Some ramblings about insanity, and the danger of emotional attachment to being "right".

  Written by Tanya Outridge on Mar 11, 2010 3:55 am

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I want to share with you the experience I had with a consultant of ours who dropped out of the business a couple of months ago. He was a guy who got started in the business all fired up with sky high hopes, dreams of travel, luxury cars, and a life of complete financial freedom and independence (can you relate so far?).

A very likable man, who had experienced a modest degree of financial success in his previous business. He had spent a marathon 30 years in the construction industry, and had worked so hard physically, that it had ultimately taken a severe toll on his body. He looked to the Internet (as many people do) as a means of building another business, without working himself into an early grave.

He had never had any experience in sales, marketing, or working online. A complete infant, in that regard. But he did have time to learn, and the money to set himself up well, and position at a high level. He proclaimed himself to be 100% teachable, and someone who never gives up. I have heard these words often.

So he threw himself into the set up and marketing, absolutely convinced that he was going to make it big in record time. I admired his passion and commitment, but from early on, his expectations concerned me.
He started marketing, but had not completed his set up properly. When this was pointed out to him, he literally threw together an "About Me" page, which contained a very poor quality photo, and a "My Story" that was 95% business pitch. I suggested to him that he slow down, and take the time to do this well. After all, in business, it is vital that we put our best foot forward because first impressions are critical.
His response was "but that IS me". He would not change what he had done.

Next, he posted dozens and dozens of free classified ads. His results staggered me. He had 194 visits to his landing page in 3 days. But not a single lead. He called me up, and complained that classified ads don't work. You can see, from the results he got, that they do work (and he had obviously written some excellent ads, to generate that response). But when the visitors got to his landing page, what did they find? A blurry photo of a guy dressed in fishing clothes, lounging in a deck chair, beer in hand, in front of a faded wooden fence, with a blatant "join my business" style sales pitch to go with it.

I spoke to him about the importance of transitioning searchers from your advertising material to your landing page, so that you are delivering the information they are looking for. And then I taught him how to interpret the feedback you get from the market. For example, if you write an ad that sends 194 people to your landing page in 3 days, it is correct to assume that it was a compelling ad, right? The crack opened up when they hit the landing page, and saw the poor quality, unprofessional customization.

I was starting to feel really frustrated. He simply WOULD NOT take on any of the suggestions I made. And he was getting frustrated as well. He was working hard to set things in motion, and he did not generate a single lead from his efforts.

I was starting to wonder what he would throw at me next. And it was a doozy. He engaged the services of a search engine optimization company to optimize his landing pages. This, despite the fact that our company had posted warnings to members about this particular company.
I explained this to him, and he said that they had been really nice to him on the phone, and he was going ahead with it. Nothing I could say would convince him otherwise.

A week or so later, he got back to me again, and complained that the landing pages don't work. His pages had been "optimized" for page one ranking in organic search, but again, lots of visits, and not a single lead. I took a deep breath (I am a patient person, but we all have our limits :-) and checked out his page. It had been butchered. It was certainly "optimized"  but it reeked of scam. Buried on the landing pages were things like the day's weather forecast for Chicago, sports results for ice hockey in Canada, and political news stories from Washington (consider that his keywords were "CEO level income potential Sydney). Okaay.

I walked him through this, and he vowed to get back to the company concerned and demand they correct it. Naturally, their response was that all they guaranteed was page one ranking, and they had delivered. Case closed. So now he is another $5,000USD down. And not one single lead.

After this debacle, he emailed me to say he was quitting. He had stuck at it for less that four months.

When we go into this industry, we are usually given the opportunity to explore whether we are suitable to do this business. The issues we are asked to explore, relate to our level of determination, and our teachability. Everyone that I have discussed these issues with, without exception, professes to be 110% determined, committed, teachable and focussed. Unfortunately, the reality is that few people actually possess these qualities, and don't understand the importance of developing them.
We all start out with ideas in our mind about how we are going to do our business, and we become emotionally "attached" to our plans. Few people like to change their minds, because on some level, they feel that it is an admission that their previously held beliefs are somehow "wrong".

And let's face it, no-one likes to be wrong.

Understand that part of the learning curve requires you to stretch yourself and process new ideas. And learning also requires change. Most people are uncomfortable with change, because by nature, change IS uncomfortable. I'm sure you can all relate to feeling overwhelmed with new information and frightened by higher expectations you suddenly have of yourself when you first got started. Being out of your comfort zone is confronting, and you can find yourself struggling, like a fish out of water. It is natural to want to reach backwards for the relative safety and familiarity of what you have always known and always done.

But in business our goal is to move forward, so take a moment to contemplate this: Are you completely happy with the outcomes of your decisions and actions in your business to date? Are your plans delivering you the results you want? If the answer is "no", then it may be time to really embrace new ideas and make changes. And you don't have to start with huge bold leaps on your own. Simply following instructions and completing one new task at a time is a way of shaping change, one baby step after another.

After all, as Albert Einstein is famously quoted as saying "The definition of insanity is continuing a behavior with the belief it will result in a different outcome".

If you want things to change, you must change. You beliefs, your behaviors and your plans. And understand that all of these things are completely different from your goals. Embrace the discomfort in the short term, and enjoy the journey as you see how you ultimately determine your own script.

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