Best part about failure, you got to make a new plan.
What’s up guys Jason here, and welcome to Episode 23, of Building an Online Business
From Scratch.
Where I’m showing you from A to Z everything I’m doing to figure out this whole online
marketing thing and put together a webinar sales funnel to sell, coaching and consulting
on the back end.
In today’s episode I’m going to be talking about failure.
Failure as an entrepreneur, but specifically what to do when you hit those roadblocks or
when things just don’t really turn out the way, you thought they would, and how to follow
a very template of rational approach to kind of let the too weed through those inevitable
emotions that are just getting in the way of us thinking, clearly and rationally, and
figure out what the next best step is.
The big question: is how you do, pivot when you hit a roadblock you know stumble and fallen,
how do you rationally look at: Hey, this didn’t work what we are going to do next.
Now in the last episode you know I just kind of went a little rant because things didn’t
work out too well, just to give you a quick background.
I recently just finished my first round of Facebook ad testing and that was just coming
up with a very basic at series of ad campaigns running to a landing page, you know what,
after 500 bucks it totally blew up in my face.
I mean the results were not anywhere what I expected and I thought, I was being really
conservative.
So I’ll definitely have a video later on, after I fix the problem, to show you what
I’m doing on Facebook and what I’m doing with those ads and what I learned from pretty
much losing 500 bucks in a week; so about a hundred bucks a day.
Anyway in this video, since I haven't quite figured that out yet.
I wanted to take a step back and show you the process that I'm personally going through
right now, to figure out what the next back step is; and to do this, I first want to talk
about how do you know, when it's time to pivot, so there are a couple of key indicators to
know that.
Hey maybe we should take a step back as opposed to just kind of putting your head-head down
and plowing through I want to go over those real quick and then I’ll show you the little
decision matrix that I came up with to kind of figure out what to do or which path to
follow.
So number one, when you're looking at whether or not you should pivot, is to see if your
direction looks monkey.
When you look at your task list; Are you looking at something, are you looking at a series
of things that you just don't really know, what to do next, because you don't really
have a clear goal anymore, or do you look at your task list and just go:
Uhhh; I cannot believe I have to do all of this stuff, and if that sounds like you, then
probably that focus that you had when you first started, because most of us, when we
just get started, we have all this guts to we have all this energy we're looking at our
task list something to conquer right, all of those things we just want to check off
as fast as possible because we have a goal, we've, we know where we're going and we're
just blinders on going straight forward.
So when that feeling kind of goes away; is a good indication that it might be time to
step back, and look at what you're actually doing.
And then second, the second big indicator is results.
So hopefully if whatever you're working on, you have some form of numeric, you have some
numeric way of tracking your success, and if you don't, want you to stop right now and
figure out what numbers, can I use to track my success:
The numbers can be number of opt-ins, if you're building a YouTube channel.
You know, number of subscribers you are getting, or if you just be how much time you said you're
going to devote to something, in a week or how many tasks are going to accomplish something
to keep you accountable and help you know whether or not, you're getting closer to that
goal.
So once you have that, and I'll just go back to my Facebook example.
If I think I'm going to start generating leads, at five or six dollars a clique, which is
around what I was thinking and then I go and do it and its closer to 15 or 20.
Well that is a really-really big gap that's an indication to me that I have something
is seriously wrong, with my methodology, with how I'm marketing or positioning myself, or
you know, with the landing page or all the other factors that go into the front end of
advertising, and driving leads to a sales funnel.
So something is seriously broken, and when those types, when those numbers are really
far apart.
I’m, if I if I had said; okay, I want five or six dollars a lead, and my leads were coming
in at eight or ten dollars, okay, that's just an indication that I'm close.
But I; I need something to do.
But you know 15 to 20 that are almost double or triple.
Well in that instance, it means that something seriously is wrong.
I need to take a step back, and I need to say, hey, how do you, I move forward and figure
out what path, I should really follow.
And with that, I want to jump into my one file now, and show you a personal example,
that's going on right now, this week figuring out.
Hey, this didn't really work, how should I pivot?
And then hopefully you can take the lessons learned from, you know, my-my failure, right?
It didn't work, so that's why I'm doing this.
Because I have to figure out how do I pivot, how do I keep moving forward?
What's the best way to move forward?
So this dealing with failure, doesn't mean you just throw up your hands, and say well
I-I don't know, I-I just give up, that that's definitely not what we're doing here.
What we're doing here, is we're taking a step back, and we're following a process, I mean,
you can follow somebody else's processes, it is just what helped me following a process,
that allows us to kind of push away those emotions, because this is our business, right?
That having emotions with a positive or negative about your failure, you know is- is just a
part of being an entrepreneur and a human being.
So pushing those things aside, and kind of taking a top-top down look, and saying: okay,
here's what happened, here's what I'm looking at, cure the different routes or that I can
take, and then more importantly, here the different routes I can take, and here are
how I can take those different routes.
So let's go ahead and dive into my one note file, and I'll walk you through the example
that I'm going through right now.
Okay, guy’s here’s my one note file, and I know there's a lot going on here.
So let me just briefly explain, how I broke this down, and then I’ll go through the
two scenarios.
I have really quickly.
So when with failure, talked a little bit about this you know, the Facebook thing, didn't
really work as well as I thought, and so I realize that I need to extend, the length
of time or extend the runway, that I set up for myself for figuring out, how to get those
Facebook ads to work with the sales funnel, that I set up.
So, at first what I do is, I come up with, alright, what are the three big ads I could
take, obviously number one, is just staying the same, staying the course going the same
way you are.
Number two is an alternative, and then number three is an alternative.
For time sake, because I know I have a tendency to make these videos really long and go a
little too in-depth.
I'm only doing two here.
The first what you want to do, is I just made this table in one note.
I have scenario one, stay in the course, and then scenario two, pursue you know, whatever
the-the secondary option is.
And then within those; those are the two big overarching options.
So I have a path one and path two.
And then you look at those paths, you go okay, there are different ways we could walk down
those paths, right;
So in scenario number one, I break it down into you either have blazer trail or follow
a path, and this kind of get into blazer trail means, you're going to do it on your own,
you're only going to use free resources.
Follow a path, means you're either going to pick up a course, or you know, go pay, go
find a mentor, or go pay for someone else to do it for you, so essentially follow a
path, is going and dropping some resources, for someone else to help you, either help
you figure it out, or help you or do you just do it for you, and so that's follow a path
and then blazer trail of course is you know what, I'm just going to be using YouTube videos,
I'm going to be using blogs, I'm going to be using podcast, I'm going to be using everything
available to me, that is free to just figure this thing out.
Which is the route I've been following essentially up until this point, with a few exceptions,
I do, I did purchase a couple of courses, which apparently haven't really helped with
the Facebook thing.
So maybe I maybe I'll blazer trail.
And then in blazer trail, so you'll see here, I have blaze-blaze the trail and then what's
the action: keep testing and experimenting with Facebook ads until you get the funnel
to work.
And this is under scenario one, so I know this will be a little confusing, but I promise
it will make sense.
So under that action, just keep testing and experimenting with Facebook ads until you
get a funnel to work.
Alright, well what are the best-case, what is the prosing and pros and cons you know
best worst case scenario.
So the pro best-case scenario, eventually, all know how to generate leads on Facebook
and the income potential and scalability of the business, is greater than all the other
options and paths.
Okay that's great, but then I look at the cons, I-I could spend all of my money and
still not figure it out, and then I risk public embarrassment, because I'm recording this,
these videos for you guys, so even though my subscriber counts pretty low right now,
so hopefully not too many people would see, you know, they're there is a public failure
aspect, not to mention family and friends who will eventually find out that I, you know,
wasted all of my money and then of course potential debt and savings issues, because
I have nothing in the bank, because I will of spend all of my money, trying to get Facebook
to work.
So that's a blazer trail and then we, that were the pro and the con, and then we have
followed a path.
So what's the action following a path, find someone to run Facebook ads for me, and pay
me, pay them to get leads; So for me it could either, remember following a path is either,
you know, getting a mentor hiring someone to do it for you, or picking up another course,
if you think you need one.
Personally because I blaze so much of a trail, I know another course is not going to help
me, because the courses I've already consumed, are not helping me so I don't believe that
there's you know just one more course, that's going to have that epiphany for me, I've gone
through enough content to realize there's just something I'm not getting.
So that's why I chose the action of following a path, to just be here hand to hand it to
somebody else, apparently my AdWords skills are really translating into face Facebook,
for this particular niche, even though I've been so successful on Facebook with other
niches.
Anyway that's beside the point.
So best pro best-case scenario, someone else does the heavy lifting, and hypothetically
I get to profit faster, because the learning curve is non-existent.
Now a worst-case scenario, it's expensive because anyone who's going to be able to do
this for me, is going to be really expensive, because they can get results, right; and there's
no guarantee of better results.
So, I know that it seems a little confusing, but the con, is-is expensive because hypothetically,
they get me better results, but on the flip side of that, they could be really expensive
and not get me the results, that I'm looking for, and then of course I won't really learn
so, I want to really figure out what I did wrong, because someone else is just going
to do all the work; and again the big con, I spent all my money, and I am as so well;
right, so that's that scenario number one, which is staying in the course and then I
have two ways I could walk down that scenario or walk down that path, which is blazing the
trail, or following a path, so think of it this way: you have, I have two different paths
I can go down, and I can either have a guide with me, or I can figure it out on my own.
I think that's a that's a better way to explain it, and then scenario two, since it's been
so long, I won't you know, boring you, with that one, but essentially I went through the
same process.
It okay, if I wanted to shift my focus to another business adventure or look for another
way to make income, then what would it look like?
So again, I went through and I said okay, what is this path look like, it would be a
shift in direction looking at getting AdWords clients in postponing the Facebook thing,
but I make a note that I'd still do this YouTube series and you know, doing my social post
building my personal brand.
So that won't go away, no matter what I do, when you're looking at this matrix, make a
note of what you're going to do regardless, so there should always be some sort of base
level action or marketing, that you're always going to be taking to just grow your personal,
your personal brand.
On top of whatever else the big kind of project you're working on.
So again, I went through looking at blazing the trail versus following a path and I did
prosing cons of each of course blazing the trail is, you know, I just figure out how
to get clients, you know on my own, prosing cons are pretty similar to what was above,
and then following a path would be potentially joining, a mentorship program, and I'm looking
at a couple of those seeing.
If that might be a way to go, of course this is going to get a lot more in-depth.
I'm just giving you a super brief overview, even though I've already spent, like seven
minutes talking to you about this.
So I hope that is helpful, really all we're doing here, we're looking at those two paths
and we're saying okay; what does it look like if we do blaze our own trail; what does it
look like if we go and get help, whatever that helped looks like whether it's a mentoring
program, a mastermind program, a course or a book.
Maybe just go to the library and you know, read for five or six hours and then figure
out, blaze your own trail, although I would put books under blazer trail, because the
investment in them is pretty low, just about as low as a reading a bunch of blog post,
but anyway, that is my really simple decision matrix, for figuring out.
Hey, I failed and what are my options moving forward.
And that's my simple decision making process, that I came up with for figuring out, which
path to go down, and how I should go down that path.
Again I don't have an answer to all of these, the-the questions I posed during, you know,
going-going through the one note file, because I'm still figuring out, in this series I'm
showing you the good, the bad, the ugly, this isn't something where you know, I edited or
I fail in one place.
So I just recorded a bunch of BS videos for you until I figured out, and I magically appear
again and say hey, look, I figured it out, like this is, this is kind of a bad part.
I think every entrepreneur goes through this part where they go, wow, we really thought
this was going to work, and-and it didn't.
So this doesn't mean you know, it's over, it doesn't mean, you throw in the towel just
means we have to take a step back, and look at, hey how, do we figure this out, what's
the best way to move forward in the context of your business, your job, your family, your
friends all that other stuff.
I mean, you would definitely, I would definitely recommend including you know, some personal
aspects in those, your decision boxes, figuring out how that would affect you, are more personal
and relational level with, you know people around you because those-those people are
important as well, in terms of choosing, you know, which root to go.
So I hope you found this video informative, and actual if you got some value out of this
and you can resonate with, you know, not always having things going your way as an entrepreneur
dealing with, the potholes and roadblocks, go ahead and hit that like button, and if
you're new to the channel, go ahead and subscribe for more business building tactics and strategies,
just like the ones covered in this video.
Again on my YouTube channel I'm going from A to Z on how to build an online business
from scratch, showing you the good, the bad, the ugly, in this episode happened to be ugly.
I mean the first 20 episodes were pretty good, because I wasn't running any ads to traffic,
and as with most things as soon as you turn that like's switch on, you find all the problems
rock, so all over the next couple of episodes, we going over how to do goals, because right
now I'm going into 2017 what the best direction is, I'll definitely keep you updated on how
the Facebook ads go, and then once I figure out how they work, then I will share, because
there's no value and sharing what I've done so far, because it hasn't work.
So I can show you all the things that didn't work but I'd, rather should be able to show
you things that didn't work and then how I fixed it, and the things that actually work.
Anyway, I will leave you with that, again you got value, hit that like button, subscribe
to the YouTube channel, and then drop a comment below, what is your big roadblock as an entrepreneur
right now, and I would adventure to guess, you don't have a big roadblock, that probably
means, you're not pushing hard enough, because I always know when I'm growing, I always seem
to be hitting a roadblock, those times where everything seems to be going right, I realize
that I'm actually not pushing myself to the fullest potential that I could be as an entrepreneur.
So until the next episode, keep building the business you love.
Take care.