I still remember sitting on my butt night after night, early morning after early morning trying to figure things out in the online space.
I was so used to doing things offline – This online thing was weird, strange and full of techy stuff I did not understand. And so, during the day, I was with my children, working my offline business, home educating children, handling tenants and property issues, and at some points, I was still working my pharmacist job as well and then at night and at the crack of dawn, I was trying to make sense of the online space…
Trying to find my way…
It only started as a way for me to write out my thoughts in my blog so I spent ages figuring out the blog thing as in, the very basic blog thing… “How do I even get a little site up?”
I spent a heckuva lot of time reading, researching, thinking, planning, dabbling at writing things…
But it still felt weird and way out there…
Interesting enough to keep my attention but there was a part of me that wondered if it really is possible to make money at this thing…
It felt more like a little hobby than a real business…
And so, though I worked hard at it – I was dabbling.
I dabbled HARD!
But I was not completely sure that it could work…
And it could have gone two ways – Give it up as a pipe dream and stick with the offline thing because it felt more real, more tangible and it was what I was used to and hey, it worked and relatively fast – Within 18 months, I was making more than I had in my day job…
But it was not what I wanted – Something about the online space spoke to me of the freedom I had been seeking my whole life and I was hungry for it but doubtful of it, too…
OR
Go all in to make the online thing work – Get support, do the work in a committed manner, choose to trust that it will work and KEEP WORKING IT until it did work.
After lots of procrastinating, I committed.
And I made it work and it was tough…
It required me to put down all my offline assumptions…
Assumptions, I did not even know I had…
So, it took mentors, coaches pointing things out to me and me being willing to ask for help and actually implement it…
I see you, honey…
Still on the fence…
Looking for shortcuts…
Thinking that it is somehow harder for you than it is for other people…
Thinking that you are alone.
And maybe you are…
But that would be by choice…
This online business thing is a different animal from what most people are used to…
It takes some unique characteristics to make it work…
And it is different from what you are used to and so it comes with a heckuva lot of doubt…
Which gets in the way of you doing the work.
the truth is, behind its weirdnesses – It is still simply that you get your product, service, music, books, art in front of enough people until you find people interested in it and who then buy from you.
But it is not like having a shop front where people can come in and browse…
they cannot see and feel you physically and so, it takes a lot more touches for people to trust you enough to buy from you…
And for the most part, people just getting started in online business jump in all enthusiastic about it for a short time and then they get scared and jump back out again…
And then they come back…
And then they go again.
Imagine that as an offline business…
One day, you are open for business…
Then tomorrow, you woke up with a bad vibe and so you decided not to bother opening the shop…
And then two days later when you got over your yukky feelings, you got all gung-ho again and went to open the shop…
And then someone looked at you funny and so then another week before you opened up again…
Or you could not figure out the cash register and so you decided to close shop down to figure it out before allowing anyone to buy anything from you – So what, that you could simply have a notebook in hand and take people’s money for goods and services bought manually and then figure out the cash register at night when the shop was supposed to be closed…
No, you decide to throw the baby out with the bath water until you KNOW every single technical thing…
IMAGINE THAT!
Would you be able to pay the rent on the shop? I doubt it!
And yet, I see people doing that all the time with their online business…
Start, stop, start, stop…
And why?
Because they are not sure that they can ever make it work and it feels too unreal…
And so they treat it like a hobby and it pays like a hobby, as in ‘NOT AT ALL!’
You want $5k in your business?
COMMIT!
Be resilient!
Recognise that it is different from offline business in some ways but also, not really…
It takes time to build an audience so start now, regardless of how sure or not you feel…
Regardless of how tech savvy you are or are not…
Start now.
Learn what needs to be learnt AFTER you have done the daily work of making people aware that you exist and aware of what problem you solve…
GET FREAKING SUPPORT! and then use it!
Stop thinking you are supposed to know it all when you are just getting started.
You spent ages in the offline world, learning the ins and outs of it and you made some success at doing what was required to make it work but it STILL was not satisfying, was it?
Or else you would not be looking at an online business…
So can you please give your online business time to flourish and grow…
Can you give yourself time to learn what needs to be learnt instead of telling yourself that you are not cut out for it?
I love online business because it fits right in with my vision of financial empowerment and independence for all, wherever you are on the planet…
And I know it works!
It works incredibly well when you make the decision to do what it takes to make it work.
SO DO WHAT IT TAKES!
Yes, it takes knowledge and learning the simple tech stuff (or you can get someone to do this) – Yes, you need lead magnets, mailing lists, to understand social media marketing and how to put sales pages together and automated email series and so on.
But more than even all that, it takes resilience, commitment, relentlessness, consistency and support.
Anyone can do it – It really is so accessible and you could simply google everything you need to learn and you would learn it!
But not everyone will stick it out until it works…
WILL YOU?
I believe in you but do you believe in yourself?
Much Amazing Love
