Understanding Online Success # 2

“A fool and his money are soon parted”
(common saying)

Information Overload, Shiny Object Syndrome, and Lack of Action:

Individually, these are the three biggest killers of success for getting an online business started. Collectively, when a person has all three, they not only choke the life out of the new business, but they can also cause irreparable damage to the person affected.

Today, I am going to talk about these three killers

• What they are
• How they work against your success
• What causes them
• How to prevent them
• How to escape their stranglehold

Information Overload

It started as a curiosity. “Just how does someone really make money online?” So you search the Internet and find a free guide that will tell you “everything you need to know to succeed online”.  Just enter your email and you will have “instant access” to this great information.

When you get to the download page, you find, not only the free gift, but also free bonuses. Just click and download. When you follow the links to download the bonuses, you find each bonus has bonuses.

I remember the first time this happened to me. I was downloading ‘bonuses’ until 6 AM! After work that day, I was never more excited, or lost in my life! I had so much to read and learn, but I didn’t know where to begin. Then the emails began.

There is only 1 out of 10,000 of you reading this that is not saying “so tell me something I don’t already know.” And the 9,999 can’t figure out if they should laugh at me or cry in sympathy.

This is Information Overload! One book teaches how to make money as an affiliate, one teaches how to create a website that converts visitors, another teaches how to make the site so it gets high Google rankings and another teaches how to create your own product. At this point, you are bogged down and don’t know where to start. This spawns yet another habit.

Shiny Object Syndrome

After dealing with Information Overload, I would continue to follow email links looking for something that would point me in the right direction. Generally, it was just more of the same. But then, I started saying I would not sign up for more lists. However, I had created a habit and that habit proved to be hard to break.

Worse, yet, it led to another one, Shiny Object Syndrome. By now, I had been seeing more of the same bonuses I already had downloaded at least two or three times each. But, I kept seeing The Big Lie. “I’ll show you how to make $10,000 in 3 easy steps,” “Spend Only 2 Hours a Day Setting up 1-Hour Blogs that make $200-500/Month Each,” “Your Own Product in Three Days,” and “Make $ Thousands a Day with Three Mouse Clicks.”

These ads sound convincing. I buy a few. Basically, I get the same results I got with the free products. I got the product I bought, an upsell that will “make your success faster” and more bonuses that lead to more bonus links and email subscriptions.

So, I read the new purchased course, or watch the videos, and I learn two things. First, I need to already know something that the teacher has in one of his other courses, or I need to buy another product that costs upwards from $77 to $100s, I need to subscribe to a $97+ monthly service, or spend more money than I had available to risk. Maybe this isn’t for me. Shall we try again? This spawns yet another habit.

Lack of Action

It has now been weeks, maybe months and my adrenaline has been pumping, just knowing there is a solution out there. Disappointment in the courses is taking its toll. The three easy steps was to buy an expensive subscription, write hundreds of articles per week, and create a free product to give away. The one hour blog was explained in only 40 hours of video training! Do the math! At the promised 2 hours a day (1 hour for the videos and 1 hour to work), it takes nearly 2 months just to create and complete that first blog! The rest were just more of the same.

It is hard to stay motivated when the promise is to make money in one week, one hour or one day, but it takes months of training to do it. This problem is magnified when you run into something you don’t understand, or can’t accomplish. You leave a support ticket and wait three days to a week to get a reply that either asks a question, or provides a canned answer that doesn’t resemble answering the question you asked.

They are Murderers – Every One!

Information Overload, Shiny Object Syndrome, and Lack of Action are success murderers. They kill your ambition and motivation, and action. Without ambition, without motivation and without action, your business is doomed!

By now, you realize what these killers are and how they work together to destroy your chances of success. If this hasn’t happened, or isn’t happening to you, you fall into one of three categories. 99% of you are just looking into making money online, almost 1% of you took on a mentor from the beginning and ignored everything and everyone else. Finally, but unlikely, you could have been one of the extremely rare birds who picked up a program and ran with it without question and succeeded.

The Root of this Evil

“The Love of Money is the Root of all Evil”
Holy Bible

I am not getting religious on you. It’s just that no one ever said it better. The cause of these problems is rooted in the desire to squeeze every last dime out of a customer when a marketer makes a sale. It isn’t that the marketer is evil, but it is built into his/her business model.

Let’s look at the successful business model one more time.

1. Offer a free gift to attract customers
2. Offer them a special deal so they might buy
3. “Give” them affiliate links to other online marketers who offer free gifts to make the commission on those who buy
4. Use email to make money by offering upsells and affiliate sales

You see, there is really nothing evil about this process, but to a new-comer who doesn’t understand, it can be a death trap. This isn’t a complete business model, but it is accurate to the topic of this article.

Overcoming this Death Trap

The three traps I just discussed quickly become habits that may be as hard to break as cigarette smoking. They are habits. The only way to break a habit is to replace it. The Big Lie is like the chemical addiction. The habits feed the withdrawals. The longer you desire to have the overnight success and practice the habits that follow, the more you will feed it and the harder it will be to overcome.

The First Step

Replace your desire for overnight success with a determination to do whatever it takes to make your online business a success – even if you think it may take over a year!

I have not heard one long-term success story in online marketing that the master did not tell of either a period of trial and failure that preceded his success, or if the success was overnight, that he didn’t lose it all and have to start over.

The first step to overcoming these three traps is to recognize and immunize yourself against the Big Lie. Recognize the fact that it hasn’t worked that way for you, it didn’t work that way for them, and it will take time to make money in this business.

Take time out and cry! If you need to morn, do it! It isn’t easy losing hope that you will be able to come to the rescue and stop the collection calls, or the repossession of your home, car, or furniture. So, accept it, and morn it. Get it out of your system.

The Second Step

Make a commitment. Become determined to complete the race. Your hope of overnight riches is dead, but not the hope for your dream lifestyle. There may be setbacks…. There will be setbacks! You’ll get more hours at your job, your spouse will lose his/her job, you’ll have to move, there will be sickness, or other medical and family problems that get in the way. That is life as you live it right now. You can’t ignore these things, so deal with them, but keep your desire, determination and commitment to succeed! This is your passion. Don’t let it go!

Step Three

Take action on your commitment. Get out a calendar and plan what specific days and what specific hours you will commit to be used exclusively for your business. Plan the next two months. You can expect to make adjustments, so don’t waste time right now, Just do it and get it done!

Block off reasonable periods of time each week. If your job has a fluid work schedule, block off a somewhat typical work week. Then, when you get that week’s schedule, adjust your calendar to accommodate your job. You might be able to set aside 2 hours a day 5-6 days a week, or you might be able to set aside 10 hours each weekend. Whatever schedule you make, be reasonably sure you can follow it. Then commit to sticking to it!

My days are filled with crisis management. That means I have to respond to calls or situations at a moments notice when I am home. Therefore, I get up early to work my business. Unless I get up earlier, I usually spend from 5:30 AM through 8:00 AM working on business.

Assignment

Your assignment is to first get over the expectations of overnight riches and to be determined to make your online business succeed in spite of all setbacks and failures. Finally, take action by setting aside time for your business and practice using it exclusively for your business. Doing this will replace the deadly habits that are killing your business.

If you don’t know what to do with the rest of your time after setting up your calendar, then try this. Unsubscribe from every email sending you more than one affiliate offer in one day, or if they send three offers back-to-back.

That’s all for today. I’ll continue this later.

Buck

This was a continuation from the article: Overnight Success and Push-Button Riches