Building Your Online Business One Hit At a Time

(Image from http://www.informatics.indiana.edu)

I feel like it has been awhile since I have written a rambling post about metaphors and the mind-set of an internet business.  Since opening day for Major League Baseball is approaching and a baseball theory struck me like a bag of bricks yesterday while watching some spring training highlights, I thought I would share my thoughts on it.

This is kind of a mixture of my successes and failures of an internet marketer…in baseball terms.

As you probably read a month or so ago, I say down with James Schramko while in Australia and he and I dissected a lot of my businesses.  Why wasn’t it bringing in the money it used to?  Is internet marketing dead?  What am *I* doing that may be preventing more money to be made?  Now he and I discuss these issues (with their solutions) and we did this in my BizBreakDown Videos (you can learn more about that at BizBreakDown.com).

But after watching some pathetic San Diego Padres highlights, a light went off in my head.

One of the biggest mistakes I have made over the years is swinging for the home run.

(I said I would bring baseball into this, didn’t I?)

Let’s step back a second…

FIRST: In order to score points (and runs), you need to step up to the plate.  Too many people either wait around in the dugout or in the batters circle but don’t get up to bat.  This is like buying a lot of eBooks and programs, but never applying anything.   Yes, that 90mph pitcher (aka, the internet/competition) can be intimidating, especially if you don’t know how to swing a bat.  Still, if you don’t stand up there, you won’t get anywhere.

SECOND: If you actually get up to bat, first of all, that is an achievement.  But now what do you do?  Most programs and eBooks teach you to swing for the home run (that is probably why you bought the product in the first place…you know the $1,000,000 success stories, expensive cars and hot woman).  When I first started, I aimed high and struck out rather quickly.  And just like in baseball, maybe you do stand up their and swing with all your might and out of just plain luck, you hit the ball square and out the park!  This does happen in internet marketing!  It feels great, but can you do it again on the next bat?  Usually no.

THIRD: Coping with the strike-out (aka, Failure).  I rarely have ever heard a story about a person who made it big (or anything at all) on their first attempt at internet marketing.  Now is the time to step back and focus on your initial goal:  Just get on base.  Focus on making contact with the ball.  Sure, a single is not as good as a home run, but in this case it will make you money and the probability of success (or lack of failure) is much higher .  And a whole lot of singles is just as good as a home run.

Get a good batting average going!

Focus on smaller goals.  Build a good foundation for your internet marketing efforts like blogging, article writing, and social networking.  Those all count for something and ultimately add up to a lot!  And once you DO learn how to swing and get singles at a higher rate, then you can start swinging the bat a little harder.

BUT: Here is where I faultered a little bit.  After you get into a good rhythm of small, profitable successes, you start to aim higher and swinging harder.  Now your 0.350 batting average drops below 0.200 and you start striking out a lot.

I lost a lot of my initial fundamentals of growing my business and no longer aimed at swinging to get on base.  Failure (strike-outs) occurred more frequently and the home runs were few and far between.  I have found that getting back to basics and just making contact with the ball is what got me here.  Sure, swinging for the bleachers is OK once in awhile, but not every bat.

Now this story above is my situation, but this works the same for those just starting out, too.

I meet a lot of people at conferences and for newbies, there is usually 2 major problems:

1)  The don’t get up to bat - They may have some ideas, or they have bought 3 education products, or they just don’t know what to do or sell.

2) They are swinging for the stars - This one is just as common as not getting up to bat.  I hear the ideas of novice internet marketers, which are great, but are way over their heads.  They want to re-create Facebook or expect to build the next Amazon.com or start their own auction website to compete with eBay.  Don’t get me wrong, some people have the power to do this, but the average novice-Joe probably won’t get anywhere with it.  Step up to bat and choose a piece of that niche and focus on small things like affiliate sales, lead generation or dropshipping.

You need to the little victories (i.e., the base hits) before you can ever learn how to swing for home runs.  And remember that with aiming for home runs, you may find yourself striking out more often.  That is OK, as long as you don’t get benched by the coach (or even worse, sent down to Triple-A!).

cheers…matt

P.S.  I know, today’s post is stretching it a little bit!  All in good fun, though.  But you might want to check out BizBreakDown to get a bit more of an understanding on how I built my online businesses one hit at a time!