Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

The Importance of Taking Action
I just want to clarify something in case anyone got the wrong idea from yesterday's post (about my daughter buying a permanent headquarters for her business). My message wasn't one of "if you want something badly enough it will come your way."

You don't get what you're aiming for by sitting back and just "wanting it" enough. I've seen a lot of business owners fall into that trap. They take a little step toward fulfilling their dreams and then they sit back and wait for everything they want to come together for them.

My daughter Rachel didn't achieve what she did by taking that route. What caused her dream to become reality was TAKING ACTION.

She's gotten a number of breaks along the way. She's been in the right place at the right time to step in when someone needed the kind of program she envisioned. She's drawn attention from backers who were impressed with the program she's put together.

But she hasn't gotten those breaks by sitting on her duff. She hasn't gotten that attention by simply waiting for "the right time" to do something about her dreams.

She has gotten where she is today by taking action. She stepped out at times when things weren't quite ready. She learned some painful lessons where her inexperience showed through.

But through all of it, she learned and she persevered and she acted. A good example of what comes from taking action happened when she signed the closing papers on the church.

A number of congregation members were at the closing to represent the church. As
Rachel and her future husband signed the papers, they talked with these sellers about their plans for the church. A number of them heard about her program for the first time at that closing.

Several asked for information about how they could register their children for her classes. Others spoke of contacts they had that could help her make her programs more widely known. Another was a former puppeteer who had been looking for a children's program exactly like Rachel's to donate all her puppets to.

In the course of buying the church, Rachel received more than just a property. She received more students, more contacts, and more to equip her program. As with everything she's done to date, she got more than she expected from her actions.

There's a place for learning when you start a business. But too many business owners never get beyond learning and planning into the actual doing. Take what you know and USE it to build your business. Good things happen to those who take action.
Jeff

It All Starts With an Idea
If you've ever read Napoleon Hill's classic, "Think and Grow Rich" (which you should, by the way), you've heard that phrase: "It all starts with an idea." In chapter after chapter, Hill recounts how one business success after another started from an idea—some of them even seemingly impossible—and grew into reality due to an unwavering devotion to making it happen.

That's exactly what I saw happen today in the life of my oldest daughter, Rachel.

Today, she and her future husband bought a church that they plan to convert into a banquet hall and a theatre that will serve as the headquarters for her Dare to Dream theatre program.

Back when she was in college, she dreamed of running her own acting workshops for children. She worked with an existing workshop at her college. She found ways to do the workshops better and incorporated those ways into her own program. She hunted out opportunities to hold her workshops with a variety of small groups.

By the time she finished college, she already had a loyal list of families whose children had loved her workshops and were eager for more.

Since graduation, she has expanded her locations farther and farther north from where she went to college. She now does workshops throughout much of eastern Wisconsin. She built this business while cobbling together income from a variety of other jobs to pay her bills.

When she called today with the news of her new theater space, she marvelled at the fact that, at the age of 25, her business is 15 years ahead of her initial expectations. Granted, she has gotten a number of incredible breaks in the past three years to push her that far ahead of her timetable, but she never would have been in the position to get those breaks if it weren't for two things:

• Her initial idea
• Her dedication to doing whatever it took to make that idea a reality

As Napoleon Hill points out throughout his book, those two things are what nearly all success stories have in common. Good job, Rachel!
Jeff

Another Idea for Persevering Through a Long Project
I learned another idea today for dealing with an enormous project. I got this one from Joe Robson, a top copywriter and developer of The Newbie Club, which provides free resources and tutorials for improving your skills on computer, internet, and ecommerce.

Joe is also in the middle of a big project right now. He's creating a whole new set of tutorials, has already put in more than 70 hours, and sees no end in sight.

So this is how he stays on task: he writes on a big piece of paper what he feels will be better in his life once he gets the project done. Then he posts that paper right next to his monitor.

Every time he's tempted to take a break or set the project aside, he sees that reminder of the benefits he'll receive from completing the project. He says it heads off discouragement and keeps him much more focused.

Give it a try and let me know if it works for you!
Jeff

Surviving the Long Haul
A funny thing happens when working on your business gets repetitive. I'm going through it right now as I do a massive redoing of a client's site.

I took on the assignment freely and willingly. I looked forward to seeing a large increase in my client's sales as I improve his conversion rate. And although the assignment is still in its early stages, I'm pleased with the direction it's going.

The funny thing that happens, though, is that somewhere along the way, what I WANTED to do becomes something I feel OBLIGATED to do. It starts to feel like an external force is compelling me against my will to do the work.

And there's nothing more energy sapping than to feel like you're doing something you don't want to do.

Like I said before, I eagerly took on this challenge. So why does it now feel like a burden?

The reason it is does is because of loss of perspective. The opportunity to make a big difference in my client's conversion rate excited me. But the path to that destination requires that I fix a lot of little details along the way.

It's easy to get so caught up in the details that I can lose sight of the goal. So how do I get past that unfortunate mind shift?

I stop looking at those details as mind-deadening tasks imposed some external force. I look at them instead as means to an exciting end that I have chosen. I check off each task I do and pat myself on the back each time I get one more step closer to my goal.

All of us face the same problem in our business at one time or another. The path to business success takes us through a lot of details that we'd much rather not do.

But the more you keep those details in perspective, as steps that bring you to the goal YOU have chosen, the more you'll keep your energy level up and the less you'll fall victim to procrastination.
Jeff

Mark Joyner Bootleg Video
The guys at Nitro Marketing are launching a hot new product they created from a private $10k consultation they received from Mark Joyner. They just showed me an awesome 20 minute online video clip from the "eXtreme Business Makeover" course.

I am sure you know the quality of information that Mark Joyner has been bringing to the
Internet for almost a decade. I've always found Mark's insights into online marketing to be first-rate and this video is no exception. Watch the clip and see how much you'll learn
in 20 minutes.
Jeff