What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid?

I was re-reading a book I picked up a few years ago and thought I'd share it with you here. The title of the book is "Who Moved My Cheese". It's a bit difficult to explain briefly, but it's basically about dealing with change in life. It's a much better book than that description makes it sound and I highly suggest you pick up a copy. It's pretty short and even has large print, so you can get through it in a couple of sittings at most.

As the story unfolds, one of the characters realizes that he's really just plagued by fear of the changes going on around him, to the point of being paralyzed and doing nothing. Then he asks himself the question that I used as the title for this blog post. So with that in mind…

What Would YOU Do If You Weren't Afraid?

I think all of us entrepreneurs have fears crop up from time to time. I even spoke to a very successful family friend with her own consulting business of 20+ years who said she still has doubts from time to time. So certainly, those of us on the front end of this journey have fears and doubts sometimes.

But that question is a pretty compelling one to think about. If you've been learning about online business for a little while, you probably know most of what you need to know to be successful. There may be some technical skills you could get better at, better copywriting or other things. But for the most part, there's not all that much to understand. And quite honestly, you'll never know it all…it's a continuous learning process. So most of the time, lack of success can probably be boiled down to fear.

You might not even think you're afraid. I know because that's how I am. Instead, the fear may be masking itself as confusion, too many choices, not enough time, or some other excuse. But if you think about it, most of those are just forms of fear - fear that you'll choose the wrong market, the wrong product, that no one will buy it, that it'll take too long to make and so on.

But put all that aside and just ask yourself what you would do if you weren't afraid.

You'd probably go ahead and create that product, put those videos on YouTube, start that blog and get your articles posted, start promoting your affiliate program, or whatever else is eating at you…right? Especially if you already saw those things working for someone else.

If you're tring to figure out what to do (or what to do next), thinking through the answer to this question might be a worthwhile exercise to go through.

I also suggest getting a copy of this book. It's on my list of books to go back through at least once a year. There are a lot of great little lessons packed in to a fun and easy-to-read story.

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Excuse #1: I'm Not an Expert

Well, here we are at #1 on the list…let's get to it.

Excuse #1: I'm not an expert

This excuse is one that comes up time and time again, especially for infoproduct developers.  And when you think about it, this is sort of a "chicken or the egg" thing…which came first?

A lot of people don't want to write those blog posts or articles, create those products or podcasts, build a list or any other online business activities because in their head, they're not an expert.

Well think about authors for a second.  Writing a book makes them an expert, at least in the eyes of many of us, no matter what their TRUE experience may be.

The same goes for you…doing those things mentioned above (creating content) is what makes you an expert.

It forces you to organize what you know (or research the topic well enough), then synthesize it into an easy-to-follow format.  Knowing something is one thing.  Being able to explain it or teach it is what really makes someone an expert.

You don't need to know every nit-noid detail about your topic to be an expert.  You've probably heard that old saying that studying something for an hour a day for a year is all you need to become an expert.  That's a good starting point.  And by the way, don't worry about needing to know EVERYTHING.  No one knows everything.

I've also heard that something like 80% of books purchased on Amazon are bought as gifts, not for self-consumption.   I'm not sure if that number is accurate, but let's just say "most books".

So obviously not too many people are really out there trying to become expert in much of anything…which probably includes people in your market too.  So if you're willing to take a little time to research and learn about your topic, you'll know more than the average person in your market, and therefore, YOU'RE the expert.  And you probably already know more than you're giving yourself credit for.

Let's face it…no one, not even your own mother, is going to come down from on high and anoint you an "expert".  You just gotta' go get it, by demonstrating it through your content, the products you create, what you teach and what you do.

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Excuse #2: No One Will Buy That

Almost to the top of the list…check out number 2 on the list of common excuses for not starting your online business.  This one affects a lot of people.

Excuse #2: No one will buy that

Maybe they won't. 

Or maybe it'll be so costly to get traffic to your site (in time or money) that the numbers don't make sense even if people DO buy it. 

But you should have a fairly good idea about whether people will buy your "thing" before you even start creating it.  Are they buying similar things from someone else?  Then why not you too?

Remember, for a lot of topics (most actually), people are going to buy more than one solution…especially if they're passionate about learning something.

And ideally, you would have already done a bare minimum of market research first - and hopefully built a list of potential customers - before creating ANYTHING.  You would have also found other sites, newsletters, blogs, etc. where your ideal prospects can be found.

Doing those things can minimize the "no one will buy that" factor.  And if you already have something on the market that's not selling, here are some other things you should consider:

• Have you tested different parts of the sales process to see where the problem is? 
• Are you getting enough traffic? 
• Are people not staying on the site very long? 
• Are they staying, reading, but not clicking the "buy" button? 
• Are they clicking the "buy" button but not completing the order?

If nothing seems to be working, before you take it off the market, think about how you can repurpose it? Can you break it up and use it for content, list building or some other purpose?

Hopefully it won't come to that, but not all projects work out like we planned.

That being said, that old excuse of "no one will buy that" is rarely the case unless due to poor planning or market research.

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Excuse #3: I'm Not Technical, Don't Know HTML and So On

Here's the next in our "common excuse list".  This one's kind of funny because I'm just the opposite and I think it hurts more than helps.  Anyway, here it is…

Excuse #3: I'm not technical, don't know HTML and so on

This is another sorta' legitimate excuse, but not really. 

You'll hear a lot of the gurus say that you don't need to know squat about HTML and so on, and even brag about how they know next to nothing about that stuff.  And it's true that in the end, there's not much money in that. 

But when you're just starting out, it certainly helps if you know (or can learn) a little bit about HTML and some of the other techie things.  Not so much that you "geek out" on this stuff, but enough so that if you need to change a headline on your sales page, you can do that in the 2 minutes it takes rather than waiting 2 days for some webmaster to do it for you (for a fee).  Or if you need to install a new script, you can get that up and running in a few minutes rather than putting it off till….well…whenever.

But as someone who's fairly technical, I'd say that it's sometimes a hindrance rather than a help.  Knowing how to do something doesn't mean you should, and when you know how to mess around with this stuff, you often times end up "messing around with stuff" which takes you away from the things that really do matter.  Or maybe that's just me.

That said, I still suggest learning at least little bit of the basics.  There are a couple of resources I used to get myself up to speed that you may find useful also.

• W3 Schools (a free resource with tutorials on all sorts of web-geekery)
• How You Can Master CSS (THE COURSE I used to learn the basics of CSS…more than made up for the cost in time, aggravation and money saved)
• If you have any other recommendations, let 'er rip in the comments below

 

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If You've Never Failed, You've Never Lived

Not to get all touchy feely and all, but here's a little inspiration for you. 

I found this posted on another site I visit quite a bit. 

I think this is something that will strike a chord with just about every entrepreneur or budding business owner.  Whenever you get the crazy idea in your head that you're going to quite, just think what would have happened if one of these people had decided that!  Amazing!

Kenton

P.S. - If you know of any other similar "failed on the way to success" type stories, please take a second to tell us about it by leaving a comment below.

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