As an entrepreneur and an Internet marketer you probably find yourself automatically thinking about how other businesses run and how they do their marketing.

Whether you’re visiting someone’s website or visiting the hairdresser, you’ll instinctively think about what they’re doing right, what they’re doing wrong and how you’d do things if you were in charge.

I’ve always loved Nike’s slogan, ‘just do it’. It’s resonated with me as a runner and fitness enthusiast, as an entrepreneur, and as someone who tends to jump into things without letting fears about failing or what other people think stop me. But while ‘just doing it’ is essential for anyone wanting to start a business or embark on any major challenge… it’s not enough.

Indeed, as anyone who’s run a grueling race will know, the easy part is getting started.

The hard part is to keep going when it really, really hurts. When you’re body is screaming at you to stop. When nothing in the world would feel better than to just… stop… running…

LeadQual, LLC is the fastest growing Internet company in North America, growing by 5,725 percent in terms of fiscal year revenues between 2005 and 2009.

Based on Deloitte & Touche LLP’s 2010 Fast 500 list of the fastest growing technology companies in North America, eight (8) of the top 25 fastest growing Internet companies provide Internet marketing solutions.

Software companies were the largest single category on Deloitte & Touche LLP’s recently released 2010 Technology Fast 500™. The Technology Fast 500 is Deloitte’s yearly ranking of North America’s fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies.

Based on their percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2005 to 2009, the 500 fastest growing companies were led by Hughes Communications, Inc. a communications / networking company which grew by a massive 164,079 percent.

Think about any sport in the Olympics and it’s safe to say that no athlete gets to LAST place – whether in the 100m sprint or the marathon – without aiming to be in FIRST place.

You just won’t make it all the way to the Olympics without having the mindset and training of someone who’s aiming to be the best. And that’s just to get into the finals, let alone win a medal, let alone the gold medal.

All those aiming to be ‘okay’ at running, or swimming, or weightlifting or whatever their sport is, don’t stand a chance of ever making it to the Olympics.

Well, like it or not, the same principle applies to business.

Back in the 1990s, I started my professional career as a junior copywriter at Grey Advertising. Working at Grey was the most fun I’ve ever had in a job, outside of building my own companies (which nothing can match). I also learned a lot about advertising and the advertising industry… including why an ad agency that is obsessed with winning awards is NOT an ad agency I’d want working for me. Instead, I want an ad agency that can do math…

You see, ad agencies that are obsessed with winning awards are not obsessed with marketing clients’ products. At the very least, marketing clients’ products comes second on their list of priorities. This isn’t exactly good for clients that are paying ad agencies a ton of money to create effective marketing campaigns.

Mahalo.com may have started out as a human powered search engine… it may have evolved into a question and answer site… but, according to its CEO and founder, Jason Calacanis, it’s future is to be the leading how-to content site on the Internet.

But the question is: will Mahalo go it alone in this quest… or is it planning to join forces with eHow, the current leader in how-to content, and which is owned by Mahalo’s Santa Monica neighbor, Demand Media? Could Jason’s plan really be for Demand Media to buy Mahalo, once Demand Media is cashed up following its initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange?

Want to make $10 million in online sales per year? Steven Carpenter, founder and CEO of Cake Financial, has written an interesting article in TechCrunch outlining three main ways and 13 business models for building an Internet company that earns $10 million or more in annual revenues.

Rather than provide a step-by-step guide (as if that were possible…) Carpenter explains the attributes of each business model, the key monetization drivers for that business model, and some helpful benchmarks for anyone basing their business on that business model.

While the debate over the value of business school – especially to entrepreneurs – continues, I firmly believe that business schools cannot imbue students with certain qualities that are, ultimately, the most important qualities for entrepreneurial success.

In other words, whether or not you go to business school and get some value out of it… it will never be able to teach you the most important things you’ll need to build a profitable, sustainable business.

What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘failure’? Chances are that aside from conjuring up certain images, ideas, memories, etc, the word also elicits certain negative emotions. But why should we feel so bad when failure is, ultimately, just an arbitrary label used to describe a certain outcome?

Sure, it’s an outcome we don’t want… but do we do ourselves any favors by calling it a ‘failure’?