2014 Success Guide Part 4

byMarkMarkets

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10 years ago

The Toughest Boss You’ll Ever Have - You

Working as a solopreneur in one sense is very freeing. Being your own boss, setting your own hours and planning and working on the projects that interest you are what attract many into the world of online commerce and working from home in the first place. There is another side to that coin however.

I’ve found that my new boss (Me) has extremely high expectations! Sometimes this guy can be a really tough taskmaster. He expects me to do my best work ALL the time. He pushes me to work through breaks and won’t accept excuses for not getting the job done. He has a very LOW tolerance for stupid mistakes, especially if those mistakes are repeated more than once. He has no problem giving me a good chewing out and a swift kick in the pants anytime my performance is not up to his standard of excellence.

Good enough has been replaced in my vocabulary by VERY GOOD.

In fact, I've discovered a new conditioned response in my behavior, like the proverbial Pavlovian dog.

If I’m working on a project, whether a simple blog post or a new product and think to myself “OK that’s good enough.” I immediately have a negative reaction to that thought and my entire inner being screams back “NO IT’S NOT”. This usually occurs after I've been working on something for a few hours straight or I’m just physically or mentally weary for some reason. When that happens I save my work and walk away from it for either a few minutes or a few hours. I want a fresh and clear mind when I come back to look it over again.

Excellence requires you give your best to everything you do. Something I’m reminded of daily. It’s not optional if you want to be a successful Internet marketer.

Sloppy work, cutting corners, and quality that’s “good enough”, are not going to get you noticed in a world filled with exceptionally talented marketers who’re very skilled at their craft. Quality output requires diligence to details, study of your competition and a never ending commitment be in constant learning mode.

Working from home means you have no one standing over your shoulder to make you do your job.

I’m sure many of us have had a boss or supervisor we held little esteem for because they were always pushing us to do more (I have a good friend who refers to his boss as “the jerk at work” every chance he gets). It’s one of the many ironies of life that, trying to escape that type of boss, has turned me into that kind of boss of myself while I work from home. LOL To paraphrase a famous quote… ”I have met the enemy and he is ME” ;)

Fear gets you nowhere.

Fear can cause you to be paralyzed into inaction. Do not fear your competition…LEARN from them…USE them…STUDY them.

You want to always understand what your competitors are up to. You want to know what they offer, how they do things, how they market themselves and how successful they are.

This is a particularly effective strategy when just starting out in Internet marketing. Your competitors may well be veteran marketers with extensive resources. In analyzing how they do things you’ll be able to benefit from your competitor’s best practices.

Notice one thing I didn't say is that you should copy your competition. Analyze them yes, copy them no. You may find your competitors doing things you’d find unacceptable (over-hype, promising impossible results just to make the sale, using outright lies in their sales letters, etc.) and many of them may be very financially successful.

If all you care about is money, you may choose to emulate their practices, but remember what I said earlier about hanging onto your soul. Ultimately, how you run your online business is of course, you’re decision. Just don't delude yourself into thinking those decisions don't come with certain consequences.

For myself, I believe that type of model won’t have any longevity in the end. Personally I want a business that will produce income for decades to come.

Holding yourself to a high standard of excellence may not make you the most comfortable guy or girl in the office (a.k.a. mirror) at times, but in the end, the payoff is worth the effort.