his own and kills without waiting like Dexter taught him. This eventually ended with Dexter killing him.

While the stakes are not that high, every Internet marketer has to have patience. If you write a blog or do article marketing for a sales page and nobody looks at it in the first month, what are you going to do? Great marketers wait and work harder and do more research to improve the site so that people will start landing on their page and buying their products.

People

Dexter is not by nature a social person. He does however need people in his life. His interaction with his sister, girlfriend/wife, colleagues at work are key to his fitting in. And in round about ways getting them to help him in his interactions with his victims.

While many Internet marketers do it on their own, there are just as many that leverage the synergy that they find with other marketers or friends to do great things. Just look at Shoe. As good as he is at what he does, I believe that having people around him to bounce ideal off of, to talk with at networking events and just plain friends helped and helps him be so successful.

So you see that you can even learn from a loveable serial killer like Dexter.

Enough reading - go out there and kill it (pun intended)!