What to do with that good idea
What do you do if you come up with a really great idea?
Do you just sit there thinking "oh, if only…", or do you start looking at how to make it happen?
Taking action is the only thing that separates people who succeed from those that don't. The people that really succeed in life have something in common. They start doing things first, and then try to work out the details later. As one of my friends says, "ready, fire, aim"…
Woody Allen pointed this out when he said something like, "80% of success is showing up". What he meant was, the people who can't even be bothered to try will never succeed. Well, of course not, but sometimes even the most obvious things need to be stated for you to notice them.
And trying to do stuff isn't so hard either. All you need to do is decide you're going to do something and then try to do it!
You'll have problems. You may even fail completely on your first few attempts. It doesn't matter, every failure is one step closer to success.
I remember reading that Thomas Edison failed hundreds of times to make a light bulb that could be used domestically. (He didn't invent the light bulb, he improved on it.) When asked about his failures, he claimed that each one was actually a success because he knew he was nearing his goal. Which is an interesting thing to say in itself. It expresses a positive and persistent attitude.
If you can get into that frame of mind and hold it, and just keep working towards your goal no matter what, you will succeed.
It won't happen overnight. It will happen eventually. I'm living proof of that.
It's been a struggle for me. Technically very competent, but for years lacking in oomph to make things happen. So it's taken me a while, and there are certainly things I could improve on, but every time I try something and even though I might fail, it's still a success.
Because next time, I know how to do it better.
Have you started doing things yet? Or are you still just dreaming about it?
Make a plan. Today. Try to stick to it. Change the plan. Do what you can. Take action.
Just do something.
Filed under internet business by on Nov 30th, 2007. Comment. 
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Comments on What to do with that good idea
I guess that success is the capacity to overcome adversity.
Online success is no different.
It is very easy to setup an online (internet) business.
It takes some time to earn some money.
It is very difficult to make profits.
It seems as all things is against it.
The computers crash, the ISP goes down, electricity failures, payment processor is blocked, webhost goes out of service, domain registrar confuses things, the affiliate link doesn't work, a hacker gets into your account, your bank account is closed, your autoresponder won't respond, you get thousands of spam, your product doesn't sale, company support isn't fast enough, you can't manage to make your software or hardware do its functions, or at least, some of the most needed ones, you didn't write down your great idea, now you need it, but you can't remember it, everything in your harddrive is deleted, and you didn't backup it, somebody stole your idea or project, you don't have enough time to work online to make it profitable, you joined so many free money making programs that you don't work any, you joined so many traffic exchanges, or list builders, that you don't know how to work any, etc., etc.,
The list is to infinity.
I guess that is why only a few online marketers really succeed, they are the few, the proud, the gurus.
Hi Antonios,
This is the point of my post. The few are different from the many in just one respect.
They relentlessly pursue their goal, certain they can achieve it.
99% of people just want to be handed it all on a plate. Like winning the lottery.
That's not how business works.
It takes effort and the ability to continue no matter how bad it seems. With time comes the success.
Every hour spent building your business, and being focussed on that is an hour well spent.
Of course it would help if you had step by step instructions, and that's why there's so many courses and "next big things" out there. The sellers pander to the "I want it easy" requirements of the 99% who will never succeed no matter what, simply because they never stick with anything.
IF you choose one program that sounds reasonable to you and stick with it day in and day out, you WILL succeed.
It looks like you've tried a lot of things yourself. I did too until I realised the only way to succeed was to stick with one.
That's why I decided to pursue the dream I had when I was a younger man, and that was to have my own software business. So now my business is to provide business tools and advice to those that need it.
The better advice I give you and the more I can help you succeed, then the more chance I have of you earning enough to buy my products, whatever it is that you decide to do yourself.
There's no "magic bullet", there's just building your business.
And there are lots of reasons that can be put forward as to why the success didn't come. But they're just excuses at the end of the day.
And please don't feel I'm singling you out here. 99% of people will come to the same conclusion as you. The 1% just keep going and succeed.
In another post, I'll tell you about the big steel ball that is your business success.
Frank.
Totally agree with you. Just have a hard time getting it done. I read too much. Get distracted real easy.
I have lot's of ideas it's just getting myself to focus on them to get them done.
One accomplishment I'm achieving right now is
posting three times a week to my blog. Now I'm working on a new site but trying to get the site build is mind numbing. But I shall prevail because I believe in the site and the benefits that it can bring.
Hi Frank,
Good post. Lacking the oomph is where I'm at right now. I've got a couple of blogs and some squidoo pages up but it takes enormous will power to write the content for them. One of my squidoo pages generated a few hundred dollars so I know that the key for me is choosing the right niche and affiliate product as well as the right keywords to optimize for. I'm also convinced that the real money lies in selling things via marketing rather than setting up gigantic content sites monetized with adsense. Being an adsense farmer takes too long to generate a real income. I read that if I bust my ass off for about 6 months to a year writing content for adsense, I might be able to make $600/month. Anyway, my single successful squidoo page has convinced me that marketing is where the money is at.
I'm beginning to believe that speed is critical to the ready, fire, aim philosophy. The more rapidly I can get things out there, the sooner I find out what really works. So I would say that any tips regarding productivity, efficiency and speed is something I would really like to see here. Also, productivity software (free and paid) would interest me greatly.
Hi Robert,
There you go. Even though you state that the job of getting the site up and running is mind numbing, you're still working at it.
You'll succeed online. It's as plain as anything to see. Once you know what to look for, you can spot the successful a mile off.
Cheers,
Frank.
Hi Marc,
AdSense is dead. Don't get me started on that one!
Oh, just a bit then. In the early days of AdSense, there was a lot of money to be made by the early adopters. Those days are long gone, yet newcomers are still using AdSense in an attempt to monetise their site.
It ain't gonna happen in any meaningful way for them. But they see it everywhere, so of course it must be the way to go.
Social proof gone wrong.
'Nuff said on that, just don't go there. Get email addresses instead. Or use Google style ClickBank ads that you create yourself – they pay more. (There's some software that will do it for you, I'll see if I can find it if you're interested.)
Squidoo is good, and there are plenty of other sites like it that get the same or better effect. I've been told that Hubpages is better since Google slapped Squidoo.
I don't know, so don't take that as a fact.
Your last paragraph is spot on.
The faster you can get useful sites put up and gather email addresses, the faster your business will grow. I don't mean spam sites either, I'm talking about useful information (or in my case software) that fills the gap in people's desires.
Once you've done it a couple of times, make a checklist of what you need to do and in what order. Process it all out, it will help in your own understanding.
It'll be painful to do and it will slow you down, but well worth it in the long run.
Next (and I'll be discussing this in another post), make a video of what it is you need to do as if you were explaining to someone what you want them to do for you. You don't need to explain why, just be detailed about what it is you need to be done.
I'm going through both of these things myself.
Why?
So I can outtask the repetitive work after I've mastered it, thereby freeing myself up a whole lot of time to do the more creative stuff.
I'll talk about this some other time.
Cheers,
Frank.
Hi Frank, I joined your merry band along with zillions of others that I came across in my ever growing travel of the Internet.
Before anything else I would like to say that having read several of your posts, I find them firstly interesting, second useful and thirdly easy to understand.
I was also impressed with the fact that there was little or no sales pitch for millions of other must have products, just like the hard drive full that I collected when I first came online.
I can honestly say, that I am far more likely to purchase from someone who has taken the time to inform with little or no cost, so that I can decide if I feel that I can trust them than having a ten mile add to try and coerce me into a sale from someone I just heard of.
Thanks for the info, look forward to more in the future.
Mike
Hi Mike,
Well thanks for that, it's hard to know where to pitch my posts, so I tend to pitch them at the "been online for a bit" level rather than for complete newbies. (I hate that word – newbies.)
And of course the debate over long copy or short copy rages on! Because of course I do try to sell stuff, but only if I think it's worth buying.
So if I do recommend anything, think carefully about buying it. It may not be your cup of tea when you have it in your hands, but it's something I've thought was worth having, and that's all I can say really.
Back to the long copy vs short copy. (Sorry.)
My wife is continually saying "I wouldn't read all that rubbish!", and looking at some of the stuff I've done recently, it doesn't seem to hurt if the copy is shorter.
So I'm trying to do some copy that's a little shorter than I usually do. The trouble is, when I really get started, I don't know where to stop, and I personally think it's harder to write less than more. Even this original blog post could have become very long, but I've been trying to get the size down a bit.
And yep, watch this space for more info.
Cheers,
Frank.
Hi Frank,
Just in case you are not aware the links on your Keyword inspecter software don't appear to working.
The top banner to the training videos is fine, and they are great as a matter of interest, however the bottom two are not working properly.
What a great tool for free, now I just need to get my list together to promote it for myself.
Thanks heaps for that.
regards
Steve Roberts
Hi Steve,
Thanks for that. I'm in the process of building those pages, but I didn't see why it should delay me getting the links out there in the first place!
Ready, fire, aim!
Thanks for letting me know though.
Cheers,
Frank.
Hi Frank,
I get your point and will try to put that into to my daily activities.
I tend to want to have the whole picture in place and because I don't really know how to put the whole picture together, nothing happens.
To that end I spent most of last night awake thinking about a piece of software that I would like to have developed. It relates to the health and fitness industry. I would have no real idea on how to develop it even though it would possibly be excel based, I have no training on excel.
So I made the decision last night to get it started.
Do you do any software development work, or can you recommend anywhere I can go to have it developed, and be sure it does not got ripped off in the process?
Hope you have a great day.
Steve Roberts
Hi Frank,
How refreshing to find a leader who advises and guides rather than just constantly trying to sell the latest hot program.
And, yes you are dead right, if you don't make the effort, you ain't gonna make the money.
Oh yes, thanks for the tip about Camtasia Studio.
Hi Steve,
I prefer to spend the time finding local (UK local) programmers I can work with and I do a 50-50 deal with them. It keeps them interested!
Other than that, I do have some PLR software I'll be out tasking to have changed on one of the online freelance sites, such as elance or Scriptlance.
I have some tips and info for dealing with those freelancers that I may go through another time, but essentially don't pay them until you're happy that they've completed the task. And don't give them a 100% rating unless you're 100% happy, despite what they may beg you to do. Offer them a 20% bonus if they deliver to spec and on time, it's well worth the extra money.
It sounds hard I know, but you'll get people try to get you to pay for the job (and rate them) before they've supplied you with a finished product. And you'll get every excuse under the sun from them as to why they can't finish it, but it's usually because they're incapable and are out of their depth.
As for having your software ripped off, it's going to happen. There's always somebody out there that doesn't "get it", it's human nature.
It's better not to worry about it too much, just take what simple precautions you can to protect your investment, and long term people will come to you as the recognised source or expert for your product type.
Cheers,
Frank.
Hey Barry,
Thanks for that. I have some great info coming, so keep checking back, or add me to your RSS feed. And of course, soon, I'll have the regular newsletter online.
Cheers,
Frank.
Hi Frank
Thanks for that.
Will put a tender out with those sites – Just Do It Hey!!!
Regards
Steve
Hi Steve,
Yep!
Just a few words here to make it a bit clearer about the bonus. Don't mention it until you've agreed the price and the timing.
Then light them up with the news. It will give them a real incentive to perform, and you're not disappointed by the deadline being slipped.
It really helps to keep your focus.
Cheers,
Frank.
Dear Frank, I have a manufacturing/mail order business. Developed the products for animal skin diseases myself over a period of years for our own use. It wasn't developed for the market though – in fact I did a lot of squirming to let someone else try it. The beginning were extremely humble and despite the good results from some sales, the marketing aspect led me into troubled waters and I put faith in someone else and not myself. I lost equity in my home and just about chucked the whole lot in. Somehow, I started reading marketing stuff, then sent of for some material and learnt one extremely important thing from Mal Emery here in Australia. Do your own marketing. DO was the operative word. And so I did and did and did. It was foreign to me but it taught me the value of confidence in yourself to be able to do. Your words of "just do something" are really key – without that motivation you'll go nowhere fast. So thanks Frank for stressing that one thing which is so valuable to everyone. It is the difference between a dream and reality.
All the best. Bet