TRUE STORY: In a fresh internet chat room 20 strangers made a pact together to make $50,000 revenue in 3 months by getting their ideas out there as fast as possible. It was a big but serious dream, especially considering some members were close to broke!
In just 9 weeks two of the people in the group exceeded $50,000 and a few more are close behind and making great progress. However, at the same time over half the group is barely making a dent.
So what’s the difference? Why are some racing ahead and others being left behind?
All 20 people work in the same niche and market to the same audience, they are all intelligent people, but the difference between the winners and losers is in how they act and how they think…
The Winners…
The personality traits of winning entrepreneurs. Do you pass the test?
- The winners set launch dates, deadlines and aggressive goals like releasing a new product/update/offer every two weeks. They may miss, but they try hard to hit them.
- The winners focus on this one project with pinpoint precision. They make more money because they can say no to pursuing other projects. That makes sticking to #1 much easier.
- The winners don’t focus on perfection and are more focused on getting something good out there quickly, that getting something perfect out there sometime in the distant future.
- The winners accept “flops” as inevitable, and embrace the “flop”. They know their early attempts probably won’t do great, so it is important to get those early attempts done and dusted as quickly as possible.
- The winners hunt out their mistakes. This is against our natural emotion to accept we did things wrong but it is vitally important to improve. The winners know that mistakes are normal and are not wrong at all. They hunt out what they did wrong so they can improve next time.
- The winners say “If they can do it so can I”, and they find out how they did it. They network, analyze, scrutinize, and reverse engineer to find out why someone else did better than they did.
- They focus on a few USPs (unique selling propositions) and copy the rest from other winners.
- The winners focus on extending their strengths (after identifying them) and rely on using or copying others in areas they are weak.
- The winners hunt out successful people they can learn from and put a big effort into networking.
- The winners are generous to their partners and stakeholders. They pay generous commissions, good wages, share profits and help others. Their generosity stands out against the competition. This motivates their partners and creates opportunities.
- The winners focus on marketing more than the product/idea/service. In fact the marketing drives the product creation.
- The winners block out distractions and set time aside to get things done. They are disciplined to turn off email, chat, television and any other distractions that stop them from working.
The Losers…
- The losers drift and don’t held themselves to deadlines or targets. Ask the loser when his next deadline is and he won’t know.
- The losers can’t say no to shiny objects and have a lot of projects on the go and find it too hard to abandon any one project to focus more on others. Quite simply they can’t focus.
- The losers focus on perfection. They want everything ‘just right’ for when they make that all important launch. Perfection takes a long time and they miss opportunities and the learning process from launching NOW!
- The losers fear the flop. So much so that they may never launch, and if they do they may hide away or seek to blame others and not accept responsibility when things don’t go to plan.
- The losers are stubborn and don’t want to be shown their mistakes. They want to prove to the world that what they did was right, and that it was others that were wrong. They’ll even go as far as calling their customers stupid for not buying their product. They will be very reluctant to change.
- The losers look at the winners and make excuses about why they can’t do what the winners have done. Instead of looking for ways to emulate the winners, they hunt out differences which they can identify as excuses for not being a winner.
- Losers forget about having any USPs at all and just try to copy someone else (and do a worse job). Just as common in losers is that they think they must do things differently to all the winners to stand out, and that doing this gives them a USP. So they choose not to do everything that the winners do to be “unique” and “clever”, and fail at the same time.
- The losers focus on trying to handle and be good at everything, and are reluctant to put their weaknesses in the hands of others.
- The losers avoid talking with successful people, or agitate successful people, because they don’t take advice and criticism well. Just being around successful people depresses them rather than motivates them because it shows that they have made mistakes and need to change, so they avoid it.
- The losers are greedy. They don’t want to share their profits and success with others and will offer lower commissions, wages, profit share and less help to others. They ultimately alienate themselves from opportunities.
- The losers focus on their product foremost and marketing second. They may produce an awesome product, but without solid marketing it flops.
- The losers are easily distracted. In fact they unconsciously routine their day to have distractions like email alerts, chat, television, news, chores, phone calls etc. so they don’t have to face the music. They invite distraction rather than actively take steps to block it out. Even though these distractions lower their quality of life and stop them from achieving their dreams, they will defend them like a drug addict.
So are you a winner or a loser?
Chris – I must admit, I DO have about 50% or more of the loser characteristics pointed there.
I also have about 50% from the winner”s ones .. still, didn”t quite make a dent yet.
Indeed, a GOOD kick in the butt. And of course, taken with the most open mind possible, so thank you Chris from all my heart!
What I found to be the most important thing that usually an Internet Marketer lacks, is a partner to be accountable to.
We are lone wolfs in this industry, most of us.
The reason why I joined a mastermind was exactly this – I needed some people to have as close role models, to copy the good things from them, learn from their successes and flops, etc..
Also, to find someone to partner with directly and speed up my launches.
The biggest gap I have to hop is in my case the perfectionism – I am aware of it and fight against it … but somehow I didn”t prevail yet.
So here I am, trying to follow the advice.
I am going to setup a true deadline for my next launch: Monday, Aug 15th, 2011
Hope my friends will help me keep accountable to that.
If I fail to meet it, feel free to call me names
Steve
The difference between the “winners” and the “losers” can be just one fine line. Once you decide to step up a gear and move out of your personal comfort zone, you are another one step ahead in your pursuit of excellence.
In a nutshell, you just need to stop being afraid, derive a plan and action upon it. You can always learn along the way.
Cheers,
Lester
Whatup, Chris?
MAAAAAAAAAAAN!
You”re not going to win any popularity contests on this one! LOL!
Brilliantly written. Sometimes, the truth HURTS!
If I may discuss a few of the items on the WINNERS list?
All the points were SPOT ON.
But these are the areas in which I need to personally improve:
***
Hunt out mistakes after a flop + If they can do it so can i.
***
Having experienced a lot of failure (as we all have),
I suspect that I and others in the same boat need some sort of anchor
to maintain this deep self-belief about our ability to achieve that desired success.
Every time we run a project and it fails, our brains are left to process the meaning of this.
With every success, whether small or large,
the impact of each subsequent failure is given
a more appropriate context and weight.
Each of these successes gives us more resilience against
any negative thoughts or self-doubts, that may cause us to
internalize the failure. vs looking at what we did, to find out
where we went wrong (and course-correcting.)
Nothing breeds Success like Success.
So how do you get to the chicken without an egg?
How do you get a resilient success mindset in the face of persistent failure
if you”ve never had a big win?
1: THE MAGNIFYING GLASS HALF FULL METHOD
Perhaps you play up your small wins?
Celebrate them, declare them, share them, and remind yourself of them often?
2: THE BLUE TRAINING WHEELS METHOD
Perhaps you leverage other people”s assets
(ideas, accountability, traffic, expertise, moral support),
to speed up the acquisition of that first milestone success?
(Blue = something borrowed)
3: THE SORCERER”S APPRENTICE METHOD
Perhaps you serve as an apprentice
to a successful marketer…
Thus experiencing the feeling of success while working with them
And the realization that they are human like you:
not necessarily smarter,
but doing things more smartly?
Food for thought.
Many people don”t like to talk about mindset
in our business…
but it”s key to dealing with failure appropriately.
Without the proper mindset,
we may as well be trying to learn Alchemy.
With the proper mindset,
we can take a scientific approach to failure
And systematically (not randomly) eliminate what doesn”t work
With the right mindset,
we can have the certainty that there is no reason
we shouldn”t (eventually) succeed
And so we consistently work like WINNERS
way before that inevitable BIG WIN ever comes.
Great post Chris – very instructive.
Bolaji.
Thanks for sharing Bolaji, great advice there!
Hey all,
Is this a step-by-step approach to working a program to make money? If so, can I get in? I saw in my email day 5 of 7 days. My guess is I didn”t notice the other emails.
Hey Frank. No the group mentioned in this blog post its not a step by step program to make money. We just share ideas and hold each other accountable. It”s a private group.
Steve Lorenzo”s damned lucky to have only 50% of the loser”s character…. MikeR has every item on the losing list.
Nor does Mike have a clue about #13 on the winning edge…. the one about how to correct all the desperado”s dozen.
Anybody know any mafiosi banksters who are hiring?
OMG I am loser!!
There are a few disturbing home truths in there Mr Munch… This is being printed off and stuck on the wall next to my mac as a constant reminder what I should or should not be doing.
Thanks you for some perspective.
My weakness seem to be points 10 and 11. I hesitate in giving generous commissions or money to people whom I employ. And I don”t focus as much on marketing.
Do you have any recommendations for me?
Dude you are 100% right about everything. I see this everyday. To win it really takes less work then loosing.
The pain of loosing to me is harder then what it takes to win..
Charles Kirkland
Absolutely right man. I didn”t know it, but I”ve followed a good portion of all the stuff on this list. I”m about to break 50k revenue right now, and I took the pact a month ago.
My advice to everyone? Try hard, always reverse engineer, always show appreciation to your affiliates, and get out there and meet people.
If you don”t meet people, you won”t make it anywhere.
Oh, and enjoy it!
-Steve
Great post on the many characteristics that “separate the men from the boys,” so to speak (no offense to the ladies out there).
I”ve found that some of the Loser traits hit a bit close to home, and have had to work on improving those. But I”m getting better at it.
It”s all about FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS!!!
Awesome post Chris. I definitely have traits from both sides, but everything changes when the deadline is set and made public. The fear of letting others down is worse for me than letting myself down, so I make it happen once that date is locked in.
Chris, this post is so valuable, I printed it out! Thanks for the terrific qaulity of your posts and products.
Cheers,
Mary Greene
P.S. Please make your font larger!
Chris, I”m really glad I found this – you have articulated what I have been feeling myself, especially about the facing the truth about yourself and taking fullresponsibility for it. As a fellow Dub you make me proud that there are some real online entrepeneurs out there giving really good advice for free.
Cheers
Gerry
Interesting insights…. some observations from my own experiences…
1) The winners are keenly focused on the numbers, the metrics. Once you know the numbers that are important in a marketplace, it becomes easy to hit a goal. What isn”t measured can”t be managed. Very few people in IM take the time to understand the numbers. For instance, from my own experience, the first thing I sought to do was understand the numbers that mattered in the WSO marketplace. As an example, I sought out other successful marketers to answer this question “what numbers do I need to hit in order to sell xyz units”. Numbers like:
-Number of page views to a sales thread
-Number of clicks
-Front end Conversion rate
-Backend conversion rate
-Front End Sales Price
-Backend Sales Price
-Affiliate Commission rate
-Affiliate EPC
-Total Profits
-EARNINGS PER SUBSCRIBER —-HUGE!!!! There are people who are doing “lead gen” WSO and they don”t have a clue about this
-Avg. Lifetime Value of WO Subscriber*** (how anyone expects to run a stable business that will last in the long term and doesn”t know this is beyond me…..)
Once you know these numbers, reverse engineering a hit whether it”s WSO of the Day or $50k is very reachable.
I would also say that winners have the ability to “course correct”. As an example, thanks to some of your insights after my first “hit” WSO I took the time to sit down and really assess the profits/hour a person could make doing WSOs vs. different projects. This caused me to shift my priorities some what. Most “winners” don”t like setting goals or deadlines and not meeting them. But sometimes you have to know when to hold them and no when to fold them.
For me the real money from WSO”s comes not from the few bucks you can make doing WSO”s but taking the testing and learning from that small Microcosm to more mainstream markets where you can truly crush it.
In the “real world” larger companies might spent $50,000 just testing an idea – you can do it on the WF for just $40…
A WSO with $2+ epcs will be a hit. Once you figure out how to create an offer that will deliver these kind of epc”s for your sales partners, what I learned is THEY WILL deliver the customers (this what learned…I spent more time figuring out how to create an offer that delivered the right epc”s to partners than a “perfect product”. This meant figuring out where to set prices, commissions and getting the right conversions. I knew going in what front end conversion rates to shoot for and what backend conversion rates and prices to shoot for. I didn”t hit the target perfectly but it was close enough that I was so pleased with the results).
I wouldn”t have learned any of this had I not known the importance of knowing what numbers “mattered” and focusing on those…
Just my thoughts….
Oh my other point – sometimes the best question you can ask a more successful and/or experienced entrepreneur is “what numbers do I need to focus on, what metrics” . Not only that “what”s the relationship between the numbers”. For instance, I spent about 2 weeks trying to understand the relationship between numbers in the WSO marketplace. This is a fact more to me than a 20,000 subscriber buyers list – because I know what to do with it. For instance this leverage point – that a small, small % change in your front end conversion rate could lead to MASSIVE long term estimated backend profits. So of all the metrics a person could be focusing on this leverage point when it comes to a product launch – not sales prices, not how many JVs you have signed up, not % rates – not of that shit. If you plug in all the numbers in a spreadsheet a play with them – the one that will explode your estimated backend profits the most with just a SMALL change is that metric. Then I had to figure out why and that took me a few weeks. Until I came across an article that gave me the answer – that the backend of your funnel is the least price sensitive. In other words, the reason why the expected backend profits change so drastically when you”re modeling and shift the FE conversion rate is because of price sensitivity. Like I said, sometimes the willingness to do just a little extra thinking in the IM niche will produce astounding results.
Here”s to an 8 figure 2012!
Chris:
That”s definitely someting to think about. Like Steve said, I”m sure we all have some of the winner and loser characteristics. Messages like this remind us about the improvements that we need to make.
Thanks.
Wow Chris,
I can”t believe I found this post this morning. Now that I have all the software and tools I”ve collected over the last six months, reading everything I could find on making money on the Internet, I”m just thinking this morning about how I am going to attack this in 2012. This fantastic article and feedback is putting me on the right course. Thank you everybody.
Joel
Awesome synthesis. I wish I head read it in August. It is so easy to become a loser when one really wants to be a winner. The more I learn about IM, the more difficult it becomes for me to act. Thanks for your support.
WOW. Can I outsource the math and “Numbers” part of it? LOL
Nice job of comparisons Chris, I”m sure we all have our good points and bad that need working on. I”ve been learning a lot about Mindset and the important role it plays in our everyday lives and how it impacts our success.
The fact I”m reading and replying to this email shows my Mindset is following the right path
Thanks for the encouragement and passing on of knowledge, both are essential in growth
Kent Hovland
Well-written Chris. Looking back to my corporate marketing days, my product launches, marketing program launches and general day-to-day tasks would have been a cluster (#%*Q!! had I bounced around as much as I often currently do.
Back then, I had accountability to my team, my boss and the field sales force that was expecting structured programs and results.
Like others, I”m printing this off and pasting it in an obvious location.
From the flip side, if I”d sent a new marketing or sales program out to the field every other day (a la the gurus promoting affiliate launches) proclaiming it was the best sales strategy in the world, I”d have been tarred and feathered before getting fired.
Nicely said Chris,
And do you know what – it is a harsh truth that we all somehow aware or understand who are winners and who are losers and all these characteristics but there is a HUGE difference between TO KNOW WHAT TO DO and actually TO DO/ACT/CHANGE.
Alexander
When I was a kid, I worked down the mines in England. To get my point across, we were allowed to drink at 16. We worked hard, however, for leisure we spent lots of time in the pubs.
We spent that time complaining about how bad the world was treating us. Not a positive word was ever said. What a great start in life.
I got away from those guys came to Canada, and applied for a job selling vacuum cleaners. Just a good old pit boy trying to get ahead..
When I went into the office, the atmosphere was dynamite, every salesman was positive.
Now instead of talking stupid, I was mixing with the right people and it rubbed off.
I became the top salesman in the company, plus I have been a millionaire, not now but i was. Still trying, even at 83.
Following what you say, if you stay with the wrong crowd it is completely your own fault. Wake up and smell the roses. Look to right people to help you.
Have a prosperous New Year
Ralph
What a great post Chris! Especially since 2012 is just around the corner and New Year”s resolutions must be done. This is a great IM model to follow on to base one”s plans and goals for the next year.
I especially love the part about – Focus, but not on perfection! If I can strengthen this and use this more, then I will move forward at the timetable that I could be at. And I think the rest will all fall into line and I will finally leap forward on a massive scale.
So why not – I think I will make for myself a pact of my own – a profitable number goal.
To work towards it $$$ for all of 2012 – and not just a plan or goals list, but an actual number – to work for.
IM Focus and Speed for $$$ and the rest will follow!
Go go go!!!
This is is just so spot on! I see myself in many of the ”loser” points. But I also see some in the ”winners” column. I”m another who will print this off so I can refer to it often.
I”m in the process of planning my direction for 2012 and just where I want to focus – my Amazon sites and writing my own PLR for sale. And keeping my authority site up there in the rankings. I”m fairly sure my mindset is right but am happy to go back to TED and learn from the masters.
I know I can focus and work hard – I did it in the private sector and was editor of our town”s newspaper for 10 years. The paper grew and had the reputation of the best Community Paper in Australia.
So now I need to regain that focus and lose the shiny object disease that I have. I”m determined and I know I will succeed. Failure is not an option. I”ve had the flops (and learned from them). However I do need to learn to test and analyze the results so I can improve. And get rid of that perfectionist streak I have.
I can be very disciplined, I just forgot for a while. I am looking forward, not backward and 2012 is going to be so exciting.
oh, the distraction point is a biggy for me – right, new years resolution, I must cut all ties to the loser list! Thanks for the hard to read, truthful post!
Great article again Chris, this is really helpful for those like myself who are definitely making that push or stride to $50,000 in 3 months or even $100,000 in 6…thanks
Excellent analysis! I”m bookingmarking this puppy.
Deadlines is the killer for me. I say “ASAP” but tough deadlines make it faster.
Good ol” Captain Kirk knew this! Scotty said “we need 6 hrs capt”n!”. “OK Scotty you have 3″
Wow, thanks for a great read, Chris!
I believe focus and the ability to adapt are key to succeeding in business – online or offline. I must admit I am having a hard time dealing with distractions like email, browsing through forums and, the worst, getting attracted to new shiny objects. These all ruin my focus and keep me dragging my timeline.
What I”ve done is set achievable goals and have them posted in front of me when I”m on my computer where I see them most of the time and check those that I”m done with, then add new goals as the days go by. So far, I feel it”s getting me the needed amount of focus I”ve been wanting to have and I hope this will eventually create in me a habit of focusing with laser-target precision on everything I do concerning my online business.
Thanks again for sharing this so generously!
Excellent post, Chris. I”ve enlarged and printed out the winners and losers traits and highlighted what I”m good at and highlighted areas that need improvement. Unfortunately my losers printout has a lot more highlights, but I”ve now got a physical, visible chart in front of me every time I sit at my pc and can concentrate on eliminating one bad trait.
My biggest problem is not putting all my efforts into one task and spreading myself too thin. After reading your post I”ve set today”s task as choosing ONE AND ONLY ONE product to promote, together with a mapped out traffic plan. If that plan does not pull enough traffic after one months effort then I”ll look at modifying it until it works. After that it”s just a case of choosing the right products/services for the next effort.
Thanks again and all the best for 2012.
Chow chow,
Kevin
Chris – what an excellent post! Thank you for including it in your Christmas email (I missed it back in August)!
I started practicing “uni-tasking” about a couple of months ago and it really helped! I get easily overwhelmed by a lot of versatile tasks that are part of an internet marketer”s ”normal” life… Even when I tried writing things down in a “to do” list, I would still be “all over the place” – doing random stuff and not moving forward with what really needed to be done… So now I just write ONE task on a sheet of paper and attach it to my monitor, and then I work on THAT task only – until it”s finished. I have already noticed a lot more progress doing things this way.
Now – to work on not being a perfectionist…
~Nat