User Power
Value/Post Ratio
188%
- May 2, 2014
- 17
- 32
- 44
First off,
I live in Australia, but English is not my first language, so… I'm deciding to hide behind this, just in case I sound like an idiot
Feeling that I don't bring any real value, I mostly just read the topics on the forum. This site has stacks of extremely valuable members, all who are either hugely successful, or at least take daily action which they in turn share with the rest of us.
As a bit of a summary for new members here, I figured I would put together the main points that I've learnt so far.
I joined May this year, and the value of this forum is better than anything I've ever seen ANYWHERE. If you just take your time and actually read through some of the threads here, you will absorb so much value and Gold!
Take your time, keep reading and things will slowly start making sense!
A brief background on my journey,
Never had a proper mentor, other than one or two wantrapeneurs, who could talk and sell, but never really had any proper success. Being able to distinguish smart from average business advice, is an art in itself
I've read a few books on how to make money. Some of them did little to a few things for me, most of them did nothing. I thought I wanted, no NEEDED a step by step program on what to do. I had so many questions (still do).
What should I get into?
For a while I thought I should get into real estate. Build my money flipping houses. Didn't really make sense, a lot of capital investment for not that much profit. Didn't have that much money after all.
Then I thought I should open up several small coffee and eatery shops. Figured I could make a passive income of maybe $1000 p/week pr stall. If I just replicated that over and over, that should be sweet shouldn't it? On and on and on…. Nothing really made sense though. I was sorta just winging it and playing around in my head on how I could make money. Get my freedom. Never did anything with it though. Just dreaming, hoping, wanting.
I went to university, got a degree in 2010. 2011-12 Ended up starting my own clinic in the health section within a niche, and despite myself (lack of business skills) did ok. Thinking outside the box, went with lower overheads (about 60% of industry average) and hard work. Broke even from week 1.
Kept thinking what I could do. Hire loads of people, build several clinics. But the business was never really scaleable. A lot of work for only Ok Profits. So I just kept doing what I was doing.
Then after about 15 months,10-14 hr days, 6-7 days/week, stress, physical work. I came down with a viral infection. Nothing major. But I never recovered. Not bad stuff, just enough that my current routine couldn't continue.
Spotted a different niche in the market, allowed me to do 5-6 hr days, 5 days/week. No stress, no physical work. Cut my clinic (and another 30% of the overheads), and went in a completely different direction. Pure luck. Maybe some gut instincts
Then I came across this forum. And through this, came across MJ's book. That sparked something in me. Wasn't the step by step plan I needed, but MJ talking about VALUE and thinking of ways you may add to someone else's life, that reversed my thinking a bit. Realised I was always chasing money.
Then I started reading here. Gold thread after Gold thread. So much started making sense. I was chasing money, cause I, me, wanted to make money. Don't get me wrong, I still want to make money. But my focus was completely wrong. So I kept reading, I absorbed advice. I read more books (reccomended here), I followed more threads. And slowly I started feeling like I could see the bigger picture. Suddenly why some people clearly understand how to make money, and most others don't.
The first thing I did was to look at my existing business. I could easily add more value. And I could re structure to allow for scale. I was already in a niche market, and had already started using my time much more wisely. But because of this place, come next year, we will re launch in a different format to allow for scale. If I learnt nothing else from here, that in it self could potentially be worth lots of $$$.
Recently, I sat down and went through what I have learnt from the forum:
Scale
If your idea is not scaleable, move on. The only way to really get into the fastlane, is to be able to scale your service or product.
Process
I've followed @Vigilante 's thread on how he built his import business. So, so much Gold. As I understand it, it's all about the process for him. He identifies winning products and repeats his process as a spinning wheel. Reading his story really inspired me. This is my next project. When my existing business can operate without much input from me, I will go down the same road. I have already started doing background research, and I'm really exited. Also, @Walter Hay, has a great thread on this topic!
Marketing/Copywriting
The Gary Halbert 30 day Challenge. Has turned in to a forever challenge for me, but oh so much I've learnt. And I actually really enjoy the process! I find the whole topic extremely interesting, and is helping me understand the process of sales from a different view. Once learnt, you can apply these principles to any business, any industry!
Adding value
Probably the single most important thing I've learnt here. The change in mindset will set you free As soon as you focus on providing value, you are potentially focusing on you next business idea. If you really want to help people (love the hell out of people) @IceCreamKid , then people will love you back. If you apply this to business, you are on track to making lots of money!
Spotting opportunities
Ties well in with Adding value. Asking the right questions will help you spot business opportunities. What frustrations and problems are out there? Ask and listen. Regular people, small and large businesses. Everyone have problems need solving. If you ask and listen, opportunities will come alive in front of you.
Mindset
No matter who you are, where you come from, what your background is. Everyone has the ability to achieve great things. True, very few people will invent the next Facebook or Iphone, but everyone has the potential to do and be better than yesterday. And if you want to get somewhere, just start. NOW. Read a book instead of watching TV or playing video games. Get up an hour earlier, get stuff done.
Don't overwhelm yourself with the road ahead. Just start, one step at a time.
Imagine you wake up 5, 10, 20 years from now. If you look in the mirror, what are you going to see? Are you going to be proud or regretful. Are your kids going to be proud? The time to start is now.
Action faking - over analysing
After you figure out what you should do, just jump in. If you have little money, just start small. Get experience. Spot bad projects early and move on. Read, read and read in the forum and you can learn a lot from other peoples mistakes. Only action creates results
I've set myself some short term goals, one is to attend the seminar that is scheduled in feb next year. Figured that would be the best place to learn more and network, and it motivates me to take further action!
Hopefully some of the new guys find some value in this post. My goal is to get to the level where I can genuinely give back Gold information to this forum!
I live in Australia, but English is not my first language, so… I'm deciding to hide behind this, just in case I sound like an idiot
Feeling that I don't bring any real value, I mostly just read the topics on the forum. This site has stacks of extremely valuable members, all who are either hugely successful, or at least take daily action which they in turn share with the rest of us.
As a bit of a summary for new members here, I figured I would put together the main points that I've learnt so far.
I joined May this year, and the value of this forum is better than anything I've ever seen ANYWHERE. If you just take your time and actually read through some of the threads here, you will absorb so much value and Gold!
Take your time, keep reading and things will slowly start making sense!
A brief background on my journey,
Never had a proper mentor, other than one or two wantrapeneurs, who could talk and sell, but never really had any proper success. Being able to distinguish smart from average business advice, is an art in itself
I've read a few books on how to make money. Some of them did little to a few things for me, most of them did nothing. I thought I wanted, no NEEDED a step by step program on what to do. I had so many questions (still do).
What should I get into?
For a while I thought I should get into real estate. Build my money flipping houses. Didn't really make sense, a lot of capital investment for not that much profit. Didn't have that much money after all.
Then I thought I should open up several small coffee and eatery shops. Figured I could make a passive income of maybe $1000 p/week pr stall. If I just replicated that over and over, that should be sweet shouldn't it? On and on and on…. Nothing really made sense though. I was sorta just winging it and playing around in my head on how I could make money. Get my freedom. Never did anything with it though. Just dreaming, hoping, wanting.
I went to university, got a degree in 2010. 2011-12 Ended up starting my own clinic in the health section within a niche, and despite myself (lack of business skills) did ok. Thinking outside the box, went with lower overheads (about 60% of industry average) and hard work. Broke even from week 1.
Kept thinking what I could do. Hire loads of people, build several clinics. But the business was never really scaleable. A lot of work for only Ok Profits. So I just kept doing what I was doing.
Then after about 15 months,10-14 hr days, 6-7 days/week, stress, physical work. I came down with a viral infection. Nothing major. But I never recovered. Not bad stuff, just enough that my current routine couldn't continue.
Spotted a different niche in the market, allowed me to do 5-6 hr days, 5 days/week. No stress, no physical work. Cut my clinic (and another 30% of the overheads), and went in a completely different direction. Pure luck. Maybe some gut instincts
Then I came across this forum. And through this, came across MJ's book. That sparked something in me. Wasn't the step by step plan I needed, but MJ talking about VALUE and thinking of ways you may add to someone else's life, that reversed my thinking a bit. Realised I was always chasing money.
Then I started reading here. Gold thread after Gold thread. So much started making sense. I was chasing money, cause I, me, wanted to make money. Don't get me wrong, I still want to make money. But my focus was completely wrong. So I kept reading, I absorbed advice. I read more books (reccomended here), I followed more threads. And slowly I started feeling like I could see the bigger picture. Suddenly why some people clearly understand how to make money, and most others don't.
The first thing I did was to look at my existing business. I could easily add more value. And I could re structure to allow for scale. I was already in a niche market, and had already started using my time much more wisely. But because of this place, come next year, we will re launch in a different format to allow for scale. If I learnt nothing else from here, that in it self could potentially be worth lots of $$$.
Recently, I sat down and went through what I have learnt from the forum:
Scale
If your idea is not scaleable, move on. The only way to really get into the fastlane, is to be able to scale your service or product.
Process
I've followed @Vigilante 's thread on how he built his import business. So, so much Gold. As I understand it, it's all about the process for him. He identifies winning products and repeats his process as a spinning wheel. Reading his story really inspired me. This is my next project. When my existing business can operate without much input from me, I will go down the same road. I have already started doing background research, and I'm really exited. Also, @Walter Hay, has a great thread on this topic!
Marketing/Copywriting
The Gary Halbert 30 day Challenge. Has turned in to a forever challenge for me, but oh so much I've learnt. And I actually really enjoy the process! I find the whole topic extremely interesting, and is helping me understand the process of sales from a different view. Once learnt, you can apply these principles to any business, any industry!
Adding value
Probably the single most important thing I've learnt here. The change in mindset will set you free
As soon as you focus on providing value, you are potentially focusing on you next business idea. If you really want to help people (love the hell out of people) @IceCreamKid , then people will love you back. If you apply this to business, you are on track to making lots of money!Spotting opportunities
Ties well in with Adding value. Asking the right questions will help you spot business opportunities. What frustrations and problems are out there? Ask and listen. Regular people, small and large businesses. Everyone have problems need solving. If you ask and listen, opportunities will come alive in front of you.
Mindset
No matter who you are, where you come from, what your background is. Everyone has the ability to achieve great things. True, very few people will invent the next Facebook or Iphone, but everyone has the potential to do and be better than yesterday. And if you want to get somewhere, just start. NOW. Read a book instead of watching TV or playing video games. Get up an hour earlier, get stuff done.
Don't overwhelm yourself with the road ahead. Just start, one step at a time.
Imagine you wake up 5, 10, 20 years from now. If you look in the mirror, what are you going to see? Are you going to be proud or regretful. Are your kids going to be proud? The time to start is now.
Action faking - over analysing
After you figure out what you should do, just jump in. If you have little money, just start small. Get experience. Spot bad projects early and move on. Read, read and read in the forum and you can learn a lot from other peoples mistakes. Only action creates results
I've set myself some short term goals, one is to attend the seminar that is scheduled in feb next year. Figured that would be the best place to learn more and network, and it motivates me to take further action!
Hopefully some of the new guys find some value in this post. My goal is to get to the level where I can genuinely give back Gold information to this forum!
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