Welcome to FA… Internetpillaholic Anonymous.

I recently was having a conversation with Brad Carroll, owner of Dakno Marketing, who writes a fabulous column here in ePOWER News. We were looking at what many of you have been reading most. We discovered that when ever the topic of Search Engine Optimization comes up, you all start clicking. This caused me to do additional research, and I discovered why most all of you sign up for every lead generation system, and new internet gadget in the world. It is because you want an “internet pill”.

You don’t want to spend time to do things right, you just want your quick fix. You are addicts to speed. When we talk about things like target marketing, you turn us off. When we tell you websites take time you go into withdrawal. When you have to spend time working with designers, writers, etc. you get impatient, you get angry, frustrated, and get the shakes, because you have convinced yourself, “I don’t have the time”. The truth is you won’t take the time. The truth is you need help.

For all of you who have come forward I have developed a 12 step program to help you through your addiction:

STEP 1: Admit you are a Real Estate agent and you are powerless over the internet and you cannot manage it.

STEP 2: Come to believe that there are Real Estate Internet Professionals that have greater power and knowledge than you, and that they can restore your internet website to full consumer sanity.

STEP 3: Make a decision to turn your internet website, and internet lives over to the care of Real Estate Internet Professionals as you understand them.

STEP 4: Search for quality Real Estate Internet Professionals, while making a fearless inventory of yourself as a real estate agent.

STEP 5: Admit to Real Estate Internet Professionals and yourself, and to other human beings (including the IEC - Internet Empowered Consumer) the exact nature of your wrongs as you have applied them to your website.

STEP 6: You are entirely ready to have Real Estate Internet Professionals remove all the defects from your current website.

STEP 7: Humbly ask your Real Estate Internet Professional to remove your feeble attempts at trying to understand and write a website.

STEP 8: You make a list of all quick fixes and vendor schemes you wrongfully used, the online consumers you have harmed, and become willing to make amends for and to them all

STEP 9: Make Direct Amends for such quick fixes and vendor schemes by eliminating them wherever possible, except when to do so would injure your business

STEP 10: Continue to take a personal inventory whenever you are about to buy the latest internet “pill” and when you are wrong for doing so, promptly admit it.

STEP 11: Seek through solid research and common sense to improve your conscious contact with Real Estate Internet Professionals, as you understand them, asking only for their knowledge of their profession as it relates to Internet Real Estate, and the power to manage the website thereafter.

STEP 12: Having had an Internet Awakening as the result of these steps, you try to carry this message to Internetpillaholic, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Understand you have taken a long time to get to this point. This is NOT an overnight process. You may in fact have to go back and repeat the steps in order to move to the next step. At times you may find that you have slipped. It’s okay, just go back to STEP 1, and start over. Remember, everyday is a new day. If you should continue to have problems excepting that you are a Real Estate agent and NOT an internet specialist, consult a psychologist immediately.

Jay Izso aka "Dr. Jay" has his Masters of Science degree in Psychology from Washington State University. He was a former instructor of Human Learning and Motivation, Experimental Psychology, and Statistics at Washington State and North Carolina State University. He has been part of the Linda Craft Top 50 Internationally Ranked RE/MAX Team located in Raleigh, NC, since 1996 where he developed Linda’s award winning Websites and cutting edge technologies.  He is also head coach for the Mr. Internet® Total Solutions Coaching program. Many of his articles and writings and observations can be read at www.realestatepsychologist.com.