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10 Fatal Entrepreneur Mistakes That Will Tank Your Biz – Part 2

get-clients-online-myths-part-2

I’m baaaaaack…!

I guess I have Halloween on the brain because my 3-year-old won’t stop talking about her costume and it’s only September I’m feelin’ spooky. 🙂

Fatal entrepreneur mistakes that will ruin your business: The Top 5

Last week I wrote about the top 10 fatal entrepreneur mistakes that I see all the dang time that can totally tank your business… but I only wrote 5 of them because, well, it turns out I had a lot to say! To see the other 5 mistakes, start reading right here.

And now that you’re ready to hear the top 5, here they are… and if you have any qs about these, please reach out, okay? It’s pretty important to me that you don’t do these ones anymore.

Mistake #5 – Switching Ideas Right Before It Gets Good

See if this resonates:

  1. You have this idea for a business.
  2. You run with it. You’re excited.
  3. You work really hard.
  4. Not a single soul buys anything. (Or just a handful of people buy and you’re sad – see mistake #10)
  5. You feel bummed.
  6. But then… hey, you have another awesome idea!
  7. Repeat steps 2-6.

Now, every once in awhile, going through this process is not a bad thing, it’s true. (The litmus test is if you hate what you’re doing and you totally don’t believe in your idea anymore. I believe it’s important that your business lights you up inside. So if you just can’t get behind what you’re doing anymore – to the point where even if you DID succeed it would make you miserable – well, okay, it might be time to move on.)

But here’s when it IS a bad thing (and instinctively, deep down, you know this, don’t you?): When you’re changing tack because it got hard. Or it got boring. Or you just didn’t have the success you thought you would.

…Because you know what? A lot of the time, the success you were hoping for is just right on the other side of the hard part or the boring part. You just have to stick with it. You have to believe in your idea enough to get through those tough phases because the gold is all lying just right on the other side of that, I promise. Success is not about that lightning bolt of inspiration that got you started on this path but about your commitment to sticking with the path that you’re on.

Mistake #4 – Not Growing Your Email List

There is a concerning number of mentors out there saying you no longer need to grow your email list.

You know that loud, awful buzzer from America’s Got Talent? I’m pounding my fists on that right now.

YOU NEED TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST. (Sorry for yelling. 😉 )

Here’s the thing: Facebook is great. All the new-fangled ways of getting your stuff in front of your prospects is great.

But… what happens when Facebook disappears?

I mean, okay, Facebook may not disappear for a long time yet. But think about MySpace. MySpace has gone the way of the dodo. And if that ever happened to Facebook, would your business survive?

Yes, it would, if you’d spent this time using Facebook and your other marketing efforts to grow your email list.

When it comes to online business, your email list is really the only tangible thing you have. You own it. Facebook doesn’t own it – you do. It has a lot of value in it.

So, from now on, I don’t care if you’re posting on social media, speaking live, putting up flyers… however you’re promoting your business, always always always have a way for people to get on your email list. (I have a helpful post all about how to do that right here.)

The bigger your list gets, the easier it’s going to be for you to make offers and make money. How? Well, imagine yourself telling someone about your program, but instead of it just being one person or even 100 people, imagine you’re telling 1,000 people. Or 5,000 people.

That’s the power of email marketing. Gather your perfect prospects together in one place – your email list – and you’ll be amazed at the magic that transpires. Yes, you can grow a business (and technically succeed) without doing this, but… well, why would you?

Mistake #3 – Too much book-learnin’

We’re in the top 3 now – so you know it’s getting serious. 😉

Mistake #3 is all about too much studying and not enough doing.

One mentor said to me once, “You should never be consuming more content than you’re creating.”

These words were like someone turning on a fire hose and spraying me out of a dead sleep. I was up. I was alert. And I was super-keen to make a change.

Here’s the thing: If you’re studying, studying, studying, then I’m willing to bet you aren’t spending enough time actually getting out there (see mistake #8). Yeah, it can be fun to buy a program you’re all excited about, but not if it’s just going to collect dust on the shelf and distract you from actually getting clients into your business.

Does that make sense?

To tell if a training is right for you, ask yourself these 3 questions:

  1. Does it make things sound like it will be amazingly easy?
  2. Do they avoid talking about the actual “doing” of things – aka are they just showing you the theory but not the implementation?
  3. Is the mentor actually involved in teaching you?

If you answer yes to any of those questions, there’s a good chance the training is going to be a dust-collector. An expensive dust-collector.

One of the things I teach in my membership program is my 60-20-20 rule. That means you should only be spending 20% of your biz time on learning. Learning and mentorship are important, this is true. But if it’s taking up 100% of your time, then how are you making any money? (Please, if you have this figured out, let me know your secret.)

So. 20% on learning and mentorship. 20% on building your stuff (see mistake #9). 60% on getting out there and talking to your prospects. You’ll get much further, much faster. Okay? Okay.

Mistake #2 – Not Making Offers

Isn’t it funny? We’ll work so hard to get our business together and then we stop short of actually making offers and asking for the sale.

I get it. Asking for people to invest in us is scary. But I know you believe in what you’re doing, right? You wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble of putting your business together and working to figure out where your perfect prospects are if you didn’t want to help people?

Making offers is not a bad thing.

I know that sometimes it makes us feel a little icky. Here’s the thing though: When you know you can help someone with what you do, you are not doing them any favors by refusing to let them know that you have products or programs that might be able to help them.

You might be pleasantly surprised to discover that your product or program is like water in the desert to someone who needs it.

Never mind the fact that it’s awfully hard to make money if nobody knows about your stuff for sale.

So when you’re talking to people, when you’re emailing people, when you’re giving a presentation or attending a networking event, make offers. Do it! I know you can.

Mistake #1 – Not Taking the Right Steps in the Right Order

Full disclosure: You CAN succeed if you’re taking all the wrong steps in all the wrong orders. What’s that thing about monkeys and typewriters and Shakespeare? Yeah. You can do it that way if you want.

The thing is, it’s just harder that way. It’s harder and it takes a long time.

And you know, there’s nothing inherently wrong with success taking a long time or being difficult to achieve. God knows I’ve done it that way more than once.

The big issue is when success takes so long that we start to give up on ourselves. The big issue is when we start to feel like idiots or losers or failures because success seems to be eluding us.

If success is eluding you or you are struggling with getting your online business to a place where it’s actually helping you get real, paying, human clients, it is NOT because you’re an idiot. It’s just because no one has shown you a simple way to do it.

The reason the techie stuff trips us up is just because we’re in this part of life where we grew up without it. No one showed you how to do online marketing. I went to school and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce with a focus in entrepreneurship and I still didn’t know how to do online marketing back then. You are not alone.

Don’t give up on yourself, okay? You are doing great. Success online is one step at a time and I know you can do it.

If you’d like help, don’t forget to sign up for my free masterclass, The Only 3 Digital Tools You Need to Get Up, Running & Profitable Online. No need to overcomplicate things.

I really hope you’ve found this post helpful. If you have, please do 2 things for me: (1) leave a comment below and (2) share this post with 1 or 2 people you think would really benefit. Thank you!

I appreciate you,

Kathryn

2 Comments

  1. Engel Jones

    I am definitely doing the two things you suggested. I am leaving a comment of Thanks for a great article.

    Secondly I am sharing

    Reply

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