4.1 Winter Is Coming — Preparing for Website Setup and Design

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WARNING: Goo-roo’s ain’t gonna like this

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In this video I discuss:

  • This is where the difficulty really begins for most people, but why that shouldn’t matter
  • A reminder of why all of this will ultimately be worth it
  • The mentality you need to weather this industry and succeed

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4.1 Transcript Below

Hey there! Long time, no see!

Once again, another day, another section. It’s time to get in and we’re talking about website building now. So we’re getting into some pretty serious stuff. This is kind of the very tangible and noticeable starting point for your business – like its birthday.

As soon as you get a website up, it all becomes very real. It can be a very challenging thing, but as always, I’m going to make very clear what you should expect. I’m going to do my best to help you temper a mentality that is going to set you up for success very well as you encounter some of these challenges. And most importantly, I’m going to put together some training. I’ve already put together some training that we’re going to go through together that I think sets you up for success better than anything else on the internet talking about this stuff.

So with all of that being said, I named this first lesson in this section “Winter Is Coming” which of course anybody from Game of Thrones will get… anybody that’s an actor in Game of Thrones will get that… anybody that’s a fan of Game of Thrones will get that. For the rest of you, it just basically means prepare for battle like things are about to get hard potentially and I’m about to equip you with everything you need to go into that battle. So don’t freak out. We’re going to start off by talking a little bit about what to expect and we’ll go from here. And we’ll get into actual like screen sharing and step-by-step – all that stuff – is going to kick off in this section.

So the important thing to know and keep in mind… The best mindset to have as you’re going into building a website – particularly if it’s your first time but even if you’ve never built a profitable full-time or part-time niche site – it’s really important to have the mentality of “I know this is going to be challenging. I know I’m going to encounter stuff that makes me angry, that frustrates me, but at the end of the day, it’s 100% necessary.”

Something for whatever reason is floating around in small pockets of people pursuing an internet business, they ask, “Can I make money without a website? Can I make money online without a website?” And the answer is, frankly, hell no! There may be ways where you can piece together inconsistent income, posting like to Craigslist and stuff like that, but even those businesses most of the time – the vast majority of the time – are highly dependent on having a website at its core.

So the best way I can think to explain it to people is trying to run an internet business without a website is like trying to run a brick and mortar store selling things out of the trunk of your car. Like you’re just set up so much better for success if you learn to build a website if it’s not 100% required – which I’m kind of in the mentality that it is but I know that there are exceptions and someone may come along and, “Oh! There’s this one guy that in a case study he didn’t have a website.” Like fine. And whatever. YouTube channels, all that stuff – everything works better, everything is simplified, everything is more in your control and you are more likely to succeed across the board if you’re operating a business online with a website.

So if that’s at all like a question floating around in your mind, the answer’s no. From me, the answer is no.

As I mentioned, there are going to be a lot of challenges ahead but this kind of big amorphous blob that may be so intimidating is what stands between you and your dream business, right? This is an essential step and this is some of the hardest stuff that we’re covering here. Everything from here out will probably not be remotely as technically challenging from here to when you’re making money. This is the technical stuff. This is the stuff that people are afraid of. But again, I’m going to walk you through it step-by-step, tell you exactly what to expect, and I’m going to walk you through everything on screen.

So there’s really nothing to be afraid of here. Just know that this obstacle that some of you may be very intimidated by is the most technical thing that’s standing between you and a successful internet marketing business of your dreams that you can travel with, that produces more income than you may be able to produce in the workforce, and et cetera. So it’s important to keep that in mind.

Also, this is what stands between you and a better future. A better future not only for yourself. But I know a lot of people are very motivated because they want to provide a better future for their families. This is you know… you just got to like rip it off like a Band-Aid. You know it’s going to sting but you got to go through it.

And the good news is you only have to learn a lot of this once. Also, a very important thing to realize as you go into this, there will be things that you encounter and you’re going to have to study them on your own. You’re just going to have to Google them and figure it out. But the good news is you only have to figure it out once because from then on, you’re going to know how to overcome that. And over time, you do that more and more and you see the amount of time you’re researching things go down and your productivity obviously goes way up.

So sometimes, you’ll be making slow progress; but just realize you make the slowest progress the first time you do it. And from then on – especially if you’re teaching yourself these skills as you go – it’s going to be easier and easier and easier until it’s almost second nature.

Another thing that I’ve mentioned in a previous video is it’s very important to have the mentality and realize even what feels like wasted time is not wasted. If you feel like you spent two or three or four hours just trying to troubleshoot this one problem and you finally get it and you think, “Oh God, I wasted three hours… I wasted four hours doing that.” It’s not a waste because you just tucked away something else in your arsenal that prepares you better for the same problem – the same challenge – down the road and it’s very, very important to remember that.

So the best way I can set you up for success here is to really emphasize that you need to have an independent mentality to succeed in this industry and this is the point where you are going to have to exercise that and practice that the most.

At the end of the day, there are millions of website owners online and a lot of them are using the same tools and going through a lot of the same challenges as you are. Not everybody that owns a website is a pro. I mean, I’ve been doing this now for over 10 years and I still don’t know how to edit code very well. I can still – very possibly – break my website when I edit code. So you’re looking at a guy that is not technical at all. I hire developers for that stuff or I just figure out a way to work around it and I’ve found a lot of ways to work around it over the years.

It’s just so important… you know, I was having a conversation with my wife recently – actually, just yesterday as I’m recording this video – because again, she’s starting her own internet business and she has a tendency as she’s getting started to interrupt over and over again throughout the day and say, “Oh how do I do this? How do I do this? Okay I did this what do I do next? Okay, after I do these things, what do I do next?”

It came down to a point where we had to have a conversation because it was interrupting my workflow. I’m trying to put together this just like massive amount of training, and then on top of that, I’m running my other businesses and managing team members. And I just couldn’t afford to deal with those interruptions over and over again so we had a conversation yesterday.

And I had said at one point like you’ve just got to figure it out like everyone else that runs an internet business, that tries to start and internet business. You’ve just got to figure it out. It’s what stands between you and success. And at the same time I can tell her a lot of what to do, but again, it comes back to the analogy: I want her to learn to fish. I don’t want to hand her the fish. Because then, she’s dependent on me for her whole business and that’s not sustainable for my business or for hers.

So we had to talk about it and she said, “I apologize. It wasn’t my default thinking basically to go out and research it before I asked about it. And now that it is, I know to do that.” And I have no problem if she researches at first and she can’t find the answers, she comes to me. That’s what I’m here for, right? She’s my wife. I frickin’ better be there for her when it comes to situations like that.

But I say that because it’s a very real thing and it made me realize other people are going to face this exact same challenge. And I had never even thought because I’ve had to be in research-first-ask-questions-later mode for years now. I had never even thought that someone’s thinking could default to “Oh I’m going to ask someone.” Because again, there are millions of people out there that have encountered… probably hundreds if not thousands of them… have encountered a lot of the issues that you’re going to encounter and a lot of the challenges and they’ve posted about it online and people that are more experienced have come and asked them.

So you just have to use the resources at your fingertips. Try and Google it first, use multiple search terms if it doesn’t turn up immediately – just do the best you can. And if you find yourself researching and researching for an hour and an hour and a half you still can’t find the answer, then post to the Facebook group. Again, as always, it’s free for registered members here and that’s what the community is there for.

So I really want to emphasize: you need to step into a very serious mindset of “I am on my own”. And I don’t say that in a bad way because you have to hit that point of independence to succeed in this industry flat out. Nobody succeeds in this industry just expecting to have their hand held every step of the way. It just doesn’t happen. You have to have a self-seeking, independent mentality to build a profitable internet business. Period.

So I’ll stop harping on this on this but it’s so, so, so important and I want to speak to this next point.

If you ask somewhat of a basic question in the community – you know, the Facebook page – or you email me, either me or another community member in the Facebook page says, “Hey, go Google that,” or “Hey, search the Facebook group,” don’t be offended by that because these things are out there for you to find. It’s your job to get in the mentality of seeking them out. Now for more advanced stuff, that’s totally called for to ask for help. But again, that’s what the community is there for.

But just keep this in mind: if you ask a fairly basic question, someone says, “Hey, just Google that,” or “Hey, search the Facebook group for that,” (and myself included) please don’t be offended by that. If we answer the same questions over and over and over again, nobody would ever get anything else done.

So it’s just essential that you hit this point. You know, I’ve said that a billion times now so I’m going to stop saying it but I can’t overemphasize it. I really can’t. It doesn’t set you up for success any other way than if you establish a very independent self-seeking, I’m-going-to-help-myself mentality.

So like I said, this is the most common place… as we enter into building a website… this is the most common place that people fall into that “hand-holding” trap. Like, “Oh, I just need someone to hold my hand!” No, you don’t. None of us had someone to hold our hand for all this stuff and we found a way to success and it is up to you to do the same.

There’s a lot of information out there, so again, the community is here to help as much as we can. But when it comes to really basic stuff, basically you just have to – if you encounter a problem – Google first. Google first, try to find an answer yourself, and then move on and ask the community if you can’t find an answer.

I’ve said this over and over again so I’m not going to say it again: just establish an independent mindset. You will find… and I don’t mean this in an offensive way… you will find that the quickest way to my bad side is to email me – especially repeatedly – with really basic questions that you could just Google.

Because again, I have a very strong passion about helping people. Please don’t mistake what I’m saying now to mean anything contrary to that. But I’m building a business, right? I’m running businesses, I’m running teams. For someone to send me an email to say, “Hey, how do I change this thing on my name servers?” (if that doesn’t make sense to you, we’ll talk about it later in this section) when it’s a really simple thing to Google, that just shows like it’s a matter of respect. Like I’m in the trenches with you, I’m trying to build a business, my time is very valuable. Like I don’t mind helping for really kind of specific difficult things. And again, that’s what the Facebook community’s for here at Free Internet Marketing Project. That’s why I check into the Facebook community and chime in and answer questions.

But at the end of the day, it’s not only the quickest way to my bad side, I think it’s the quickest way to a lot of experienced internet marketers’ bad side. It’s just a pet peeve, because again, none of us had that. So I think for anyone to fall into that mentality of like “I need to have my hand held” comes off to… even if it’s not the intention of the person on the giving end of those questions… to the person on the receiving end a lot of the time it comes off across as a sense of entitlement and a disrespect for that person’s time.

So anyways, I say all of that… again, winter is coming… I’ve harped on that enough… I say all of that to say fasten your seatbelt because it’s probably going to be a bumpy ride as we go through and we do a lot of the technical stuff for building a website. But this is it. Again, this is kind of the birth place of your business. This is where everything starts to get really tangible and exciting.

And yes, there are going to be some challenges but they are all totally surmountable and you can do this, okay? You just have to have the right mentality, you have to keep pressing forward no matter what, you have to learn from your mistakes, and eventually before you know it, if you keep the effort going, you’re going to have a profitable internet business.

So we’re going to dig in and start talking about how to find a domain name, we’re going to talk about where to get hosting, what makes a good domain name, how to connect your domain name to your hosting account, how to set up your website, install WordPress, what to look for in a WordPress theme – all that crap is covered in this section.

So it’s going to be a big one but it’s also going to be super helpful and it’s going to turn a big corner. Whereas up to this point we’ve talked about a lot of theory, we’ve gone through a lot of slideshows, this is when you’re going to start doing work and you’re going to have a really tangible output by the end of this section. So I’m excited for it. I hope you’re excited for it.

As always, if you have questions, feel free to post them in the Facebook group, alright? I guess research first and then post them in the Facebook group if you still can’t find the answer. And I will see you there and I will also see you in Lesson 4.2.


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