2021 was a very though year, but also one of the best years of my life. It was also a time of business mistakes and I’d love to share 6 of those.
Let’s dive in
1) Read, Learnt but never Did
I was always reading books, buying new courses, following new mentors but hardly ever implementing what I learnt well enough for it to generate results.
In shorts whenever I stumbled on something that was bringing in money for someone I tried to work on it and if after a month it produced no results I would immediately dump it and go after the next best thing.
In summary I was a jack of all trade, master of none.
When there is no consistent implementation, learning can be a bad thing. Continuous learning without implementation will land you into what’s known as a learning loop. A situation where you keep finding information you believe would help only to find out you still need more information.
The secret to breaking out of the learning loop is to start acting on whatsoever information you have available and tweak as you progress. Another secret that worked for me to break out of the learning loop was to implement the first three ideas I got from any book I was reading and closed the book. That was it.
2. Ignored Lead generation
Probably one of my biggest regrets in business was ignoring lead generation simply because I thought it was too costly to invest in without any immediate results.
So whenever I had a digital product I wanted to make sales immediately. I did not want to spend money and time building a list that could potentially pay me for ever. Very dumb!
Lead generation simply put is a method of getting the contacts of people who are interested in a specific topic and consistently nurturing and growing them to trust you more and see you as an expert in that industry.
Building a list of such people takes time however the rewards are massive. Having such a list means you can consistently talk to these people and have them open your emails or messages without having to pay any money for advertising to reach them. The larger your list is the more money you can make from the list.
3) Did Not Dominate a Niche
If I had to choose an itch that probably hurts me the most it will be this. It took me forever to understand what meeting down is and how quickly it can turn you into a celebrity in your industry.
Since I was jumping from pillar to post Kama I did not have any particular niche I was well known for. In short I was practically well known for nothing. I forgive myself for this ignorance.
The rewards for reaching down our endless, but let’s go through a few.
- When you niche down you grow very fast.
- Niching down helps you attract higher paying clients
- Niching down gives you celebrity status.
- You can demand more money.
4. Only chased the gold
In 2020/2021 i was jobless,broke, in a new town and seriously in need of money. I literally picked every job that came and had to do it to earn a living. As long as it paid I was game.
The problem with this system was that I kept chasing the money and hardly impacting value in the lives of people. I completely forgot that value equals money. The more money you give out no more money that comes in.
5. Did not build my personal brand
In 2021 I did not take my personal branding serious. Since I was basically doing every job that came and bouncing from industry to industry, I had no specific area of expertise and could not build a brand around it.
Personal branding is what will make those who have never heard of you to hear of you and come to do business with you. Think of the Queen of Sheba coming to visit King Solomon. A queen would have come looking for me Eh?
6. Focused on the skill but not how to sell the skill
Another business mistake I made last year was focusing on gaining new skills but not learning the techniques behind making money out of those skills consistently.
I learnt Facebook ads, Google ads, e-commerce, affiliate marketing, Webdesign, copywriting and a host of others but I was still dead broke. I simply did not know how to sell my skills.
If you’re making any of these mistakes, trust me your solution is really simple. All you gotta do is pick one skill, select a niche and dominate that niche for the next one year.
Irrespective of whether you have results or not devote an entire year of your life to that niche. Learn how to sell your skills and you will never go broke.
Hope this helps?
Want to get into e-commerce but don’t know where to start?
