Think of an internet marketer as a fisherman, trolling around the ocean, casting out his hooks and reeling in customers. Have you ever bought an internet marketing training product? If so, what does that make you -- a fisherman, or a fish?

I hate to break it to you, but on the day that you swallowed somebody else's hook, you were the fish. The real question is whether, after that day, you crawled out of the water and evolved into a fisherman.

Over on Yaro Starak's blog, Leevi Romanik wrote:

I remember a story ... about a fisherman... [He] was routinely famous for out fishing a boat of fisherman all by himself! And he did it with old school tackle. None of this fancy rod and reel stuff that his competitors had.

...

He reasoned if his desire was to catch fish, then he needed to know everything he could about fish.

... their feeding habits, how they fed, when they fed, their migration habits, their relationship to currents, how they behaved in different types of water, how they fed in different seasons and weather conditions...

His competitors were out studying to become better fisherman. They were investing their time in fishermen related things. Buying fancy lures or bait, upgrading their rod to the newest model and playing with their sonar fish finders.

Come tournament time, ... he knew exactly what they, the fish, wanted. ... So he would size up the weather, the currents and sea conditions, and he knew exactly where the fish would want to be feeding.

How common is the story of the aspiring internet marketer who studies all the courses, gets all the fancy tools, tries all the techniques, and still can't seem to make a sale? That's the story of a fish who's trying too hard to think like a fisherman.

On the other hand, how many internet marketing fishermen (the successful ones...who aren't just selling fancy lures and reels to the wanna be's) emphasize the importance of learning everything you can about your customers? But since that's a lot harder than reading an eBook about the latest psychological technique or signing up for another done-for-you easy button, that advice gets ignored.

There's big a difference between being a fish (and thus, by definition, thinking like a fish) and being a fisherman who understands deeply how fish think. Fish probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about how fish think. So even though they think like fish, they don't know how to catch fish.

So yes, you need to keep learning about how to be a better marketer.

On the other hand, a wanna be fisherman who knows only about lures and reels isn't going to catch much if he's always casting his lures into empty waters, or fishing at the wrong time of day, or using the wrong kind of bait, or making a racket and scaring all the fish away.

You've got to know your customers, where to find them, when they're most responsive, what they respond to, what turns them off, etc.

To be a successful fisherman, you've got to know fish and fishing.