ooohhhh... It's So Shiny

110 followers

10 years ago

Good morning all...

I’ve been sitting here this morning over my 3rd (or is it 4th) cup of coffee, re-creating the content on our main training site. As I’ve been sitting here, Darlene and I have been talking about what we wanted to write about as our first Blog post back.

We meet and deal with a lot of people along the way who are either in online marketing, or are in the “bricks and mortar” offline world who want to market online. The offline folks are really more interested in “Inbound Marketing” and understanding how they can use the internet to promote their businesses rather than those of us who are also looking to earn a living online.

We both agreed that one of the most prevalent problems we see online is a lack of focus. In fact, on many instances without even realizing it, we have both been afflicted with what has become known as "Bright Shiny Object Syndrome" (B.S.O.S.).

It’s funny; I’ve seen a number of blog posts on the topic over the last several weeks. In fact, there have been a few blogs posted on the topic here on WA. If you want to learn more about this issue, here are a couple of posts by other community members, that I particularly like:

ThomasPaul's:

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/thomaspaul/blog/dodged-a-shiny-object-tonight

Chieftess's:

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/chieftess/blog/how-to-identify-a-shiny-object

I don't really want to get into why being "under the spell" of this seemingly benign affliction is bad. The above posts should cover it pretty well. If you want to learn more, there are tons of excellent blogs published.

What I really wanted to point out is how, even for those of us who are watching for it and should really know better, it can still be a problem.

In our day-to-day business online, we’re exposed to so many different programs, offerings and “push button” wonder products. All too often it feels like we're being screamed at constantly to join this program or to buy that product. All of which are positioned to "make us rich, with little or no effort".

I’ll admit it, I’ve been caught… I think we all have at one time or another. I’ll be sitting here, head down, focused on writing some content for the site, or researching something for a customer and bang… I get sucked in...

Suckered, by a slick, scammy video that pulls me in. No sooner did I waste almost 15 minutes watching this artful piece of slick marketing, but I also made it worse, by entering my email in the flashing opt-in box.

I knew better. What I was watching didn't compliment or add any value to what I was doing, but there you have it. The B.S.O.S. affliction I thought I had under control came back to bite me.

The other side of this coin is not just the slick, scammy videos. It can also come out to bite you in the form of absolutely incredible opportunities to learn through webinars or other forms of training programs.

Our core businesses train people how to market online. In our training programs, we expose our members to a wide variety of tools, resources and programs that can really assist people online, WA obviously being one of them.

There are also the countless number of webinars and training events we get invited to. Heck, we’re guilty of it ourselves. The ultimate irony though, is getting an email from someone else, inviting you to your own webinar.

The problem is, so many people become members of all of these various programs or attend these webinars and never grow their business at all. Even though these opportunities are high-quality training programs and events offered by people we admire and trust, far too often it creates the trap that people can fall into.

So if this happens to us, does it mean we’re failing somehow? Is it a lack of discipline? Maybe.

Does it show a lack of commitment? No, I don’t think so.

Personally, in many instances, I believe it’s a matter of choice. In the case of my watching that video, I chose to stop what I was doing and watch. I chose to enter my email address and now I guess I will have to deal with the consequences.

The good news is that the potential downside to that choice, are relatively small in the greater scheme of things. I can hopefully just unsubscribe, should I choose to. Unfortunately, not all of our other choices related to B.S.O.S. are as easy to fix.

It’s almost like an addiction sometimes, but in the end we need to figure out a way to quit chasing after bright shiny objects. We need to stop listening to that little voice in our head telling us that “I have to learn one more thing”.

So I guess the question becomes, how do we break out of this cycle?

I find it really helps me to focus on OUR businesses. To get up every morning with a mantra of "What can I do today to grow our business?"

When I receive the countless emails each day to attend this or that webinar, my first question has now become; "is there something I can be doing to grow our business that is more important than the webinar?".

The flip side can work as well. when we need to grow our businesses in a new area and we didn't know how, we would ask, "What webinar or program will teach us what we need to know?"

This is one of the major factors that has drawn us back to WA. The training here, has become a key cornerstone of our success to-date and will continue to be part of the foundation of our success in the future.

I think the biggest thing to remember in this business is to stay focused. To continue to constantly test to make sure you are on the right path.

When you know what you need to do, you don’t tend to jump out to the next bright shiny object or webinar. Focus on your work, instead.