According to a Merrill Lynch report published in and around 2008 (you’ll forgive me for not knowing the exact date), there had been 8,364 internet millionaires created to date. That’s interesting, because it’s broadly our niche and, tastily, it could so easily be one of us next.

Today, we’ll take a light hearted look at the internet marketing (and general internet business) industry. It wont be heavy, I wont dazzle you with stats, but we’ll look at the type of irritating challenges that come with creating, running and growing your own online empire.

Before starting, let me tell you that in fact, setting up my own business was the most rewarding thing I have ever done, on multiple levels. It has been my baby. And, being a childless near middle aged man, it will be my legacy and footprint in this world of ours.

In case you don’t know all that much about me (and you probably dont), I’ve been online for about a decade now. The idea of owning my e-business first came to me about a decade ago, when I was working at about 10.47pm in my then rather hectic city job. I had finished off my umpteenth cup of dishwater coffee and I had a list of things to finish. Tomorrow, I would have to take the 6am train and repeat it all over again. As I sat there, momentarily paralyzed at how I could have wound up in the rat race at the age of 25, I remembered thinking, there’s got to be another way.

A better way. Where I can work hard when I need to, but also enjoy the nice things in life – fast cars, my own place, travel… without the intense workplace politics, and the hundred other chains and whipsaws that come with that dreadful 3 letter word…JOB.

That idea took seed in my mind. And do you know the most difficult thing to get rid of in the world? An idea. Ten years later, I have to say I’m in an industry that I like, doing a business I enjoy, working with clients who are a pleasure. Thanks to technology, I can wake up and head to a cafe for a couple of hours in the morning to do some work. I can work late when I need to (which is quite frankly, often) and when the situation allows, I can finish early and enjoy some time off. As long as you’re responsible, and you understand that clients come first…you’ll probably love being an internet entrepreneur, and do pretty well to boot.

Today, we’ll look at a few of the challenges and even toe-curlingly irritating issues that you have to get on top of when you choose this life.  Here are just some…and these may not always be covered in your standard marketing-101 ebooks. A couple are serious, others a tad bizarre…but you’ll encounter ALL if you hang on long enough.

- Motivation: What type of person are you? Can you *REALLY* work without the tyrany of a ruthless boss monitoring your every move? See, the idea of working in your PJs sounds pretty sweet, but when push comes to shove a lot of people discover that they just do not have the motivation or discipline to do it. When it’s a choice of watching Jeremy Kyle go head to head against a canabis smoking benefits cheat, or article re-writing…Jeremy Kyle wins more often than not. You need to be motivated in this industry, and be stern enough to stick to the tasks you need to complete. 

- Reading the pulse of your industry: Online, it all changes at the speed of light. Everything is fluid…from the best ways of generating new leads and traffic, to what it is exactly that clients WANT from your business. If you’re starting out from scratch, you’ll need to develop your skills, to be able to deliver what your clients need. If you’re an old pro, the process involves continually reassessing what they want, and adapting your business accordingly. Sometimes, we all get it wrong…and you need to have the strength of character to bounce back from it.

- Spammers. Sometimes, all you want to do is log into your various business emails and deal with relevant issues. But of course, instead you have to deal with all sorts of SPAM. Some have subjects that are tantalizingly genuine sounding, such as “please send download link” – which paints a picture of some distressed client who’s invested in a product but who has not been redirected to the download page and instead been stranded in the blankness cyberspace (probably because Paypal is having a momentarty strop). So you click, but it turns out some plucky little spammer is trying to promo his ebook instead. These wasted clicks and seconds soon all add up, until you wind up wanting to beat every spammer over the head with a baseball bat until the blood seeps through every imaginable oraface.

Here are some spam mails I’ve recently received:

* “I have a list of 50,000 lawyers that you can buy!”  (keep sending this to random people and you’re going to need them)

* “Make her erupt with pleasure”

And perhaps my favourite…

* “Genuine Rolex Fakes for £10″

- Form Filling & That Little Letter Verification Box. As an online professional, you’ll have to fill in a lot of FORMS. When you want to join an affiliate program, you need to fill out a form. When you join a giveaway, you have to fill out another form. Some are simple, some are more involved and you’ll need to verify your email address.

But, perhaps the most annoying is the letter verification tool that a lot of sites you’ll visit have. On the surface of it, it’s a good thing right? After all, the site owner is only trying to protect the site from thos scampy little auto robots getting through. The thing is (and it may just be me) most of my first (and often subsequent) tries end up being wrong. Because, the letters are always done in some weird squiggley writing which is impossible to identify. Is it an a or an unfinished 8? Is it a 0 or an O? It’s impossible to tell – and if you get it wrong, you’ll get penalized for it. Sometimes, when you screw it all up (which in my case is always) you’ll have to do the whole form again as a punishment. When you try again, the next series of letters is even harder to decode – this time, it appears to be just a random collection of shapes that look nothing like letters. And now, there are lines and circles criss crossing the shapes. Lightening seems to be attacking it. I mean for goodness sakes, you’re meant to fool the robots, not the humans. 

- Cats. Yes, cats. Here’s a tip for you. Do not, under any circumstances even think of having a home based business when you have a cat. My one seems hell bent on ruining my business. Ordinarily, he’s a great and incredibly personable little fellow. He loves affection, and will nibble your ear gently in the mornings when he’s hungry and it’s time to wake up. Give him some fresh prawns and he’ll purr loudly like a ferrari engine. Take him to the garden, and it’s a pleasure to watch him leap about, batting his paws at insects, and sniffing flowers energetically. However, let it be know to him that you’re trying to do something productive and he’ll bend over backwards to stop you. Over the last few weeks alone, he’s managed to ruin a crucial .txt document (he likes to sit on the laptop when you’re off to the kitchen to brew some tea), he’s attacked a potential JV partner, he’s stolen a dongle (still missing) and if you so much as dare to make a skype call or produce an audio/video he’ll scream like a maniac until you abort. So, think hard before getting a cat – having said that, I wouldn’t now change having him  around for the world

- “JV Giveaway Events” – A good way of adding new subscribers to your lists? Sure. What does perplex me is that all of them seem to feel they need some underlying theme. We’ve had the sweetheart event (Valentines day), events for every religious holiday, we’ve had the fathers day and mothers day events and birthday events. Do we as marketers really need to hold these events only when there’s a holiday or occassion of sort? And, when too many people start hosting their own giveaways and we run out of occassions, what will we see next? A move into increasingly bizarre life based events? Will we see “Menapause Madness”? Or “Midlife Crisis Extravaganza”? I certainly hope not.    

- Taxes & Accountants. Every year, I start looking at getting my dream car (in a realistic attainable sense). The Audi TT. It is a thing of beauty, and when you fancy a bit of speed and danger (ie overtaking little old grannies in their 1.2l Hyundai’s) there’s nothing quite like it.

The thing is, every year around about Christmas I start getting the itch – and I tell myself that yes, it can be done. Then, my accountant calls up and informs me in his robotic voice that we need to start talking about the accounts and the taxes to be filed. Now, in my business I pay taxes annually not monthly. It typically comes as one big nasty TT shattering shock, and it needs to be paid upfront in one whack. Then, you also have to pay the accountant a good 2k for his services. By the time it’s all done, your TT money has gone into the governments coffers.

On a serious note – you do need to take taxes and accounting seriously when you venture into online business. Because, you can get into serious trouble if you don’t.    

So there you have it – some random, strange and possibly neurotic things that I’ve stumbled over while running my own online business. But do you know what, weighed up against the fantastic things that my business has given back in return, these things are really nothing. And I wouldn’t change what I have for the world . If creating and running your own internet business appeals to you, I really could not recommend it enough.

If you’d like everything you need to create and run your internet business, all in one place then DRR Pro is just what you’re looking for.