You WILL Fail!
January 22nd, 2008 by Greg
Wait a minute, you thought this was supposed to be under the “motivational category”, right?
Well it is true, you will fail at your online business. I’ve failed approximately 436 times over the last 6 years!
The good news is, you won’t fail EVERY TIME…
My ratio for every 10 projects I work on is:
- 7 business ideas fail or do next to nothing…
- 2 business ideas do *ok* and are at least moderately profitable…
- 1 business idea is a “homerun” that is extremely profitable…
So why are most people not successful with their internet businesses? Simple, they give up after attempt #6, rather than keep plugging away for that 10th business attempt (the one that may just be a homerun for them too).
The faster you learn this is the REAL success to failure ratio, the faster you will start seeing success.
Nobody likes to fail, that’s for sure. It still hurts when one of my projects bomb even today, and I’ve been doing this for more than 6 years. But, I have had some incredibly successful online businesses as well, and those make up for the flops ten times over.
When you work on your next project, don’t worry if it doesn’t go as you planned. The main thing to focus on is the path you took on the project. Learn from the mistakes you made, and change them next time around.
If you do this, I guarantee you will be successful with your internet business. Nothing teaches you faster than the school of hard knocks…
The nice part about failing is you eventually run out of things that can go wrong, which greatly increases your success rate as you get more experience!
Here’s a typical progression of what an internet business newbie will likely experience…
Business Idea #1 - Failed (don’t do that idea again)
Business Idea #2 - Failed (don’t do that idea again)
Business Idea #3 - Failed (don’t do that idea again)
Business Idea #4 - Failed (don’t do that idea again)
Business Idea #5 - Failed (don’t do that idea again)
Business Idea #6 - Some Success (worth trying again)
Business Idea #7 - Failed (don’t do that idea again)
Business Idea #8 - Failed (don’t do that idea again)
Business Idea #9 - Failed (don’t do that idea again)
Business Idea #10 - Some Success (worth trying again)
Business Idea #11 - Failed (don’t do that idea again)
Business Idea #12 - Very Successful (repeat this idea often)
Business Idea #13 - Failed (don’t do that idea again)
Business Idea #14 - Failed (don’t do that idea again)
Business Idea #15 - Some Success (worth trying again)
Business Idea #16 - Some Success (worth trying again)
Business Idea #17 - Some Success (worth trying again)
Business Idea #18 - Very Successful (repeat this idea often)
Business Idea #19 - Failed (don’t do that idea again)
Business Idea #20 - Some Success (worth trying again)
Business Idea #21 - Very Successful (repeat this idea often)
Business Idea #22 - Very Successful (repeat this idea often)
etc, etc.
See how the success rate changes the more you try new ideas? This is no accident. You can buy all the ebooks and training seminars you want, but you will never achieve success faster than by simply DOING something, seeing the results, and changing your actions based on the result.
This is just the way it works. Most people just starting out give up too soon. Others who have been “trying”to run online businesses for a while get stuck in the “Some Success” category because they don’t keep trying new things. They get used to the comfortable “moderately successful” results and don’t want to go back to the failure results, which ultimately keeps them from reaching the “Very Successful” results.
Maybe you are there now. If so, now is the time to get off your butt and start failing again! The more you fail, the faster you will become successful…
