The Most Frustrating Experience in Business Today.

I've been working with businesses for most of my life. After working on the phone, in person and on the web, I've come to the conclusion that the Internet is the most frustrating experience in business today.

I love it- I hate it - no, I think I love again. Most of my contemporaries are afraid of the darn thing. I get calls from clients who tell me that they can't access their email properly how in the world can they expect to make money off this thing!

The best way to navigate and work on the Web is to treat it the way you do paper. If you treat it like paper you will gain control of the beast.

I found that out when I got started in Internet marketing a while back. I used to toss all the spam in the virtual garbage can and ignore the popups and banners. Now I've been in sales and marketing all my life and I watch commercials for the construction not the content or the message. I patiently sort through all my junk mail to see how the marketing department constructed the offer and the payoff.

When I first realized that the Web was paper, it was like my wife telling me the obvious and waiting patiently for me to think it was my own idea. No matter, I got control of the medium.

I finally began to learn how to use the darn thing for making a living. I no longer became intimidated by the young guys making bank off a 30 page sales letter. I no longer fell for the folks who took the tools of offline marketing gurus from the 50's and 60's then pretended that it was the newest whizbang theory of making online millions.

Selling is about finding the right people who realize their needs can be fulfilled by what you can do for them, after they trust you to do what you promised. Once I realized that the same principles operate online as they do offline, I got it.

If you're like my "50 something" friends and clients who are still struggling with the "new medium", take heart. If I can come to terms with the medium by finding my personal analogy, I think you will too.