I Am Not A Golfing Instructor, But I Played One On The Internet
Copyright (c) 2010 Bill Platt
the Phantom Writers
http://thePhantomWriters.com/

I will be honest with you. Until two days ago, the only thing
that I knew about golf is that I used to play miniature golf at
the local Putt-Putt Miniature Golf Center, a couple times a week
during the summer, when I was in my teens.

I have a unique job, as a professional article ghostwriter, which
forces me to do research on topics that I may not normally be
interested in learning. Certainly, golf was one of those topics I
thought I would never learn about in my life.

If I were to ever retire, I might reconsider my position on golf.
But at this time, I cannot foresee a day when I might consider
golf and activity that I would consider fun or worthwhile. I
figure that if I have not taken up golf by now, at the age of 44,
then chances are pretty slim that I would ever consider taking up
that sport.

Typically, I try to talk people out of hiring me as their
personal and private ghostwriter. I do that because I know that
most people can find writers, who are willing to work for much
less money, than I charge my customers for ghostwriting.

I charge people a much higher rate for writing, than 90% of the
available writers on the Internet. I charge a much higher-rate
for ghostwriting than most people, for a number of reasons:

1. I spend more time developing and editing one article, than
most writers will spend writing 5 to 10 articles.

2. I know the value of the articles that I create. Many of my
customers have told me that articles I created for them helped
them to deliver thousands of new prospects to their websites and
generate thousands of dollars in new revenues.

3. I value my own time. Through years of experience, I have
learned that I have a limited number of hours in every workweek.
If I take on too much writing work, then I run the risk of
limiting my earnings potential, by filling my workweek with so
much writing that I will not have time to do anything else -
limiting my income to the number of hours I can work in one week.

4. People are willing to pay my rates to hire me to write their
articles. When you produce a great product and people know it,
they are willing to pay you whatever rate you require. If you can
get higher rates for your work, then why wouldn’t you?

When I find people, who are willing to pay my rates to have me
write an article for them, I am hard pressed to tell people, no.

But occasionally, I do tell people no. If someone asks me to
write an article that I do not feel comfortable writing, I will
let him or her know what my reservations are, and I will refund
their money.

So last night, when I opened the ghostwriting job order and I saw
that someone had paid me to write an article, offering tips for
playing a better game of golf, I hesitated.

When confronted with such a job request, I will usually take at
least 20 to 30 minutes to decide if there is enough information
available online to help me write a good article on the topic.

I scanned a half dozen websites, chock-full of golfing tips,
trying to get my head around the topic. Then, I remembered having
heard people talk about golfing fundamentals. I realized, at that
moment, that it would do me well to ghostwrite an article that
discussed the fundamentals of golfing.

I turned to Google to point the way to information about the
fundamentals of golfing. When doing research of this type, for an
article, I prefer digging deeper into the search results to find
resources that most people are not using.

During my research, I discovered a golf instructor, who has
written a book on the fundamentals of golfing and has posted his
book on his website. When I arrived at the
http://www.ceegolf.com/ and read the last nine pages of his book,
I realized that I could learn a lot from this man. Casey Eberting
rocked my world.

I continued to his FAQs page and started reading. Halfway through
the page, I realized that maybe I missed other important
information on his website. Upon going to his home page, I
realized that I had entered his site near the end of chapter 7 of
his book and that the first seven chapters were also online.

Casey Eberting taught me everything I needed to know to play a
golfing instructor online. But Casey taught me more than that…

Just as Sun Tzu’s book, “The Art Of War”, could teach a
multitude of business lessons to the average Joe and MBA students
at some of the finest colleges in the world, from within the
pages of a book about the strategy of war, Casey taught me that a
lot of business and marketing principles could be learned from a
man committed to teaching people how to play golf.

Chapter 1 Page 1

The most common mistake made by new and experienced golfers is
blocking. Blocking is a process where, when the golfer swings at
the ball, the golfers’ body interferes with the fluid motion of
the swing.

Rather than trying to eliminate the block, most golfers attempt
to manipulate the club during the process of the swing. The
manipulations permit the golfer to try to correct for the adverse
effects, caused by the block.

The most common mistake made by online business people is to
begin the process, with a flawed business model or marketing
model. Rather than correcting the business model or marketing
model, most business owners attempt to correct other perceived
problems.

For example, people will set up pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns to
advertise their website. People will often notice that although
the PPC campaign is generating clicks and traffic to their
website, they are not generating enough sales to justify their
continued spending. Frequently, marketers will try a new set of
keywords, a new PPC ad, or a different search engine for their
advertising. Often, they will make these changes and wonder why
they are not getting any traction in the marketplace.

The crazy thing is that marketers will change a dozen different
factors, in an effort to turn a profit. Yet, most will not test
or consider the efficiency and effectiveness of their own
website. It could very well be that the sales copy sucks. It
could also be that the sales copy is good, but the shopping cart
sucks. It could also be that the sales copy is good, as is the
shopping cart, but the price is wrong.

Rather than going back to the beginning and correcting the real
problem, golfers and marketers will try to compensate for those
things that they are doing badly.

Chapter 2 Page 2

Ben Hogan credited the perfecting of his swing plane, as the
reason for his success. By perfecting the swing plane, Hogan
successfully removed blocking from his game. But, it took Hogan
nine years in the PGA to master his swing plane.

Golfers, who have not mastered the concept of the swing plane,
must learn to make corrections to compensate for their bad
technique (by manipulating individual elements of the swing). So
long as the golfer relies upon manipulation to correct individual
elements of the swing, the golfer will always require perfect
timing and coordination to execute flawlessly.

Unfortunately, perfect timing and coordination are more difficult
to master than a correct swing plane. The reliance of the golfer
on perfect timing creates a situation where the golfer’s game is
inconsistent at best, since few people have perfect timing at all
times.

Online business owners and marketers, who do not structure and
master their business processes, tend to produce inconsistent
results. So long as a business owner continues to rely upon
perfect timing and coordination, the business will continue to
produce inconsistent results.

Chapter 3 Page 1

Ben Hogan once said that he did not teach, because he “couldn’t
find anybody who wanted to learn.” A writer for Golf Digest said
the Hogan was wrong, but Casey insists that he was not.

Casey suggested that what Ben Hogan really meant was that most
golfers are not willing to “go the distance”. He explained that
when the golfer learns a new technique; golfers are generally
unwilling to work through the awkwardness and the uncomfortable
feelings of the learning process.

Casey noted that the National Golf Foundation said that the
average golfer stopped improving after only three years of play.
Casey stated that he believes the reason for this is that people
are unwilling to put in the practice time and to work through the
frustration of doing something new.

Online marketers exhibit the same tendencies. Most online
marketers will take on a new product or opportunity; work it hard
for about two weeks, and then move on to the next flavor of the
week. After a year, most online marketers will have attempted
more than two-dozen business opportunities, but never settled on
one long enough to see it through to success.

Chapter 5 Page 2

Casey Eberting teaches that most golfers prefer the Band-Aid
approach to golf instruction. He calls it Band-Aid instruction,
because people prefer to treat the symptoms, rather than the
problems.

Most golfing instructors teach Band-Aid golf lessons, frankly,
because they understand that is what their customers want. People
want immediate results, but if instructors were to teach better
style, it could take up to three months before the golf student
would see the real benefits of the lessons.

Online business owners and marketers also seek Band-Aid solutions
for their businesses. People want to see immediate results from
their actions. That is why Google Adwords produced $21 billion in
advertising revenue for Google in 2008.

That is also why online business owners and marketers shy away
from investments in article marketing and SEO. Both article
marketing and SEO have the potential to generate substantial
long-term, free traffic, for those people who utilize these
advertising techniques. But, neither of these advertising methods
will produce overnight success.

In Conclusion

I am not a golfer, and I never will be… But I play one on the
Internet… When I am called on to do so as a ghostwriter...

When I have good research materials, I can successfully pretend
to be anyone I want to be, and the people who read my articles
will not be able to spot me as an imitator.

My client, who hired me to ghostwrite an article about golfing,
is selling a book about how to improve your golf swing… He is
the professional, and I am the imitator… When he read what I
had written for him, my client said in essence, “Fantastic job.
I am very satisfied. Well done.”

But the reason that I wrote this article this evening, is because
I wanted to share with you an incredible resource that I found
for people who are intent to improve their golfing game… Casey
Eberting operates the San Antonio CE golf schools, located online
at: http://www.cegolf.com/

If you own an online business or you work as an online marketer,
even if you do not play golf, I suspect that you might be able to
learn a thing or two about how to be more successful, by reading
Eberting’s book on his website.

The analogies that I saw in Casey Eberting’s book, which could
be directly tied to your online business, were far more numerous
than I could possibly detail in this article. Give yourself a
couple of hours and grab a cup of coffee… And see if you agree
that his book could potentially be one of the best books you have
read about operating an online business – even if it has nothing
to do with operating a business…

———————————————————-
My name is Bill Platt. If you enjoyed this article and
found it useful, then you will love my newest ebook titled,
“How To Use Article Marketing To Positively Impact Your
SEO Efforts”. It is 70-pages of hard-hitting information
about how to make your article marketing truly profitable.
http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-seo.html
Learn about my ghost writing services here:
http://thephantomwriters.com/x.pl/tpw/info/ghost-writing/purchase.html