I Am Not A Golfing Instructor, But I Played One On The Internet
Sunday, January 31st, 2010Guest Post: By Bill Platt
I will be honest with you. Until two days ago, the only thing that I knew about golf is that I used to play miniature golf at the local Putt-Putt Miniature Golf Center, a couple times a week during the summer, when I was in my teens.
I have a unique job, as a professional article ghostwriter, which forces me to do research on topics that I may not normally be interested in learning. Certainly, golf was one of those topics I thought I would never learn about in my life.
If I were to ever retire, I might reconsider my position on golf. But at this time, I cannot foresee a day when I might consider golf and activity that I would consider fun or worthwhile. I figure that if I have not taken up golf by now, at the age of 44, then chances are pretty slim that I would ever consider taking up that sport.
Typically, I try to talk people out of hiring me as their personal and private ghostwriter. I do that because I know that most people can find writers, who are willing to work for much less money, than I charge my customers for ghostwriting.
I charge people a much higher rate for writing, than 90% of the available writers on the Internet. I charge a much higher-rate for ghostwriting than most people, for a number of reasons:
1. I spend more time developing and editing one article, than most writers will spend writing 5 to 10 articles.
2. I know the value of the articles that I create. Many of my customers have told me that articles I created for them helped them to deliver thousands of new prospects to their websites and generate thousands of dollars in new revenues.
3. I value my own time. Through years of experience, I have learned that I have a limited number of hours in every workweek. If I take on too much writing work, then I run the risk of limiting my earnings potential, by filling my workweek with so much writing that I will not have time to do anything else – limiting my income to the number of hours I can work in one week.
4. People are willing to pay my rates to hire me to write their articles. When you produce a great product and people know it, they are willing to pay you whatever rate you require. If you can get higher rates for your work, then why wouldn’t you?
When I find people, who are willing to pay my rates to have me write an article for them, I am hard pressed to tell people, no.
But occasionally, I do tell people no. If someone asks me to write an article that I do not feel comfortable writing, I will let him or her know what my reservations are, and I will refund their money.
So last night, when I opened the ghostwriting job order and I saw that someone had paid me to write an article, offering tips for playing a better game of golf, I hesitated.
When confronted with such a job request, I will usually take at least 20 to 30 minutes to decide if there is enough information available online to help me write a good article on the topic.
I scanned a half dozen websites, chock-full of golfing tips, trying to get my head around the topic. Then, I remembered having heard people talk about golfing fundamentals. I realized, at that moment, that it would do me well to ghostwrite an article that discussed the fundamentals of golfing.
I turned to Google to point the way to information about the fundamentals of golfing. When doing research of this type, for an article, I prefer digging deeper into the search results to find resources that most people are not using.
During my research, I discovered a golf instructor, who has written a book on the fundamentals of golfing and has posted his book on his website. When I arrived at the http://www.ceegolf.com/ and read the last nine pages of his book, I realized that I could learn a lot from this man. Casey Eberting rocked my world.
I continued to his FAQs page and started reading. Halfway through the page, I realized that maybe I missed other important information on his website. Upon going to his home page, I realized that I had entered his site near the end of chapter 7 of his book and that the first seven chapters were also online.
Casey Eberting taught me everything I needed to know to play a golfing instructor online. But Casey taught me more than that…
Just as Sun Tzu’s book, “The Art Of War”, could teach a multitude of business lessons to the average Joe and MBA students at some of the finest colleges in the world, from within the pages of a book about the strategy of war, Casey taught me that a lot of business and marketing principles could be learned from a man committed to teaching people how to play golf.
Chapter 1 Page 1
The most common mistake made by new and experienced golfers is blocking. Blocking is a process where, when the golfer swings at the ball, the golfers’ body interferes with the fluid motion of the swing.
Rather than trying to eliminate the block, most golfers attempt to manipulate the club during the process of the swing. The manipulations permit the golfer to try to correct for the adverse effects, caused by the block.
The most common mistake made by online business people is to begin the process, with a flawed business model or marketing model. Rather than correcting the business model or marketing model, most business owners attempt to correct other perceived problems.
For example, people will set up pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns to advertise their website. People will often notice that although the PPC campaign is generating clicks and traffic to their website, they are not generating enough sales to justify their continued spending. Frequently, marketers will try a new set of keywords, a new PPC ad, or a different search engine for their advertising. Often, they will make these changes and wonder why they are not getting any traction in the marketplace.
The crazy thing is that marketers will change a dozen different factors, in an effort to turn a profit. Yet, most will not test or consider the efficiency and effectiveness of their own website. It could very well be that the sales copy sucks. It could also be that the sales copy is good, but the shopping cart sucks. It could also be that the sales copy is good, as is the shopping cart, but the price is wrong.
Rather than going back to the beginning and correcting the real problem, golfers and marketers will try to compensate for those things that they are doing badly.
Chapter 2 Page 2
Ben Hogan credited the perfecting of his swing plane, as the reason for his success. By perfecting the swing plane, Hogan successfully removed blocking from his game. But, it took Hogan nine years in the PGA to master his swing plane.
Golfers, who have not mastered the concept of the swing plane, must learn to make corrections to compensate for their bad technique (by manipulating individual elements of the swing). So long as the golfer relies upon manipulation to correct individual elements of the swing, the golfer will always require perfect timing and coordination to execute flawlessly.
Unfortunately, perfect timing and coordination are more difficult to master than a correct swing plane. The reliance of the golfer on perfect timing creates a situation where the golfer’s game is inconsistent at best, since few people have perfect timing at all times.
Online business owners and marketers, who do not structure and master their business processes, tend to produce inconsistent results. So long as a business owner continues to rely upon perfect timing and coordination, the business will continue to produce inconsistent results.
Chapter 3 Page 1
Ben Hogan once said that he did not teach, because he “couldn’t find anybody who wanted to learn.” A writer for Golf Digest said the Hogan was wrong, but Casey insists that he was not.
Casey suggested that what Ben Hogan really meant was that most golfers are not willing to “go the distance”. He explained that when the golfer learns a new technique; golfers are generally unwilling to work through the awkwardness and the uncomfortable feelings of the learning process.
Casey noted that the National Golf Foundation said that the average golfer stopped improving after only three years of play. Casey stated that he believes the reason for this is that people are unwilling to put in the practice time and to work through the frustration of doing something new.
Online marketers exhibit the same tendencies. Most online marketers will take on a new product or opportunity; work it hard for about two weeks, and then move on to the next flavor of the week. After a year, most online marketers will have attempted more than two-dozen business opportunities, but never settled on one long enough to see it through to success.
Chapter 5 Page 2
Casey Eberting teaches that most golfers prefer the Band-Aid approach to golf instruction. He calls it Band-Aid instruction, because people prefer to treat the symptoms, rather than the problems.
Most golfing instructors teach Band-Aid golf lessons, frankly, because they understand that is what their customers want. People want immediate results, but if instructors were to teach better style, it could take up to three months before the golf student would see the real benefits of the lessons.
Online business owners and marketers also seek Band-Aid solutions for their businesses. People want to see immediate results from their actions. That is why Google Adwords produced $21 billion in advertising revenue for Google in 2008.
That is also why online business owners and marketers shy away from investments in article marketing and SEO. Both article marketing and SEO have the potential to generate substantial long-term, free traffic, for those people who utilize these advertising techniques. But, neither of these advertising methods will produce overnight success.
In Conclusion
I am not a golfer, and I never will be… But I play one on the Internet… When I am called on to do so as a ghostwriter…
When I have good research materials, I can successfully pretend to be anyone I want to be, and the people who read my articles will not be able to spot me as an imitator.
My client, who hired me to ghostwrite an article about golfing, is selling a book about how to improve your golf swing… He is the professional, and I am the imitator… When he read what I had written for him, my client said in essence, “Fantastic job. I am very satisfied. Well done.”
But the reason that I wrote this article this evening, is because I wanted to share with you an incredible resource that I found for people who are intent to improve their golfing game… Casey Eberting operates the San Antonio CE golf schools, located online at: http://www.cegolf.com/
If you own an online business or you work as an online marketer, even if you do not play golf, I suspect that you might be able to learn a thing or two about how to be more successful, by reading Eberting’s book on his website.
The analogies that I saw in Casey Eberting’s book, which could be directly tied to your online business, were far more numerous than I could possibly detail in this article. Give yourself a couple of hours and grab a cup of coffee… And see if you agree that his book could potentially be one of the best books you have read about operating an online business – even if it has nothing to do with operating a business…
My name is Bill Platt. If you enjoyed this article and found it useful, then you will love my newest ebook titled, “How To Use Article Marketing To Positively Impact Your SEO Efforts”. It is 70-pages of hard-hitting information about how to make your article marketing truly profitable: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-seo.html Learn about my ghost writing services here: http://thephantomwriters.com/x.pl/tpw/info/ghost-writing/purchase.html
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