Insight: Failure and Success in Online Business
Creativity and Determination are the KEY ingredients in all
online success stories. So many times, as a moderator and
participant in the net's most active and lauded online marketing
forum, The Internet Marketing Warriors, I have heard the same
questions repeated by hopeful marketer after hopeful marketer.
And mostly they begin with "How do I...?"
Similar questions, in a dead-heat in frequency, vary around a
theme such as "What tool should I use to...?"
Know-how and tools. Go to any forum on the net, on almost any
subject, and you will find hundreds or even thousands of people
exchanging information on know-how and tools. "What is the best
way to write copy?" "Which autoresponder script is best for my
business?" "What hosting is the best for me?"
Very infrequently will you come upon a marketing discussion that
talks about creativity and determination. Even more rare is a
successful product that shows people HOW to be creative and
determined. This is because tools and know-how are so much
easier to write about.
If this, then that. Such a small phrase, yet it is the bulk of
what internet marketing training is all about if you have read
even a small pile of ebooks geared toward making you a better
sales producer.
And the formula sells - bigtime.
But then, why are there so many people failing at marketing
their business online? What is IT that separates the masses from
the relatively few truly successful onilne small businesses?
It is this: You cannot teach people creativity very easily. Some
would say it's impossible. Art classes are simply tools to weed
out people that don't have IT so they can get busy pursuing
another line of work!
And it is this: Determination (including work ethic,
stick-to-it-ivenss, seeing something through to the end) is even
harder to simply instill in a person with the written word or
teleseminar. You cannot reach through your ebook to slap someone
everyday to recapture their focus for them and keep them on-task.
The problem is compounded when you have one of the above and not
the other. Creative people very often have no business sense or
the drive necessary to acquire it. Determined people fail
gloriously in a gallon of sweat at five in the morning without
creativity. Nothing is probably more disheartening than having
one or the other. It must be like being able to see over the
fence, but not have what it takes to climb to the other side.
Tools are tools. We must use them in any profession to the best
of our ability. Henry Ford used tools to create Model Ts. But
did you ever read a story proclaiming that Ford won the day with
his tools? Of course not. The stories are about determinaion and
creativity and that's it.
You can go out right now and get the best software, the most
expensive copywriter, the best programmer, and even the best
product since sliced bread. And you can fail. It's been done
more times than success by a long margin throughout history.
This article is not about how to succeed at internet marketing.
It is not about tools that will help get you over the fence
where the grass is greener.
This article is an observation. An observation that is seeded
with clues that only creative and determined people will pick up
on. And, despite all the success manuals and training you may
have spent hard earned money on, this article contains the
answer to why many people fail and some succeed at not only
internet marketing, but in anything in life.
Creativity in internet marketing is being able to think beyond
what others have accomplished to date. It's being able to take
the pulse of the internet and the human condition and react by
putting something together that is needed and desired.
Determination is being able to go out on a limb and work until
you succeed despite obstacles and nay sayers. It is fueled by
belief in yourself and your creative ideas.
Do you have these two key ingredients? Can you see what is
possible that thousands of other great minds have overlooked? If
so, can you then take that vision and turn it into reality with
dogged determination and perhaps the hardest work you have ever
done in your life?
If you have "it," then you can go learn about our trade from the
technical (tools) standpoint and you can use them to succeed
with your creativity and determination. The tools are worthless
by themselves.
I hope one day to see a lot more questions about the creative
process as it relates to business and success in forums in the
future. I want to see questions (and honest answers!) about how
much work it takes to create a profitable business online. Then
I will know that a lot more people are on track and are asking
the RIGHT questions. Most of all, I hope to see more training
materials from experts that deal with not only what tools and
systems to use, but with topics on how to think freely, on your
own, about how you could make something better or make something
new out of the situation at hand.
Finally, when you hear that this business is not for everyone,
it means quite specifically that this business is not for people
who cannot think outside the norm and work long hours. That's
why businesses that people try to sell you that "do all the work
so you don't even have to think" are so absurd.
No one has ever succeeded at anything without creativity and
determination. Unless they have entered a couch potato contest.
But even then the most successful people are going to be the
ones who think creatively about how to sit on that couch longer
than anyone else and watch more TV than was formerly thought
humanly possible.
Here is an example using the above: 99% of the people who set
out to be the #1 Couch Potato will simply start out by sittting
in front of the TV for as long as they can. They think, "I will
just out-potato everyone else by doing it 24/7."
And they will all fail. Because one person is going to think
creatively and freely. They are going to buy 5 TVs and plug them
all in in front of the couch. They are going to out-potato
everyone else by being able to compound the amount of TV they
can watch by 5 times the amount of everyone else while doing no
more work than the other 99%. Through creativity and
determination, the person who wins at anything is going to find
ways to succeed that most people never would have thought of.
In the end, if you want to succeed online, you must ask
yourself: Do I REALLY have the creativity and determination to
turn my current situation into a better one through an online
business? Don't worry about tools and know-how. Those can be
learned and used by anyone. But there is no need to commit
yourself to a big learning curve if you don't have what it
really takes to succeed in the end.