So you wanna be in business for yourself do ya'?
Start an online business huh?
You are going to read a lot of content with plenty of 'experts' telling you exactly what to do, how to do it....And usually followed by a pitch of some sort. I thought it would be a fun little exercise to give you my own piece of advice here.
But rather than tell you what to do, I'm going to share some of my more epic failures in online businesses. I'll use myself as the example, so this is not being aimed at anyone but yours truly. And at my own expense, I hope you get some value from it. This is going to be painful for me at times to do some self reflection, but at the end of the day I think it'll be almost comical to laugh at some of y more epic collapses over the past 20 plus years of building online businesses.
Let's dive in....
So Jongo used to be quite a success online! And back then, Jongo thought he knew it all. Literally, if you even started to question anything I said I would get rude and abrasive. I knew it all! Why? Because look at how much money I was making!!!
Here's what that did to my business...It alienated most of my community. A bunch of customers just gave up coming around and doing business with me, all because they didn't want to be around someone so rude and egotistical.
What I learned was this...You don't know half of what you think you know. Be humble. Shut up and learn from everyone you can!
This may seem odd, because we're supposed to build teams and be a part of something bigger than just ourselves...And I agree. However here's my failures with this, I partnered with some people in my career that weren't as invested in our businesses and I was. Even though we all 'owned' the same products and services, it was much easier for them to step away.
Which meant for me, being in survival mode. And when you are just trying to survive, you cannot thrive. Your business suffers, your customers feel ignored and things just go south real quick. I was never a web designer, so when I lost my partner that was...My creatives suffered. I was not a developer, so when I lost my partner that was...My development suffered.
It's VERY important to build teams around you that are dedicated as much as you are for the long run. And even when things go rough, they all see it through! You can never expect everyone to love your business as much as you do.
I spent a lot of my time as a 'successful entrepreneur' doing nothing to grow myself personally. I literally, spent all my free time either drinking, hanging out with friends, or clicking around social media.
I went to bed whenever I felt like it, slept in until noon most days and had zero schedule. Why did I need one right? I was a success...No need to be disciplined!
Guess what I'm paying for these days lol. You have 1440 minutes a day, use them VERY wisely and don't waste a second.
What? Didn't you read every book every printed about online businesses? Sure, but that doesn't mean I was learning what I really needed to. While the industry I was in was growing and maturing, I stayed in my comfort zone. I never dove into everything I should have, to grow with my industry.
Instead, I stayed in what I knew, never really pushed myself and refused to see the writing on the wall. So sure, I had a ton of book knowledge...But not a lot of new practical knowledge.
When I was at the peak of my success, I was attending live offline events...All the time! But then I once again....Got comfortable. And with that, I stopped going to offline events. Stopped shaking hands with people that would have and could have really helped my businesses.
I was an island. I didn't need anyone else! But when you are building any kind of online business, who you know is very important. Especially in affiliate marketing, which I was in. And I'm not sure how I didn't see this as it was happening...My income literally stopped growing, the moment I stopped growing my network!
Oh wow, I could go on and on because let's be honest....If you have tried to build an online business, you'll have a list of failures that you could write a book about. But the point of this post is that, failures don't define you! They actually help you grow, even if it's years after the fact.
You learn from your mistakes. You adjust! And you keep growing and building.
Because the greatest failure of them all, would be....Giving up!
I hope this was of value for you on your journey!
