Earlier this year, we launched the 30-Day Communications Challenge, complete with a multi-media eBook.
It was met with a crazy amount of success.
We sold more than 1,000 eBooks and we just knew it was setting the stage to blow the doors off the PR Dream Team.
We figured at least half of those people would get so much from the challenge that they’d be lined up to pay to hang out with us every day in the membership community.
When we finished the challenge and launched into the PR Dream Team, we were met with crickets.
I mean, nowhere even close to half converted. On the contrary, we converted maybe 10 people.
Ten!
That’s less than one percent. A lot less than one percent.
That’s a terrible return-on-investment and it’s a terrible conversion percentage.
It’s Easy to Make Excuses
I was really down in the dumps.
And the leaders I spoke with said people in our industry just aren’t primed to spend money on their own professional development.
That I should perhaps think about broadening our reach to a larger business audience.
But I really love our little corner of the world and, truth be told, there are far better business experts out there.
We are really great at helping agency owners grow.
Sure, I suppose we could take our process and teach it to any business owner, but I’ve sat in your shoes and I’ve had the same thoughts, sleepless nights, and stresses as you.
I didn’t want to abandon this industry, but I also had to figure out what was going on.
As it turns out, it’s not that our industry won’t invest in themselves.
It’s that we were not good at communicating the pain we solve for agency owners.
Once the 30-day challenge was over, everyone felt like they already had what they needed to be successful so why spend the money on the PR Dream Team?
We had failed in our communication of what it offers—in the pain it solves.
The Four Things All Successful People Do
I tell you that story because it’s so, so easy to tell ourselves why something isn’t working instead of changing how we do things.
It’s our natural inclination to make excuses.
After all, change is hard and excuses make it easy for us to chalk something up to “can’t work.”
But what if we look at mishaps, failures, or missteps as opportunities?
Instead of telling myself that our industry just won’t invest in themselves and moved on, what would happen if I looked at it as an opportunity to figure out what WE were doing wrong?
The more time I spend with really successful people, the more I see that there are four things they all do.
They all:
- Focus on their victories.
- Absolutely never settle.
- Visualize or meditate every day.
- Have only three priorities for their work day and they stay focused on those things without distraction.
Let’s look at each of those four things—and how you might use them in your own business growth or professional development.
Focus on Your Victories
We are all so good at worrying endlessly about all of the things that go wrong.
And things do go wrong. We’re human, after all.
But if you shift your thinking and spend most of your time focused on the things that are going right, you can’t help but succeed.
It’s the theory from the book The Secret—when you put good thoughts or positivity into the world, it is returned to you 10 fold.
To get into the habit of focusing on your victories, you should create a brag book.
In some cases that might be in your bullet journal. It might be a post-it note wall (which sounds kind of enticing). Or it could be just a notebook.
Whatever you decide, write down one victory you have every day.
Some days it might just be that you got of bed—and that’s great!
Other days it might be that you won a new piece of business or got to the gym or got through your to-do list.
Whatever your victory is for that day, write it down.
The reason I like the idea of the post-it note wall is it becomes very visual.
And, if you post your victories above your computer, it won’t take long before you’re staring every day at all of the great things you’ve accomplished.
Successful people stop and smell the roses. You can do the same. Focus on your victories every, single day.
Absolutely Never Settle
There was a question that came up in the Spin Sucks community last night.
The member asked:
What protocols can I put in place that would enable me to properly vet prospective clients on a more detailed level…so I can avoid problematic client-side issues we agency owners constantly encounter?
This is such a great question that leads to absolutely never settling.
To figure out what that looks like for you, take a minute to do a quick exercise.
Take out a piece of paper (or your bullet journal or notebook or Google doc) and write across the top, “Our Ideal Client.”
Then make two lists:
- The qualifications your ideal client has; and
- The qualifications you absolutely will reject.
Set a timer for five minutes and get to work on the first list. Don’t stop writing until the timer goes off.
Then set another five minutes and get to work on the second list. Again, don’t stop writing until the five minutes is up.
Now you have a list of things you will put up with—and things you won’t.
For instance, our ideal client is coachable, motivated to succeed, willing to stretch outside of his or her comfort zone, and works every day on his or her professional development.
We absolutely reject know-it-alls, negativity, excuses, and people who don’t make professional development a priority.
As you begin to live with your lists, you’ll be able to craft questions you ask in new business meetings to help you understand where that person lives on your lists.
Successful people never, ever settle. These lists will help you do the same.
Visualize or Meditate Every Day
The third thing you are going to do is visualize or meditate.
I’m not big on either one of those exact things because I prefer to always be moving and sweating.
It’s why I prefer cycling to yoga, even though I would kill to be able to do those crazy handstands that have a yoga name, but I do not know what it is because, cycling.
But I spend a lot (A LOT) of time on my bike and it gives me plenty of time to think and to visualize my success.
So you don’t have to sit cross-legged on the floor with your eyes closed and muttering, “Oooohm” every few seconds.
The point is to be alone with your thoughts for at least 15 minutes every day—and to use that time to visualize your success.
That success may again be, “I got out of bed.”
Or it could be that you have a huge new business pitch and you want to crush it.
Visualize what your success looks like after you win that client. Put yourself in the winner’s shoes. Think about everything that changes when you have that success.
Successful people make time to visualize or meditate every day.
Use your 15 minutes to prepare yourself for your day and you will have success.
Have Only Three Priorities for the Day
The last thing you should do as you focus on building your success instead of making excuses is to complete the most important items first every, single day.
That means the activities that generate new revenue and better, profit, should be the first things you do each day.
How you work that into your schedule is up to you.
You could get up earlier each day or block the first two hours of your day so no one can interrupt you or not go into the office until you’ve knocked out your priorities.
Just make sure this work is done first.
Otherwise you’ll never have the kind of success you want. Instead, you’ll have done the first three, but not accomplished anything, other than feeling better about yourself.
Your success is all about how well you treat yourself and whether or not you can change your mindset around the things you think are fact.
If I had wallowed in my pain of not converting our challenge participants to the PR Dream Team and let all of the excuses everyone told me to be true take over, we wouldn’t have a business model.
It’s really, really easy to make excuses and find evidence to support why things don’t work.
I did that when I talked to other industry leaders and they supported my thinking.
It wasn’t until I turned inward that I realized all of that evidence was untrue.
Successful people are consistently successful and happy because they do these four things every day.
You now have “the secret” to go forth, prosper…and be successful.
Photo by Samuel Clara on Unsplash
