Last week I used some of my work time to read and respond to all the various comments that people left on resources I released in the build up to Membership Site Mastermind opening.
Although I spent several hours reading over 500 comments and writing about 50 of my own, it’s worth the time invested. I learn so much about my audience this way, which helps me better serve you because I understand where you are coming from. Any chance you get to do research like this, you should take it.
One of the things you have to come to terms with when you run a teaching business is that you will receive the same questions over and over and over again.
Each new person who becomes exposed to your work is new and usually has the same common questions and challenges as everyone else. Their experience is unique to them as an individual student trying to learn how to do something, while for you as a teacher, you repeat yourself with each new student. The more people you help, the more you repeat.
I bring this up because it’s clear many people are struggling to deal with the same issues and tell themselves the same false truths when it comes to starting an Internet business. This is the fundamental reason why only a tiny percentage of people actually make the kind of money they want to from their business, while most people do not. It’s the people who choose not to believe these things and who do it anyway, who get a result.
If you believe something that stops you from getting what you want, then you have a built-in failure mechanism. Why guarantee your own failure? If you want something so badly, who do you make a choice to see the world in a way that automatically prohibits you from ever having what you want? That’s just silly.
Three Lies You Need To Stop Believing
The following three beliefs are repeated to me by students again and again, especially when you are stepping into the entrepreneurship game for the first time. You need to understand these are beliefs only, not truths, however if you hold on to a belief they become true for you, so you need to be careful.
If as you read the following points you find yourself on some level agreeing with them, then you need to stop and start taking steps to change the belief. If you don’t, it will always hold you back. Most problems can be solved with smart persistence, as every successful entrepreneur knows, so why not apply that belief to these situations instead?
1. You can only make money teaching/writing/blogging/selling how to make money
This one really bugs me. It’s such a short sighted view of the world to see only what’s directly in front of you.
This problem I believe stems from the natural process a new entrant into the world of Internet marketing goes through. First they look for methods to make money online and find a ton of resources, some which are good and some which are not. They notice that although lots of great free content is released, most of the people who give away this information seem to only make money by also selling products that teach how to make money, or by talking about the subject on a blog. It’s easy to get jaded by this.
This is how I make a lot of money online now, so I’m a perpetrator and certainly have had to face my fair share of people attempting to call me out as a fraud, only profiting by teaching how to make money. Although the fact that you make money teaching how to make money isn’t exactly fraudulent, it does cause people to be suspect of the quality of your information.
The truth is that the make money online niche, while good, is far from the best. If you really want to make big money enter the dating, weight loss, health, investing or real estate niches.
There are so many possible niches to make money in, but why you don’t hear about them as much is because of two reasons -
- Those making money in other niches are not teaching how to make money, so there’s no incentive for them to talk about how they do it, that’s just not the business they are in.
- You have your focus so squarely on how to make money you spend all your time studying within this niche only, which naturally means you are exposed predominately to how to make money products and blogs. If you want to see other realities, pretend for a moment that you want to lose weight, or cure your panic attacks, or learn how to improve your golf game, and go search for products in these areas. You will realize how many niches there really are where people make money using the exact same systems as those who sell how to make money online products.
If you want proof, just head to the Clickbank Marketplace and browse around for a while at the top selling products. There are so many niches within niches within niches that are hugely profitable you can only begin to imagine the possibilities if you look outside the make money online niche.
And if you don’t believe me, then you must believe to make money online you have to sell make money online products, so just start doing that and see how you go (read this for help if you are serious – How To Make Money Teaching People How To Make Money).
2. Technology is too hard so I will never succeed
This has to be the catch-cry for every baby boomer out there who’s taken their recent retirement money and looked online to start an Internet business. If simply reading and sending email is challenging, how on earth can you expect to “have a blog” or “sell a product online” or “launch a membership site” if the technology will stop you from even getting off the ground?
Here’s the truth – technology is a bitch. It’s the biggest pain in the butt for most Internet marketers and we all struggle with it from time to time, but that shouldn’t stop you from leveraging it to make millions.
The problem is that you believe you need to learn how to do it yourself and you want courses that show you how to do every little step, so if you just follow the steps you make money. That might work, but why on earth would you spend so much time learning something you’re not good at and don’t enjoy?
Technology is not your problem, choosing to handle it yourself is.
All you need to do is hire someone, show them what you want and tell them to build it for you. This can be as easy as finding a website like what you want created and then telling your tech person to build it like that, or have them go through a course for you and tell them to handle the tech parts of the project.
3. Thinking that you have to be the best expert
This problem really is about two things -
- Your lack of direction
- Your lack of confidence
If you want to base a business on expertise, and you want to frame yourself as the expert, the path is easy – pick a topic, study it and practice it and then teach it. Stay one step ahead of your students and you’re providing value.
If you don’t want to be the expert, then you need to either focus your business on a product that doesn’t require an expert, or hire an expert to create your products for you. If you go to Guru.com you can find experts in pretty much every niche you could think of, who would gladly create ebooks or write courses for you for as little as a few hundred dollars.
The insidious part of this situation is that until you commit to something you tend to take on most projects half-assed, resulting in not so amazing outcomes, thus reinforcing your belief that you’re just not good enough. What you need to do is get focused, pick something and do it long enough to get a positive result (even just making one sale is good) and then build up from there.
I was making $5,000 a month from blogging but I still didn’t believe I was good enough to teach how to blog because people like Darren Rowse were around. Who needed me if Problogger.net had all the answers for free already?
You know when I finally believed that I was good enough to be a blog teacher? The day someone emailed me and told me that my advice was helpful. I realized then that the world is huge and the Internet is vast, you can always find your tribe if you’re willing to give back. Expertise is simply a perception created when one person helps another.
Are You Ready Now?
I hope that I’ve helped swot away some of the limiting beliefs you might have about your potential to make money online. There are a lot of “traps” you can fall into when starting a business, and most of them originate in your mind. The tools are everywhere, but most people just don’t know how to use them or self-sabotage themselves.
It’s my job as a coach to help as many people as I can start successful Internet businesses. I get more enjoyment from seeing someone make a full time income from something they create and enjoy doing than anything else that I do, which is why I love blogging and teaching my courses.
When I created Membership Site Mastermind my goal was to teach a formula for creating and launching a membership site based on simplicity. The reason for this is because when I created my own membership sites I faced the same challenges as you.
Here are some things I dealt with –
- Technology has been a roadblock for me too, so instead of struggling, I went with simple solutions, with fewer moving parts, less things to configure and fewer things that can go wrong. That’s the same system I teach inside Membership Site Mastermind, which pretty much just uses WordPress (no special membership plug-ins required!) and AWeber.
- Another issue I have had to deal with, and I know you do too, is creating content. I’m a prolific content creator, but I can’t write materials for a blog, an email newsletter, free reports and membership sites all at once. It would kill me. Nor am I prepared to create an entire membership site’s worth of content BEFORE launching. Instead, I follow a process that means you only need to produce about 10% of your product before launching and selling it, and once you finish creating it all, you can keep selling it, doing relaunches whenever you want to. This is exactly what I teach inside Membership Site Mastermind.
- I also like to do things by myself. Yes I know if you really want to grow a huge business you need help, and I don’t want to contradict my own advice, you should have other people do things you are not good at – like technology – but still, if possible the fewer humans involved in the projects, I find the smoother things go. In the case of how I run my business today, which could easily scale to a seven figure enterprise, and is already half way there now, I don’t need that many people. Once you’ve built your empire, it can run reasonably automated, which once again, is the principle behind the system I teach inside Membership Site Mastermind.
In case you can’t tell, I really believe you should join my Membership Site Mastermind coaching program before it closes this Friday, the 30th of October 2009. This is the final class for 2009, so your last chance to work with me this year.
The course lays out how you can set up membership sites, or any information product like an online course, and launch with only 10% of the content finished, how you can keep your technology requirements very simple and do it all without the need to hire any full time staff, which most “normal” businesses require.
This is a truly beautiful system to make a living from the world wide web, if you’re willing to build it. Before you can build it, you need the roadmap, which is exactly what my coaching course is.
If you want more information or you are ready to join, go to this web page -
Remember, I offer a money back guarantee. You’re protected by Clickbank (my payment processor) for a full 60 days, so if you don’t like the course, you can quit and get your money back.
And if you can’t study it now, as long as you complete your payments you have lifetime access to all the materials, so you can do it next month or next year, I won’t take away your access.
You have until Friday midnight to decide.
I look forward to working with you!
Yaro Starak
Coaching
Way to go Yaro. Bang on! I cannot even begin to tell you how many people I meet who think the only way to make money online is to write an ebook about how to make money online. It drives me nuts that so many people believe this. I do however, really enjoy teaching them that this isn’t so.
This post should be stop number one or two for a person who is just entering the internet marketing phase of their lives.
Thanks for the post. It’s always a pleasure stopping by.
Richard
Totally agree with everything you have said Yaro. When I talk to friends and family, its astonishing just how many limitations they put on themselves. – I couldn’t do what you’re doing, I don’t understand technology, I’m too old to learn new things. I keep saying to them that in the internet business is something anyone can do – you just have to focus on what you want and go for it.
Great post as always Yaro. A struggle in the mind will always cause problems in the business. Thanks for the good advice in getting rid of some of these limiting metal blocks.
Hi Yaro
Great post thank you, causing my first reply! Limiting beliefs and lack of confidence – they seem to be the things that stop a lot of people from achieving in so many areas in life, not just internet business building.
There are plenty of ways of overcoming them – a couple I find useful are:
Focusing on the outcome, the ‘why’ of what you’re doing, and knowing where you’re heading can help. As is paying attention to ‘limiting language’ – the words you say help to create your reality. Even if we’re not YET great at something, we don’t have to say we’re ‘bad’ at it.
Thanks for your inspiration!
Good post,Yaro. You’re right you don’t have to be the best to be successful, but you do have to go above and beyond what you promised to deliver. Being accessible to your clients is also important.
Great post. So many people get held up on their journey to build an online business with these limiting beliefs that they have created in their minds. Thank you for bring them to the awareness of all your readers. It is a pleasure as always to read your posts. Thanks again for the great things and value you are adding to everyone.
God Bless!
Yaro, you possess atypical wisdom for one your age. Each time I visit [via email invitations extended] I derive value for my time.
This topic is no exception. I especially appreciate your choice of wording. You keep it simple and direct – truly ‘channeling’ your perspective as a leader, leveraging both your time and your readership’s ability to break free of self-imposed psychological chains that serve to thwart their progress. I am familiar with much of what you reveal, albeit not specific to their application to the internet. Nonetheless, I greatly appreciate your flair with words. You are indeed a craftsman, able to render plain to one’s understanding the meaning and significance of issues that are often deemed irrelevant by those who lack such understanding.
In short, you are an effective conveyor of meaningful practical knowledge. Thank you. Very well done.
Glenn, you can praise my work anytime, I like your style too
Yaro,
I’m sure at one time or another, almost everyone encounters all three of these misbeliefs. In the IM niche, success can also be delayed by information overload (especially poor information overload).
When someone is confronted with one of the situations you’re mentioning in this post and they try to go it alone, they can make things worse by following bad advice. With the rampant influx of newbies trying to make money selling how to make money, it’s no wonder so many people go astray.
Your experience, insight and truthfulness make your blogs and courses worth every moment and dollar well spent.
Keep up the good work!
Howard
Yaro, what you said about being an expert is really helpful for me, until now it is the biggest mental obstacle for me. I often found myself knowledgeable in many fields but cannot claim myself “expert” in any of them.
Hey Yaro,
You have just smashed down a brick wall for me when I read what you used to think about having to be an expert in your niche,
“I still didn’t believe I was good enough to teach how to blog because people like Darren Rowse were around. Who needed me if Problogger.net had all the answers for free already?
The day someone emailed me and told me that my advice was helpful. I realized then that the world is huge and the Internet is vast, you can always find your tribe if you’re willing to give back. Expertise is simply a perception created when one person helps another.”
I now have the confidence and boldness to move forward.
Big Thanks,
Randy
Had a look through the site and there’s some really useful info and not just for bloggers!
We’re looking at ways of boosting ranking / traffic / sales to our site (it’s quite new) so you hear the usual stories of “it takes weeks / months” to get even listed. Maybe it does if you don’t put the effort in you never know.
Dear Yaro,
You write so well about something which affects so many of us. We are our own worst enemies, we pick ourselves apart far more critically than others do and if we do this before we even start on our journey, whatever that may be, we make it that much harder to accomplish anything.
I recently was given someone to contact with regard to a joint venture. When I read his profile – a first at Cambridge, followed by an extensive career winning award after award – I was intimidated. I thought, why would a genius at the top of his game want to have anything to do with a nobody like me. But then I remembered, my interest is tangential to his so I don’t need to compete because we’re operating in different realms, i don’t need to be scared because I’m good at what I do and he’s good at his thing. Who knows what will come of this, but nothing ventured nothing gained.
So I endorse what you write and encourage everyone to be brave, hold faith and take the plunge.
Best wishes,
Kimberley
Thanks for the tips, I have been making money off blogging on Stocks so I prove one of these wrong.
Yaro,
Do you have any examples of successful membership sites of your students or other people you know, where the product offering or training they are selling is NOT some form of internet marketing?
Martin – see my reply above to Gary where I list four of my students who are in different niches making money.
Are you planning about opening again within the first months of 2010 Yaro?
Self-doubt is a big problem with new bloggers because you feel there’s all that big world out there to ‘please’ but if you get past it and jump right in…. the mistakes make the lessons learnt valuable, the rewards (intangible and tangible) make it all worthwhile.
Thanks Yaro for the great advice, as always. Also agree with the ‘doing it yourself’ issue..If most of the content is from you, regular readers will tell because it has your
fingerprint’ on it…
@ Stocks on Wall Street: the limiting belief is the word ‘only’ in # 1
Mistakes are a part of life. Don’t just accept that truth. Embrace it, and your life will be a whole lot happier and filled with accomplishment. Remember, the people who are laughing at you as you’re falling down are pointing at you to keep people from looking at them!
Mistakes are part of the life, yes. The problem comes when you don’t learn from them.
Yes we all have fallen down on these beliefs/
Nice one Yaro. If we start blogging with something that truly interests us instead of writing because of money, it won’t be long before we become successful to our chosen path.
I like it when you questioned “why guarantee our failure?” — definitely we should not!
Apart from blogging about what we like and enjoying from it, we will increase our knowledge on that particular niche we’re on, as we will make researches and experiments that will help us to get more knowledge.
That’s one of the great things about blogging.
Wow.. this is really something that is helpful
You really point out great things.
Thanks so much for that
Yaro, I appreciate this post a lot! You are spot on.
Thanks!
Yaro,
Among all the many interesting ideas in your post, #2 is the most convincing argument I’ve read on the goodnesses of outsourcing.
Cheers,
Jose
Good post, and good for you to admit to being a perpetrator of what I think of the “Amway method” of success. You can make money selling the soaps, but the real money is in selling the system to others. And as I research all these “systems” like SiteBuildIt, Mastermind and so on, it’s obvious that almost all of the people selling a system do exactly as you say,
“…although lots of great free content is released, most of the people who give away this information seem to only make money by also selling products that teach how to make money, or by talking about the subject on a blog. It’s easy to get jaded by this.”
So as I mull over my business plan, my content, my list, my blog, my keywords, my SEO, all the things all these systems say I need, I can’t help but wonder if I’m just being lulled into a false belief that I can follow my dreams and make (part of?) a living online.
Anyhoo, this is a great post, and I do learn a lot from your blog, thanks!
Excellent point on repetition – those who have the patience to keep answering the questions will get stronger in their role, where as those who don’t have the patience will forever be the people asking the questions. I like it!
Good article Yaro
Really good , this is what Yaros mastermind activity again.
A comprehensive and intelligent post (as per usual, I have to add) that serves as the final call for enrollment to the Membership Site Mastermind course, which is seriously good value for money. I like the fact that you point out that there are many other ways to make online money, apart from teaching/writing/blogging about it. Identifying your niche and staying one step ahead of your followers without having to do a degree in whatever your niche is makes great sense to me. It takes the fear factor out of the “authority” that you need to do your thing. You really don’t need to know everything, but sure will learn as you go along.
Good article and it really rings true over here.. especially the third point about thinking you have to be teh best expert to offer assistance. I constantly get myself trapped into that frame of mind.. and it’s not an easy one to get back out of
Great observation, it’s true that without proper attitude, clear goals and positive state of mind you won’t be able to achieve much, at least not for a longer period of time. I have personally witnessed a few blogs disappear because of the author’s attitude.
I really chuckled when I saw the point about answering the same questions over and over to a group of newbies…
Dr. Michael Quadlander
http://www.CarAccidentLosAngeles.com
______________________________________
Hey yaro, I’m a friend of Arlene DeWinter, who sent me to u…I’ve just decided I want to become an entrepreneur! Great videos! Thank u!
This is such a great eye opening article. Many people are built to fail and are afraid to succeed. They don’t know what to do with success. This article is also part of the reason I changed my blogging topic and went with what I know best, photography instead of niche marketing. Things are going so much better since I changed blog topics.
When is the next podcast coming out Yaro? need my lunch walking podcast.
Thanks,
Larry
I should have a new podcast for you late this week Larry, once the Membership Site Mastermind launch closes up for the last time.
Yes it is too bad that people have these beliefs right from the start. if you’re going to go into business, you have to be open minded. You can’t just follow the crowd and try to do exactly what some other people are doing. You need to get your feet wet and see what works for you. There are many ways to make money online. Not all of them are right for everyone though.
Great article, Yaro! I really love your no-nonsense approach to internet business issues. I’m learning so much from you! Thank you for all you contribute!!!
Mara
]
Yes we are all definitely learning a lot from Yaro. It is great to hear all of the things that he has overcome to make his business succeed. It makes it that much easier to know what kinds of things we need to work at changing to have a better chance at success. Our mindset and assumptions can definitely get in the way of our business if we don’t control them better.
This is really an eye opener. Just dont be afraid to be fail. Nice one.
Thanks so much for this Yaro. This was one of the things that i have struggled with and felt that I was a bit off on.
Steve
Yaro,
I see in your post above where you’ll be reopening your program in 2010.
I’m very interested, and would like to receive an email when that time
comes.
Thanks,
Sabrina
Hi Sabrina – As long as you are on the email list at http://www.membershipsitemastermind.com you will know when the doors open again.
I have many domain name to sell , these are my product. so rather than starting marketplace for others I will sell my own products,but I am just waiting to collect more and more visitors as well to make them my lovers. so I am not in the blogging business to earn quick money. I will wait and watch for the big deal, even I am not earning too much today but its enough to survive for the next 1 year. once i survive I will start my next step.So help from the mastermind is essential.
The “make money online” niche (or rather, a small industry by itself by now) is full of newbies trying to teach newbies how to make money. Newbies are passing themselves off as gurus. The niche is lucrative to the extent of what the financial community call “the greater fool theory” “. The “Make Money Online” industry corresponds to this theory as only those at the top of the food chain makes real money. They feed on everyone below. The ones at the bottom feed on those lower then them hoping to move up the hierarchy. The whole bubble will bust when everyone tries to sell everyone else their “make money” formula and there are not enough real newbies coming into the industry to buy these junk.
The Malaysian LIfe
You mentioned great point’s Yaro. To some extent #3 is my problem however I believe all three lies you mentioned are reality. No one can deny these facts and if someone wants to make money then one has to take these 3 simple steps into consideration. An Entrepreneur should make plans and stick to them for a long time for a profitable outcome.
Hi Yaro,
Thanks for a great article. You are so right about all three!
The biggest one I had was the “being the expert”. That stopped me writing for a long time. And that is very sad, sad that such a fear was stopping me.
I guess when you look at all of these really they all come to FEAR. Fear of failure. This is a big challenge we have today. It’s something that is getting worse in our world as we try and be right rather than wrong and trying.
Anyone reading this I would say just start walking. Just start walking towards your goals and you will be astonished how far you can go by making mistakes.
Also remember that anyone successful got there making mistakes along the way, they literally “failed” all the way.
if your goal is to make it online I can say that Yaro’s blogmastermind course is what you may want to look at. It costs money and is worth it!
Go for your dreams and goals.
Great message about mindset on this blog. I love being around positive people and people who believe in themselves. Yaro is real and down to earth and we all can learn alot from him. Keep those articles coming. Thanks Yaro!
Yaro,
I’ve read a lot of what you have written…….This was the best,
why? So much truth.
Thank you very much.
Wow Yaro, even though this is an older post it has real value. I love it when I can go and run around a blog and find a wealth of info hidden. This is exactly the blog I am going to forward to a friend of mine who is thinking about working online but has no direction. Thanks.
Thanks for a great article. I particularly like your first point about people thinking they can only make money by selling info on ‘how to make money’.
It’s amazing how often you will see a newbie on an internet marketing forum ask for help with their website, and then it turns out their website is all about how to make money online. You kinda wonder how they are in any position to be giving this advice since they more than likely have never made a dime. The sooner people realise they need to target a niche and stay away from the ‘How to make money’ trap the better.