I started to learn about internet marketing, starting businesses and trying to become a “successful business owner” back in November / December 2004. Today in 2020, that’s a long time ago.
The actual day of the month and the exact month, I can’t remember but what I do remember is that a friend of mine who I worked with came into the office and sometime throughout the day I think from memory he was already talking about it with someone else when I joined the conversation.
The short version of this story is that I asked him what was going on and he said he had made more money with his online business yesterday than what he did whilst at work.
Time Froze as I Processed That.
It was under a few seconds until I thought to myself:
‘Yes, I want to make money with no effort too.’
I can laugh at that now because I remember how naive I was thinking about how it was possible.
What I found over the next few years and right up to this day is that my thoughts of making money back then were not unique. The majority of people who do set out to get customers online or start an online business do think that it’s easier than what it is.
Just if they could find that magic button to press where they wake up with fifty million dollars in the bank account the next morning.
Back to my story, hearing about my friend making money online was the single moment that started my new life back in 2004. It wasn’t until 2011-2012 that I was able to do it full time.
The Amount of Information Is Stupidly Crazy
I came from a place where if you wanted something, you could get it if you worked hard enough and more so if you were willing to work hard enough for it.
So back in 2004-2005 when I got home from work I’d spend more hours in front of the computer learning:
- How to make websites.
- How to get logos designed.
- How to do SEO.
- How to create Ads.
- How to get people to sign up for stuff.
- How to get people to buy stuff!
- What affiliate marketing is.
- And everything and anything else I found that related to these and countless more topics.
I wasn’t afraid of hard work and I put in the hours over the year years to learn this new world.
The obstacle that I faced for the first few years was that not everything I was trying was ever going to work. And also focusing on 17 different things is not a good way to complete one of them.
Back then when I did start to make some referral commissions and get some results online I noticed that it came from a project, an idea or something that I followed through with from start to finish, something I didn’t stop and leave for something else.
Not all shots that I fired ended up hitting the target and not all the bullets that I loaded got shot (meaning, I literally had websites that I built for a new business idea that never even got launched because I moved onto my next “better idea”) BEFORE even putting the website live.
This is a simple version of my backstory but the bottom line and lesson that I learned is that investing some time and money on the one thing and being prepared and ready to adjust your directions BUT stay on the same course at least – being ready to adjust and tweak when the writing’s on the wall and then continue with all the same energy is what it takes to have success 99% of the time.
Some people do win the lottery, but 99.9% of successful people worked for it.
The New Version of My Business
It’s funny because even though I have changed course a little bit, the large majority of the pieces are still the same.
There’s still a handful or smaller websites and other things that I own and operate that make money but they are lower maintenance and will just always be in the background.
The main service of my business now is the packaging up of the pieces that I know are critical and have proven to work time and time again, I’m just now channeling them all into one single service.
I won’t get into too much of what exactly it is now but I will cover that and go into all the details in future posts of course.
I’m focused on now getting more whilst doing less and helping other business owners with that exact same thing.
Even before I got married I knew there was nothing more important than family. When I got married I learned that lesson again, and when we had our first child, if you’re a parent too you’ll know again how much that lesson hits home.
That lesson of family being the most important part of your life spreads through you completely and consumes you and whilst yes it comes with it’s struggles..
I’m sure every parent will agree with that.
My wife and I of course no longer do the eating out and travelling that we used to do no matter how much of a good month or quarter we have business wise. Because we would rather spend that time with our baby.
We’ve had 3 or 4 dates since we had our first baby over 2 years ago now and when we’re out away from the house the only thing we really think and talk about is what our boy is doing, if you’re a parent – let me know if this is the same for you too.
Spending the time with our son as he is learning new things every single day has been the most important way to spend my time, again if you’re a parent you know what I’m talking about.
We now have a second baby on the way so the thought of further narrowing in on one offering from my business and focusing on getting more out of my business whilst spending less time in my business has recently been doubled 🙂
More Reasons For Change
The second reason why I chose this new direction is because I was posed with this question:
“What would be the 1 thing I’d deliver to a business to ensure they get more customers? (if I could only do 1)”
- What would that service be?
- What would it include?
- And so on…
To create a service or product like this would take some time. I know from the 15+ years of doing this that if you want to achieve or complete something you need to give it 100% until it’s done (funny that isn’t it?).
After:
- Years of shooting hundreds of thousands of arrows like a nuclear powered machine, flooding a number of different clients in customers and sales leads.
- Years of multiple email marketing lists and campaigns, all targeting different people for different products.
- Years of running multiple different marketing campaigns at the same time for clients and ourselves with previous business partner/s.
- Years of getting bored and moving onto the next thing after having success with the last one…
I have chosen this new path that will:
- Help my business be more profitable with less hours from me.
- Help other business owners achieve the same thing.
Personally I Won’t Be (and I suggest you don’t either)
I won’t be:
- Chasing things that are outside of my new scope.
- I won’t aim for things that are outside of my scope. And:
- I won’t entertain or investigate or invest any time with projects, business proposals, partnership deals, etc, that don’t meet my two requirements which again are:
- A business that grows and profits with less hours worked in the week (which means highly focused working hours every week – but less of them). And;
- Dedicated to other business owners who like me want to earn more with less business hours to have more family hours.
This website and this blog post for example is an example of a highly focused hour of work that will live on and work for me..for as long as there is internet connection. Does that make sense?
In the past when a new business opportunity came my way it was usually “oh yes!”, we could this and this, and that and to make it even better here are 44 other things we could add onto that…
But that will only force me to work more when I don’t need to, and it will force me to spend less time with my kids and wife, which I don’t want to do.
I wanted to share with you more about why I have made this small adjustment really when looking at it from the inside. But for anyone looking at my business from the outside it may look like I’ve made a big change.
But what works, works.
If I was to help a business in the home building industry get more customers, I’d follow the same map I used in my business and the same map I would use for a new start up in the software business.
What works, works. What doesn’t work, doesn’t work.
This is my path and I welcome you along the path also, join me and follow along. There will be countless opportunities to share more with you so that you can apply it to your business. It might be something about Facebook Ads, websites, email marketing or something similar.
I’ll also be holding group calls and chats and having conversations with other business owners where I’ll be helping them apply the same principles to their business to get more customers.
So to join in or to just listen along quietly (which is fine with me – because that is what I would normally do too) subscribe to the CraigMarty.com Podcast to get future episodes and go to CraigMarty.com and enter your email into one of the email boxes there so I can email you with dates and times where and when I’ll be online to chat.
Ok, I’ll talk with you soon.
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