Do You Think You Could Make $50,000 In 3 Months?

Original Article From: http://munchweb.com/50000-in-3-months

I just had to post this, partially because I struggle with a lot of these and also to look back on to make sure I start following more of the winner traits.

$50,000 in 3 MonthsTRUE STORY: In a fresh internet chat room 20 strangers made a pact together to make $50,000 revenue in 3 months by getting their ideas out there as fast as possible. It was a big but serious dream, especially considering some members were close to broke!

In just 9 weeks two of the people in the group exceeded $50,000 and a few more are close behind and making great progress. However, at the same time over half the group is barely making a dent.

So what’s the difference? Why are some racing ahead and others being left behind?
All 20 people work in the same niche and market to the same audience, they are all intelligent people, but the difference between the winners and losers is in how they act and how they think…

The Winners…

The personality traits of winning entrepreneurs. Do you pass the test?

  1. The winners set launch dates, deadlines and aggressive goals like releasing a new product/update/offer every two weeks. They may miss, but they try hard to hit them.
  2. The winners focus on this one project with pinpoint precision. They make more money because they can say no to pursuing other projects. That makes sticking to #1 much easier.
  3. The winners don’t focus on perfection and are more focused on getting something good out there quickly, that getting something perfect out there sometime in the distant future.
  4. The winners accept “flops” as inevitable, and embrace the “flop”. They know their early attempts probably won’t do great, so it is important to get those early attempts done and dusted as quickly as possible.
  5. The winners hunt out their mistakes. This is against our natural emotion to accept we did things wrong but it is vitally important to improve. The winners know that mistakes are normal and are not wrong at all. They hunt out what they did wrong so they can improve next time.
  6. The winners say “If they can do it so can I”, and they find out how they did it. They network, analyze, scrutinize, and reverse engineer to find out why someone else did better than they did.
  7. They focus on a few USPs (unique selling propositions) and copy the rest from other winners.
  8. The winners focus on extending their strengths (after identifying them) and rely on using or copying others in areas they are weak.
  9. The winners hunt out successful people they can learn from and put a big effort into networking.
  10. The winners are generous to their partners and stakeholders. They pay generous commissions, good wages, share profits and help others. Their generosity stands out against the competition. This motivates their partners and creates opportunities.
  11. The winners focus on marketing more than the product/idea/service. In fact the marketing drives the product creation.
  12. The winners block out distractions and set time aside to get things done. They are disciplined to turn off email, chat, television and any other distractions that stop them from working.

The Losers…

  1. The losers drift and don’t held themselves to deadlines or targets. Ask the loser when his next deadline is and he won’t know.
  2. The losers can’t say no to shiny objects and have a lot of projects on the go and find it too hard to abandon any one project to focus more on others. Quite simply they can’t focus.
  3. The losers focus on perfection. They want everything ‘just right’ for when they make that all important launch. Perfection takes a long time and they miss opportunities and the learning process from launching NOW!
  4. The losers fear the flop. So much so that they may never launch, and if they do they may hide away or seek to blame others and not accept responsibility when things don’t go to plan.
  5. The losers are stubborn and blame others. They don’t want to be shown or face their mistakes. They want to prove to the world that what they did was right, and that it was others that were wrong. They’ll even go as far as calling their customers stupid for not buying their product, they’ll highlight the stupidity of the ad-network that does not approve their ad, they’ll blame a guru or teacher for their failures, and they’ll blame their friends and family for lack of support. They will be very reluctant to change or admit where they went wrong, despite the fact being wrong is NORMAL.
  6. The losers look at the winners and make excuses about why they can’t do what the winners have done. Instead of looking for ways to emulate the winners, they hunt out differences which they can identify as excuses for not being a winner.
  7. Losers forget about having any USPs at all and just try to copy someone else (and do a worse job). Just as common in losers is that they think they must do things differently to all the winners to stand out, and that doing this gives them a USP. So they choose not to do everything that the winners do to be “unique” and “clever”, and fail at the same time.
  8. The losers focus on trying to handle and be good at everything, and are reluctant to put their weaknesses in the hands of others.
  9. The losers avoid talking with successful people, or agitate successful people, because they don’t take advice and criticism well. Just being around successful people depresses them rather than motivates them because it shows that they have made mistakes and need to change, so they avoid it.
  10. The losers are greedy. They don’t want to share their profits and success with others and will offer lower commissions, wages, profit share and less help to others. They ultimately alienate themselves from opportunities.
  11. The losers focus on their product foremost and marketing second. They may produce an awesome product, but without solid marketing it flops.
  12. The losers are easily distracted. In fact they unconsciously routine their day to have distractions like email alerts, chat, television, news, chores, phone calls etc. so they don’t have to face the music. They invite distraction rather than actively take steps to block it out. Even though these distractions lower their quality of life and stop them from achieving their dreams, they will defend them like a drug addict.

So are you a winner or a loser?

Free Access To My New Photography Course

photography course previewAs some of you already know I’ve been working on a photography course for beginners and it’s finally getting close to being finished where I feel comfortable getting some feedback on it.  I’m looking for 5 – 10 people who have an interest in photography and own a camera, it doesn’t matter if it’s a point and shoot or a digital slr.  I’ll give you lifetime access to the course including all the lessons, video tutorials, and bonuses for free in exchange for some honest feedback about the course as well as recommendations on how to make it better.  When I say honest I really mean honest…if you think it’s amazing, tell me, but if you think an area makes no sense I want to know that too.

Who I’m Looking For

  • 5-10 people interested in photography
  • You must own a digital camera
  • Willing to give honest feedback

What You Get In Return

  • Free lifetime access to the course, videos, and bonuses
  • Entered into a drawing for a free digital camera
  • Free photography advice from me
  • That fuzzy feeling from helping someone out

I’m not just looking for beginners either.  If you’re already good at photography, but just want to help another photographer out that’s awesome too.  If that’s the case and you’re local to Grand Rapids, Michigan I’ll buy you a couple  micro-brews at one of the fine local breweries we have. Oh and before I forget…THANKS!

I’m Ready To Help – Sign Me Up

UPDATE: I’ve had an overwhelming response and I can’t say thanks enough.  If you’re still interested in the course you’re welcome to still sign up below.  You’ll be the first to know when it’s released and I’ll also be emailing out a giant discount for people who sign up ahead of time.  Thanks!

[contact-form 2 “Photography Class Tester”]

I can finally afford my dream car and why I choose not to

First off let me say my dream car isn’t something completely outrageous that costs six figures to purchase. Believe it or not my dream car only costs around $40,000 full loaded. That being said it’s still an expensive car for someone under 30 to be purchasing. Luckily for me I’ve had some success with a side business I started last year (I’ll write a full post about that soon) which has given me some extra income to actually purchase a 2011 Subaru Impreza WRX STI.

So why didn’t I?

Well to be honest a lot of the reason is due to a post made by Chris Guthrie who has a similar taste in cars as I do, but more importantly he also has similar long term business goals as me, although he is a few years ahead of me. Chris talks about taking the money you make from your side business and reinvesting it back into the business instead of spending it on things like the STI. The rate of return on money that’s reinvested back into the business is amazing right now and as an old co-worker once said; “a car is rolling stock.”

When will I buy my dream car?

That’s a great question that I don’t really have the answer to. I currently own a pretty rare car (1 of 2,400 ever made) which is a blast to drive and has heated seats, side mirrors and wind shield wipers. Did I mention I live in Michigan and it snows…a lot. More than likely it’ll be around 2 years or until I’m feeling comfortable enough with the side business that I can stop reinvesting so much.

What did I learn?

I learned that sometimes your “dream” anything really isn’t that hard to achieve as you think if you really try and I also learned that sometimes when you have the option to actually get your “dream” anything, it’s not always the smartest move or the best time. It’s important to take a step back from time to time and look at the big picture, it gives you a completely different perspective.

WTF is this side business?

The side business is a web based project I’ve been half heartedly working on over the past year. I say half heartedly because I would get really motivated for a month or so and then completely forget about it for another 2-3 months thus killing any progress I was making. As promised I’ll have a full post up about it soon, possibly this weekend if I get some free time while Angela, Izzy and I are in Traverse City for the holiday weekend.