Winning The Battle For Your Prosperity
This is our next installment as we continue the series of instructive posts regarding how to avoid becoming a business statistic. Let me start by saying that I believe everyone who has ever started a business began their pursuit with some emotionally fueled passionate reason as the motivating factor to take the leap. Unfortunately the fact is that over 95% of new online home business owners, mostly due to habit, exchange their passionate pursuit that brought about the entrepreneurial freedom into something more reflective of a job which if left unchecked, is systematically followed by total burn-out and the death of that dream.
When I work with those struggling to make money online it is fairly simple to identify who is stuck in this cycle. When they hit obstacles or have something fail they immediately think "why me?" or "here we go again!" and debate two paths; either to seek another shot of motivational "kool-aid" to get them going again or think about throwing in the towel and giving up. They now look for the easy way to success and feel that the world seems to be stacked against them. In reality, it is not. Their brain software contains programming that is faulty, causing a skewed perspective of both themselves and what they truly want out of life which results in a defeatist attitude. A far cry from the glass half full optimism they once adopted when they first began.
Ask yourself why on the other hand, are there those that have little or no success for years yet never give up their passionate pursuit? Why when seemingly slapped in the face by life, are there people who seem totally undaunted and undeterred? What makes them different and (as a client once asked) since facts back up that it appears to be a pre-requisite to success, where can I get some of that in a bottle?
Let me logically walk you through a typical scenario where you will be able to easily see the cause and effect to help it make sense in your everyday real world. I've found that making the case in this way is vitally important to enable you to implement the strategies and get your business equipped to be a mechanism that creates financial and personal fulfillment in your life. The answer lies in how seriously you've taken the steps to accurately identify how the motives for the foundation of your business reflect your skills, your abilities and what truly fulfills you. Before you roll your eyes let me show you why this is incredibly important. The accuracy and purity of those motives create the perspective by which you see yourself and are thus reflected in the overall purpose of your business. This is why I've said that business growth reflects your personal growth (or lack their of).
Real World Scenario
Let's look at a very typical scenario. A person who has felt trapped in corporate environment and taken for granted desires to live life on their terms. They are excited about all the possibilities. When they settle on the online business niche, business opportunity or network marketing opportunity as their vehicle they immediately think of how successful they will be since they can finally shine, unencumbered by managers and corporate structure that held them back. After planning which consisted of taking a little more than an afternoon to create some unrealistic scenarios that get them excited about making a large amount of money, they immediately set out to run hard like a pioneer after the Louisiana Purchase, racing west to stake their claim and seek their fortune.
After falling down a few times and learning things the hard way, they begin to think that there's something wrong with this picture. Surely they're talented enough. So they reassess & re-adjust their goals become far more honest with themselves with what it might take to be successful. Unfortunately the new goals revolve around desiring purely to make far more money. Now, with that being their only priority, they begin to fall into the "ends justify the means" philosophy and become willing to do anything to get rich because that in their minds equates to success. They then read from others who are caught in the same cycle, that it's all about how bad you want it and begin the "bull in the china shop" approach as they ram their marketing message down everyone's throat. Every rejection, every failure and every setback is becoming harder and harder to run from which is how they feel they must deal with negativity in order to stay positive. The once excited business owner begins their spiral into full fledged burn out. If anyone they identify as a potential prospect, customer or partner is anything other than enthusiastically interested in their offering, they begin to feel contempt toward them which begins to show more and more often.
The Slow Business Death & Autopsy
At some point they feel they must have run too fast out of the gate before establishing a foundation however, they feel that they are already on borrowed time. Their impatience causes them to begin searching as many magic potion, magic pill, marketing magic and magic secret products that promise a faster track to riches. After being let down repeatedly, they find that their source of motivation, that drug they use to get them "pumped up" and excited, is no longer sufficient to get them high enough to jump back on their entrepreneurial horse to ride again.
They begin to accept that they've been fooling themselves all along. They have spent little or no time with their families and when they do, they are so stressed that they can't hide it anymore. They end up feeling stupid for ever thinking that they could hope for a different outcome. As they mourn the death of their aspirations, they retool their resume and like a good soldier, re-enter the corporate army promising never to go AWOL again.
It is said that the road to failure is often set out in a direction that's just 10-degrees off the road to success but after miles have been traveled, you can't see the successful path from the road to "slow failure" and wonder how you ever got to where you're standing. I intend to prove to you how, if certain steps were taken in the front end, the direction this scenario took this entrepreneur would not have left them so wayward from reaching their goals.
The Solution Part 1: Customize Your Business To Showcase Your Strengths
I will be imparting this game-changing business construction blueprint in 2 distinct perspectives. We will first begin examining details on the ground level before rising up to 30,000 feet to examine the big picture of your business. It might appear a bit backwards but it will make sense when we're through.
Start by examining what functions will be required to successfully launch your business (or re-vamp an existing business) along with effectively performing the day to day operations. I want to walk you through a step by step, how to customize your business to play to your strengths while having it fit what you're naturally motivated to do. You have to begin by taking stock of your strengths and what fulfills you. I've found that doing such an inventory is best begun by asking yourself several questions.
- What functions would you like to perform that play to your strengths and fulfill you?
- Where do your weaknesses lie and what essential business functions do they involve?
- What training is available to educate yourself in those areas to improve them?
- What areas/functions do not fulfill you or fit with your personality make up that need to be done for your business to be successful?
- What resources are available to partner with that can do the heavy lifting when it comes to those functions?
These are the type of questions you want to ask yourself in each dimension of your business. Once you have taken the time to answer these questions, you should then have a list of strengths & weaknesses followed by functions that are affected by each. Those functions will be divided into those that fulfill you, those that are less fulfilling but could be done once self-educated and finally those functions that you choose to out-source.Your first of two actions steps will then be to educate yourself how to learn to effectively perform the first 2 categories of functions as proficiently as possible. The next action step will be to do your due-diligence to find an optimal plan of partnering with either a free/cheap resource, a reputable professional outsourcing service or a networked contact to perform those functions in a win-win or bartering arrangement.
The greatest overlooked advantage of taking the time to be patient, downshift and strategically plan your business foundation is the control & freedom it provides. It doesn't matter if we're talking about an Internet/affiliate marketing business, online network marketing business or any home business started to earn money online. When you take the time to custom create your business to play to your strengths, educates your functional weaknesses and delegates the mundane and torturous duties, you have learned the secret of building a successful business that uniquely fits you. When you think about it, why, when given such freedom would you ever do the things you absolutely hate and aren't wired to excel at.
This methodology will then be woven into your business plan. Understand that when you begin you don't know what you don't know yet and there will be functions that you first desired to learn to perform which you later determine to be better outsourced. Believe it or not, this is also true with those functions that you originally determine to outsource. I know plenty of those who originally wanted to outsource their blog posts who, after seeing it as a great way to personally connect with their target market, actually found the function to be one that they grew to love performing.
Part 2: The Big Picture & Your Mission
The second focus that needs to be dealt with is concerning your business's big picture. A 2-4 sentence mission statement is absolutely imperative to your success whether you are marketing yourself or providing a service. That is; to define what your business is intended to accomplish for your target market, (other than making you money) that enables you to connect with your business purpose emotionally. It empowers you to psychologically get behind your business and champion it as your passionate purpose, reflecting the unique identity or who you are. Many preach that the main reason for doing this is to brand yourself uniquely in the market place. I say that's crap. This is your plum line. This essentially plots the course of your business that will keep you from veering that 10degrees which threatens pull you and your business off course.
As you begin making strategic decisions about your business you will be looking at those decisions to determine if they in fact line up with your original purpose you've laid out. It also becomes your anchor when you hit obstacles. When you face several failures in succession, it becomes your battle cry that is woven into the fabric of who you are. Desiring to merely "get rich" or "make more money" cannot provide this type of motivational conviction. No, this is my friends is your noble cause.
