Go big or stay small is a question which has been on my mind for a while. I could not verbalize it until yesterday but this pretty much sums up a lot of things with Internet Marketing. Its really a question we all should be asking ourselves in this life. We all have choices in our life and our businesses and those choices come down to this one phrase.

So do you grow big or stay small. Its really a simple question, but many people never answer it. And if you do answer it are you prepared to follow through on that plan. For example I don’t know anyone who would not say they wanted more traffic or more revenue in their internet business, but are they prepared for the more work. Most people are not prepared for this and in my opinion its the reason many people do not reach their full potential in Internet Marketing or in life in general.

I know this has been a problem of mine from time to time. When  I was in college I had some courses in psychology and sociology one term that was introduced in these courses was the concept of reference groups. According to the terms we all have reference groups of people we strive to become like. These are the people we admire and want to become part of. One of the easiest ways to achieve this is to hang out with the groups we want to become a part of in hope that the group will accept us.

Now in the Internet Marketing world this is not as straight forward. Many times the groups we wish to become a part of are not really part of our lives. We see websites or web businesses that we see are successful and we desire to accomplish what the people behind those web properties have accomplished. I see this on forums all the time where someone asks how someone created a specific site. People will even reverse engineer a site’s design or programming in hopes of creating the same type of site, but the design is only one piece of a web business. The keywords they use or the way content is presented is not the whole site. You may can reverse engineer these items, but you can’t reverse engineer the thought process behind the original idea. Even if you could figure out what they where thinking then you would not be 100% the same as we all have our unique experiences in life which have brought you to this point in your life.

So what is my point? My point is when making decisions for your business don’t try to copy someone verbatim, put your own spin on the plan. And decide from the start if you want to grow big or stay small. There is nothing really wrong with either choice, but each path requires a different path to accomplish. Anyone can stay small, but to grow big takes planning and investment.

Do you really want to be just like one of the big gurus, do you want to own a site like Amazon.com or Ebay. What ever your reference group is or in this case reference site, then pull it apart and figure out how they got that way. You won’t be able to duplicate them 100% but you would not want to anyway as you want to make it your own.

So do you want to grow big or stay small? Don’t answer big unless you are prepared to do what is required to create a big site and in term create a big business from that site. The money is there for people who are willing.