Mentorship, Onboarding, and Training for Digital Marketing Empire Team Members

The training you will receive when you join the Digital Marketing Empire can easily be one of the most valuable experiences in your professional life, and one of the biggest advantages of joining.

It will be 100% free, and you will work closely with your blogging mentor, which will be either me or some other advanced blogger from our team.

You will learn everything there is to know about writing blog posts that make money.

Or, at least, you will be shown everything that you need to know, and then you will have to do a good job of implementing those lessons and taking action on them.

In any case, your training may become one of the most important reasons for joining the Digital Marketing Empire. This guide will illustrate what to expect from the training and onboarding process, how to prepare to learn from your mentor the best and take the most advantage from their experience.

After your application is received and reviewed, you pass the interview, you go through all the necessary training materials, and you sign the contract, you will enter the training and onboarding phase. This is how that will look like for you.

Writing your first blog posts

In some cases, you will not even have to start your first blog posts. The title, the headers, the structure for the blog post, the requirements, will all be there waiting for you. This can often happen for your very first articles.

Practically, after choosing your topics and keywords, all you will have to do is research for the topic you will be writing about, and then fill in the blanks.

It’s even easier than that, since you will be relying on the writing guidelines and checklists provided by us to make your job even easier. In fact, there are several guides depending on the type of article you are writing, each with a proven blueprint that makes your job as easy as possible, guides such as:

• product review blog post guide
• list article blog post guide
• informational article blog post guide

You will have the option to override some of the headers and come up with your own, but chances are, you will not want to do that for your very first articles, and your best bet will be to try and follow the suggestions and work as the header structure implies. Still, if you feel strongly that the mentor has made a mistake in setting up the blog post structure, feel free to go along with your own idea, but be prepared to defend your decision later and elaborate in detail on what has led to your decision.

Also, be aware that while changing the structure may require more work from the mentor later, you are still encouraged to do this if you have a strong reason for it.

Writing the content itself will be something you do on your own. The mentor will not be involved with this in any way.

The only possible exception here might be your very first articles. You will have an option to talk with your mentor one more time before writing your first blog posts, in case you are still feeling lost and confused even after going through the training and the materials several times.

Try to avoid having to call your mentor before writing your first blog post. No matter how bad you think it will be, chances are, it’s probably not as bad as you think. Plus, my team and I have seen it all before, and probably we’ve all been at the same point at some time, so we will probably understand if your content starts out from a very poor level.

Try and write your first blog post on your own, right after going through the training materials, and without having to depend on your mentor for this. If you do this, if you start out this way, on your own and independently, you can expect things to be a bit harder now, but much, much easier later down the line. You will simply gain a ton of confidence in yourself and your abilities, which is exactly the type of person we need the most in the Digital Marketing Empire.

Also, keep in mind that even if you are a bit anxious, there’s nothing to be anxious about really. We are all a team here, and we all try to help each other, and all you have to do is just follow the guidelines.

One tip I have for absolute beginners, that may or may not fear writing their first blog post, is to follow the following steps:

• think about the first sentence you want to write, articulate it in your head
• type the first letter
• type the first word
• type the first sentence
• repeat

This sounds very simple, but at a low level, this is exactly how things get done, and how writers operate. That’s it. When you break things down, this is exactly what we all do, all the time.

You may have better success with the “stream-of-consciousness” type of writing, but I believe that to be a more advanced type of technique. Personally, I’m kind of writing like that right now for the most part, it’s almost like typing things as I think of them. However, to be able to achieve that and still maintain a great level of quality in your content, you probably need to be a bit more experienced as a writer, and you also must already have a detailed knowledge of the topic you’re writing about (which is why I recommend not switching topics that often, even though you will have that option as a Digital Marketing Empire team member).

Use Grammarly at all times while writing. This will make your life a lot easier.

So, you will do the writing on your own. Remember, you have the option to get further guidance from your mentor even before you start writing your first blog post, but also know that it would be much better if you didn’t require all of that hand-holding because you will gain a lot of confidence and independence.

Editing your blog posts by yourself

Once you are done writing, you should try and edit your own post to the best of your abilities.

Read through the entire post, see if you’ve maybe missed something, or if something doesn’t really make sense when you read the entire article as a whole.

Also, check your spelling and your grammar, and see if you can maybe clarify some parts. Again, use the Grammarly extension.

The editing you do by yourself during your onboarding phase will be critical.

In fact, it will remain critical throughout your entire blogging career, but it will be especially important during your onboarding period, as you will find and fix a lot of your own mistakes here, which will reduce the work that your mentor has to perform, and drastically increase the chances of you staying in the program and not being terminated during onboarding (more on that below in the section “Evaluation from your mentor and possible termination from the program“).

So, edit your content carefully before submitting it, go through it even several times if you have to, as not doing so may result in you gaining a lot of penalty points and getting terminated from the program.

Then, let your mentor know, and you will schedule a time for going over your blog post together and editing it.

Editing your first blog posts with your mentor

When you go over your blog posts for editing and fixing mistakes with your mentor, you will learn a lot more than what the training materials can teach you.

I’ve seen this happen over and over again. It just seems like we humans learn so much better when there’s another living human explaining things to us.

This is one of the founding principles and key strategies behind the Digital Marketing Empire.

Your mentor will follow the same guidelines and checklists for editing your blog posts as you will.

However, your mentor will be more experienced in these processes, and will be able to spot more mistakes and places for improvement. They will also be able to do that faster and more efficiently. They will show you how to improve your content at every level.

At the most granular level, starting from the words you use, you will see how and when to choose different words, and how to choose the exact right word for a situation.

Then, at the level of the sentence, you will see how to best use punctuation, how to simplify sentences, how to cut them short if needed, how to structure and organize your thoughts better, how to express yourself more clearly and effectively.

At the level of a paragraph or a section, your mentor will show you how to improve the flow of your article, how to relate sentences to each other, how to present your sub-arguments and your arguments in a more effective way.

Finally, at the level of the entire article, you will see how to present a complete and persuasive argument in a structured way, and make sure that your blog post not only makes sense as an entity, but is also a complete, detailed, yet compelling piece of content for your audience, and one that holds their attention and doesn’t bore them to death.

Writing is a skill, but it’s also a bit of an art as well, and theory alone is not enough. Simply put, some things you learn only through experience, and writing and editing both are exactly such things.

You will learn a lot from your mentor. In fact, you will probably learn the most, and probably you will learn as quickly as you can.

Pay the fullest attention to what your mentor is doing during the editing session, watch how they work, and pretty soon, you will be at their level as well.

Listening to feedback from your mentor

Always be prepared beforehand for your editing session with your mentor.

Take notes. Take tons of notes.

Your mentor might let you know what to take note of themselves, but you should also make sure that you are proactive and taking note of every little bit of information that you believe might be useful.

Ask questions. Ask tons of questions.

Don’t be afraid to ask about anything you’re not 100% clear with. At the same time, try to not repeat yourself, although, again, if you need a more detailed explanation on something, ask away.

Prepare your questions before the editing session. Articulate them as clearly as you can.

You shouldn’t think of your mentor as a harsh authority that is here to find mistakes in your work, even though it may seem like that at times.

Instead, think of your mentor as your older brother that is kinda bullying you a bit into growing stronger and improving yourself.

At least in the beginning, I personally will do most of the mentoring, and I believe that I’m not really harsh when providing feedback (I should probably be a bit harsher, if anything). But later, other mentors may join our team, and they may have different teaching and working styles, so if you receive what you believe to be harsh feedback, instead of complaining and feeling sorry for yourself, act on it quickly and improve your writing.

The relationship you have with your mentor will not be a one-way street. Everyone is different, and your mentor will try to adapt their mentoring style to you. You will likely build a close, dynamic relationship with your mentor, you will likely get to know each other a bit, and you will find a way to cooperate that results in amazing content but also is fun and productive for the both of you.

Still, aim to listen to the feedback from your mentor as often as possible, and only object to it if you have a really, really strong reason to do so. Writing successful blog posts is an art, but it’s also a cold, hard science in a way, and there’s almost always a reason why things are done the way they are done, and that’s why you should take to heart the feedback you get from your mentor.

And even more importantly, you should act on that feedback.

Evaluation from your mentor and possible termination from the program

During the onboarding and training phase, you will be evaluated heavily by your mentor.

While we are looking to build as big of a team as possible, and as much as we’d like to give everyone a shot at building their own passive income stream, the reality is, not everyone is cut out for this type of work. Plus, every new member increases the workload that mentors have to perform, and members that are simply not good candidates increase the workload by a lot while not adding a lot of value to the team.

For that reason, we have to be quite selective in choosing who we work with, and that’s why some team members may be terminated from the program during the onboarding and training phase.

The specifics of who will pass or fail the training phase will not be disclosed here.

There might be one rough guideline you could rely on to be sure you are doing good – if you are not causing the mentoring team members to spend a lot of time on fixing your mistakes and editing your content, you will not be terminated. And “a lot” can mean different things here, but in general, if editing your blog post takes around half the time it takes to write it or more than that, then you can think of that article as not a very good one.

In any case, if you’ve passed the interview and you’re working hard in the training phase, chances are, you will pass and become a full member. You should still be aware that termination is possible in this phase as well.

Improving your writing and taking the correct action

Officially, your training phase will last anywhere from 10 days, to however many days it takes you to complete your first 10 articles (although there will be an upper limit to that period as well, probably around 21 days).

However, in practice, you will continue to work closely with your mentor even after that. Not as much and not as intensely as during the training phase, but still, you will cooperate with them, and the rest of the team for that matter, during the entire time you work at the Digital Marketing Empire.

We expect you to make significant progress during the training, so that you won’t require as much help and attention from the mentor, but you can always rely on them for feedback and advice.

That said, at some point, you will have to spread your wings and start flying on your own. That is the whole point of this project. You will be working on a business that you have a part in, but also, you will be mastering a very lucrative skill, and that’s one of the biggest wins for you here.

You will find that there’s only so much your mentor can do. As one of the most famous mentors in movie history said: “I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.”

It’s difficult to predict how anyone will progress, and how quickly they will learn and master the craft of blogging. You can see the Digital Marketing Empire timeline example, but even though that’s a likely timeline for a lot of you, it may not be your exact timeline, as that’s impossible to predict.

One thing is for certain though – if you apply the feedback your mentor gives you, and you consistently take the right action, you will improve. It’s basically not even debatable, that’s just simply how progress works.

So, pay attention, focus, do your best work, listen to what your mentor says, take action, and you will become an excellent blogger in a very short time span.

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