Bankruptcy to Millionaire

I find myself at times having trouble “pulling the trigger”. I’ll so often get 90% of the way there. But that last 10% can seem so arduous. So time consuming. So difficult. That I’ll get stuck. Stalled. Or worse: Give up!

YUCK!

I hate it when I do this…

I just need to pull the trigger! I have an adwords campaign that’s 90% completed. All I basically have to do is upload the page, and pull the trigger. But I keep stalling. I keep putting it off. I keep “forgetting” to get around to it. I put the campaign together about 3 days before I launched this blog. And it sits there for close to two weeks untouched. 90% of the work done.

I haven’t implemented something on this blog like I wish I had by now (opt-in reminders, specifically) .

It isn’t for lack of knowledge. Lack of time. Or anything like that. I think it comes down to one simple reason.

Fear of Failure.

Because if I don’t pull the trigger. I can’t fail.

YIKES! Lets stop this today!

From now on, I’m going to pull the trigger. I can’t be paralyzed by the fear of failure. To become a success I must, overcome this fear. Because logically I realize that if I take ACTION and I FAIL… SO WHAT!?

Not only am I no worse off than I was before I failed. I’m one step closer to finding success. And that by definition is a success to me. I have then succeeded in finding out what doesn’t work!

Are you paralyzed by the fear of failure? Are you scared to take the plunge? Just decide. Today! You’re going to stop putting it off. And TAKE ACTION NOW.

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I’ve heard this statistic before. And it seems to come up every now and then: 90% of small businesses fail in their first year…

It’s some absurdly huge percentage like that. The sad reality is a huge majority of small businesses fail in their first year of being in business. (And probably even a larger number of online businesses)

But in all reality they didn’t fail in their first year. They fail on day one. The day most businesses open their doors they’re doomed to fail. Not because “statistically” most are doomed to close. That’s like the guy that brings a bomb on a plane, not to blow up the plane, but rather he noticed statistics showed that it was nearly impossible for two people to bring a bomb on a plane. Much greater than just a single person bringing a bomb on a plane. Therefor if he were to bring one, it’s statistically impossible for another to have brought one on a plane too…

(Hell… with all this “bomb on a plane” talk. I’m probably on the Homeland Security watchlist)

Anyhow their doomed not because of: bad management. Bad bookkeeping. Poor financial backing. Etcetera and so on… Yes this could be a factor. But more likely they fail because they don’t have:

DIFFERENTIATION

You MUST set yourself apart from your competition. Because in todays market, you’re almost certainly going to have some sort of competition.

You MUST give your buyers a reason to buy from you, work with you, or use your product, other than that other guy down the street.

If you don’t, what reason do they have to use you? Because you’re “better”. Because you’re “nice”. No.

And not only do you have to be DIFFERENT, you have to be different enough to be compelling enough to pull your clients away from your competitors.

The first thing most small businesses do to set themselves apart is make themselves “cheaper” than the competition. This can work. But most likely it’s a death wish for your businesses instead think about setting yourself apart by not being cheaper. Brainstorm by starting with some of these ideas:

• Become exclusive
• Offer products or services that are “outside the box” from your normal products (think: the first guy to offer WiFi at his Coffee shop.)
• Expand your product or service line
• Adding a personal touch
• Giving stuff for free
• Offer discounts for products that relate to yours, that you don’t offer (joint ventures, cross promotions)
• Market to the affluent
• Look at what your competitors are doing. Don’t do that. (Note: Use common sense.)

You can get your haircut anywhere. But a salon that offers you a choice of your favorite cocktail, and an iPod with a diverse selection of music gets my vote.

A coffee shop, can sell me a cup of coffee once. But one with internet access will probably get my refill business on the weekends.

I can get my picture taken anywhere. But a custom portrait studio that promises to take more time, and more photographs, indoor and outdoor, digitally enhanced, with photographers that are more experienced than any others in the area… I would pay for that privilege.

If a business can truly accomplish being DIFFERENT enough. It CAN’T FAIL. It can only become a huge success.

If every new business can answer and follow through with their answers to: “What makes me different? What makes me better?”

We’ll see a new statistic soon enough.

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Turns out Dogs are a great friend.

But “To Do Lists” seem to be my best friend. Not only do I get more accomplished. I get it done quicker and better when I have it written down as a constant reminder to myself.

When you have your own writing staring you in the face to do something. You get it done just to scratch it off the list.

Today my list consisted of getting “small” things done I’ve been putting off for not only weeks, but an ENTIRE YEAR. I made up some comb bound books for my cold calling session I’ve been putting off, that I’ll go on tomorrow at 10 AM Sharp. But I made a few calls and finally took my car in to be inspected for some damage I’d done to it OVER A YEAR AGO. The good news is, I did something I told myself I should do. The bad news is, the damage is WAY worse than I thought it would be… *sigh*

So I urge you. This week:

Begin Making To-Do lists. And follow through. Make sure you have it on you at all times. So you can write things down as you think of them. Then you have no more excuses for forgetting–and therefor not taking action.

Start your To-Do list with something you’ve been putting off for a long time(days, weeks, or in my case over a year!) and do it. No matter how small.

Once you begin to Take Action you begin to build moment. And eventually the inertia keeps you achieving things just out of habit.

Tomorrow should be a fun day! I’m going to be taking my new Mogul Smartphone on the road!

I’ll be supply video throughout the day updating on my cold calls! Should be fun!

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For those that don’t know. Google bought Youtube for $1.65 BILLION, some time ago.

Now they come together in perfect Adsense harmony. You can now place YouTube videos on your site embedded with adsense ads. Making your ads not only more visable, but more entertaining (or educational if you prefer).

In your adsense profile there are a number a customizable player options, including the size, color, and types or and/or specific videos played in the player. It’s a revolutionary step. That I love. And you should to if you’re trying to make some extra cents with Adsense.

Cheers, and enjoy your randomly generated funny video:

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Today is the beginning of not only the work week. But of Massive Change. And Massive Action.

I’m going to keep this post short. But I urge everyone who reads this to make this week, the week of getting stuff done. If you’ve been putting something off. Do it. NOW. Stop waiting until the perfect moment. At some point you’re going have to “pull the trigger”. Or as it’s been put to me:

When you’re driving down a long stretch of urban road, and there are many lights in your path. You go through each light individually. If it’s red you stop. If it’s green. You keep going. You don’t stop at the first red light, and wait for every light on the road to turn green before you go!

You would be waiting forever, and you would never get anywhere! So just go! Sure you’ll come along some red lights. But eventually you’ll get to where you’re going…

I have a ton of stuff on my Action List this week. So I’m going to leave you here. And I’ll talk to you tomorrow!

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I’ve got it set up so now every post comes with a randomly generated comedy bit from YouTube.

No one should be serious all the time.

You’re Welcome. And Enjoy.

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Building self discipline is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

Skating by. Do as little as possible to get the job done. Cutting corners. Easily Distracted.

These used to describe me perfectly. The still do alot of the time. But I have a great ambition to break these. And MUST break them and soon. I must FORCE myself to do the things I do not want to do to become successful. Breaking these habits and character traits is tough, but not impossible.

I feel improvement everyday. I’m getting to sleep earlier, giving myself more energy in the day time to be productive, and less time wasted at night on late night useless TV. I’m improving the amount of work I’m getting done everyday. And I’m keeping this blog up to date (not everyday quite yet, but still often).

I still find myself mindlessly surfing at times on information on blogging. And then with the magic of the internet and Wikipedia, I’m all of a sudden studying the chemistry behind converting switch grass to a viable source of fuel for the world. When really, I should be getting productive profit making work accomplished.

This week I broke a couple promises I made to myself. I did not read for the full hour everyday, I instead watched an extra episode of Prison Break season 2 Box Set.

And I did not even make it out for a full day of cold calling for the advertising agency.

THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE TO ME. I MUST SET NEW STANDARDS.

In an effort to bring about change in myself I’ve taken a few extra steps. The first thing, I’ve arranged to have a meeting every Saturday evening with my boss, and owner of Creative Image Advertising (conveniently also my father) to discuss exactly what is expected of me to accomplish in the coming week. We will discuss exactly which days I will be calling. Who I will be calling. And other projects I should begin and finish work on.

This will help me gain a little more traction at work, and keep me on task a little better.

I’ve also MAPPED OUT MY ENTIRE WEEK. My time management skills they… well they SUCK. At times I’m so easily distracted I may get lost for several hours in something completely pointless. So I spent about an hour today developing exactly how and where I am going to spend my time.

I then printed out a work book and the put a comb binding on it. My worksheet looks similar to:

Then at the begging of each day I look at the list of goals I’ve set for the week, and pick the (up to) three most important to accomplish Today. Those will be my Major Accomplishments.

Then a bit of relaxation with TV Time, or personal time. Whether that’s going to the bar, or sitting on my ass watching TV, that’s my zone at veg time.

I’ll follow that up with my B2M Book Club reading (Still on Think and Grow Rich). Then I’ll pop in Halo 3 or Brush up on some web surfing studying and see what’s going on in the blogosphere. Finally, my daily dose of the Daily Show, then off to bed.

This helps me realize where my time is not only spent. But wasted. Once I put this together, I realized where my time is being wasted when I could be enjoying being productive instead of lazy.

The Big Lesson

Nobody is ever perfect. And I don’t expect to stick to this 100%, 100% of the time. But it will help me realize where my time SHOULD be being spent.

And not only that. I realize where my weakness is, and I’m making a valiant attempt to reconcile it, and adapt to it to find a system that WORKS FOR ME. No two peoples minds work exactly the same. So find the holes in your productivity, and figure out the best way to plug them with a system that works for you. Don’t just ignore them. Or worse accept them.

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As I’m developing this blog to find a real definition for “what it is”. What’s its definition? What’s its purpose?

I have this vision for the blog. So I first had to find out what this blog is NOT.

• It’s NOT a How to Make Money Blog like: John Chow or Shoemoney
• It’s NOT a Internet Marketing 2.0 blog like: John Reese or Yanik Silver
• It’s NOT a Lifestyle Blog like : www.didyousmellthat.com
• It’s not my personal diary.
• It’s certainly not a news blog, or celebrity boob shot propaganda nonsense.

So WHAT is it? Where am I pigeon holed? If finally occurred to me that B2M dot COM can best be described as:

Reality Blogging.

Much like Reality TV Shows, a Reality Blog exists to document the happenings in a specific and controlled environment (think reality TV shows: Survivor, The Biggest Loser, Big Brother, etc), over a certain period of time with a definitive and tangible result to look forward to. They chronicle the tremendous steps and missteps over that period of time with striking reality and honesty. They show you a behind the scenes view of the blogger and the people are them are really thinking, feeling, and acting.

I specifically started this blog with a single goal in mind. To document every step I take to become a millionaire in 4 short years, while helping to motivate others with my information.

Welcome to my Reality Blog.

ps bonus points to whoever creates a Wiki Entry for Reality Blog

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Know your outcome.

The title of the entry is also the outcome I wish to achieve with this blog over the long run. Specifically over the next 48 months.

Knowing my outcome is one of the most important things to gettin ANYTHING done. Whether it’s hanging out with friends, or writing your next book. You should know your outcome.

What is it that you want to achieve by doing This. Ask yourself when you start your day: “What’s my outcome?”

Maybe it’s as simple as, to relax and not be bothered by anything or anyone all day. Or maybe it’s to gain a feeling of accomplishment.

When you start a new project ask yourself “What’s my outcome going to look like when I finish? Or the next time you get in an argument with your wife or girlfriend ask yourself “What’s my outcome from this fight?”

Chances are this will help you realize what you really want. You don’t want to yell and scream until you’re blue in the face. You want to reach an understanding with each other, or find common ground.

When I start my day of cold calling. I know my outcome: “To gain at least 3 project leads”. Once i know my outcome, I can plan on how I’m going to achieve this. If I just go out and don’t know what my outcome is going to look like. How do I know if I’ve ever achieved it?

Once you have clearly defined for yourself what it is that you are looking for as an outcome. You will begin to see the exact path to take, and achieve exactly what you’ve set out to do. Otherwise you’re just driving blind.

What’s your outcome?

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This coming Wednesday is a day I’ve set aside to make COLD CALLS for the advertising company I work for.

In spirit of massive action:

So in addition to just “going out” and calling on businesses. I commit to gaining at least 1 new project on that day. If I do not get at least 3 project lead, I will continue to go out full time everyday until I achieve this.

One of my biggest downfalls in my ability to achieve massive financial success has been my willingness to give up if it gets hard. Or not giving 110% every time.

NOT ANYMORE!

I will be busting my ass every moment to gain as much business as humanly possible. This will not only help build integrity and momentum. It will also help financially with commissions.

I’m going to leave you with a quote from my #1 Sales Mentor:

“Obstacles can’t stop you. Problems can’t stop you. Most of all, other people can’t stop you. Only you can stop you.”

– Jeffrey Gitomer, Author

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