Chasing The Gurus

I’ve often heard the big Internet Marketing gurus saying, “Don’t invent, find something that works and improve on it”. Sounds like good advise I’d say. Not saying a small business shouldn’t innovate. We do on a daily basis whether we realize it or not but… I personally believe there is a time and place for innovation. Starting a company on innovation is tough, not un-doable but like trying to swim upstream in winter time when the river’s almost frozen. Ugh just the thought of that is unpleasant.

Anyway, I happened to be reading Money magazine about the myths of starting your own business and one of the things myths mentioned is the ‘innovation’ requirement. Then I turn to my next magazine, Business 2.0 and in the letters column this guy was complaining that Jack Ma (China’s Internet Maven) didn’t invent anything, merely copying tried and true models of Google, eBay and PayPal.

To me, I’m thinking “What does it matter?” The biggest thing is he put it into action. I’m still dreaming of creating the PayPal of my native country. Just because someone imitates a business model doesn’t mean they lack innovation. They had the sense and vision enough to bring the model to places where big companies like PayPal would rather not.

Besides, Google ’stole’ their search engine idea from the first most primitive engines online and made it better, eBay ’stole’ the idea from an age old practice dating back for centuries and made it more convenient and PayPal ’stole’ the idea from the banking industry but improving on it and making it more convenient. And if everyone of us looked hard at our business, it is a ’stolen’ idea in some way or form but that shouldn’t be the point. The point is if you make anything out of it.

I can attest to something personally though. I spent years trying to be an innovator and earned close to nothing. When I switched to being an improver of imitated models, that’s when things took off. If you haven’t already, you should try it

Technorati Tags: business, ecommerce, google, internet, technology

I am one of the really lucky ones because my spouse is not only supportive, he’s trying his level best to learn and build his own business around the same models and principles of mine. Now, he’s going to the Big Seminar with me. I am absolutely elated about this. Right now, I’m helping to get his product up to date so we’ll be ready for the seminar.

Some people say having a spouse as a business partner is marriage suicide. Not for us. We are so in tune with each other on this it’s surprising actually when I think about it. Still, he’s not exactly my business partner we are at the moment operating separate businesses but bouncing ideas and information off each other which is great since it can be quite lonely doing business online.

So, this has nothing to do with business, or chasing any gurus – hey we all need a break sometimes. I love crime shows not because I enjoy gory stuff and the sick things people do to each other but more for the science. Lately, I’ve been seeing promos for a new show – Dexter. Ya know, the one about the serial killer working for the police.

I’m sorry, but I just think that’s totally disturbing to the core. Yeah, I know the police solicit help from these murderers but to make a TV show outta it and the promo spots make him sound like the ‘hero’ Ugh…. excuse me, while I empty my stomach in the toilet.

You love what you do. I’ve just come from my favorite online group, MomMasterminds. We were discussing what we’re doing over long holiday weekends. Most of us play and work during the weekend, some of us take the opportunity to put in more work since their kids are away with family. Then my friend Kristie said

Guess we all live my this motto huh? “Find something you truly love to do, and you’ll never work another day the rest of your life.”

That’s so true. When I was working for the multinational companies in my career, I won’t say they were unpleasant at all. I loved my work then, enjoyed it a lot and God has been good to me for I had great bosses, good colleagues despite the occasional shrew but hey there’s one in every aspect of life so no biggie.

Yet, I’ve always been frustrated by bosses telling me “No, we don’t have the budget for this” or ”I don’t think it’s a good idea because this technique is unproven (new)” or “I don’t think such a thing can work at all” even though he or she has no idea what I’m talking about. At the end of the day, when sales looks at marketing (which is headed by me) I get this – it’s your fault our sales are down or you aren’t doing enough to support us crap.

You know, I can take flack from customers. But it’s internal finger pointing that really drives me up the wall.

Now, I am more in love with what I do than ever before. Sure, I still don’t have budget for some things but then I have the power to find the budget. Unproven techniques? Baloney. It’s only unproven because no one has tried it and if I’m going to be the first to do so, so be it. I may hit the jackpot  Yes, sometimes I still think being your own boss is grossly over rated especially when spirits are down. That’s when a mastermind group is a life saver.

But… it’s this – doing what I love without being held back that makes work – not work. Once, a friend asked me, “Why and how do you work so much?” knowing she’s an avid reader, I said “It’s like getting paid to read. Why wouldn’t you want to ‘work’?” She totally got me from then on.

Photo courtesy of: Mario A. Magallanes Trejo

That commercial just came on again. It’s a new one about the Visa Check Card. This guy walks up to a huge pot with the end of the rainbow in it. He looks in and… it’s empty. Then a leprechaun appears and he asks where the gold is to which the leprechaun launches into the benefits of keeping his gold in a Visa check card and then he disappears.

Everyone knows there’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There isn’t even an end of the rainbow. A rainbow isn’t even physical. Just lighting.

Similarly, many of is know there’s no one tool, or software that you can hit and generates cash automatically for you. So why do we chase after that proverbial pot of gold that doesn’t exist? Maybe because it’s easy for the human mind to buy into. Why do you think we do it and what do you think separates the gold chasers from those who strike gold?

Photo courtesy of Yarik Mission

As a subscriber of The Reese Report since the very first issue, I’ve always looked forward to each issue. As time passes and I develop a bit more focus on my business, there are parts of the report – the VREs that John tirelessly researches every month become less and less important to me. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that the VRE’s are not good. They are. And what can be better than research and ideas already thought out for you?

It’s just that some of them aren’t in line with my business and target market at this point in time. Well that’s what I thought until I reviewed one of the videos while on my treadmill last night (exercise time is great for brainstorming )

I can’t share details with you since I’m bound by the subscriber confidentiality terms, but I can tell you – it helped me discover keywords that were highly relevant to a particular product. A keyword which for some reason I completely missed. DOH!

But my biggest lesson of the day perhaps is to look at other VRE’s in a whole new light. Sometimes what may *seem* totally unrelated, could be more related than you know.

P/S:  Oh, if you’d like to get a better idea of what I’m talking about and what VREs are all about, you can grab a free copy of The Reese Report here. You lucky sod. I paid $95 for that

I’m watching this show on Discovery Channel about flatback sea turtles that lay their eggs off the coast of Queensland Australia. You know sometimes I hate to watch nature show because you see these tiny hatchlings wo just got their first breath of life and there are all kinds of birds just waiting to snap them up… and they do. But getting into the water isn’t safe either. There are crocodiles and sharks just waiting to get a mouthful of these tiny helpless turtles. My heart just sinks watching it.

Only 1 in 100 make it to adulthood now that’s a tough life. We humans have it easy and have it good. But you know something? That’s nature. It’s part of this huge food chain/lifecycle thing. These tiny baby turtles have only one mission and one mission alone when get stick their heads out of the sand. It gets into the water and swim as far and as quickly as possible. What I learnt from these baby turtles is, quit worrying, quit complaining. Set your sights on your goal and go go go.

I’ll admit it. I’m a procrastinator. Big time and been punishing myself over this for as long as I can remember. Usually, it doesn’t yield very good results leaving me grumpy, stressed and very depressed. So, I purchased “The Now Habit” by Neil Fiore, Ph.D

One of the things mentioned in the book I immediately took note of is how we need other activities in our lives so when one part (like our business) has a falling out, we have other interests to help us get through it. The more we base our identities on that one particular area, the more you’re going to be upset, distressed and depressed when something goes wrong. For example, as full time entrepreneurs, we’re more likely to be upset about something going wrong in our business than a part timer who dabbles in
a part time business and has other activities throughout the week to distract him.

Looking myself in the mirror, I realize I have no life. My life is the business and the kids. And the kids in my mind are invariably tied to the business because it’s their college fund I’m trying to build with this business. So… where does that leave me? Where does that leave my husband and me as a couple and us as a family? Doesn’t sound good. Being part of Mom Masterminds, I also notice I’m not the only one. We see many moms caught in this same trap. We work harder
during all odd hours, forfeiting sleep, thinking it would be better for the business but rarely does it turn out to be so. When they take a break and come back the immediately see a difference in productivity. I’ve experienced that myself.

This is a great reminder to myself (and maybe to you), that we need ‘distractions’ in our lives. Other things that make us the people we are. As an avid reader, I’ve been neglecting that part of my life that has brought me so much joy in the past and am back reading again. I’ve got books ordered, magazines in the mail and look forward to some more snuggle time with my honey

When you put your hard earned money down to purchase a course, a book, a set of audio CDs or whatever information product you’re buying. Do you say

A. “I’ve got to put into action everything in this course to get my money’s worth”?
B. “I’ll learn, observe, apply what I can, consider some and throw out the rest”?

So, which are you? I’m sure there are people who react in more ways than those two, these are just what I can think of now. I used to be A. When people told me buying courses from the gurus is an investment I kinda put on the traditional accounting hat. To me, investment meant something I should squeeze out every little bit of use out of this thing I can that when I’m done with it, it’ll either be unfashionable, not as effective or I’ve outgrown it.

Today, reading one of John Carlton’s older blog posts, one small point jumped out at me. He says,

And while I took copious notes about the tricks they used, I also paid close attention to the nonspecifics — how they dealt with clients, how they treated information, even the warm-up routines they went through before working. I couldn’t use everything I observed, because it often didn’t fit my style.

That hit home for me. Sometimes there are just things in a course that you won’t feel comfortable doing and you won’t want to do, no matter how much money people tell you it will make. It could be it’s against your religious beliefs, against what you stand for, it’s uncomfortable for you or it just plain isn’t your style. So my big guru lesson is, it’s OK to not apply every little thing a course teaches me. But it’s very important to take what I can work on, try it and use it to death if it’s worth while.