Obviously there are more than just three reasons why some people never quite crack it online of course…
..luck, motivation, background, even family support all play a part
But from the experience of working with numerous clients and customers I can safely say that following are three of the main reasons that can cause normal, intelligent, motivated people to fail with their online businesses:
ONE: Fear of investing money
You can’t set up an online business for free. It can’t be done.
If you’re anything like me you’ll need to find this out for yourself, of course, but if you want to save yourself two years of hard work and anguish then take the following to heart:
You need to invest in your business.
You’ll need resources, software, traffic, outsourcing, and professional help.
You won’t need it all at once of course, and if you do it correctly your business will fund itself as you go on…
…but being afraid, reluctant or unwilling to invest money in your business is most likely to be the thing that kills it off in the long run.
You wouldn’t (and couldn’t) operate without funds if you opened a high street shop or bought a franchise right?
Well there’s no difference
You need to spend money on your business.
Some things you can do for free, ALL things you can’t.
TWO: Failure to acquire the specific knowledge you need.
You don’t need to know everything but you DO need to know the right things.
You need to know the basics of selling, how to use certain bits of software or hardware, and you need to know how to put it all together…
..and if not putting it together physically yourself, then you need to know how it SHOULD fit together.
You can outsource a lot of your business, but you need to know that something exists to be able to outsource it!
You can’t work in a surfboard shop or computer shop successfully without knowing how the kit works.
You don’t have to know everything but you do have to know how to access the information you don’t have.
Likewise, if your business isn’t moving forward because you simply don’t know the technical aspects of how to do something then FIND OUT. Actively seek it out.
The knowledge won’t appear by magic one
Saturday morning when you’re at the gym and eventually it will turn into a roadblock and logjam your whole business.
Yes, you could outsource it but if it’s something you’ll be doing again and again like putting JVZoo button code onto your page or configuring a JVZoo funnel then it’s going to cost you a lot of money and time each time you need it doing.
So find out how to do it yourself.
Ask, Google, check YouTube, forums, networks, FAQ’s, support desks, friends, or whatever you need to FIND OUT the information that you need to know.
You’d be more than amazed at the number of people I hear from who are ‘stuck’ and have been for months because they say they don’t know how to do a certain thing…
..yet it only takes my support people TEN SECONDS to find a link to a YouTube video that walks them through that very information!
It’s crazy.
It’s lazy too.
If you need information find it.
You’ve got the internet. If you’d started a business 50 years ago it’d be a damn sight harder than it is now.
Research is a skill. Learn it.
THREE: Too much focus on the internet and not enough on the marketing
Internet Marketing IS just that – selling stuff on the net.
It’s not a ‘thing’ in itself. It’s a WAY to selling something.
So it’s not a product – you’ll need one of those.
It’s not a sales letter or video – you’ll need one of those too.
Nor is it traffic. You’ll need to sort that aspect of your business out too.
Once you get that fact sorted out in your head you’ll be fine. But you need to really get it.
Took me a while to realize that pretty much ALL the aspects of running a ‘normal’ business – from lead management through to making sales – were applicable to an internet business too
Sure, an online biz can be cheaper to set up than a shop or warehouse (all you need is a website) but when it comes to getting eyes on your product and then convincing the buggers to buy it…
…it’s just like any other form of selling.
So while it’s OK to use fancy software and platforms to make your selling easier or more effective, don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll make money from that platform or software alone.
You won’t.
And then there’s one of MY main faults – tinkering with stuff.
There’s nothing I love more than installing a new plugin, bit of script or subscribing to a new service and spending days messing about with it.
The only problem is I’m a crap techy and I spend far too long doing something that is unproductive when I should be doing something to move my business forward.
I’ve managed to discipline myself only ever to get outsourcers to do stuff like this now, but I know people who spend their entire time online messing about with things like this and it means their business will never progress.
Focus on your business. Focus on what brings in the MONEY, NOT the internet side of things.
I know it’s much more fun installing a new blog theme or messing about with that new plugin you bought…
…but that’s NOT internet marketing, that’s just internet 🙂
And it doesn’t bring the money in.
So focus on what DOES.
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