In a teleseminar last week, Robin Elliott, the joint venture guru, said, while talking about the necessary steps to create an effective joint venture, that unless you are actually doing joint ventures you don't know about them.

This is not only true of joint ventures, but of almost every marketing strategy and tactic.

Over the years, I've met people who can tell you about every marketing tactic known to man. But when you dig a little bit, you quickly realize that knowing about something and actually doing it are two different things.

Theory is fine, you can find it in any number of places including books and universities; however it is hard to translate theory into bread on the table. You only get that, by trying something and finding what works and repeating it until you get it right.

Most of us are looking for the easiest way of doing things and try to avoid having to work hard at too many things. Success is hard enough when you get all the elements right, but there is no doubt that having the right guide can shorten the time it takes for success and reduce the cost of failures.

About 12 years ago, I spent $15,000 on a direct mail letter. I wrote it myself and sent it out to about 25,000 people. I received three responses. Two of who didn’t buy, the third called to let me know her boss should be taken off out mailing list as he had been dead for 6 months.

How is it possible to waste so much money on something so simple?

Ignorance? Arrogance? A lack of understanding? Underestimating the challenge at hand? Probably a little of each. I vowed then that it would never happen again.

Has this ever happened to you, even in a small way? Everyone knows how to write a letter, but without learning the fundamentals I can almost guarantee you'll create a poor result. And even with understanding the fundamentals, you probably won't have any real copywriting success until you've done it quite a few times.

This is one of the reasons why going to a course seldom gives you the results you want, there is no substitute for the slow learning you get by doing. That's how you become an expert.

You have to take action to put what you've learned into place. Ideally you need someone with real world experience to review what you've done and to give you feedback and direction.

Working with people like this, you get the theory, you get the practice, you get the feedback and you get the experience. Having a guide and a mentor can significantly shorten the learning curve and get you results more quickly than you would on your own.

For every marketing strategy and technique it's the same. Some look deceptively easy but you still need the combination of knowledge, skills, experience, feedback and guidance along with time and being proactive to become really proficient.

A good coach will help you shorten that learning curve and get cash generating results more quickly.

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