Take Action TODAY!
October 29, 2007
On my recent article, “3 Characteristics of Winners,” I discussed the importance of adding ACTION and TESTING to any studying you do. If you’re not taking action on what you learn, then you’re not really learning.
Too many Internet marketers get into an information overload mode where they constantly study more and more materials without taking action. They’re always learning the “new thing” but they’re not putting it into immediate practice in their business.
Every single product you study must result in immediate action in your business. If you don’t take action on what you learned, you just wasted your time.
One of the comments on that post said they were doing “lots of studying to know everything I possibly can.”
That comment bugged me, and you can tell on the post that it bugged James Brausch quite a bit as well. He wrote a post over on his blog about Act Or Don´t Act… There Is No Try. I definitely recommend reading it.
Take action today. Don’t try. Don’t think about it. Don’t plan on it. Don’t study more about it. Do it.
Test whatever it is you’re learning and keep your investment in it small at first.
- Don’t use the excuse of you’re studying one more ebook before you take action.
- Quit wasting hours every day reading all the Internet marketing forums.
- Get OFF all the Internet marketing guru’s lists.
I think it’s funny because often my coaching clients will ask me about so-and-so’s big product launch…and I tell them I don’t really know or care about the majority of them. I’m not on the lists of the marketers who promote every new thing. I use a Google Reader to keep track of blogs I read. In fact, I showed a couple of coaching clients how to eliminate a majority of their email by subscribing to RSS feeds this week instead. It’s surprising just how much time you save by changing away from emails.
If you stay on the majority of Internet marketing lists, each week you’re going to hear about the super-duper new product launch you must buy to succeed online. And the majority of the people promoting didn’t even read or listen to the course they’re telling you is the salvation of your business.
Quit it. Go cold turkey. If any list owner promotes big product launches week after week, get off their list NOW before they do serious harm to your business!
If you thinking I’m being overly dramatic, think again. You obviously haven’t seen the number of people I have who continually study, practice, and prepare without ever taking action. It’s disheartening when you see someone who has been online for 6 months, a year, or more who just keeps buying new products without taking serious and consistent action on their own business. I’ve talked to coaching clients and people at seminars who have spent $30,000 or more “getting ready to start an internet business.”
That’s sick. Yet it’s what you’re being encouraged to do if you’re a member of many lists.
Get off those lists…and get to work on your own business.
Let me give you some advice that cuts my own throat since I sell information products. I want you to not buy any new information products at all for a month. None. Nada. Zip. That $7 report…nope. That new product…no. You need to go back to information products you’ve already purchased and take action on them.
When I first started in my Internet business I studied Jay Abraham to learn the basics of marketing. There weren’t any Internet experts around back in 1996, so I had to take the information from offline direct marketing experts. One of the lessons he taught was to study the same product over and over again until you got it. He recommended studying “Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins multiple times. I read that one “old book” so many times it became a part of me. Eventually I even took it and created a “Scientific Internet Advertising” by showing how the rules applied to an Internet business (the book itself is in the public domain).
It became a part of me.
How do you make an information product a part of you? You study it. You take action on what you learn. Then you study it again and take action on more steps. Study some more. Keep taking action…until you’ve used all the value from the product.
You’ll find any great information product has way more value in it than you’ll ever pick up from one reading or listening. You have to go through it again and again…taking action on it every single time. So quit buying for the next month.
Let’s call this the 30 Day Challenge. The rules are no new information products. You must pick up one you already have and take small action steps with it. You will study it multiple times over the month adding a new action to test each time. Don’t cheat no matter how awesome a deal someone makes you.
If you're a new visitor here, you can subscribe to receive notices whenever a new post is made. Plus receive My Free Report:
"10 Key Strategies for Any Business Owner to Earn
More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life!"
- Will You Take Action?
- 3 Characteristics of Winners
- Is a Business Coach Right for You?
- Daily Marketing Calendar
- Information Overload Lowers Your IQ
Comments
7 Responses to “Take Action TODAY!”
Featured Video
Internet Lifestyle Retirement System FREE Video
Available Products
One-On-One Coaching
Internet Lifestyle System
Montly Mentor Club
Ultimate Interview Product Solution
Email Marketing Mastery
Terry, this is so true! You learn so much more by trying things out than just by reading about them.
I want to thank you for adding me to your blogroll. I consider it a great honor! I will have to do my best to live up to being in such great company.
Pat
In the Air Force, we learned by a method called “Dual Channel OJT”. You attend a technical school to learn the basics about your career field, but you weren’t considered completely trained until you accomplished the second part which was actually doing the task through “Demonstration/Performance” on the job training.
The OJT trainer (your immediate supervisor) showed you how to accomplish a task and then you were to perform it. After you accomplished the task - your work was inspected by your assigned OJT trainer and signed off as acceptable. You were not considered a trained technician until you had completed BOTH the book learning and the practical application. There were differing skill levels (ie 3, 5 7 & 9) but the same process applied to each.
I think the same “process” can be applied to internet marketing (or anything else of a technical nature). Do the “theory” but find someone to hold you accountable for the practical application. Do it in stages and learn from your mistakes instead of trying to get it “perfect” the first time.
I am so amazed how often people come up to me and say, wow, how did you get all this done, it’s been “just” 6 months or a year since we saw each other at that workshop, and I’m still planning.
I don’t do anything amazing. I just do it. I don’t wait for it to be perfect (or even done for that matter), I just throw up something 1/2 decent and lauch it as a beta test.
Take my current project, http://www.growupstrateiges.com, started about 6 weeks ago. I spent 30 minutes drafting copy, sent it to my web designer, spent 15 minutes editing and showed it to my mastermind. Another 30 minutes of editing, and sent it to my list / blog, requesting feedback.
Is it perfect? No, but I will not know what is wrong until people tell me (or I can test conversion rates, etc.).
Heck, I don’t even have the Special Report done yet (official launch is not until Thursday). But I already have people signing up for the new list.
My recommendation for everyone — just pick a launch date 6 weeks from now, tell everyone you are coming out with your new thing, and then you will have to do it. Ask for help from your list, and they will give you their advice (and they are the ones who will buy it anyway).
Thanks!
Elizabeth
Terry — this message is exactly what I needed to hear today! No more products or books, just move forward with where I am today.
Terry
Great post. I’m in the self-development business and I come across so many people who are seminar junkies. They go to seminar after seminar after seminar and they never act, with the information they already have.
There is a quote that says, “An ounce of action, is worth more than a ton of theory.” It comes down to the point that what you learn means absolutely nothing if you don’t take it and use it. What are you going to do with the new information, because if you don’t do anything with it you’ve just wasted your time. Apply what you have learnt, before moving on, and start to see yourself rapidly grow.
Andrew
[...] Terry Dean has a recap post about taking action, if you haven’t already read the original post that started this I encourage you to go back and read it. This is an area where many struggle (myself included at times) and by far the biggest barrier to success is simply doing something. Here is the URL: http://www.terrydean.org/take-action-today/ [...]
My martial artist and body guard background does help me to take massive and fast action towards my goal.
I would add to this: take action under the guidance of a coach… But you already know this!