Focus On What Really Makes You Money

It doesn’t make you a bad person if you want your business to be perfect, to have all your advertising in place; to have the website just the way you want it. But it won’t necessarily make you money, either.

If you’ve decided to sell on the Internet with a website, you may think the website is the business. But a website is just a form of media, like TV, radio, a magazine, or a newspaper. You still need to attract viewers or readers. Your website is not your business. Your business is marketing, getting traffic to your website, and converting that traffic to sales. If you want to make money, you must focus on marketing your website, not making it prettier.

Too many people think that their website has to be just right before they can start promoting it. Your website, just like any other way of promoting products, is a work in progress. You can always find a way to make it better. But, even as you think about ways to improve it, you should honestly ask yourself if the improvement will make you more money or if it is just a distraction that satisfies the ego or makes you feel you are actually doing something.

I know you’ve often heard that taking action is the way to make money. But not all actions make money. You need to understand the difference between action and money-making action.

If you survive in business long enough, you become more honest with yourself. Looking back, you realize that much of what you did was to satisfy your ego or was a result of wrong thinking and an unproductive belief system…like making sure your ads were just perfect before testing them or getting your website just right before promoting it.

Making money is very simple; it’s everything else that’s complicated. You fail to make money when you complicate the process. Be honest with yourself and start identifying those actions that take your focus away from making money…actions that are anti-money. Just because you are staying busy doesn’t mean you are making money.

Here are two emails from dealers who were not focused on making money …

“I want to sell at the local flea market, but I only have money for one line of products, pepper sprays, and I don’t want to start selling until I can display at least 4 or 5 different product lines.”

It’s good that I didn’t think that way 37 years ago when I had only a 25,000-volt stun gun to sell. If I hadn’t started selling that one product, I doubt there ever would have been other products, much less the hundreds I sell now.

If you begin focusing on getting the product right, your advertising just right, or waiting until you have more products to sell, you aren’t focusing on making money. Anything less than taking action to stimulate sales is usually fear motivated. Sure, you may call it being cautious, doing due diligence, and getting all your ducks in a row, but it’s still fear.

“I’ve been working on my website for about six months now, and I should have all your products up in a couple more months. Once they’re all up, I will start promoting the website. I plan on being your largest distributor.”

OK, some people are less talented and knowledgeable than others regarding website building. This person should have paid someone to build his website. But, even if he is slow and doesn’t have the money to pay someone to build the site, he still could have started promoting the site after the first product was put up. His focus was not on making money!

And, no, he is not my largest distributor. He hasn’t received one order since he sent this email ten months ago. I don’t know if he even finished his website.

Time is a great killer of enthusiasm and motivation. That’s why acting, while the energy is fresh and motivating, is essential. In other words, do it now and don’t wait until everything is perfect.

Every day you work on your business, ask yourself this question. “Is what I’m doing going to make me money?” If you’re honest with yourself, there won’t be any confusion about what actions you need to take.