Imagine this situation: You're starting out and want to find a business for yourself. You note that you have basically no useful skills, except you have a good sense of design, humor and an eye for fashion. You decide to make an online fashion consulting business.
After you've got a general idea of what you'd like to do, you go ahead and scope out competition. You stumble upon a guy with an italian-ish last name selling hair styling, fashion, grooming, fitness and similar consulting. He looks like he's making good money, so you decide to snoop around a little bit more. You find that his two main sources of income are advertised YouTube videos and his online products. His videos are also his main marketing medium.
It seems to you that such a business could be Fastlane. The videos and products can float on the internet forever, making money.
You decide to go for it. You start grinding, making lots of videos, networking, putting up some products for sale..
Now, it's been a few years, and your business seems to have it all: A wonderfully loyal customer base, a big conversion ratio, lots of traffic and, of course, lots of profit. From your beginning, the profits have skyrocketed. Everything is perfect.
You decide it's time to sell. You've had good times with your business, and overall, the journey has been fun. You've covered most of the topics there are to cover in your business.
So, you put the business up for sale, and also put the word out. Now, you're waiting for offers. To your surprise, the offers are rare and ridiculously low. After some time, you get frustrated and ask a potential buyer, after another stupidly low offer, why the hell is the offer so low?
What happens next is an eye-opener to you. The buyer says: "Are you really asking me that? Go to your website and take a good look at it. Every inch of it, except for ad space is covered with your ugly face."
Wow. You're amazed. All this time you didn't even notice. You've made your business all about yourself, and with that, you've made yourself your business.
Can you see it now? The ugly grin of the creeping consumer mindset. You've made yourself a rockstar, and now, without you, there won't be any rock.
Now you have to "start again", "rebuild", "recommit".
NEVER make your business about yourself. Always make the business about the business. What you make in a venture that's all about you is simply content. Now, I know that "Content is king", however, in the market for businesses, people want to buy a business, and a functional one. Selling content disguised as a business is like selling hot dogs in a middle of a top-class restaurant.
I'd love for this post to find you well before you've made such a mistake. And I sincerely hope it doesn't make you feel regret, for being foolish, but make you feel relief, for helping you avoid a disaster.
After you've got a general idea of what you'd like to do, you go ahead and scope out competition. You stumble upon a guy with an italian-ish last name selling hair styling, fashion, grooming, fitness and similar consulting. He looks like he's making good money, so you decide to snoop around a little bit more. You find that his two main sources of income are advertised YouTube videos and his online products. His videos are also his main marketing medium.
It seems to you that such a business could be Fastlane. The videos and products can float on the internet forever, making money.
You decide to go for it. You start grinding, making lots of videos, networking, putting up some products for sale..
Now, it's been a few years, and your business seems to have it all: A wonderfully loyal customer base, a big conversion ratio, lots of traffic and, of course, lots of profit. From your beginning, the profits have skyrocketed. Everything is perfect.
You decide it's time to sell. You've had good times with your business, and overall, the journey has been fun. You've covered most of the topics there are to cover in your business.
So, you put the business up for sale, and also put the word out. Now, you're waiting for offers. To your surprise, the offers are rare and ridiculously low. After some time, you get frustrated and ask a potential buyer, after another stupidly low offer, why the hell is the offer so low?
What happens next is an eye-opener to you. The buyer says: "Are you really asking me that? Go to your website and take a good look at it. Every inch of it, except for ad space is covered with your ugly face."
Wow. You're amazed. All this time you didn't even notice. You've made your business all about yourself, and with that, you've made yourself your business.
Can you see it now? The ugly grin of the creeping consumer mindset. You've made yourself a rockstar, and now, without you, there won't be any rock.
Now you have to "start again", "rebuild", "recommit".
NEVER make your business about yourself. Always make the business about the business. What you make in a venture that's all about you is simply content. Now, I know that "Content is king", however, in the market for businesses, people want to buy a business, and a functional one. Selling content disguised as a business is like selling hot dogs in a middle of a top-class restaurant.
I'd love for this post to find you well before you've made such a mistake. And I sincerely hope it doesn't make you feel regret, for being foolish, but make you feel relief, for helping you avoid a disaster.
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