Just a quick statement about failure.

In my mind, failures are divided into three basic classes:

• Those who thought and never did.
• Those who did and never thought.
• Those who flat out quit!

So many people will never accomplish their life’s goals because of the fear of failure. The funny thing is, failure is inevitable. Failure is part of the balance of life. For every positive, there is a negative. Where there is great success, there will also be great failure.

If anyone is to achieve any amount of success in his life, failure is just part of the process. To fear that failure would be making a huge mistake, IF, and only if, nothing is learned from it. Failures are the stepping stones to that great, I like to say, inevitable success.

I say inevitable because if you don’t QUIT, success becomes inevitable. How many times can you run off the road until you finally reach your destination? It’s just a matter of getting back onto the road and pressing forward understanding the reason you went off the road in the first place.

So, since failure is inevitable in its many different forms, it would be better that you DID, regardless of the result, instead of never DID at all. Getting on the bike and crashing is always better than never getting on at all. Yeah the crash hurts a bit, but because of the hurt, you’ll avoid the crash the next time around.

So, I am proud to admit……I am a failure, but not a quitter!

What do you do when the only time you have to exercise is at five in the morning and your body just doesn’t want to get out of bed? Or what do you do when the daily grind seems to be taking you one direction when your goals are supposed to take you another?

Is it possible to hit the pause button, and while the movie is on pause, change it to a completely different movie? Can such a drastic change happen for regular ole Janes and Joes? Can you wake up Clark, and like in the movies, still turn into Superman at will?

Can you just start living the life you want and become who you want? Just like that?

Well, I don’t know if you can or not. That’s something that is between you and yourself. Do you actually listen to that little voice inside that is telling you all you are capable of, or do you just roll with the punches and take what life brings your way?

For me, the way I do it, is with a simple phrase I learned long ago called “Be, Do, Have.”

For those of you who know what that means, I sure hope you’re living it. BE the person you want to be, DO the things that person would do and then you will HAVE the things that person has. The part that most people struggle with is always the beginning….the BE.

So at five in the morning, when the alarm clock goes off, do I reset it for seven, or can I BE the person I want to be. Honestly, that’s the secret for me. That’s exactly how I do it. It’s just a word, I know…but I repeat the word in my head when I hear that little voice inside. That voice just gets louder and louder, repeating the be, Be, BEEEEE….until I start to DO. At that point, with some consistency in Being and Doing, I will Have the health and strength I want for myself.

So it’s a good idea to scream it if you have to. Do what it takes. Be, Be, BE!

One of the biggest selling points of a home based business is the System! S-Y-S-T-E-M, Save Yourself Time, Energy and Money. It’s already in place to ensure your success, or at least make it a bit easier for you to succeed. It brings in the all too familiar term, “turnkey.” It’s all about duplication and making things easier for the newest person in the company to get into profit quickly, or duplicate their Enrollers results.

Parts of the system includes scripts, lead generation and pre-built websites, so that when somebody finds your turnkey website, pre-populated with content and pictures, they can submit their contact information. That information then goes into a lead management system that sends out pre-written auto-responders that drip bits and pieces of motivational information about their decision to start a home business.

MY SECOND BIGGEST MISTAKE…..I didn’t build my list and USE it properly.

For the first few years as a network marketer I used their turnkey websites and systems to generate my leads and I allowed those leads to go into their pre-built lead management systems. I took on the belief that once I called that lead and introduced the business to them, whether they got started with me or not, that their information was then useless. The lead was then dropped and I paid it no more attention, at least when it came to continued marketing.

I might as well have been throwing twenty dollar bills down the toilet!!

Although I made my profit from the sale, I missed out on continued, residual profits that can and will come from building your email list. I let tens of thousands of email addresses go to waste….Email addresses for people who were desperate for information on how to make money from home!

A huge part of creating an online presence(Part of my first mistake) is setting yourself up to win regardless. Having a contact form on your site that sends the information captured(email, phone number etc..) into an auto-responder system of YOUR OWN, is where it’s at. You wonder how people can make millions of dollars online with a blog and how network marketers can have continued success regardless of the opportunity they are part of. It’s because the real money, the real income comes from continually marketing to your list of subscribers….people that have opted into YOU and what you have to offer them. And if what you have to offer them is of value…..well….that equals income for you.

Right now, I use AWeber for building my list. In my opinion, it is the best one out there. I did a post a while back on starting an email marketing campaign comparing a few other services. Feel free to check it out.

And feel free to subscribe to my emails to see how I do things. You’ll find the form on the left side of this blog.

So I think my point was made. Do it right the first time. Build the list!

Unfortunately, Network Marketing companies come and go, or, you are someone that comes and goes, bouncing from one company to the next. Although a company seems solid, with a good product and great compensation, there’s no guarantee that it will be around forever.

My BIGGEST mistake as a home business owner, was putting all of my eggs into one basket. I put so much trust in the concept/product/owners of the company I was part of that I didn’t have a back-up plan. Now, if it’s all solid, there are no worries. But, if things go a different direction, if the company crashes, if the products lose their value or if any other variable happens that effects the company, it also directly effects your income. Instead of putting so much into the company, put that focus on the goal.

So imagine that 6 figure income you had managed to create while working your home business, suddenly gone, or significantly reduced. Now, if it was your doing, that’s one thing. But if was a direct correlation to something that happened in the company, that’s an entire different story! Without pointing fingers or taking a victims mentality, how does one recover from something like that?

Here’s how I recovered……I relied on the online presence I had. With the amount of content I have all over the net, the presence in social networking sites and the organic rankings on all major search engines, I had choices. With consistent, FREE traffic coming to my website, this site, a crash of a company wasn’t a complete disaster. All that did was gave me options.

I could…….

1. Join another business opportunity or….
2. Do something else with the traffic I was getting.

I could develop my own products and promote them on my site. I could completely monetize my website with sponsored listing from ad networks such as Adsense. I could continue to capture leads and sell them. I could promote affiliate products on my site. The list could go on and on.

So if you find yourself in a home based business, and you are purchasing leads, spending high dollar on CPC ads or don’t have a web presence, you may want to rethink your strategy. Set yourself up to win regardless of the opportunity.

One thing I teach people about marketing is to use three or four different sources of lead generation. If one or two drop out, you have the other two to rely on until they can be replaced. Without spreading yourself too thin, the same thing applies for your sources of income.

I believe in the Cortez concept of burning your boats, but I also believe in having a back up plan. Expect the best but prepare for the worst and you’ll never find yourself in a hard spot, without options.

Stay tuned for my SECOND BIGGEST MISTAKE in the next post!

If you haven’t truly listened, not just heard, but listened to this song from Johnny Cash, do it……and whatever success you strive after in this life…..don’t be that guy! Achieve your dreams without losing yourself.

[audio:http://www.createfinancialwealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/johnnycash.mp3|titles=Johnny Cash – Hurt]

Quick question for you…..

Have you ever had an idea that you knew would be great, but never really got it off the ground? In your mind, you could see the beginning and the end but everything in between seemed to be missing?

Maybe this idea was an idea for a new business venture. You went as far as choosing the perfect business name, secured the domain name and started investing in a website, but didn’t get much further than that.

In my opinion, the easiest part of starting a successful business, online or offline, is coming up with the idea. Anybody and everybody has ideas. Great ideas! But success is located just on the other side of the “abyss of all that you don’t know.” Standing in your way of the end result that you can envision so clearly is……well….quite frankly, you don’t know!

How do you overcome something that doesn’t even exist yet. How does one go from point “A,” the idea, to point “Z,” the end result, being stuck on point “D” and not knowing the rest of the alphabet. It’s like listening to a two year old sing the ABC’s….”L-M-N-O-P” is more like a severely slurred, non existing word called “elimenope.” (If the kid is good!)

Point “Q” might be the cost of the product or service and point “F” might be all the details of what the product or service is. With “S” being the marketing details, there is a lot of ground to cover before “Y” and “Z” can be realized.

Now, if bringing your idea to fruition was as easy as assigning each step a letter, then there would be a lot more successful people in the world. The great abyss of all that you don’t know wouldn’t set claim on so many aspiring entrepreneurs.

So let’s have this conversation over the next few posts. Let’s see if we can somewhat erase the abyss…or at least build a suspension bridge to make crossing it a bit easier.