The 5 Reasons I Succeeded Faster Than You And 3 Reasons I Shouldn’t Have

My friend Dr. Ben Adkins threw up a really interesting post on Facebook (see it here) about the “overnight success” stories many people claim to have lived in successfully building their internet business.

After reading through the comments, I realized that my story is probably the least believable of all the crazy things I’ve heard over the last 9 years.

The obvious difference is that my story is completely true…

Yet, the post on Facebook got me thinking about what I did that made it easier for me to make that first $1,000 profit while comatose.  What did I do that was so different from what the average person does?

Here are the exact reasons I was more successful than 99.9% of people that attempt to build an internet business:

1. I got in front of buyers.
2. I swiped ideas, sales copy, and products from those who’d been there before me.
3. I provided extreme levels of customer service.
4. I tried everything and only kept doing what worked.
5. I expanded over time.

While I did a lot right, I also did some very silly things.  These 3 things should have stopped me from doing so well:

1. I thought I had to do it all myself.
2. I breathed my business.
3. I kept zero data.

Let’s break each of these pieces down.  Here is why the 5 things I did right worked so well:

I got in front of buyers.

Before I started my business, I was an Ebay junkie.  In 2005, my family was broke and barely keeping afloat.  I bought everything I could on Ebay at a discount.

While I had no idea at the time, Ebay is a buyer’s search engine.  People go there for research purposes, but many people go there once they have a full intention of buying something they need.

By putting the products we sold on Ebay, I was putting them in front of people that knew what they wanted and were simply looking for the right place to buy it.

I swiped ideas, sales copy, and products, from those who’d been there before me.

As I was setting up our Ebay store, I researched all of my competition.  I checked all of the listings that were up and copied anything that I found interesting into a document.  Then, I edited it all together to make it flow nicely.  I added relevant data my competitors had left out.

In the end, I’d swiped what was working for everyone else and made it better.

I analyzed the products they had for sale and sourced them for my own company.

Instead of banging my face against my computer keyboard trying to figure out how to write copy that would sell, I took the ultimate shortcut by simply improving upon what my competition was already doing.

I provided extreme levels of customer service.

My competitors had really crappy customer service systems in place, which I found frustrating as a customer.

I would respond to questions via email instantly.

I got a toll free # and posted it on every listing I put up.  I connected it to my cell phone and received calls from customers with questions.  Many customers simply needed to see that there was a real person on the administrative side of my business.  It made them far more comfortable buying from me.

I was also able to actively sell them over the phone and at least 3 out of 4 people that called me ended up buying from my company.

I tried everything and kept doing what worked.

I wasted thousands of dollars on garbage software that common sense should have told me to avoid.

I’d put the products through their paces for a few weeks and if nothing came from it, I’d stop using it.

I read through business forums and tried a lot of different traffic strategies.  Article marketing, Press Releases, Link Exchanges, etc…

Over time, I learned what worked and what didn’t work.  If I hadn’t tried all of the bad ideas, I may never have found the good ones.

I expanded over time.

I was always looking for new and unique products that I could sell.  I also continually grew the business.

After a few months of success, I built us a website.

Once more success came, I had it redesigned by a web design company.

I put up stores on as many “Ebay style” sites I could find.

Ebay was always the main source of sales, but we’d get random sales from some of the other sites and from our website every month.

While I was able to pull off nearly instant success, the 5 things above are what I believe provided it.  If I hadn’t done any of those things, I may not be here doing what I do today.

While I did a lot of things right, the 3 things below are the main ones that cost me money:

I thought I had to do it all myself.

I had no idea what html was when I started.  First, I began learning a little about it for my Ebay listings.  Then, I had to learn a lot more when I decided to build my own website from scratch.

In the end, I could have had someone else do all of the work for a few dollars.  I didn’t truly need to learn html.

I spent hundreds of hours learning a skill that is helpful to me, but I could have driven a lot more sales if I had focused my time on sales driven activities.

I breathed my business.

I had an amazing support system with my ex-wife, my kids, and my family.  After getting really sick, I dove into my business face first.  I spent very little time on things that were important to me.  I didn’t hangout with my ex-wife and kids as much as I should have.

I lived for my business.  I was so passionate about making it work that I lost a lot of amazing experiences with my family.

Over time, I’ve developed a balance of life and work.  If I hadn’t, I’d be alone and sad…

I kept zero data.

I had no idea what an autoresponder was.  I didn’t know that I could contact buyers again.  Luckily, many of them contacted me to purchase more of our products.

Relying upon luck is not a smart way to build a business.

I should have put systems in place to capture data from our sales and build a follow up machine to increase our sales.

If you enjoyed this synapsis of my first year online, feel free to share it with those it would help.

You can find many of my software and training programs on this page.  They’re all based upon what I’ve seen and done over the last 9 years of being an internet entrepreneur.

Don’t hesitate to contact me if I can help you in any way.

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