Rare?

Not a skill, but a personal quality: persistence.

Loads of people figure they're going to make their millions on the internet but lack the persistence to stick it out for more than three days.

No exaggeration. Three days. The energy is based on the shiny object they think is going to make them the money, and it runs out quickly. Instead, the energy has to come from belief in yourself.

Learning how to create and run systems is a far more important skill than, say, leadership in this field. You have to get past the belief that some whiz-bang techie thing is going to do the work for you. It's not.

Online marketing is very much like offline marketing. You still need four systems:

> a lead generation system
> a qualification system
> a closing system
> a fulfillment system.

The technology hardly matters. Tech is syntax. Figure it out in plain language first, and apply the specific technology later. For instance, you need a lead generation system. OK, where are the people who are likely to use what you offer hanging out online? How can you start drawing them off to your own web real estate, or list?

We could easily switch this to offline: how can we get a list of people who fit the demographic of your target market?

Either way, you need a method to reach them, get in front of them, and start sorting them.

When you get a consistent process in place, which you can measure and manage, that's when you start having your system.

Technology is glue. Apply it last. Don't get caught up in it. Business is business, and there are still live human beings at the end of the tech, whether it is a direct mail piece or an opt-in page.

The map is not the territory, and every single time you go into a new marketplace you are going to have to figure it out for yourself. Leads right back to persistence, doesn't it? Even if you have the map, meaning a coach or instructions on how to do the thing, you'll still have to make adjustments, fine tune the thing, and get it working specifically for you.

I've never needed fancy keyword tools, but I made money online right away from my start in 2011. How? I got in front of a hungry market and figured out what they wanted that I could provide. Then I packaged some of my knowledge up and gave it to them. You can complicate things as much as you like, but that's all online marketing is. So maybe learning how to keep things simple and your perspective clear are a couple of those valuable things.