When it comes to reasons why small business owners fail, it’s not a lack of information that is preventing them from succeeding, it’s too much information.
These days we’re bombarded with information everywhere we turn. If you run an online business, you probably are contacted by people every day who claim to have all the answers to making your website a success and all you need to do is whip our your credit card, and they’ll teach you everything they know.
And, of course, you go along with it because we’ve been trained to become “well rounded” individuals. That’s what we’re taught in school, right. You need to know a little bit of everything in order to be a successful individual.
<i>Bunch of Malarky!</i>
You don’t need to know a little bit of everything. You need to know a lot about one thing.
What you really need to do is pick on system for building your business and stick with it. Commit to it and put the blinders on to all other opportunities.
Early on, I found that I had my best success when I picked just one thing and focused on doing that well instead of trying to learn everything all at once.
If you really want to succeed and make money, you need to go on a low information diet.
You can become a well rounded internet marketer later.
So many courses get it completely wrong. They want you to be exposed to as much as possible. They teach you a little of this, a little of that. They want you to be able to see the big picture. The problem is that it’s overwhelming to try to learn it all at once. In fact, you’re much more likely to say there’s just too much to do and do nothing than you are to just get started with what you can.
I like to take a very different approach. I take one topic, get specific, and really dig down until it’s completely covered. Then it’s time to put on the blinders and get going on it until it’s done. Once I’m done, I can move on to something else, but not until then.
As an example, I’m not really a well rounded person. I don’t keep up to date with current events – I have no idea what’s going on in the world (except for really big stuff) other than what I hear from friends when I’m out having a beer. For me, that’s where I’ve decided to keep my information limited.
My business, Marketing Effects, really isn’t well rounded either – we’ve added a few services over the years but we stick to just a few instead of trying to be a jack of all trades in marketing. Our team is really good at a few things (like SEO, Google Places, mobile marketing, and Pay Per Click) but there are plenty of things you’d never in a million years hire my company to do for you simply because we’re not any good at it.
So decide where you’re going to start and get going. Forget about this notion that you’ll make the wrong decision. It’s more likely that if you make a decision, any decision, you’ll do better than if you spend a lot of time waffling and trying to make the perfect decision.
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