The Diary Of An Internet Marketer

I hope you enjoyed part one of my story where I discussed my typical day as a part time internet marketer. If you have not read it, the link is here:

http://www.thediaryofaninternetmarketer.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-part-time-internet-marketer-alan-cheng/

Here is my typical day as a full-time internet marketer.

I decided to leave my office job on October 2007. It took me until February 2008 to finally have my last day with the company where all my colleagues wished me the best of luck. The next day I went to work in my own office.

It was a dream for me to have my own office and business. I’ve finally achieved it. Two months later, here is what my typical day of working as an internet marketer is like.

7am - Wake up, drink some water and go for a 15 minute run. I’m following a system called PACE where I can exercise in a short amount of time and lose weight quickly. Just what I need.

7:25am - Have a shower and healthy breakfast

8am - Plan my day using pen and paper. Put the tasks on my PDA.

8:15am - Read my emails. See what other people are promoting.

Marking down the ideas and any news in the internet marketing industry.

8:40am - leave the house

8:45-9:45am - Read an internet marketing ebook or any self development ebook during the bus ride on my PDA

9:50am - Arrive in office. Download the latest virus patches on my PC. Reply to any emails or MSN messages.

10:15am - Write to my blog

11am - Finish writing my article and submit it to directories and mail groups.

12pm - Work on a product. At the time being, I’ve just finished writing my ebook ‘Article Marketing Strategies’. It took me a full month writing it and setting up, preparing videos, getting testimonials etc…

It will be a lot easier next time, since I’ve written down all the steps I need for writing a book and releasing it. You can download a free copy at http://www.trafficbeast.com/ebook

1pm-2pm - Lunch (A relaxing one. Either with friends or old colleagues)

2pm - Work on a product. I switch off my mobile phone, MSN and emails for this session. I get a lot done during these 2 hours.

4pm - Build relationships. Either MSN, Skype or forums.

4:30pm - Buying traffic. Either pay per click, SEO or social media.

5pm - Studying. Watching videos, reading ebooks, information from membership sites etc… During this hour, I take notes on everything. For any ideas which I have from this reading, I put it in an ‘Ideas’ folder on my computer for later use.

6pm - Get the bus home. During this time, I write down ideas for blogs posts, articles and also continue to read any ebook on my PDA.

7:30pm - Dinner with the family.

8pm - Watching TV with the family. Making sure the show is suitable for the kids. Otherwise I’m going to get asked embarrassing questions!

8:30pm - Playing and speaking with wife and kids. This is my normal schedule. If you’ve read part one of this post, everything is the same until 10:10pm.

10:10pm - I only work for one hour after the kids have gone to bed. I have the living room to myself now. During this hour, I will check the statistics of my marketing, commissions and answer any emails.

11:15pm Speak with the wife. If she’s too tired I’ll read the Warriorforum on my PDA using WiFi. I normally fall asleep before midnight.

Bear in mind that I get a full 7 hours sleep since I’ve worked for myself. This is very important and I really hope everyone reading this will try and sleep more as well.

Since I’ve gotten more sleep and started doing some exercise, I find myself being more energetic and my brain is more active throughout the day. On the bus rides to and from home, I don’t fall asleep anymore while reading.

I can manage to focus for long periods of time and get a lot more done. I feel a lot happier and sharp.

On Saturday and Sundays, again I work for 2 hours each day. Normally I just think about the business, reply some emails, planning and building relationships with other internet marketers.

As you can see, my life is still not very exciting. This excludes Saturday and Sundays but that’s another story.

I have setup the routine above for all my weekdays however, I must stress that it changes depending on whether I have any projects on hand. As I mentioned, I was working on my ebook for the past month and the majority of the day was just spent on writing and studying.

Here you have it. The life of one internet marketer. You may notice that hard work is still much needed.

The major achievements I’ve had duing my full time as an internet marketer are:

- building my blog at http://www.trafficbeast.com  

- finished writing my free ebook ‘Article Marketing Strategies’

- wrote many articles

- built a lot of relationships with other internet marketers

- studied a lot of internet marketing products

- contacted a lot of friends I haven’t contacted before

- actually feel the freedom I have with the family and my life

At the moment I love what I am doing and I love my life. I thank God for providing me with such joy. However, if you notice, the life is completely different to what is advertised as the ‘internet marketing lifestyle’. Believe me. Hard work is required to succeed. Don’t believe in easy, set and forget systems.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my life as much as I enjoyed writing it. I know it’s probably not what you expected from a full time internet marketer but perhaps this is a wake up call for you to start working hard and build your own business.

Alan Cheng
Owner, Traffic Beast
http://www.trafficbeast.com  

I am going to talk about 2 different phases of my typical day in internet marketing.
One is how I spend my day on internet marketing when I had my full time job.
The second part is when I finally left my office job and did full time internet marketing in February of this year.

Part-Time Internet Marketer

I worked full time for many industries as an IT Manager. Investment banks, construction industry and the garment industry. Basically I needed to leave the house at 8am and return at 7pm.

Here’s my typical day.

7:30am - get out of bed and have a cup of coffee to wake myself up.
8:10am – during the 50 min. bus ride to work, I get my PDA out and plan on what I need to do for the day (this is regarding my internet marketing business of course). Sometimes I read an ebook using by PDA as well. It depends on the mood I’m in.
9:05am – have breakfast by myself and writing down any ideas I have for writing articles and marketing. I truly believe in article marketing so I spend a lot of time writing.
9:30 – 6pm – During office work, I take a few moments checking emails and submitting articles when I have the chance. Adds up to about 30 minutes per day. Wish I can do more but work is hectic.
6:30pm – During the one hour and 10 mins bus ride home (heavy traffic), I write an article using my PDA (it’s a Dopod 810. Can’t live without it).
7:45pm – Have dinner with my family.
8:15pm – Switch off the television. Talk and play with the kids.
9:30pm – Read bedtime story to my daughter.
9:40pm – Watch TV in the living room while my son goes on youtube with my laptop. My wife is in my daughter’s room reading and talking about her day etc…
10:pm – Read bedtime story to my son
10:10pm – My internet marketing work begins. I normally work 2 hours unless something disastrous happens.
- finish writing the article on my PDA (10 mins)
- Submit my articles to directories and publishers (15 mins)
- searching for affiliate products to recommend (15 mins)
- read my emails on the tons of internet marketers’ emails I have sign up for (30 mins)
- write content for my website or drive traffic to my website (30 mins)
- check my affiliate stats, adsense reports, update my expense report etc… (15 mins)

Midnight – Speak to my wife if she’s still awake for about 10 minutes.
12:10am – Read the Warriorforum using my PDA noting down any ideas I have.
1am – Falling asleep

On Saturday and Sundays, I work about 2 hours a days as well. I love my family life. My kids are still very young so I’m not going to miss any part of their lives.

About once very two months, I will stay in a cheap hotel with wifi and lock myself in the room for 7 hours. Either writing a salesletter, ebook or reports. I find these 7 hours to be very productive. No phone calls, no MSN and I don’t read any emails.

That’s it. Not very attractive I know. But it’s the sacrifice I made so that I can have my own business which I finally achieved.

What I would like to say is, there is no excuse for not having enough time to spend on your internet marketing. You have to make sacrifices. I’ve made lots during the last 4 years.

My sacrifices include:
- not able to watch TV shows
- not going out with friends as much as I want to
- no time to read fictional books which I love
- no doing as much exercise as I should
- etc…

Life was not very exciting at the time. This is why I prefer to keep Saturday and Sunday free. It’s time for me to relax and enjoy. Otherwise I’ll burn myself out.

In part 2 tomorrow, I’ll talk about my full day as an internet marketer. You’ll be surprised at the difference.

http://trafficbeast.com/