It’s always funny when I ask people what they want me to write about, and they’ll say something like “How about how to earn more money?” or “Something about getting started investing!”
First, I contemplate homicide. Then suicide. Then I delete their email and go to my happy place.
I call this the Manifest Destiny problem:
Have you noticed how lots of people always want more and more information, but rarely implement what they already have?
A couple years ago, I started realizing how lots of personal-finance readers were constantly asking for more and more information — more blog posts, more book reviews, more financial magazines — but would often just READ, not take action.
To put it bluntly, I have lots of friends who read blog post after blog post, but have STILL not automated their money, started investing, or even put together an aggressive plan to pay off debt.
I’ve tried to convince these people to leave my site as quickly as possible. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t need the biggest email list or the highest number of customers. I want the right people.
So today, we get to follow the story of someone who was one of the consumers — reading book after book, but doing nothing — yet he changed his behavior to get great results.
One of the ways he did this was to eliminate worthless distractions. For example, when it comes to earning more, social media is almost always a distraction. (This comes as a big surprise to many people, who read about Twitter/Facebook every day and think it “must” be useful…right?).
The problem is, if you take every one of the things you “should” do, you get overwhelmed with choice. It’s more fun to brainstorm, read 5,000 blogs, come up with a list of ideas, than to focus on a simple goal: 3 paying customers.
We all know someone like this. They have a ton of ideas for how to do something, but never act on them. They read a lot of blogs and books. They think “I can’t start yet…I need to do (ONE MORE THING) before I get started.”
And 10 years go by, and the day never comes.
But there are systematic ways to change from being a “thinker” to a “do-er.”
Here’s how one of my students, Brian, did it.
Brian loved his job as a pastor for a campus ministry, but it only paid $1,000 a month.
“Plus, I’m getting older but college students always stay the same age,” Brian said. “I was ready to start transitioning to other work.”
He’d thought about earning more money before. Since his ministry job only took up 20-25 hours a week, he had lots of time left over. (Much of which he filled with books on business and personal finance.)
“I’ve read so many business books that I thought I knew how to start a business. But really, I just had a bunch of scattered ideas floating around in my head. I realized that reading books wasn’t enough. I needed a system to actually take action. I needed someone to push me along.”
He stopped thinking about earning more money and started doing it.
“I knew from your book that your stuff is super practical with lots of action steps and scripts. All legit. I had no barriers about your Earn1K course.”
When Brian signed up, he set two goals for himself:
“Make $1,000 and prove that people will actually give me money to do stuff for them.”“I want to tell my friends that I made money on the side. They haven’t done that.”
Brian’s first breakthrough came from marketing guru Mike Williams’ Master Class, a 100-minute step-by-step breakdown on how to deeply get into your customer’s head and getting them to work with you. He calls it “Customer Clairvoyance.”
“I learned that I have to do it for them. People are lazy, and that’s okay. I just have to set it up for them. I have to make the follow-up call. I have to schedule the meetings. I have to make it as easy as possible so they can just say ‘sounds good’ or ‘yes’ or ‘no’. This was something I knew was true, but I just didn’t know how to do it. The Master Class showed me how.”
The class also taught Brian how to really understand his customers. “If you listen to people enough, they’ll tell you what they want to buy from you. And then you can give it to them. Once I got that, I had an epiphany. ‘Oh, this is how I sell to people!’”
Here’s how he implemented it.
“I was out at dinner with a friend. He introduced me to the owner and said I was interested in marketing. I told the owner, ‘Hey, I’ll do you email list for you for three months, and then we can talk about transitioning to paid work. I’ll show you how to sign-up people. I create a newsletter and set up autoresponders for you. I’ll handle everything. Every week, I’ll send you an update.’ He just kept saying ‘That’s great, that’s great.’ I got the job.”
That lasted two months…
“After a couple months, I went in with some campaign ideas, and he said, ‘Brian, I want to start paying you now.’ I couldn’t believe it! This was so cool. He paid me $60. That was the first money I’d ever made as a freelancer.”
“$60 isn’t a lot of money,” Brian said, “but it was a quick win that made me think I could actually make money on the side. It helped validate my idea and encouraged me to keep going.”
Since then, Brian’s branched out his services. “I still manage the restaurant’s monthly email newsletter, but I also helped the owner design the menu for his new restaurant.”
Brian isn’t even a designer, but based on his hustle and success with the email marketing, the owner came to Brian first. “I said ‘I’m not a designer, but I can find someone who can help.’ My friend and I did it, and that project pushed me over $1,000.”
In only a few months, Brian had achieved both of his goals. His days of sitting around and thinking about earning money on the side were over. He was in business.
Brian’s new goal is to get more clients. He’s approaching other restaurant owners and refining his offer, learning as he goes.
“You were totally right. Clients don’t care about your education. They care about results.”
Most importantly, Brian was able to make the shift from thinking about idea after idea…to getting concrete results. From here, he can use the Tuner Strategy to “tune” that revenue up as much as he wants.
Total earned using Earn1K: $1,300
Hourly rate: $40/hour – $50/hour
What you would be doing without Earn1K: “Honestly, reading a bunch of business books and not doing anything about it.”
What you would tell others considering joining the course: “If you’re going to take action for the things you learn, it’s worth it. If you’re not, don’t waste your time.”
If you’re interested in getting a sneak peek at the psychological master class that Brian used to start taking action, you can get it (free) here.
View the original article here
For the first time in a while, I attended our regular Friday home game last night from 9pm to 2:30am. I used to love going all the time until I started this site actually. Now, the thrill of writing and interacting has taken over. Furthermore, I realize how hard it is to make a decent buck online. To lose a couple hundred in one hand when you play well, yet get runner runnered is a horrible feeling!
Knowing the target prices for purchasing products, the price at which you will be able to earn a profit, is one step for finding the right items; next, you need to be in the right places to find a deal. Here are a few locations where you may scour for deals.
Published or updated September 5, 2011. If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the RSS feed or receive daily emails. Follow @flexo on Twitter and visit our Facebook page for more updates.
Points: ?81969
Perseverance is a great element of success. If you knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.