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Sink or Swim – Desperation Marketing

Momentum…

Business is all about getting the momentum up and running…and it just keeps rolling and growing.

I see a lot of disappointed newbies who never seem to get that momentum going.

One of the reasons this happens is they just dip their toe in the water. They are just testing the business, but they never go all out. They never jump in the water. It never becomes sink or swim to them.

I remember when I started online…it wasn’t a maybe. Maybe this would work out. It was either this works out…or I don’t know what I’m going to do. I came at it with a desperation inside of me. It had to work. There wasn’t any other option. I had already tried everything else and it wasn’t working.

And you know what…I’M GLAD I was in that position.

If I wasn’t, I’ll bet you I would have gave up when it got hard. I would have gave up if a product I sold didn’t make any sales. I would have given up when people complained about the sales email I sent them (that old line of everything on the web should be free was told then too).

There is ALWAYS another opportunity to give up. There is always another distraction to grab your attention. There is always a reason to lose your focus.

It’s that dedication and that desperation that keeps you moving and keeps you going.

Sometimes we see disagreements about whether you have to be truly passionate about your subject or not. While I believe passion is an important element, it’s not vital. I’ve seen many people build successful businesses when the subject wasn’t really one they absolutely loved. I’ve seen people who are very successful who do something totally different with their free time.

But I don’t believe I’ve ever seen someone who succeeded without passion or desperation.

Passion is a motivator. So is desperation. Both of them can cause you to overcome obstacles and keep working when it doesn’t seem like anything is going the way you want. Both can keep you moving forward.

Both allow you to get that momentum moving for you.

This is where so many people have trouble with internet business. This isn’t a job. On a job, if you work an hour, you get paid for the hour. If you work 50 hours this week, you get your normal pay and then you get overtime pay also since you went over the mystical 40 hours.

Online business is more like investing. And I’m not talking about day trading or short-term investments. It’s more similar to buy-and-hold investments. But instead of investing your money, you’re investing your time…to see your investment grow and payoff in the future.

Work 20 hours this week…and you might not see any return at all. But you’re building the foundation, the knowledge, and the experience so you can be paid MUCH MORE months or years into the future.

The other issue is that it’s not a nice easy growth line either. Wouldn’t it be great if your income grew with a beautiful curve of you earn $100 this month, $200 next month, then $400, then $800, and so on as it multiplied nice and neatly each month.

You’ll have plateaus and breakthroughs. Everyone does. For the brand new beginner it’s earning that first dollar or making that first sale. It seems so tough to get over the hurdle. Then you break it…time for celebration. Most people then move up to a few hundred dollars per month and it seems like they get stuck here.

Usually the next level is broken through once you understand something new about your customer, how to increase your conversion, and then expand out your marketing.

Then you move to the several thousand a month level. That’s a nice income. For some it’s just a little extra money while others it might enable them to leave their job to focus more on this business. Either way it is often another sticking point in business. Once you breakthrough here another one occurs in the ten to twenty thousand a month level. And so on.

Yet we like to think in nice looking graphs that just flow up one month after the next. I went looking for a photo to display here to show what I’m explaining…and it was TOUGH. Why? Because all the graph photos I found were showing that nice regular growth for every business. It’s how we think, but it’s NOT how things work out in reality.

In fact, the plateau effect can be seen in almost everything – not just business. For example if you’re losing weight you’re experience the same effect. You lose weight for a while and then all of sudden everything seems to stop for a while. At these points you can’t give up. Instead you need to switch something up and refire your desire to get it moving again.

And that’s where it comes down to in business. How bad do you want it?

Once you’ve started seeing some success, do you still have that desperation or passion pushing you to reach the next level? Are you willing to do what it takes to get moving again.

Because it all comes back to that momentum…that sink or swim marketing attitude.

Are you just dipping your toe in the water or are you jumping in?

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15 Responses to “Sink or Swim – Desperation Marketing”

  1. Andrew @ webuildyourblog.com on December 3rd, 2009 10:05 am

    Terry,

    I’m in pre-launch of my first ever membership site and I have announced the live date – so I’ve certainly jumped in.

    Setting a future goal and announcing the live date is a great motivator for me and gets the momentum flying – well for me it does. Might not work for everyone.

    Andrew

  2. Tweets that mention Sink or Swim – Desperation Marketing : Internet Business Coaching by Terry Dean -- Topsy.com on December 3rd, 2009 10:09 am

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  3. Terry on December 3rd, 2009 10:09 am

    Hi Andrew,

    Very good motivator Andrew. It works for most people as soon as they make the date public.

    Anyone else have ways you motivate yourself and JUMP IN?

  4. Tal Fighel on December 3rd, 2009 11:40 am

    Terry,

    I have been doing affiliate marketing FULL time for the past 2-3 years and have sold my subscribers great work at home programs but in the past few months, I have being getting this RUSH in my mind:

    ” I know how to make money online and I can teach others to do the same. Why not create my own program, keep the FULL commissions to myself, and sell a few products on the back end to new customers”.

    I also thought to myself:

    “These people that have their own products, why NOT ME? Why can’t I have my own product. These people are not smarter then me”

    So that motivated me to work on a new program that I will be selling on my site very soon ( Still working on it and want to make it very unique and helpful to the people who will buy it). The thought that I TOO CAN DO it, gave me HUGE motivation.

    Tal

  5. Dr. Michael Beck | Chiropractic Marketing on December 3rd, 2009 11:45 am

    Because I’d already been through the “desperation phase” in my offline business, and made it through, I jumped in with a bit different mindset when I started my online business. My mindset was “This will work. I feel it with everything I’ve bot. It’s just a matter of ‘how’, not a matter of ‘if’.

    Regarding “passion”: passion is a tricky thing. I can force you to push through the hard times, but it can also make you hit your head up against an imaginary wall, trying for years to “push yourself”. Then you realize you were trying to go completely in the wrong direction, against traffic, uphill, in the freezing rain!

    So I use passion to get me through the long days of creating a new product or 10 hours of working on copy. But when it comes to making business decisions, I try to keep passion on the background and let wisdom be the dominant mindset.

  6. Randy Cantrell on December 3rd, 2009 1:52 pm

    Good stuff as usual, Terry.

    One thing I learned, from a seasoned mentor at the time, is that hanging in there can improve your chances for success. The longer you stick with it, taking positive action all along the way, the more you have to remember others are quitting. Part of success can be simply outlasting others who won’t pay the price to go all the way. I’ve certainly found times where I quit too soon.

    Of course, the argument against that notion is don’t keep drilling a dry well. Sometimes you have to know when to quit and find a better horse to ride.

    People want a formula for success, and I’m not sure one exists. There are common denominators for finding success – and putting in the hard work is certain right up at the top of the list, in my opinion. That’s why I respect your approach, Terry. You never let people think there is some magical shortcut – because there isn’t.

  7. Jeremiah, Teaching How To Lose Belly Fat on December 3rd, 2009 2:35 pm

    Thanks Terry,

    I can’t agree with you more, especially your analogy about weight loss :-)

    I personally found that there is soooo much info out there that it can swamp a beginner to internet marketing and business. It got ahold of me for years and kept me from getting going.

    I found through experience that you need to do a few core things if you want to succeed online:

    1. pick a market where people like to buy stuff and are buying stuff right now (happy, eager, customers)
    2. pick a business model that others have been successful with and emulate it, selling info., software, membership sites, etc.
    3. Find one method for driving people to your site and getting them to buy and don’t dabble with 14 different traffic methods at once, you’ll never get anywhere. I like PPC for its speed. It lets you know what works and what doesn’t real fast!
    4. Once you are making money (profits) then and only then try other things for traffic, etc, etc.

    just my 2 cents.

    And yes, pick a plan, stick to it, and don’t get off track.

    Thanks Terry!

    Jeremiah

  8. Alex Newell on December 3rd, 2009 2:39 pm

    “Passion is a motivator. So is desperation”

    I can vouch for that!

    Passion is fine when you are earning a great living from your Internet marketing but having to make it work is the greatest motivator there is.

    Not a fashionable attitude at all Terry!

    All The Best

    Alex

  9. Francisco - The 11 Forgotten Laws Review on December 4th, 2009 4:08 pm

    I agree with you 100%, it’s like you said “There is ALWAYS another opportunity to give up. There is always another distraction to grab your attention. There is always a reason to lose your focus”.

    That’s why I use a Schedule action plan everyday so I don’t get distracted and lose my end goal of the day.

    Thanks,

  10. Gogo | Small Business Digital Coach on December 4th, 2009 7:51 pm

    Terry,

    Your story reminds of my mindset when I jumped into brokering my first distressed real estate investing deals in 2003. I was not long removed from a disastrous business partnership that started off heavenly and ended up in hell, and I was just absolutely determined that it was going to work.

    I’ve approached my consulting business with the same mindset and it’s paying off.

    That right attitude preps the mind, reminds it that there may be more solutions than the obvious, and that challenges may not be as overwhelming as they first appear.

  11. edwin on December 6th, 2009 9:42 am

    Just my 2 cents…

    Desperation, tough financial times, anger at your situation, to please ones wife, to do the best for your kids, a new girl friend you really like and maybe get serious with, etcccc can all be motivators to put a spark in ones rear end and get them going.

    For me desperation & anger at my situation are motivators that put me in high gear to get things done.

    Everyone is different, and what may be important to me may not be for the next man or woman.

    ATTENTION: ( THOSE WHO ARE ANGRY )

    This is negative energy that you can convert into positive fuel to get your Rear End In High Gear.

    You have 2 options here:

    1) Do nothing and just talk about angry you are that you are financially hurting

    2) Tell yourself I am so angry at my situation that I do not know how I will start making money online or offline, and will not stop till I make it happen.

    Self talk is crucial here in #2, if you tell yourself daily I will find a way and then take action and not fear failure for success is failure turned inside out. Failure is your friend not your enemy guys, if you shut up and listen for a second it it telling you how to succeed. Failure is your ally since it teaches you what you did wrong and what to try next to succeed till you do succeed and keep trying till failure shows and reveals to what works.

    Con edison I believe once said …I did not fail 1000 times but found out that 999 times the ways i tried to create the light bulb does not work until the 1000 time which was the right way to make it work…….:>) In other words keep failing since it is teaching you what does not work with each “Failure” and helping you find what does work………………………..:)

  12. Niall Harbison on December 6th, 2009 5:59 pm

    You are certainly right that it takes a while to get going and at the start it seems like nothing is going your way but once you do get a little bigger all those little breaks seem to go your way. A little bit of momentum can really go a long way :)

  13. marlon sanders on December 14th, 2009 6:02 pm

    Hey Terry,

    Quick shout out. You’re right on …. but you’re always right on!
    Keep on writing your insightful articles as only you can do.

    Best wishes,

    Marlon

  14. Santa Monica Locksmith on January 5th, 2010 3:48 pm

    I think having a deadline makes it better. As people tend to work towards it in a need or motivation to achieve it and that is when they jump into it. and try swimming their way out.

  15. Event Planner San Francisco on February 20th, 2010 4:05 pm

    I think deadlines give you goal in life. Most of the time we know how to achieve something but we don’t know what we want to achieve. Deadlines give the answer to these problems

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