Know what drives me more crazy than anything else? When people make blanket statements about things as if they were law. Just recently, a member of the Warrior Forum made a blanket statement that if you didn’t have any marketing books by people like Dan Kennedy and Joe Sugarman, you weren’t serious about your business. Well, this article is my rebuttal. Read it at your own peril.

Let me start off by saying that knowledge is power. And certainly reading is going to help you more than hurt you, provided that you read things worth reading. But a requirement for being serious about your business? That’s a blanket statement that I just can’t let go by unchallenged.

I am, admittedly, self taught. At least for the most part. I got a couple of ebooks early on that were okay, but nothing earth shattering. They are, by today’s standards, outdated…badly. They didn’t contain any of the topics that have helped make me successful today such as article marketing (didn’t even exist back then), list building or product creation. They helped me make a few bucks, but nothing to write home about.

My success came from rolling up my sleeves and getting to work. It came from going to forums and reading articles online. It came from trial and error…a lot of it. I admit, I had a lot of failures in the early days. Had I bought some of those books, maybe I would have learned sooner. And like I said, I’m not arguing that buying books can’t help you. It can.

The problem I have is when people assume that just because you DON’T go out and stock your library with all the “must have” books of the experts, that you’re not serious about your business. Let me tell you something. I would rather take somebody who has no book smarts but is willing to bust their butt and work hard over somebody who owns every marketing book in creation but refuses to get their hands dirty.

In my opinion, the ONLY requirement to be considered serious about your business and to be successful is to work at it every single day without fail and put in the time and effort required. By pure brute force, if you’re determined, you can be successful.

Having said that, if you feel like you’re missing a piece of a puzzle somewhere and a certain book can fill that piece in, get it. But for crying out loud, if you DO get it, don’t let it sit on your bookshelf and collect dust. Because that’s just a sin.

Books don’t make people serious and successful.

Only a solid work ethic does that.

And you can’t get that out of a book.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.