internet business

Jan

2008

More Of The Same in 2008? Or Your Freedom?

As we take the first few steps into 2008, have you wondered what the year has in store for you?

More of the same as 2007 do you think?

And is that good or bad?

Good if you’re already successful and you’re growing your online business, or bad if you’re stuck in a job you hate?

A true story…

Once upon a time I used to drag myself out of bed every morning, go through my wake up routine and drive into work to do a job I didn’t like any more. I was totally miserable.

(My wife knew something was wrong and was worried it was us and that I was going to walk out on her. Never! I love her far too much.)

My doctor would tell you I was very ill if she were allowed to by law.

My job had turned bad, I felt like I was wasting my life, and because the pay was good I felt trapped. How could I give it all up?

Looking back now, I just laugh at the situation. Give what up exactly?

Give up my dignity as I was told what to do by another in a stream of d*** heads that knew less than I did?

Give up my freedom by being forced to do things I didn’t want to do, talk to people I wouldn’t give two minutes to outside of work, and just generally selling my soul in dribs and drabs?

And all in the name of job security and a promised pension years down the road…

Hah!

For one, Job security doesn’t exist any more. Secondly, why would I wait another 20-odd years until I’m too old to physically enjoy myself? And then only to find I suddenly don’t know what to do with myself when I do eventually retire? And then peg it 2-3 years later as statistically I was doomed to do like so many other people?

(Including my father in law – he was such a good man and we all miss him.)

No way, no chance, I just could not take it any longer and eventually I broke and left the company.

My life changed instantly. My wife saw the change in me immediately.

I’m not saying it was all good, and if I could have my time again, I’d do things differently now that I know what I’ve learned the hard way.

For starters I’d have done it ten years earlier.

There is no way ANYONE who doesn’t want to, has to “hold down” a job any more. The world has changed, and is changing even more every day. Cottage industries have sprung up yet again as we go through another communication revolution.

Whole business models and new organisations have come into being to service the needs of people like me. And you too if you want.

From my perspective, I’m becoming one of the New Rich, and I’m not talking about money for money’s sake here either. I’m talking about the freedom I now have that I didn’t have before.

For instance, I need never miss another of my childrens assemblies, or nativities or other events at school. If my wife needs to go do something like shopping with her mom, I can do the pick ups from school. Or if she wants to disappear for a few days with her friends, that’s no problem either.

I can take my 3 year old daughter out to lunch when she finishes nursery at 11.30. I can go to the library whenever I want. I can get my haircut or go shopping or anything I like on a quiet Tuesday morning instead of the mayhem in the evenings or at weekends.

I can take a weeks holiday with the family in February (cold but usually beautiful wherever we go) without losing any of my holiday days as I have none to lose. I’m my own boss! No, boss is the wrong word, it’s better than that.

And… best of all… we’re now talking about upping sticks, selling everything we own and going on extended travel. Where? We don’t know yet. When? ASAP if I have my way, but realistically not until July.

I already know I can do everything I already do from pretty much anywhere in the world. All I need is an internet connection.

Apart from family, there’s nothing keeping us here in the UK any more. And when we look at our siblings, they’ve already gone and done it.

My brother married a Texan girl 3 years ago and moved to the States, and my sister has just moved to Goa in India with her husband.

We’re the slow starters really. 😉

Neither of us have what you’d call a job, and that’s something that people I meet casually find it difficult to understand.

Them: “What do you do?”

Me: “Um, I’m sort of self-employed.”

Them: “Doing what?”

Me: “I sell online business tools and info products for small businesses.”

Them: “Er… internet you mean? Is that profitable? Is it hard?”

Me: “Yes, yes, no.”

Them: “Hmm, I wish I had the guts to do something like that.”

Me: “Hmm…”

I’ve given up talking to people when they say that to me. What they’re really saying is that they’re no-hopers.

I know that sounds harsh, but I think that’s the only interpretation you can put on it. I’ve tried to explain to people in the past that they just need to change the way they think, but the fact is, most people prefer not to think and would rather carry on the old fashioned way no matter how detrimental it is to their humanity.

They’re the 98 percenters. Life will always be a treadmill for them. They’ll always be in a rut. It’s their choice, they have no-one to blame but themselves.

They believe what they’ve been brainwashed to believe all their lives. That the path to success is get good school results, work hard all your life doing s*** you hate, and after 40 years of that you’ll be rewarded when you retire.

Yeah right…

Do YOU really believe that? Do you believe that’s what life is all about?

Or do you want change? Do you want your freedom instead?

Well, I can’t give you that, but what I can do is help you take the first few steps on that path.

I’m accepting just a few people on a PERSONAL coaching course. Not an online digital mentoring programme – this is personal, you get me, you get my time.

I may never do it again. I certainly won’t ever do it at this price. I know it’s nowhere near the price it should be – I should be charging $5,000-$6,000 – but I have my reasons for keeping the price down.

I have three people signed up for my exclusive personal attention during January and February and my help as and when throughout the rest of the year. I have two others who have said they definitely wish to take two of the places but they’re umming and ahhing over it.

I’ve decided to reduce the number of spots to ten at the current price. If anyone wishes to join past that number, I will be raising the price by up to 50% more than it is now, and only for an additional five people.

So…

Do you want more of the same in 2008? Or do you want to take those first steps towards freedom?

Take a look:-

http://www.haveyoulaunchedyet.com/

– Frank Haywood.

Dec

2007

Is Your Strong Motivation Killing your Chances of Success?

Having good motivation to build a business is a great thing, but there’s something even better than that, and that’s good habits.

At some point, we’ve all felt the strong motivation to go and DO something. But after a while the strong sense of motivation dies off, and we wander aimlessly a bit until something else fires up our motivation to go and do something else instead.

The result for most people I guess is the same as mine has been in the past. No steady, coherent plan, no movement forward, just a bit of thrashing about, and then it all goes quiet. Until the next bit of motivation hits.

So what can you do about that?

Well once you know that motivation is emotionally driven, you can understand why it doesn’t last very long. If you kept the same emotional high for a prolonged period, it would burn you out.

I’m sure you know what I mean. You have this great idea, you get excited about it, you spend a few hours looking into it and building the idea to the point where you think it’s worth doing.

You may then even spend a couple of days working at it, and go to the point of taking out a domain name, putting up a web site and writing a few words. Great!

Then the emotional high dies, you start to think about other things, and the “great idea” is forgotten about until 12 months later when it’s time to renew the domain.

Yes, I’ve done that. What a waste of effort, what a waste of a good idea.

Over time, I gradually came to the realisation that I can’t possibly follow through with every good idea I have, so I’ve now become very selective. I ask myself “Do I have a minimum of 60 minutes every day to work on this? Is it worth the effort?”

In most cases the answer to both those questions is no. So that then leaves me with the choice of either binning the idea altogether, or putting it in my ideas document for a later time.

Some make it into the document, but about 90% get binned, as realistically I just don’t have the time.

So if motivation is hurting you, what can you do to fix it?

The answer is to develop good habits that replace the temporary motivation.

Here’s an example.

I’m on the mailing lists of a lot of marketers, and I have a single email account I receive all my marketing email into. I get an average of 30 emails a day, all making me various offers. If I read them all and followed them through, that would be my day over.

So what I do is scan the name of the marketer and the subject line to see what it’s all about. If the subject catches my eye, then I may scan the email, or if it’s a marketer I admire, then I’ll properly read the email. Either of these may result in me clicking through.

If I do, unless the product is exceptional, I’ll only spend about 2 minutes on the sales page as I’m now immune to sales copy (I know how to write good copy myself and how it works, so other people’s is never going to work on me). If the product is exceptional, then I mark the email as unread, and continue scanning the others.

If I find one email that I follow through each day, that’s about it. The whole process takes me no more than 5 minutes usually, and quite often less than a minute. I might do this once in the morning and once in the afternoon, so my total time with marketing email is no more than 10 minutes per day.

In the evening, I may go back to the email I marked unread and give it up to 15 minutes of my time, sometimes longer if I find it particularly interesting, but generally this time is dropping.

Very infrequently (about every 4 months or so) I’ll take an email I’ve received that is good sales copy and has really grabbed my attention, and I drop it into a “Well Written Emails” folder to use as a crib sheet for a later date.

So there’s a habit I’ve developed that saves me hours of my time, while still getting the benefit of following up on interesting offers, and also taking note of what worked on me as it will likely work for me too.

A habit I’m also developing is posting something useful like this on my blog once a day. It’s beginning to pull in traffic and new subscribers, so it’s something I’ll keep up. I’ll write about this in the next week or so, but it’s a very good habit to have. Take that away from here, if nothing else.

There you have it. Motivation is great, but in many cases it’s short lived and does nothing for you. It’s the day to day mundane habits that will make a real difference to your business.

What do you think? Comments below please.

-Frank Haywood

Dec

2007

Personal Coaching Course Now Open

I’ve opened the doors to my personal coaching programme. I’m giving readers of my blog a four hour head start on taking the fifteen slots before opening it up to my other mailing lists.

That’s all there is to say really. You can find the details here:-

http://www.haveyoulaunchedyet.com/

and I’ll just finish by saying I’m really looking forward to working with you in 2008.

-Frank Haywood.

Dec

2007

Your Big Steel Ball

I’ve been thinking about the Big Steel Ball, so I thought I’d share that with you today.

Your business, your success, is like a big steel ball.

I’d like you to take a few moments and imagine your business is a big steel ball, it’s as big as you, and it’s incredibly heavy. It’s so heavy that it won’t roll on the slightly uneven ground underneath it. It’s just completely stuck.

Most people give up and walk away. They’re the 98 percenters who will forever be the employees, the worker bees that our society needs, and they will never do anything “great” with their lives.

The other 2 percent – that’s us right? – well the other 2 percent try to push the ball anyway. Success depends on it.

It won’t move. It just will not budge. But you keep at it regardless.

Pushing, sweating, straining, and suddenly, it gives just a little and rocks back into place. Now you’ve seen it move, you’ve had your first success, so you strain against it again, pushing, pushing, and eventually it rocks again and you push harder and it starts to move.

Gradually, the huge steel ball that’s your business starts to move. Now that it’s moving, it’s easier to keep it going, but it’s still taking a lot of work. But you keep at it relentlessly, because you’ve seen that you can do it.

As the ball picks up speed, it’s now easier to keep it moving, and it starts to go faster and faster. Now it’s moving as fast as you can walk, and all you need to do is give it a slight tap now and then to keep it on track.

Eventually, you have to run to keep up. The steel ball is off on its own. It doesn’t need you any more, because along the way, other people (employees, contractors, friends) have joined in, and they’re pushing your steel ball for you.

It’s still your steel ball, it’s just not your responsibility any more. And you have the freedom to go do whatever you like with your life, knowing the steel ball is being well looked after by other people.

That’s your goal, that’s what you’ll achieve, just by being relentless and not giving in at the first resistance.

Isn’t that worth it?

Isn’t it worth making that first decision to push and then getting someone to show you how to push your steel ball to begin with?

Well, that’s part of what my personal coaching is about.

It’s not for everybody, and I no longer advertise it. But if you really want it, then there’s your first pot hole. Can you get me to coach you?

– Frank Haywood

Dec

2007

Why Lack Of Focus is Killing Your Success

Ready? Focus.

This is how I had it explained to me, and once I realised what I’d been doing, then I also realised that I can’t possibly be the only one…

You’re the captain of a boat. You’ve decided that you’re going to navigate yourself to a beautiful tropical island and enjoy the sun and all the treasures that await you. So off you go.

After a week or so, you hear on the radio about a newly discovered island that’s even better than the one you were heading for. It will add a little extra time to your journey, but sounds well worth it so you change course.

Three weeks later, yet another beautiful island is all the talk on the radio. People are having a fantastic time there, and it sounds almost too good to be true. But you can’t risk missing out, and it’s only an extra month away. So you change course.

But two weeks later…

You get the picture? Long before you arrive anywhere, you’re out of supplies and you’re dead in the water.

If only you’d stuck to your original destination, you’d be there by now. I bet you’ve done this – I’ve certainly been guilty of chasing the next best thing.

And yet there are old, well known methods of making a success of it online. And you can see them at the top of my blog.

Product Creation, Traffic, List Building, Automation = Internet Business.

It’s not rocket science. I’m not saying it’s always easy (I’ll leave that to the people who are selling the next best thing) but it IS very simple.

Of course there are variations, and in time you can get very clever at it, but the basic principles will never change.

So. Pick a destination. Point your boat at it, and keep going until you get there.