Commitment Validates Your Belief

Commitment Validates Belief in Whatever One Does Including Starting an Online Business

Starting a real online business for most people usually means paying attention to the Nike slogan: Just Do It! HUMAN BEINGS! We are a strange group! What I’m referring to is the idea of commitment.  Don’t we often say one thing but actually believe something entirely different? In the Christian community there is a saying, “If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”  It would probably depend upon the day the evidence was presented for most of us.

In business, it is almost as important as in religion that we truly believe in what we are doing, and how we are doing it.  Anything less may leave us unsure, uncommitted, hesitating and ultimately stuck. This is ever so important when starting a real online business!  If you are not totally committed then don't even think about it.  If you are then Just Do it!

In ’95 I knew it was time to leave the service and manufacturing business I had started  twenty-five years earlier. During those years I had bought three franchises (ServiceMaster, MasterCare and Mr Miniblind), and bought and sold several local dry cleaning plants, but for a few years things were just plugging along.  I had lost the excitement.  I was bored.  I was no longer pursuing new business.  The writing was on the wall. So, believing it was time I jumped at the opportunity to sell my service business to a friend and long time business associate.

At the time I didn’t even know what I was going to do next (I did take a year to write and publish my first book, “Building a Purposeful Business”, which was something I had been wanting to do) but frankly it was a mistake to simply stop and I subsequently lost quite a bit of money over the next several years dabbling in this or that, not really being committed to anything.

I had even become licensed in securities, insurance and financial advisory and did this for a few years but since I didn’t really believe I had that much to offer people that was any better or different than the next guy at Legg Mason, Edwards, or the local bank down the street, I just could not commit in a the way, that kept me excited about the business. I really wanted to believe again as I had in those early years, that is, at the very core of my being that we were the best, we could do more than any other company and that we provided the best value for the money spent. But that is not where I was in my thinking and therefore in my commitment.

A few years later the same friend that bought the business asked me to come back and work a few days a week on a straight commission basis, serving some of the same customers I had acquired years before and I did this with some ease for the next several years. Last years earnings were over $150k but …

Late last year, I realized I was bored and it was time for a change.  I started studying online direct marketing and then had a chat with my old friend and agreed to tie things up and move on as I was discovering the excitement of marketing and business building again but in a whole new world. I had discovered I could build an online business using the same business principles of the old world but with totally new marketing, technology and concepts. 

Internet marketing is definitely quite different than one-one sales with commercial customers.  But, because I had done my research and discovered the many, many, possibilities of direct marketing online, I was convinced (believing) this is the marketing method of the future. Once you get to this place in your thinking - knowing the potential and needing only to learn what and how to do the business, then it is time to start - Just Do It! I didn't wait but rather jumped in with both feet and started running. I've taken some mis steps but that has now become a plus because I can help others avoid some of the mistakes I made early on in the process.  

I knew I would need to totally commit to this new venture because everything was new to me.  So I poured time and money into it without reservation.  I had to learn basic stuff from mostly young men and women who are half my age!  I had to think differently about employees, buildings, and hard assets and I had to learn things that were completely out of my arena. I am still learning and I've learned this business model will keep me on the cutting edge because things change constantly.  I love it!  Change, not for change sake, but change for the sake of growing and learning and improving.  I find new ways of doing things almost daily! When you commit yourself to an online business then most of your old world is turned upside down.

I’ve recently partnered with a unique marketing group specializing in internet marketing and I’m working with this fine group of professionals who stay abreast of the many issues of marketing and changes taking place in pay-per-click world that would simply be too much for me to absorb.  It has become a fabulous partnership and I highly recommend these folks to any and all who will listen. But I am also partnered with several other groups because each one has a uniqueness that adds to the overall business building picture.

I am totally committed to helping others find financial security AND at the same time helping others start their own internet businesses.  My relationship with those specializing in their own unique areas of expertise has supercharged my productivity so I’m able to help folks with the deeper issues of business building – who are you?; what really matters to you?; what can you uniquely provide people in the marketplace?; precisely how will you accomplish the goals you’ve set out?; who will keep you accountable to those goals?; what will it take for you to win? What defines success from your perspective?

I encourage those starting in the internet business environment to move at the pace for which they are designed.  We are each different, with unique goals and aspirations, but when someone does desire to get on the fast track, I will generally do a telephone interview to find where the person is in their online knowledge, desires and motivation.  Then I can suggest ideas and help those I've counseled avoid being derailed.

Frankly, it has taken a few months to get rolling like anything when you start from a dead stop but once you learn the ropes a solid online business is like any other, though frankly it is quite a bit faster moving than traditional business models and to me this makes it all the more exciting. I have much to do as I continue to work on one of my longer term goals of building a website for the fifty year and older community who are looking for more service oriented, productive lives for the second half (of life).  If I can be of help call or email.