Don’t Have Support System? Create One Yourself!

Sometimes… some days you just need a little extra support. You need someone to talk to when everyone else you know is giving you grief over this whole make money online thing, or when you’re trying to get this site up but you’re suddenly getting some crazy error message, or when you are doubting whether the internet marketing strategy you’ve chosen is going to work… you get the point. There are many times and many days when you could use some support in this business.

How much support do you have?

Many times family members are not supportive. I know there’s not one person locally who would know what  I was talking about if I said my maxblogpress optin adder plugin is giving me an error at the database, or even if I said I couldn’t find the address to use FTP.

How about you?

It’s hard to be out there in front of your computer, by yourself day after day, finding the strength to keep going and the determination to stick with it when you don’t get a little positive feedback, a little encouragement, a place to get the answers to the nit picky little things that can grind a thus far productive day to a perfect standstill.

Where do you find support?

Forums.

Plain and simple it’s always been the place I’ve been able to meet and connect with like minded people and find support. When I look for a “forum” I really am looking for a community. A community of like minded individuals who are friendly and welcoming and don’t get exasperated by “newbie” questions ~ no matter what the topic.

When I first started out online the first community I found was TheGreatestNetworker.com. It was owned by John Milton Fogg ~ it was a fantastic community. At the time I was doing network marketing and there were a lot of network marketers there. What I really loved about that community was it wasn’t really about the work ~ it was about law of attraction, personal development, making myself a better person, and the people. That’s where I met my dearest online friend Mary K. We’ve known one another going on 8 or 9 years now, we’ve met in person and talk daily. I don’t even have “real life” friends like that!

That community led me to Powerful Intentions where I continued to grow and learn and build all the pieces in me that needed building. It’s also where I met some other fantastic people that I still call my friends ~ you can meet a lot of them if you run through my friends list over at Facebook!

Who cares?

I get it … what the heck does this have to do with building sites, and internet marketing? Let me tell you.

Those communities and the people I’ve met within them have helped me create my business, my way. If I hadn’t had the support from the people there, I would have quit many times I’m quite sure. They help me look at what’s working in my business instead of letting me wallow in “oh man this is never gonna work”, they give me a good kick in the pants when necessary and help me get back on the right track.

While I don’t spend much time in those forums anymore the relationships I created there have come with me. I have since started spending more time in forums that will help me directly with my business. That’s right internet marketing forums.

I tell you it’s really HARD to find a place that feels like a community out there in the internet marketing world. I have spent time in the Warrior forum, but it’s pretty intimidating ~ you can get your head chewed off and handed to you on a platter if you’re not careful there. There is also so much misinformation that I just never knew what to believe and if someone knew something worked or they had heard it from a blog who heard it from another forum that they thought it might work. Believe me, the WF is somewhere I really wish I could spend more time ~ it would probably be great for my traffic numbers if I could get in there and duke it out ~ I mean that place is HUGE! It’s just not something I can do though.

I’ve spent time over at Wealthy Affiliate too. The forum over there is pretty big and active and I found myself getting lost in all of it. Spending hours and hours searching and conversing without really getting any work done. I don’t know, that was a couple years ago so maybe I am in a different mental state now ~ and it could work for me, but information overload is still something I struggle with.

There are many other forums and I’ve been to most of them I tell you. I opted in to the Problogger.com forum. YIKES. I was expecting a pretty friendly community but that is not what I found. I paid for a month but only stayed around a day.

So where do I hang out to get support and information for internet marketing? Only one place these days.

Lynn Terry’s Self Starter’s Weekly Tips forum.

I found it a few months ago and started hanging out there off and on. I found some really friendly people there. People who were supportive and friendly and willing to help out.

Lynn offers many cool things within the forum. Here’s just a few things:

Weekly brainstorming webinars ~ brainstorm with some very successful marketers  each Tuesday at noon.

Freelance job board ~ whether you’re looking to work or to hire someone

An active and helpful forum ~ whether you have a quick question or need support you’ll find it in the SSWT forum.

That all comes for free!

The other thing that Lynn offers is the Elite Membership. This membership allows you to enter the private forum area where there is some really great brainstorming going on. There are case studies people are working on, people asking questions about just about every part of internet marketing ~ and getting real help and feedback.

Lynn also gives Elite members a monthly “challenge” which has ALREADY helped me move my business forward and tackle some of the goals I had for this year.

I love being able to be open about my business ~ which is more difficult on other forums. I like to be able to ask specific questions about what I’m doing, and how I could do it better. I love being able to partner with people ~ whether it’s for guest posts or product launches ~ I find all of that in the Elite forum.

The Elite Forum is a monthly fee of $27. It has paid for itself already time and time again for me. But it’s an add on ~ if you don’t want to do the elite forum, don’t worry ~ you’ll find TONS and TONS of helpful stuff in the free forum.

Lynn is there quite often and takes an active roll in answering people’s questions as well as the other members of the forum are there to help as well.

That’s one other thing I particularly like about this forum as apposed to some others is this:

It’s run by Lynn Terry. I like her. I trust her. I know she walks the walk, and doesn’t just talk the talk. She monitors the forum, so you know the people and information are going to be up to Lynn Terry standards, and that means something to me.

I hope you stop by and say hi ~ feel free to ask questions and participate in the conversation. (Don’t forget to add a signature to your profile so people can take a look at your site! I get quite a bit of good traffic this way ~ but make sure you are contributing to the conversation!)

Head on over now and say hi!