Do you ever wish you could wave a magic wand and – POOF! – have instant success?
I run a digital marketing agency here on Maui, and I share what I’ve learned through my experiences of growing a business to over seven figures. However, I’m not a wizard, and I’m not one of those so-called “gurus” who only makes money by teaching you to make money. I’m just an average guy who’s built a strong business. Because of this, I’m focused on delivering good information, not just selling you something—so I feel free to share the good, the bad, AND the ugly about what it actually takes to build a seven-figure business.
You can do the same thing if you put in the effort, the time, and get a basic understanding of direct marketing. The internet overflows with “get rich quick” schemes, formulas, and endless motivational posts. While those temporary bursts of inspiration can feel powerful, achieving long-term success takes more than a day of feel-good motivation.
Today, I share some of the most meaningful and practical insights about success that I learned through the last few years running a seven-figure online business.
By the way, if you want to hear this in podcast form, simply follow this link.
Why Success Isn’t What You Might Think
Many entrepreneurs have a grandiose and vague idea of what it means to achieve success. They want to know the secret shortcut to quick success with as little effort as possible.
I have news for you: No magic spell will whip up an instant business.
Success doesn’t look like that at all. Building a successful business takes a long time of consistent work. How do you know when you’ve reached “success”? And what do you do if you’re starting from the bottom trying to work your way up?
At the beginning of my entrepreneurial efforts, I worried about each choice I made. I didn’t have a lot of reach. I did most of the tasks by myself. Looking back, I’m thankful for this.
I had to learn how to set myself up for success so that I could move forward with confidence. I didn’t want to go back to my old life of working hard so someone else could make big profits from my efforts.
Through all of my labor, I redefined my ideas of success. I’m sharing four important lessons I learned as I grew my business into a success from the ground up.
By the way, I used this four-step blueprint to build my business from the ground up. My FREE guide will help you build the foundations of a successful business right from the start!
4 Tips for Successful Entrepreneurship
The secret to success is not a magic trick. Here are four practical tips for starting a successful business:
- Motivate Yourself By Putting Money On the Line
Motivation, itself, is not enough to make real progress. I need something external to give me the drive to finish something I want to start. I can’t get things done if I don’t have a hard deadline.
So… set a hard deadline. If you need help with this, bring somebody in to hold you accountable. In fact, pay them to help you. That way, you have skin in the game. You don’t want to waste your hard-earned money, and they depend on you to get the task done.
Get that accountability in place so it forces you to have a deadline and meet goals.
- Stay Consistent Week In and Week Out
No one gets fit from working out for six hours, one time.
Success consists of all the little things you do consistently each and every day. Building an asset, whatever it is, takes time.
Consistency caused me to see REAL progress in my business.
Do whatever you do consistently from the start. Lose the illusion of instant success. Your job is to show up each day and work consistently at achieving the next thing, little by little.
If you want to produce a podcast or start a YouTube channel, don’t worry about the number of views or listeners you get in the beginning. As numbers eventually grow, you can get excited about the responses you get from consumers.
Even while your reach is small, if you give a good product or valuable information to just one person who uses it to take action, then you have success.
- Realize No Decision is Final
A single decision won’t decide your fate, or the fate of your business, forever.
Some people feel paralyzed about making decisions that could affect their business long-term. Since I started my business, I’ve learned that most decisions don’t need to last forever. They can be changed. The key is to make a choice and run with it… and learn along the way.
When I started my podcast, I wanted to have seasons focused on particular topics. As I started interviewing guests, keeping seasons wrapped around narrow topics became more and more difficult. So I changed my method. I still do special series, but for the most part, episodes have a new focus every week.
No one emails me to say, “Tom, what’s going on? You’re not doing seasons anymore?” No one noticed but me .
Don’t get wrapped up in the idea that each decision is final. Most of the decisions I worried about most, or spent a lot of time making, have been the ones that really didn’t matter once I started taking action. Sometimes I change the decision later, and sometimes I don’t.
When I realized that a single decision doesn’t mean the end of the matter, I was able to push through my fear and take the steps I needed to get started.
- If You Need Help, Get Help
Rome wasn’t built in a day… and neither was it built alone.
The best money I’ve spent was hiring somebody to help me get the podcast off the ground. I brought someone on to handle the editing and uploading part. It helped me get motivated because I had someone relying on me to send a recording over each week.
You don’t have to do everything by yourself. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. Others bring insight and skills that you don’t have into your efforts, and your team grows its reach and abilities because of it.
You can outsource to someone else who has a skill that you don’t have, and they can be a great asset to your team. Other people can also help you keep priorities aligned. As you reevaluate and adjust goals, others will give you perspectives you haven’t thought of.
Investing time and money into other people will, without fail, help your long-term success.
Most people don’t know they need to work this way. They wait for the magic of success to come to them, and when it doesn’t, they fizzle out and give up. Growing a business takes time and energy, but when you use these tips, you will start seeing the success you want.
For more secrets the so-called “gurus” won’t tell you about making money online, check out my podcast:
