When I first started my journey into building a home based business, I did not have the foggiest idea of what I was doing.
And let’s face it: anyone who builds a business at one time was a rookie. Floundering around, looking lost, full of self-doubt. Especially people like me who come into this business from a highly successful other career. I think I was seriously one of the most bewildered of anyone who signed up with my company. Frankly, it was humbling — and scary – to start at the bottom and not be the expert in the room.
Jonathan Budd has a very powerful video he uses for his online marketing campaigns in which he candidly discusses his own learning curve from knowing zero about Relationship Marketing to becoming what he is today. But by his own admission, it did not happen overnight. Nor should it.
We learn best by going through the learning curve. In order to grow, we have to fail. Make mistakes. Stumble.
It’s all okay.
Doing the work day after day to gain the knowledge we need to be strong business leaders and business owners is essential if we want to break through to the next level, especially in the New Economy. My personal experience is a strong case study of someone learning the ropes of becoming an entrepreneur as she goes along. No one handed me the business I have today. I did what I needed to do to get the knowledge and experience necessary for success.
But that all changed — again — about six months ago when a friend introduced me to the power of Internet Marketing for building the next wave of my business. Again, I found myself at the bottom of the proverbial dog pile, wondering how I was ever going to understand this foreign online language. SEO? PPC? Squidoo? YouTube? Captcha? I was more bewildered this time around than the first!
But.
My philosophy is grounded in the principle of being a life-long student. I know that once I have mastered a particular skill, there is another one waiting for me just around the corner. While I am not intent on mastering all skills, I do believe that when you have a clear vision of where you want your life and business to go, you must do what it takes to acquire the skills necessary for making your vision come to life.
Thus, enter blogging.
Blogging is such a powerful tool for learning and teaching because through our own words, we can share with readers our stories of success and failure as means of helping people grow, as well as helping clarify for ourselves what we know and what we still need to learn. I am so grateful to have discovered some of today’s online Masters like Jonathan Budd, Katie Freiling, and Kary Rogney, just to name a few. People who have done what I am learning how to do and can now teach me what I need to know. People who serve as role models. Everyday people who, through hard work and persistence, have made their newly minted skills pay off.
In turn, I write my stories with the intention of showing others that no matter how many obstacles exist for you in your own journey to entrepreneurial success, they are ultimately ones you can overcome if you are willing to do what it takes.
My mentor in this business has never sugar-coated the truth about winning in relationship marketing. At the end of the day, he always asks everyone who comes into his organization, “Are you honestly willing to do what it takes to win?”
And it is a question that can only be answered by each individual of whom it is asked.
This one question alone often weeds out the serious players from the grand-standers. And a serious player may not start with the team for a long time. But may instead show up every day, suited up, ready to play.
Ready to learn.
This business is about learning. And growing.
And both of those take time.
Are you honestly willing to do what it takes?
This is the greatest business in the world, as far as I’m concerned. Winners are created every single day because they want what they want.
Whatever that may. They want what they want more than they want what they don’t want.
It is a question they ask themselves every single day. And when they look deep down inside themselves, they know, without a shadow of a doubt, the answer.
My question for you is, do you?
