The first question you need to answer is why are you venturing online? Clarity at this point is invaluable. The clearer you are on where you want to be in the next 90 days, the clearer the path. In this article I will outline my journey and show you how you can shorten your learning curve to success.

I've been on a terrific ride these last few months and on an incredible learning curve. Hopefully my experience will help you to shorten your learning curve. If your primary goal is cashflow and getting into the black a.s.a.p. then you need to put blinders on an focus on the task at hand. Then when you are cashflowing nicely and the pressure is off you can learn from these other amazing mentors.

I've been down a few rabbit trails and although wonderful were not necessarily the shortest path to my goal of finding a system that would not only work for me but would also work for my downline.

It is incredible to me that I discovered Ann Sieg almost a year ago. I hadn't previously ventured online because I mistakenly believed that I already had an online business. I ordered my stuff online and had a replicated site. What more could I need? It was only when I got a g-mail account last August, noticed Ann Sieg's pay per click ad and then finally purchased The Renegade Network Marketer mid September did the light bulb go on.

Just to give you an idea of where I was at the time, my first reaction was, "Who is this person bashing my industry that I am so passionate about?" Then I read the free e-book The 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing and every word resonated! I then proceeded to waste four months with old school thinking. I went to the back end system several times but at this point it was all Greek to me. My initial reaction due to my scripting was: "Oh, I can't do that"; not even been clear on what 'that' was. I knew that my upline wouldn't appreciate being told that they had been lying to me when I knew they had my best interests at heart. They were simply teaching what had worked for them and didn't know any other way.

If you think that you haven't been programmed by your MLM, think again. Now I may lose some of you here but hear me out. I did what I was told, I had belief, I built my business up to a certain level more than once only to have it all wither away. I went to every hotel meeting and conference; at one point spending $1500 per weekend for my husband and I to attend conferences in California. The Canadian dollar was worth ½ of what the American dollar was worth at that time. Even though we willingly went NO ONE in our downline was willing to duplicate.

No matter how fired up I got it always came back to that one minor detail; finding people to show my opportunity to. You couldn't have had a more loyal follower. Despite all the signs I had my blinders on. I can tell you now the old school methods of network marketing are in their death throes. No one wants to contact family and friends, cold call or mall crawl in the 21st century.

Somehow in December I got on a webinar with Ann Sieg and Ken Evoy of Site Build It. I immediately signed up for Site Build It and the $20,000 contest which led me to a forum for the contest. My thinking was that if I wanted to go online I needed a web-site. Right? Wrong! You can have the dandiest web-site in the world but how are people going to find you? Unless you have learned search engine optimization and have spun a web of content all over the internet no one will find you. There are far more web addresses than there are addresses in your local yellow pages and they aren't exactly listed in alphabetical order!

Ken Evoy's Site Build It is great at teaching you how to build your own web-site. It is essential but not necessary in the beginning. You are far better off to start with a blog and write content at the various social sites to build a web of content to link to your web-site to drive traffic to your web-site. To do this I highly recommend Mike Klingler and Renegade University. Or simpler yet is to get yourname.com as a domain name and put up a single page as is taught by McKay Earl.

When I initially went on the SBI/Ann Sieg webinars I had no idea what a thread was; the only thread I was familiar with was in my much neglected sewing box. A gal on the thread said that someone from Ann Sieg's Renegade Team would be in touch with anyone that had purchased the Renegade. I thought, no one called me so I went on a quest to find out why. It turns out that I had clicked on one of Ann's personal pay per click ads and was one of the many thousands that hadn't received a complimentary consultation.

After conversing back and forth with the 80/20 office, I received my complimentary consultation, joined the affiliate link, Send Out Cards and gained access to Ann's private team site. I chatted with Ann on the phone for about an hour. Ann encouraged me to get into action and get into the black a.s.a.p.by using her leads until I created my own lead generation system. Did I take that advice? No. At this point I didn't really want another MLM and didn't yet quite grasp the concept of multiple streams of income. Foolish mistake on my part.

I dove into the team site and the back-end system. With Ann as my sponsor I didn't expect one on one help but it didn't matter because her team has such an abundance mentality and they willingly share their materials and learning experiences with anyone on the team. I became overwhelmed with the amount of free information.

Coming from a system where I had to pay $60/month for a book and CD series I wasn't use to unlimited free information and free webinars. I was like a kid in a candy shop! I was all over the place. As I was floundering around, Wendy Mills from the Works Team came to my rescue on another topic. For more on this part of my story go to: http://www.internetworkmarketercoach.com/network-marketing-success/2008/3/4/how-the-renegade-system-impacted-me.html. The Works team is another site available by invitation to anyone who purchases The Renegade Network Marketer. Many companies would charge a double digit monthly fee for a site of this caliber.

While we were chatting Wendy recommended Mike Klingler's Renegade University which was just launching. Before moving on here I want to say that Wendy Mills is another wonderful example of the generosity of this online community. Wendy is not on Ann's team yet she was willing to help me.

And so I discovered Renegade University and the wonderfully gifted teacher Mike Klingler. Now here was a way to generate my own leads. I was drowning in information overload so I felt like Mike had thrown me a life preserver.

Mike started with about 100 of his downline, some of whom had only sent email up to this point and within weeks 70 of them were getting leads in their inbox! Wow, what a learning curve; but fun too! I plunged into the tutorials and followed along click by click and just did as I was told. When someone reads your material and approaches you they are a highly qualified lead;not like those ones you buy from lead generation companies.

Those are the ones where you phone the person who has absolutely no interest in you or your business opportunity. They had simply given their contact information to win an iPod for example and thought they might just win it. Little did they know that their information was going to be sold to multiple people! In contrast when someone purchases The Renegade Network Marketer  from you they have identified themselves as being very interested, a very qualified lead.

This is when I decided to take the advice of Cindy Williams who had recommended Oprius a couple of months back. I had looked at it briefly but at that point I didn't even know what an auto-responder was let alone want to pay $15/month for the privilege. Now I was at a point where I needed a contact management system and an autoresponder. I like having my ducks in a row so I proceeded to put this system in place. I most definitely did not want to learn ACT and Aweber or iContact simultaneously so I went with Oprius which comes with a 30 day trial and pays a $3/month affiliate commission.

During this time I was introduced to Brian Campbell, internet marketing guru. I started following what Brian was doing on Facebook. He was claiming that he could make $10,000 in 37 days on Facebook. I signed up for his Bronze level course. He is an excellent marketer and had lots to offer. He was teaching how to create your own information products. Because I had signed up in the beginning my Bronze level was a lifetime membership. Then Brian came to Vancouver to give John Chow a cheque for $10,000 because he had helped Brian to earn $21,000 in 21 days instead of the original forecast. Brian is a great guy. He is a pay it forward kind of guy and understands giving value, lots of value up front. He upgraded all that attended the cheque exchange to the Silver level.

However I began to realizet hat I couldn't do both Brian's course and keep up with what Mike was doing. I'm passionate about network marketing so decided to put the internet marketing on hold.

While I was on a call with Mike Klinger to go over my content for the guides program he asked me if I had read Magnetic Sponsoring. I had not so he encouraged me to read it and let him know my thoughts. When he had been choosing a course book for Renegade University his decision was between Mike Dillard and Ann Sieg.

I think Mike Dillard has done amazing things with his business. He is great at what he does. For me personally I feel he appeals more to the younger crowd, young men who want fast cars for example. However this doesn't stop me from recommending his material or from receiving affiliate cheques!

Eben Pagan is a mentor to many of these other mentors. He is incredible. I started to go down this rabbit trail as well. I listened to some of his videos and even received some great software for doing surveys as a free bonus.

However Eben comes with a price tag that is just too steep for me at this time. Shall we just say it's not expedient at this time. When I am better positioned he is someone I will definitely go back to. Learning is a life long endeavor. I came out of university thinking if I ever read another non-fiction book it would be too soon! I had forgotten how much I loved to learn!

Through a series of twists and turns I found and purchased The 90 Day Marketer for a one time fee of $124 with a $50 affiliate commission. I started on the 13 week program but at this point didn't really see the value that McKay was offering. I was busy getting my content done for Mike Klinglers guides program and decided that that was where I needed to put my focus.

As I was talking to my leads and finding out where they were at I discovered that many of them were not ready for Renegade University or for Send Out Cards (SOC). There was a disconnect between where they were and where I was taking them. SOC was perceived as just another MLM and if they didn't have downline they didn't see the need for the follow up system. They were looking for ways to fix their MLM not add another.

The number one solution people want after reading Ann's e-book are leads for their MLM. There was a missing link. People were looking to make money now and they had no idea of where to start. I had a lot of information to share with them but all that did was overwhelm them. Too much information is the biggest stumbling block.

This problem became apparent through talking in depth with Cindy, one of the first leads to find me through my own marketing and from talking to Sue one of my first SOC entrepreneurs. Both of these gals are leaders in their respective MLMs and could see the value of the card system for themselves for follow-up. What they really wanted though was something simple they could share with their team.

Which made me realize that I hadn't shared any of what I was doing online, including Renegade University with my downline or with the leads that I had done consults with. I needed to be sure that this transition online was not only going to work for me it had to be duplicable. I knew that for the majority of my team there was no way they would be willing to invest the time in learning social marketing and search engine optimization as I was.

Over the past few months I have often had conversations with others about how fantastic Renegade University is but always asking the question: "Who else is going to be willing to invest the time inecessary for putting it in place?" We all LOVE Renegade University and Mike Klingler. I understand that we are in a moment in time here and that we want to write our own content as soon as possible. Mike's advice is just throw it up there and worry about optimizing it later. Get it footprinted by the search engines at least; get it started working for you now don't wait for perfection. Mike saved me from 'analysis paralysis' I just started working my way through his click by click tutorials and doing what he said to do.

I see Renegade University as step 2. For newbies, first do the 90 Day Marketer and get a foundation. It was designed to navigate people through the back end system of The Renegade Network Marketer. Ann Sieg freely admits that she gave us 4 years of university course books on our first day of school. Mckay Earl sweeps them all away and gives you a printable to do list. Once you have a foundation you are then ready to graduate to Renegade University.

For those that have a foundation by all means jump into Mike Klingler's tutorials.

I realized that what I was offering Cindy may have been a good fit for her personally but not a good fit for her downline; so I sent her my affiliate link to The 90 Day Marketer. Now she was completely overwhelmed with too much valuable information! Her reaction was all these training programs were overkill: The Renegade System, The Works Team, Renegade University and now the 90 Day Marketer System.

In my efforts to be a solutions provider I was providing too many solutions and sending Cindy down the same path of overwhelm that I had been on! Fortuitously, Cindy talked directly with McKay Earl and learned of his Accelerated Coaching Program. McKay invited us both to his program.

What a relief! Finally something I feel I can comfortably share with my downline and with my leads! McKay's Accelerated Coaching Program has 3 levels. The level one goal is your return on investment in 30-60 days! Level two is doubling your return and level three is replacing your J.O.B. income in 6 months to a year. This is a goal not a guarantee; however it is doable. In week seven he introduces Web 2.0 which fits in perfectly with what Mike Klingler is teaching.

I've come to the conclusion that as leaders with downline we are perhaps better positioned to do Renegade University for ourselves. However there needs to be an extra step inserted for our newbies. Something simple that takes them step by step from buying their first domain name through to attracting leads to their primary MLM with their own marketing efforts.

My recommendation then is to:

Late Breaking News: Ann Sieg is launching The Attraction Marketer's Manifesto March 2nd 2009. Claim your copy now! My following recommendtions are still a must read to bring you up to speed with what is happening on the internet in regards to network marketing. The Attraction Marketer's Manifesto is providing solutions to questions that are raised by Ann Siegs first 2 ebooks

First: Read The 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing which is a free download. If it resonates with you then purchase The Renegade Network Marketer for $67 with the understanding that it is not just an e-book; it is an entire system with affiliate links, marketing materials and a whole lot more. Also understand that when you recommend the book and someone purchases it you receive $33.50 per sale which helps you to make money as you learn.

Second: Get yourself a coach that is doing the Accelerate Coaching Program with the intent of becoming a coach yourself a.s.a.p. Click here for a free overview video on McKay's system.. Then if you think you would like a 20" consult, contact me at irene.paradigmshift@gmail.com or call me at 604.530.2719 PST. Cut 1/3 to 1/2 the time off of my learning curve. Time is money.

Third: Sign up with Renegade University to learn how to spin your web of content (your real estate on the web) and brand yourself as a solutions provider instead of that person who is flogging their products or services on the net the way they did using old school methods. Renegade University is free and then you can move onto Renegade Professional for a week for $1 and then upgrade to $39.95/month with a $18/month affiliate commission

Irene Kirkman, internet marketing consultant, is offering personal assistance for those who have home based businesses or would like to work from home online. The biggest challenge with taking your business online is becoming overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available. Avoid ‘analysis paralysis’, learn what you need to do next. The number one challenge I hear from people is: "I just want simple.” and “ Can’t you just tell me what to do next?" I have a solution. I know very well what not to do and can therefore shorten the learning curve substantially for anyone that is serious about escaping the rat race.

Watch this short video The Renegade Puzzle for a birds eye view.

Book your 20” complimentary consultation at http://internetworkmarketercoach.com so I can identify your needs and get you started on an action plan.

I'm sorry I can no longer take phone callls but please feel free to contact me at irene.paradigmshift@gmail.com