The 8020 Blog

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Here are seven easy things about getting a business up and running:

1. Coming up with a good idea that will sell (it’s not that hard)

2. Getting excited about your cool new logo

3. Writing your cool sexy new web pages

4. Kicking your web developer’s butt when he/she/it has still not got your web site up

5. Reading interesting business web articles/books, doing courses/workshops (especially mine!)

6. Talking to friends about your cool new idea

7. Tweaking your cool new logo and re-writing your web site (then refer #4 above)

Here’s the one hard thing about getting a new business up and running (yes, there is only one):

1. Pushing through the fears, doubts, frustrations, disappointments, let downs, cash flow snarl ups, demotivating moments, apathy, lethargy, self-esteem issues etc etc etc

… and continuing to push through them day after day, week after week and year after year … until they dissolve (perhaps) into the nothingness they always were.

It’s really not complicated … do what you know you need to do … and keep doing it with sheer bloody minded persistence despite your doubts and the small minded nay-sayers…

Go for it … push … harder … that’s it … now keep going …

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I was listening to a colleague this morning as he shook his head and talked about the 8 week (one hour a week) tele-seminar series he had just finished conducting.

Dan said 137 people started the series, all of whom ponied up with more than $1,000 at the start, but that by the time of the last session the numbers had dwindled to 36 people.

I know Dan’s work and frankly it’s brilliant. However the fact that 74% of his students are failing to show up still did not surprise me at all. I’ve been in courses and witnessed similar statistics. Sometimes it felt like I was going to be “the last man standing” in some sort of old cowboy and Indian shoot-em-up movie.

Most of the time people enroll in programs or courses with the correct idea that they will gain valuable information which when they implement (key words) will help them in their business.

Then they show up a few times but once the excitement of the honeymoon period is over (normally by the 3rd meeting) and the realization dawns on them that THEY actually have to do some thinking and gosh darn heck maybe even a little work …. that’s when their brain starts to hurt and they go someplace else looking for a less painful (and more unrealistic) alternative.

The critical ability to show up - and to keep showing up - in order to extract value from a course or program, is common sense but alas, not common place.

I tend to retain my highest achieving clients - the million dollar plus earners - for anywhere between 3 and 7 years. And I am convinced that it has far more to do with their ability to show up than it has to do with me.

And here’s the thing … they typically have more reasons to not show up than others and some of those reasons can even be quite urgent and profit-threatening. Yet they still show up to virtually each and every session, month after month for year after year even in the face of those other reasons which lower-earners give in to.

So if you are a small business owner and you join a program or buy a course because you want more clients or whatever, do yourself a favor … show up and keep showing up.