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Well that's the weekend been and gone and it's a weekend when I am so glad I live here in Queensland. Yesterday while we enjoyed some really glorious weather with plenty of sunshine some of the other places where we have lived experienced snow falls and freezing temperatures.

It was so nice to sit on the beach and enjoy the sun while some of our family were sending us text messages about how cold it was and telling us that there was snow falling. Steve just had to send them a photo of the beach to show them what they were missing out on ... he's caring like that.

If you're in the northern hemisphere though you're still enjoying summer but it won't be long before those warm days are beginning to disappear and winter will be upon you. Traditionally the end of the northern hemisphere summer has been seen by webmasters in our industry as a good thing.

The low traffic and sales of summer supposedly give way to better times in winter when people spend more time in front of their computers. I'm not sure that I've ever really bought the line that people don't spend as much time in front of their computers in summer ... my traffic figures have never really reflected that.

These days, people are so connected that they're even less likely to spend time away from their computers than they did in the past so I'm not sure traffic and sales will improve in the coming months. Of course we're also facing some very difficult economic times so there's another factor that may prevent sales from improving.

For those of you who have come here looking for a quick buck that can be rather sad news. But then, as I've said before, the days of the quick buck in this industry are over. If you want to make money here then you have to be in it for the long haul.

Sure, you might make some quick earnings now and again but the serious money is only here if you want to stick at it. And that's always been the case here in Internet land if only you wanted to take notice of the examples that are here for you to see and sometimes it's not what you start out to do that makes you the money, it's what you develop from that initial start that defines your success.

Look at Google for instance. It's a great search engine and always was ... of course they've had their ups and downs but overall the Google twins developed a great product but that was only the start. They've gone on to grow a marketing business out of that search engine and Google still has a long way to go.

When you look back on the development of Google you will see that it has been something that has developed over quite a few years. It wasn't a blazing overnight success but it will still be around making more money that you can imagine long after all those blazing overnight successes have gone and been forgotten.

So be prepared to stick around for the long haul because that's ultimately where the money is. Be patient and be prepared for a lot of hard work. Seth Godin wrote about it the other day and it's well worth your time to head over to his blog and read his thoughts.

He sees 10 years as a reasonable period to achieve success and I think he's about right. If you can't wait that long ... if you want to achieve what you consider to be success tomorrow or next week ... then maybe this, or any other industry isn't right for you.

You may think that's all a bit harsh but in tough economic times you really do need to be patient. You really do need to keep on working at whatever it is you're doing if you want to succeed and you do need to be looking to the long term for that success that you crave.

It's there, you can do it but you do need patience and you do need to stay focused. It's when you lose that focus and become impatient that you begin to fail no matter how things might look in the short term.

And while you're staying focused don't let your competitors distract you. Some of them will do anything to achieve an advantage over you so when that happens just ignore them ... don't waste your time on them ... because when they resort to underhanded attacks they're telling you that they're struggling and you've already beaten them.