So you sign up to an Internet marketer’s email list… perhaps on the promise of a free video, report or email course… or maybe because you bought something from them… and lo-and-behold they start emailing you marketing offer after marketing offer. Emails asking you to buy this and buy that. Sent to you every few days. Maybe even once or a few times in ONE day.

So, is sending all these email offers to you perfectly okay… or have they crossed some kind of line?

Think you know what business you’re in? Think again. According to marketing gurus such as Dan Kennedy and Australia’s Mal Emery, an accountant is not in the accounting business and a life coach is not in the coaching business. They – and, in fact, all of us – are in the marketing business. Or, at least, we should be.

This reminds me of one of my first jobs. Back in the late 90s I joined the graduate marketing program at Uncle Ben’s of Australia. Uncle Ben’s is now known as Mars Australia and is part of the Mars, Incorporated group of companies. Among other things, Mars sold – and continues to sell – the leading pet food brands in Australia, including Pedigree, Whiskas, Chum and Dine.

TechCrunch is arguably the leading blog focused on Internet technologies and technology companies. For that reason, many Internet startups dream of getting their company and/or technology profiled – or at least mentioned – in TechCrunch. Here, according to TechCrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis, is THE key for getting on TechCrunch:

What would you do if you sold a great how-to info product for a modest sum, started a low-cost membership program based on that product, and then one of your students – a so-called ‘guru’ – promotes a product based on yours for many times the price, bases his sales pitch on yours AND claims in public that his product came from paying a mystery man thousands of dollars in fees?

Well, this is what E. Brian Rose says happened to him after he published his highly successful ebook, ‘Google News: Your Untapped Source for High Paying Keyword Traffic’.

Are you desperate to know how the most successful Internet marketers are making the big bucks online? Eager to learn the latest, most cutting-edge Internet marketing strategies for generating traffic, list building and increasing conversions?

Good news: their secrets are all around you and the first step to discovering these secrets is to look beyond the how-to Internet marketing niche.

I’m the first to admit that the top Internet marketers in the how-to Internet marketing niche are among the most innovative when it comes to selling information products. People like product launch guru, Jeff Walker, and ‘video boss’, Andy Jenkins, come to mind.

Heard any of these dangerous myths lately? It takes money to make money. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Ready, fire, aim… not ready, aim, fire. Entrepreneurs are born, not made. Buy into any of these and other generalizations at your peril!

I’ll admit to spouting off some of these sayings myself. And doing so is not inherently harmful… as long as you remember that generalizations are, by their very nature, descriptive NOT prescriptive.

I recently posted an article distinguishing between three types of Internet business owners: part-timers, lifestyle entrepreneurs and company builders. Just to make something clear though: part-timers are not dabblers… and dabblers are not business owners.

As a part-timer, you may have limited hours and limited goals. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Many of us engage in part-time ventures of one kind or another, whether it’s writing a novel, participating in the local theater group, gardening, or pursuing any other activity on a regular basis.

An Internet business is one of the cheapest, most accessible businesses to start. Not only is it relatively cheap to put up a website and start promoting or selling something, but there is a wealth of free information on the Internet to guide you in doing so.

Just search on the Kikabink News Internet marketing blog and you’ll find tons of free articles on everything from affiliate marketing, to mobile marketing, to search marketing, to online video, to you name it.

If you subscribe to a lot of mailing lists in the how-to Internet marketing niche you’ve probably noticed that a lot of marketers frequently promote their competition. Why do Internet marketers promote their competitors… and should you be promoting the competitors in YOUR niche?

If you’re interested in developing a software product, today’s I Love Internet Marketing podcast is a must-listen. In the podcast I explain 7 key lessons we at Kikabink have learned in the course of developing our just-released domain name investment platform, Domainer Income.