Excuses and Other Rants

“Excuses are easy to manufacture and hard to sell.”

That was what my fortune cookie from a recent lunch said to me.

It’s simply true.

Have you ever tried to buy something from an online business, only to find their shopping cart solution was anything but a solution?

Did you then try to contact them, only to find that their Contact page did
everything but contact them?

Calling yourself an internet-based business doesn’t give you the right to
offer poor service. Far too many internet-based businesses use this as an excuse and I’m kinda tired of it.

You wouldn’t put up with that crap from a brick and mortar business, so
don’t buy from or operate an online business in that manner.

I recently heard a presentation on success. I’m willing to bet that almost
everyone there expected the same old stuff – hard work, self-denial,
self-improvement, yada-yada, blah-blah, etc.

But the presenter said nothing about any of those tired, old topics. He
actually told the simple truth about success. Online or offline, it
doesn’t matter, success is non-denominational and not the least bit
prejudiced.

The most basic common denominator for success is doing the things that failures don’t like to do.

When you form the habit of doing all the little things that the
second-tier sales and marketing people won’t do, or don’t like to do
consistently, you’ve set the cornerstone for success.

Think about that for a few minutes.

No, really. Close your eyes and think about all the things that your competition makes excuses not to do.

Now, write them down and then use those as the basis for writing the action plan that’ll propel you into totally dominating your industry or niche.

Never again will you see such a simple plan, in such a condensed form,
completely explain such a disputed topic, so don’t do another thing until
you complete this task.

There are parts of my job, online and offline, that I despise. The parts
that I can delegate or outsource, I get rid of as quickly as possible, so as not to stop my momentum.

The parts I can’t delegate or outsource, I work on first, and reward myself with some small thing, like a special lunch, when I finish.

Why? Because I know that I’m now on to better, more powerful, more profit
producing tasks.

The real trick to dominating your niche or industry is to find the answer to a simple question.

This is real complicated, so pay attention:

What one thing does your competition do poorly?

You can adjust that question to fit your situation, but the basic premise
is that you want to cure pain, not try to out-brag your competition, about
all the wonderful things your widget does.

That’s where most sales and marketing people get this wrong. They ask -
What does our competition do well?

Who freakin’ cares ! People will pay to avoid pain ten times quicker and easier than they will pay to gain pleasure.

So, it’s up to you. You can stay at your current level of success or you can start doing all the things that your competition won’t do.

“Excuses are easy to manufacture and hard to sell.”

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