Do you remember “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”?  This was a cartoon classic in 1966. In it Linus believes that the Great Pumpkin will visit his pumpkin patch on Halloween night.  The Great Pumpkin is flying over all the pumpkin patches searching for the one to reward with treats.

Linus is convinced that the Great Pumpkin will come to his pumpkin patch, and convinces Sally to join him.

Linus and Sally spend the night at the pumpkin patch waiting for the arrival. Linus and Sally are still in the pumpkin patch, when Linus sees a shadowy figure rising from the moonlit patch, he assumes the Great Pumpkin is there and he faints.

Sally sees that it is only Snoopy.

When Linus wakes, Sally yells at him for making her miss the Halloween festivities when she could have been out for trick or treating.
She says, “You kept me up all night waiting for the Great Pumpkin.”

Charlie Brown and the others come to get her. As they leave, Linus, still convinced that the Great Pumpkin will materialize,
promises to put in a good word for them “if he comes.”

The next morning, Charlie Brown attempts to console Linus. But, Linus vows that the Great Pumpkin will come to the pumpkin patch next year.

WOW! What a story.

But we internet marketers are doing the same thing as Linus when we buy shiny object after shiny object. It’s called “shiny object syndrome.”

You buy a product and hope the money will magically appear. (Where we just dip our hand into the Great Pumpkin and pull out a fistful of money.)

Then when that doesn’t work because we haven’t worked at it.  We buy another product that promises bigger and better results. Facebook didn’t work so now I will try YouTube or Instagram or Pinterest.

Your computer is loaded with courses (shiny objects) you haven’t even looked at. You are waiting for that magical one to appear and make you rich without lifting a finger.

If you are on some internet marketer’s list you get bombarded with email after email each promising that your income will skyrocket in mere hours, not days, weeks or months. They make it look so easy and effortless.  You never take action because the next great thing is in your inbox and you have to have it.

What can you do to become successful in internet marketing and avoid falling for all the hype?

First unsubscribe from all the internet marketing emails. (Yes, you can do that.)

Don’t watch webinars. They make it look so easy and effortless. But will it appear that way 2 days later? Believe it or not the same webinar offer will become available again.  So put it off for now.

Then pick one thing you are going to do to make money and stick to it.

Decide if you want to sell a service, become an affiliate marketer, sell your own product, publish on Amazon, do e-commerce, or become a coach, whatever it is.

So once you decide what it is you want to do, work it.  Become an expert at it until you are making money. Make it work. Pick that one thing and become a success at it. Commit to it.

Whatever you decide on, you will have to get traffic to your offer or service.  Become an expert at one or two traffic sources.  Don’t go from one to another to another. If you decide to go for paid traffic don’t jump from Google ads to Facebook ads to YouTube to Instagram ads. Pick one and become so good at it that you can eventually teach it to others.

You don’t want to be a jack of all trades and master of none. If you are switching focus all the time you never get good at one thing.  And if you are good at that one thing you become an influencer, a market leader.  And the market leaders are the ones who reap the rewards.

If by some chance the next offer you receive is just what you’ve been looking for, pause before you buy it.   Sleep on it.  Ask yourself if this fits into your goal of making money.   Will you absolutely use it? Can you make your money back?  If you buy a $1997 affiliate offer, it will take a lot of effort to get your money back.

Learn to see past the hype.  When a new offer comes out everyone is promoting it and of course the reviews are great since the reviewers are selling the product. You see it everywhere.  Don’t let the hype draw you in.

The Great Pumpkin is not coming to you.  You have to get out of the pumpkin patch and go after what you want. Stop chasing the next best thing and wasting money. Avoid shiny object syndrome.