Are You REALLY Following the Internet Marketing Success ‘Recipe’?

So I’m finally down to 200 lbs… which means I’ve now lost 27 pounds and reached the lowest weight I’ve had in like 5 years.

After my post about ‘my pants falling off’ it hit me that I wanted to talk a little bit more about how my weight loss is a perfect metaphor to explain Internet marketing.

When I speak at a seminar, pretty much every time someone will tell me they’ve been struggling for a long time to get their online business off the ground. Well, if I compare how long it took me to finally figure out how to lose weight, I can relate.

Here’s the recipe I’m following that’s been working:

1) Follow a frequent meal plan (6 small meals a day)
2) Each meal contains essential nutrients and protein
3) I’m consuming less calories than I need, so my body burns fat to make up difference
4) Simply follow proven directions every day
5) Drink plenty of water

Internet marketing also has a recipe, but most people don’t follow it. It’s the same recipe that works for any business, really.

Here’s the internet marketing recipe:

1) Find a market that wants something
2) Sell them what they want
3) Build a list of prospects and customers
4) Sell them more of what they want
5) Rinse and repeat

The thing is, most people ‘know’ that receipe and yet they don’t follow it. 

When I’ve had a project bomb, it’s because I tried to do something completely unique no one had done before (oh boy!)

Just like I finally got the weight loss results after years of ‘failing’, you can get the internet business success you want if you get what I’m saying here.

All it takes is looking at the formula that works and spot which step (or steps) you currently aren’t following.  The very nature of recipes is that when you follow them, you tend to get the same results. As I watch a pound or so melt away each day I’m following this diet, I am reminded every day it is because of that recipe – not ME.  My only job is to follow it.

Listen, you might be thinking that weight loss is ’simpler’ than starting a business…

Not true.  

The  multi-billion dollar weight loss industry exists because people struggle to lose weight and they are always looking for a new plan.

Here’s the thing…

Most people are desperate to ‘find’ the proven formula and keep searching and searching to find the ‘perfect’ one.

Forget that… seriously!

The difficulty is not in finding a proven recipe… there are proven recipes handed to you on a silver platter every day. 

Ever wonder why some people will buy a ‘guru’ course and become a fabulous success story and another person will fail?

Hint: it’s not that the system worked differently for each person…

The challenge is actually getting yourself to FOLLOW IT.  Truth is, most people who fail confuse buying courses with taking action.  The real test begins when you get the course.  Most people simply don’t do anything (or they start but don’t keep going).  Now, I know that a big reason for that is that the next day they see another course that some ‘guru’ tells them they need to have… distraction kicks in and a new project starts.  When that project stalls, the process is repeated over and over again until time or money runs out.

I’m not saying not to buy courses… I do (selectively).  I value them for the recipes I get.  They’re like cookbooks.  But I use them to prepare meals that I eat… not to start a bunch of meals all at once without finishing any.  If I did that, I’d never eat.  See the difference?

What I’m suggesting is just this…

Stop looking for ‘the recipe’ (you probably already have one that will work).

Instead look at WHY you don’t follow recipes… you’ll save a heck of a lot of time and money!

The diets, the internet marketing courses, the reasons for failure are pretty much the same.   

Entrepreneurs like to do things their own way.  We don’t want to be told what to do.  Following recipes combines both of those things… we have to submit to doing something according to steps, AND that recipe is telling us what to do… so we rebel.  We think we know ‘better’.  We want to be different.  Special. Unique.  Otherwise we’d go get a job and be like ‘everybody else’.

Now, the missing ingredient in any recipe is the cook…

You may well have failed in the past because you were trying to do something you really didn’t care about that much – or it wasn’t  ‘you’.  I do add in the step of following inspiration because I’ve found that when people do that they tend to follow through and take action.  After coaching enough entrepreneurs I have learned that if you are not truly inspired by what you are doing, passionate, whatever you want to call it, you won’t stick with it.

You don’t have to be inspired by the product or the market (though I prefer to be).   Maybe the process of launching a business in a hot market inspires you, like putting together the pieces of a puzzle, or playing a game to win.

Something about the process of ‘following the recipe’ should inspire you…

Just add a proven business model to your inspired idea and you can expect success like clockwork.

The real  ’secret’ is plugging that inspired, creative energy into  a proven receipe… add your style, your personality, your passion as a twist to the recipe.   That way you’ll get the buzz you want from the project… and you won’t be trying to figure out how to succeed from scratch.  Invest your time, your energy, your money into the ingredients and steps according to a proven recipe and you’ll be rewarded with the sweet success you want.   All you have to do is surrender the ego and allow yourself to  follow a proven recipe. 

Hey, my diet isn’t ‘creative’, or ‘fun’, but it works like clockwork and THAT is satisfying

Now go follow a proven recipe and make some real money like clockwork!  

I’m going to be talking more about ‘the recipe’ I follow and how to break free from the perpetual reasons why people don’t follow recipes here on this blog. 

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Tagged as: Inspired Marketing, Internet Marketing Recipe