It’s not that online marketers are any different from the rest of the human race – we all want them to exist. The silver bullet.

That ‘one thing’ that will amplify your success to the next level… surely it is out there, right? Fortunately, the answer is no.

It is fortunate because if there was such a thing your competition would already be all over it, or it would be easily to duplicate by anyone else.

Let’s review the list of recent ‘mythical’ silver bullets:

Social media

Even if you just share lemonade recipes people will flock to you. Tell people what you’re eating right now to make an extra sale. It just takes a few minutes a day – and it’s FREE!

Reality Check: Builders seeing social media results are dedicating a lot of time, energy, and yes – money to the cause. Those few at the top executing well are seeing results while everyone else is just making noise. They’re putting in the work.

Responsive web sites

Take your existing website, change some code, and now everyone on any device can see your content easily formatted for them – PLUS search engines will fall in love with you and your traffic and conversions will skyrocket.

Reality Check: Responsive sites can be challenging to build and have unique design challenges of their own. Builders that are continuously testing and upgrading their site on a monthly or quarterly basis are seeing results, while those that simply flipped the switch aren’t seeing the kind of magical improvement in SEO they had hoped for. They have to keep improving it every week to see continued results. They’re putting in the work.

Online advertising

Create banners – even if they aren’t too pretty – and put them on every site you can think of. The more exposure, the more clicks you’ll get. Who doesn’t want more clicks?

Reality Check: How skeptical are you of banner advertising now? You should be! How many millions of dollars were wasted to get billions of clicks by people who had no true interest in the product? To do online advertising right in today’s world requires builders to look at exact targeting, truly relevant ads in multiple sizes that can take hours to build properly, and constant monitoring. They have to put in the work.

Online sales people

Promote your administrative assistant and tell him or her to answer emails quickly and you’ll get more appointments from all of your leads.

Reality Check: Implementing or growing an online sales program takes a lot of effort, and has a lot of different moving parts. Every part must be working in alignment with the others or the machine can break down. What you say matters – not just how fast you can say it, and there are critical habits to be developed by the front line and by managers. For those that put in the work – outrageous growth is in store. 

Here is the twist. You should be doing all of these things.

Don’t mistake my saying that these things are difficult to execute on as a recommendation not to do them.

“Don’t wish it was easier wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge wish for more wisdom.” – Jim Rohn

If it were easier – like a silver bullet – then everyone would do it. However if you focus instead on making you and the team around you better, then you can out execute your competition and win your unfair share of the market.

Almost a decade ago I created a daily checklist for myself to make sure I stayed focused on moving forward. Here’s a copy for you to start from to create your own.

Invent
What am I inventing today that will make tomorrow better?

Design
How does my design accentuate what’s really important?

Influence
Who will I influence today that will be a probable purchaser tomorrow?

Adapt
What am I doing to stay relevant and ahead of the curve – what risk am I taking?

Discard
What old, bad, or irrelevant habits or tactics am I discarding to make room for new ones?

Always keep pushing forward, and focus on excellence (but not perfection) before moving on to the next task.

Time to get to work.