Personal

If you aren’t an internet marketer, you wouldn’t have heard of Eric Holmlund.

In fact, I have only briefly heard his name a couple of times when Calvin updates me on IM happenings. (*surprising!* I know that sounds really odd.. but the truth is I’m usually oblivious towards most of the IM launches/ happenings etc. ) It wasn’t until I opened up an email by Lee McIntyre (another internet marketer btw) just 2 days ago and went on to watch a video by Eric, that I finally KNEW who Eric Holmlund is.

The reason why I was inspired by Eric is not because of his internet marketing methods/secrets/techniques/products etc. So I’m not going to share about his latest launch here..

But rather, I was inspired by the things he did to glorify God through his blog and let his life be a testimony of His goodness. Little things like sharing his testimony on his blog, starting mission trips, and running a non-profit online prayer ministry etc… That really struck me as I saw how he used his internet marketing influence and skills to help grow the ministry of God. Something that I have not seen before in the internet marketing community and it’s something that I’ve always shared with Calvin about doing. Now, I have the perfect model to inspire me for the greater good.

In the process, I realized that I wasn’t doing enough to share about God’s goodness in my life! Which is something I ought to do especially when there are people who are reading about who I am, what I do and even who I believe in. 🙂 My life’s got to be a testimony to others and that way, I can inspire others as well. Just like how Eric inspired me.

Before I end off, here’s an image my friend shared on Facebook:

Thank you Lord for everything.

Here’s the reality check I had this afternoon:

50% of my INTERNET MARKETING knowledge is getting close to becoming outdated!

Isn’t that a “O-M-G” moment for ANYONE who is relying on internet marketing skills to earn a living? Haha..

But that’s the truth! It dawned upon me that I was sooo concerned about handling the backend services that I utterly forgot to continuously update my skills and knowledge which are so important in staying competitive.

It hit me even harder when I realized that I’m stuck in the same position as I was 1 year ago!

And the lesson is I’ve got to start learning – one of the things I love to do actually..

Learning is a continuous process of life and in fact, let me stress that it requires ACTIVE LEARNING. It’s even more so for an industry that moves 24/7, 365 days a week. And I’ve just got to get my feet up and start moving forward again. Frankly, what lies ahead of me or rather the thought of (sort-of) learning all the new tricks, strategies & techniques in IM all over again is kinda daunting at times but I’ve got the courage to keep on moving!

So why is Internet Marketing NOT for the faint hearted?

Firstly, from our experience, internet marketing trends do not last more than a year. What’s IN now will be OUT the moment the next whirlwind trend appears. It’s either you move with the flow or you gradually get phased out. You have to constantly be on the go and be on the lookout for hot trends, shifting buyer patterns in order to be able to use it to your advantage.

Secondly, you have to learn from failures and move on. It’s not as though every single product you create will be a winner, or every single product you promote will make you money and neither does it mean that every single money making idea IS a 6 figure launch. You’ve got to absorb all the learnings from each failure/unsuccessful trial, and CHANGE what you did wrong. Repeating the same thing that got you the bad results will just get you the SAME results.

Thirdly, analyse, analyse and analyse. You have to analyse your own performance, your competitors’ performance and your customers’ “performance” in order to find out what works. There are things like measuring the conversions of your offers, sales copy, videos etc. in order to see how effective your marketing strategy is. You need to analyse what your competitors are doing and see if there’s any way you can improve what they are doing. And of course, you need to analyse what your customers are buying, what they are interested in and test what marketing messages they respond greatest to.

Just going through all that made me realize it’s time to up the gear and become an active and humble learner once more.

I didn’t realize that my last post was in December! Did January, February and soon March just fly past me? I somehow think so! 😛

If you don’t know from Facebook, Calvin and I have started a blog together over at http://www.IMLoveBirds.com which is on internet marketing as well as an update on what we are doing in the IM scene. We’ve covered content of a whole variety and even on keeping your success journal! That’s garnered a ton of blog comments!

It’s more updated than this personal blog of mine OR the ‘dusty and mouldy’ personal blog of Calvin’s.. hahaha.. 😀

But nonetheless, do check back here because I love to share my personal stories over here.

So anyway, the highlight for us recently is the fact that we celebrated our 5th year together! We are still dating!

A lot of people thought that we were celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary from my facebook updates and I got people wishing me over Skype, “Here’s wishing you and your hubby forever love!” Haha.. That’s so embarrassing!

We’ve had a good laugh over it and well, yup, we’re still dating and happily dating. Though of course, we do want to settle down some time soon when the Lord has it planned for us. 🙂

To celebrate this once-in-a-lifetime occasion, Calvin and I went for a movie at GV Vivo Gold Class (for non-Singaporeans, it’s a posh movie theatre which has plush couches and personalized service). We watched King’s Speech and well, we concluded that it was not a great date movie. Haha.. 😀 But nonetheless, I had a good laugh, Calvin had a good sleep.

This was followed by dinner at a Spanish restaurant called Serenity which was in the same mall. The food was great! I love Spanish food (or so I realized that day) we had tapas, Paella and who can forget glasses of wine and Sangria~ Certainly delightful!

Calvin was a true-blue romantic as he ordered a bouquet of roses and carnations for me which look so lovely!

By the way, the picture is a candid shot ok!

This journey of 5 years has been amazing for the both of us and we recounted the days back in University to the days now where we are working on the business together. It’s funny how we managed to get through everything together.

We can only thank God for His goodness and His blessings upon us.

In this 5 years, we recounted highlights of our relationship which include:

#1 Getting a car

#2 Going on holidays together

#3 Being featured on a newspaper cover together

#4 Appearing on TV

#5 Building up multiple online businesses

#6 Setting up a company and an office

#7 Going through the difficulties and challenges of running the business

#8 Growing deeper in our Christian faith

#9 Graduating together

#10 Building our future together

It’s been amazing!

Now, we get this question from our friends many times.

“You both are so sweet! How do you keep it together?”

I have to say, a lot of determination, , compromise, tolerance, understanding and most importantly, LOVE. In fact, it’s unconditional love. There’s no secret to our success. If there has to be one, then it’s our Lord Jesus — He taught me how to be patient, wise and how to love unconditionally. 🙂

We definitely have our arguments, disagreements and even fights. But at the end of the day, I guess it’s knowing that you both just want the best for each other that makes you “retreat” and then listen to each other.

Before I end off this post, just want to thank Calvin for being such a great partner and boyfriend all this while.

~*I love you loads Calvin!*~ 😛