OK, so just to be clear, I’m a huge believer in faith, the power of positive thinking, and that yes, miracles do happen.
So I’m not knocking any of those things, or the power that hope can have in a person’s life and their perceptions of the world.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to leave my livelihood up to those things. C’mon, a girl’s gotta eat!
And shop, and hang with friends, and go see cool movies and… oh sorry… I get a little carried away at times. 🙂
So, hope is great, but it’s definitely not a business strategy. If you are going into business for yourself, you at the very least need a loose ‘business plan’ with a few key goals outlined in order to see any kind of success.
After all, if you don’t have a direction or a purpose, what’s the point? You’re essentially just spinning your wheels, slinging mud, and not going anywhere.
Like most people in Internet marketing, I had no idea what I was doing when I first started out. I had no direction, I had no specific goals, no particular skills to speak of, and basically… no clue what I was doing!
I didn’t know what an auto-responder was; I had no idea how to get pre-qualified leads for my business; I didn’t even know how to set up a blog! (Crying shame ain’t it?!)
I cleaned vacation homes for a living, and was lucky to make $45 dollars for a day’s worth of drudgery and work, cleaning up other peoples messes. Go me!
The only thing getting me by at the time was ‘hope’ and ‘faith’ that things would get better somehow. Only they didn’t, they just got worse.
I prowled the net for hours, determined to find a way to ‘Make Money Online’ and unfortunately was the PERFECT SUCKER for all of those ‘Get Rich Quick’ schemes that abound on the web.
So obviously, THAT kind of thinking wasn’t getting me anywhere, no matter how hard I wished for it. What DID get me somewhere was learning to focus my attention.
I learned how to create a strategy (albeit a VERY loose one!). I learned what goal setting was, and how to set specific, measurable goals so that I could ‘See’ my success and failures.
And I learned that all the hope in the world, all the knowledge in the world, and all the skills in the world would get me exactly nowhere without learning to take focused action.
I learned that all good businesses are built on systems, proven systems that WORK.
They have clear plans of attack, predictable and effective ways of generating prospects and leads, and easily identifiable and measurable milestones in place to track your progress.
I learned most people are of the mindset that you need money to make money and they figure that’s where they fail. I used to think that too, and maybe that’s true to a point.
But really, the bottom line is that most people who run out of money in their business, find it’s largely due to the fact that they don’t know how to market their business properly.
It’s also a pretty good bet they could do with some coaching in the money management department as well. And to top that off, they have no system, no plan, no specific goals in mind, other than to ‘Make Money’ or ‘Get Rich’. Sorry, not happening!
Remember that as a business owner and entrepreneur, your first and foremost goal should be to lay out a system of attracting new and qualified leads, that runs like clockwork and drums up new business for you on a regular basis.
You can’t get anywhere without effective marketing!
It’s like setting up a lemonade stand in the middle of the desert on a lonely back road no one travels.
NOT GONNA WORK.
So map out a plan, create or follow a system and stop putting your livelihood on the shoulders of poor Ms. ‘Hope’. She’s got enough on her plate to keep her busy for a long time to come, and your business should not be on the menu. You’re the chef, get to cooking!
Warmest
