You Are Born To Succeed

Our friends and family may really love us, but that doesn’t mean they want us to succeed.

I first became aware of this phenomenon while listening to The War of Art. Author Steven Pressfield recounted the calamities that happen when family and friends begin to fear that things will change for them if we really do achieve our goal…

“Sometimes entire families participate unconsciously in a culture of self-dramatization. The kids fuel the tanks, the grown-ups arm the phasers, the whole starship lurches from one spine-tingling episode to another. And the crew knows how to keep it going. If the level of drama drops below a certain threshold, someone jumps in to amp it up. Dad gets drunk, Mom gets sick, Janie shows up for church with an Oakland Raiders tattoo. It’s more fun than a movie. And it works: Nobody gets a damn thing done.

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Still struggling?

My own business struggles became more challenging after my sons went off to college.

15 years of juggling car pools, long school breaks, and typical childhood ailments were behind me. It looked like clear sailing.

Much to my surprise it became increasingly difficult to manage my business.

My beloved ‘remaining’ family members began to have urgent health needs. Some self imposed.

I began to doubt my own abilities, saying things to myself like, “I not good enough to keep ‘pulling this off.'”

Then it hit me.

I needed to be around people who would support my vision and my business goals.

Trying to do it all myself was a recipe for failure if I wanted to have a sustainable business that I enjoyed. It was time to get help.

Chris Drucker’s book Virtual Freedom helped me see the importance of dividing my tasks into 3 buckets:

1. Should Do
2. Shouldn’t Do
3. Don’t Want To Do

Are you holding yourself back?

Family and friends aside, sometime we derail our dreams unknowingly because we don’t know, what we don’t know.

Take your website, for example.

Are you embarrassed to give out your URL? Many people are.

Our businesses change. The website you created years ago may no longer represent you and your business today.

I’m guilty of keeping up an ‘old-school’ website because some my blog posts continue to get a few hundred hits a week.

People find me online because my blog posts solve an immediate problem, but when they go to my homepage it’s static, dull and boring.

‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Right?

Changing your website is a nightmare for most people. Me, too. But sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and do it.

If you’re thinking about building a new website for your business, ask yourself:

1. Should you do it?
2. Do you want to do it?

If you want to do it, ask yourself:

1. Do you have the skills right now to create your own website?
2. Do you have the time to learn how to build a website, write all your content, find great looking images and resize them for optimum website speed?

Can you build a website in a weekend?

You can build a website in a weekend if:

1. You have a domain name and it’s ‘talking to’ your website host
2. Your website theme is uploaded and ready to populate
3. Your copy is ready
4. You’ve chosen your images, and resized them to fit your theme requirements
5. You have the skills to build the theme and have great theme documentation at your fingertips

If you do. Go for it!

Weekend two…

After you’ve built your website in a weekend, you are a ready for the next step: SEO.

SEO (search engine optimization) involves finding the words that people use to find you and your business services.

Add these words throughout your website. Especially in your Page and Post headings.

Weekend three…

Free offers, aka lead magnets, are an essential part of having a profitable website, and not just another website that sucks your wallet, and your time, dry.

Using the same search skills you used to optimize your website, find out if your free offer is what people really want. If not, create a new one, because a free offer builds your most valuable business asset — your list of prospects.

Find what’s holding you back

You may have completed a website, optimized your site, and created a free offer. Would you like to know what makes a website profitable?

Click here to take my website profitability quiz. Discover what pieces are missing that are holding you back from having a website you are proud to share and promote.

After you take the quiz, bucket the tasks into (1) should do (2) shouldn’t do (3) don’t want to do.

You do not have to ‘do it all’ by yourself.

You can schedule a call with me to review your quiz results, and get my recommendations on what to do first.

If you are embarrassed to give people your URL, it hurts your business because you have put doubt in your prospect’s mind. It’s time to change that, one step at a time.

In a few short weeks you could be saying, “Check out my new website!” and be on the path to a profitable, sustainable business.

Join us on my next 10-Minute Monday

If you would like to receive an invitation to my next LIVE 10-Minute Monday. Sign up below. You’ll can ask questions and find out how to uplevel your business website.