Success Is Never Accidental - It Is All In The Plan
Yes I am back with one of those, 'Success Is Never Accidental' Posts.
Recently I wrote a post, "What If You Were To Had Your Dream Realized." The responses I received in that exercise caused me to wonder how many of you understand the importance of knowing the leaders in your niche.
How many understand the importance of learning from the mistakes of others.
Better yet how many of you realize how much you can also learn from the success of others.
Planning
As a teacher one of the things I have been called to do is plan fundraisers.
One year when I was leading a fund-raiser for the first time I decided that I wanted at the end to make $500,000 Guyana dollars.
Then I called my staff and we began to plan. We decided that we wanted to make 50% of that in ticket sales. We knew that if we gave each child a ticket the possibility was only 50% would actually sell them so we gave each child 2 instead of one to compensate.
We decided that we wanted to spend $0 if we could manage it. So we target parents especially parents with businesses and asked them to donate the items for our fund-raiser.
In this way whatever we sold would be considered income.
Much more than this went into the planning but you get the idea.
We did our planning backwards. We planned the target then worked out what it would take to get there. In the end we made $425, 000 Guyana dollars.
This was the largest amount of money the school ever made from one found raiser and it all happened because we made sure that we plan for it.
Affiliate Marketing Is No Different! You can plan and achieve your target. To do this you need to go beyond shooting in the dark.
Planning To Succeed As An Internet Marketer
Upon completing the bulk of this course I found that one very important thing was missing. Planning for the end result. That one thing however is covered by a multitude of actions that needs to be carried out.
Simply posting links and waiting for almighty Google is like shooting in the dark and hoping for great results.
Keep at it long enough and it will happen. However, you can do even better by planning for it.
In my journey as an affiliate marketer I have read many of the top marketers posts and the missing links are so obvious.
From picking the right niche (yes I said right niche. Not every niche is a good niche. If you are serious about succeeding as a business person) to understanding how to write ads and who are the right persons to market to or how to find them.
These are a few of the things you need to understand and apply.
When you understand these things your chances of success increases by about 75%.
I Don't Care
Many here has said I don't care about making money. I only want to help people.
Well two things:
1. Can you help me if you don't know who I am, where to find me or what it is that I need?
2. Anyone who starts a business but claim they do not intend to make money is not a business person. The goal of every business is to make money.
Lets get back to number one.
If you can't answer these questions and I am your target audience then you are still shooting in the dark and chances of success is slim.
Imagine if you are in the health niche and you learn that diabetes rose by 50% in 2020 so you decide to start a website for diabetics.
On your site you teach how to eat better to control your diabetes.
Now a lot of things happened in 2020. Namely, the pandemic which caused loss of homes and jobs. Three side effects, depression (sometimes related to binge eating), cash flow problems (resulting inability to eat properly due to price).
All of these can be the cause of the spike in diabetic in people.
Now you who did not do your research want to help me so you start a site to help diabetics to deal with their issues by eating better.
Is that really the answer in the scenarios laid out above?
I dare say that if you had done your market research your solution would have been different.
Next on the list
Is your blog actually getting to the persons who need to read it?
Yes, we should be helping people but these same things that actually makes it possible for you to find and help me are what will make your business succeed. These bits of information are what we should cover in our market research.
Writing articles and posting them where your target audience do not hang out is not the answer.
Imagine again writing about Melanoma skin cancer. This disease typically affect persons who are white and is practically nonexistent among those who are black.
So if you were to market your article in a Guyanese group (less than 1% of Guyanese are white) you are wasting your time and resources.
You need to know where your target audience reside. The answer? Market research.
Finally if you do not have the answers to these first things you are setting yourself up to fail at your primary purpose. Making money.
So I Have said a mouthful about where you are failing.
Now how do we fix it? If you are at all interested I will explain how to go about this in my next blog. If you prefer to carry on shooting in the dark hoping that something sticks. I wish you great success and leave you to it.
Before I Go
- Can you see how market research can benefit your business?
- Have you done any market research to ensure you succeed at what you set your hand to do?
- If you have been here for more than 3 years I believe you qualify as a senior member so please elaborate on market research, how you go about it and whether it has in any way impacted your business.
PS:
Market research is only the beginning. Like, question and comment. Let me know what is on your mind.
Until next time.
Good night from Guyana.
Candy Benn
Recent Comments
24
Thank you Candy for sharing your insights. Yes, I agree with you success is never accidental, you have to set a strategy or a plan of action to make it happened. Indeed, Identifying or targeting the right market is so important in business, otherwise we will be shooting in the dark. I'm reminded of the story of the two salesmen who went to an island to sell shoes. People in that island didn't wear shoes, so one of the salesmen said to his partner., we can't do business here because people are not wearing shoes. While the other salesman was excited because he had seen a great opportunity to sell their shoes. All they have to do is to educate the people the importance of wearing shoes. So in this scenario, it is important how we perceived the market to make our business succeed.
Hi Parxides,
Thank you for stopping by.
You have made some valid points. However there is one thing missing from your story.
I ask : Why didn't this group of people wear shoes?
I'll add a new dimension to the story.
The salesmen stumbled on an island where people knew about shoes already. However, they were supremely religious people who worshipped the universe.
They didn't wear shoes because they believed that going bare feet helps them to communicate with mother earth.
Can they still sell shoes on this island? Maybe, but do you see that their knowledge of the people and their culture has a direct bearing on how many shoes they will be able to sell on this island?
It will certainly affect their marketing strategy. Or they could just spend their time educating the people about the importance of wearing shoes and sell 0.
This is why knowledge of your market is never to be overlooked?
Candy Benn
Candy, thank you for this excellent post. I was engaged throughout.
As I read through your blog, I was remember my first website and the articles that I wrote.
All of them were lacking market research. I remember being very frustrated and asking questions why was no one responding to my blog.
Yes, I had visitors, but nothing. I started thinking that something was indeed missing. And yes, I was correct. It was market research.
Market research is so important to us building a business and going forward. It allows us to build a relationship with our customers by finding out their language, how they describe their pain points and where they hang out online.
It also allows to explore their world, get into their heads and teach us how best to serve them and make them the focal point of our website.
They are indeed our priority.
Like yourself, I am learning so much about my customers that I really wished I knew before.
Knowing now is okay because it is never too late for me to make my customers my priority.
I do understand now that members are also here for the social aspect of the platform which is beautifully provided.
If that's you, that's your choice. If anyone is serious about building a business, market research is the way to go prior to choosing that niche.
Knowing and implementating what I found out about market research has increased my chances do much more.
I am really excited for the pathway and direction that my knowledge, plans and ideas are taking.
Everything is so much clearer now as I put my focused plan into action.
Nothing is every accidental with success.
In business, we all make our own success by the pathway and direction that we chose to take.
Hi Simone,
Thank you for dropping by. I can see that you have this covered.
I too built two of those websites. As one who is accustomed to running a business I believe success is in the details. You plan for it.
The things you mentioned: knowing where they hang out, what their needs are and what they are thinking. This is exactly what it is about.
If I decided to enter the fashion industry and I learned that there was a village called Marata. In this village there was no seamstress, so the women would spend a whole lot of money to send two villages away for a seamstress there to make their clothes.
Additionally, my research told me that to the women of Marata dressing well was a very important thing, so everyone was trying to out do the other.
They were passionate about their looks.
If I could figure out a way to supply clothing to these women I may set up a store there. Additionally, because these women are passionate about looking good all the time I may look into going into more areas of the beauty industry if it proves feasible.
Simone with that type of information at our fingertips how could we go wrong?
Statistics tells us that most businesses fail in the first five years. That number also increase with each successive year.
If we wish to be in the small percent that actually succeed we need to be open to education and growth.
Every time I see your blogs or your answers here I am made aware that you have your hand on the pulse of what is happening in the internet marketing space.
You go beyond the status quo and that will serve you well on this journey.
To your success.
Candy Benn
Thank you for your kind words
You said a statement in your response that resonated with me
You said we need to be opened to education and growth.
That is the missing key in my osr of us minds today.
We are all like a closed book, resigned to what and only what we were taught?
What about our curious minds?
Don't we want to be watered and fed?
How will we grow?
I just wish more people would have the desire and drive to beat those odds of statistics
Simone me too. I'd love to see more people here sharing their success stories instead of saying how long they have been here but made no money.
It is sad really.
Candy Benn
I'm strategic; I live my life that way or I wouldn't be where I am tonight. I agree with you; unless you have a "business" it is not productive for cash. I have a plan of weaving my books into my website; self-help one; on topic; the next children's books; fantasy and young. :) All of them are "metaphoric." Even a guy who was 38 aiid, "heck, I'm an adult and I liked it." Ha! I was thrilled because the books have a meaning behind them. In way, it all fits into self-help; illnesses; abuse; disfigurement; the will to live. T-shirt don't hurt later on; I'm in a network already connected to it; plot #3. I see your point entirely; plan, plan, plan. :)
Great post! But I do think if people want to do it and not make money that's okay too. Maybe they're already well off, who knows. :) I know I"m not. And it was not an accident. :)
Thank you for responding Denise. I see you have plans.
No type of business is exempted from market research however, even the self help niche.
Good luck on the journey.
Candy Benn
Yes, indeed as there is no
coincidence in this world
at all.
Things happen because
they have to happen.
Thank you so much for
sharing this post, Candy.
Blessings.
Elizabeth
See more comments
I tend to agree, Candy, but there are non-profit organizations out there, which are businesses, but their business is to redistribute money and resources.
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
Lovely of you to stop by.
Ok here is a community of more than 1 million people and I challenge you to find 100 of these people who in their goals upon arrival said they were here to start a non profit organization.
Nothing wrong with such an org if that is indeed your goal.
Candy Benn
I didn't say I was here to create a non-profit, Candy, but I only came here for the excellent hosting at the outset, and am still looking only to promote my books at this point! Everything else is just a bonus!
I cannot remember the names, but over the years there have been a few members who simply wanted to blog with no links. Also there were one or two setting up websites for their ministries. I would suspect that those are non-profits! If one achieves their goals--which doesn't necessarily need to be money, but perhaps success, or feeling good about themselves--than they are every bit as successful as those who are making the money, wouldn't you think?
Jeff
Of course Jeff. Achieving our goals is the mark of success.
If these persons only wanted to build not for profit, where are they now?
Candy Benn
I haven't kept up with them. They are likely running their ministry websites, Candy! PastorDre was one of them.
Interesting. I never heard of Pastor Dre. Lol
Have a great weekend Jeff.
Candy Benn
He's done a few trainings and blogs here and has a YouTube Channel! You might find him by typing his userid in the search bar--PastorDre is all one word for that purpose!