Nov
09
Why You DON’T Want To Move To The Next Level
Some admin: Submissions are open for the 2009 IttyBiz Gift Guide. If you sell something that might conceivably be given as a gift, you’ll probably want to check it out. Do it now, because the deadline is looming.
So, the other week, Mark Silver wrote a post called Addicted to Breakthroughs. Because it alludes to the crazy sweat lodge incident which totally freaks me out, I didn’t plan to read it. But I did scan it, because when Mark writes a post, it’s really in your best interests to at least give it a skim in case he puts the secret to life, happiness and riches in the fine print.
Anyway, I’m skimming along and I see this:
One of the most frequently heard phrases in the small business development and coaching arena is “get to the next level.” It’s become fairly common to want to “push through limitations” and “break out of limited thinking.”
Now, he goes on to talk about spiritual breakthroughs and if you’re into that, you should probably go and read his post. I am not talking about spiritual breakthroughs. I’m talking about one of the most common mistakes I see in ittybiz’s.
Everybody wants to get to the next level
You want passive income. You want to productize. You want residual monies. You want stuff that gets your ass to a houseboat in Bali faster. Cool. I get that.
Everybody is trying to sell you an ebook or an audio program or a membership site to help you get to the next level. I sell an ebook about how to sell ebooks. Brian and Tony sell a membership site about how to make membership sites. I’m sure somebody is selling a teleclass on how to make money with teleclasses.
There’s nothing wrong with this, if you’re ready. The problem comes in when you’re not ready.
It’s totally natural to want to move to the next level. But one question isn’t really being answered.
What the hell is wrong with this level?
Too often, we push ourselves to the next level before we’ve given this level a good enough shot. We haven’t really optimized the level we’re on before we’re itching to move on to the next thing.
”Made $5000 selling ebooks? Hell, it must be time for a membership site!” Well, maybe. But maybe not.
Maybe we should all spend a little more time kicking ass at this level before we try and hit the next one. Because more often than not, there’s nothing wrong with the revenue model you already have. You just don’t want to keep it because it’s boring.
Making new products is fun!
Seeing a rush of orders from your launch is fun!
Planning what you’re going to do with all the money you get every month from your membership program is fun! (If you would like to send me money every month, you can get on the SpeakEasy waitlist here. It will dramatically improve MY fun every single month.)
Tweaking your sales funnel is boring.
Pounding the pavement to find new customers is boring.
Split testing ad copy to maximize conversion is boring.
Since boring stuff is boring and fun stuff is fun, we kick out the boring and replace it with the fun. Natural, but stupid.
Learning is cumulative.
One of the oft-forgotten benefits of staying at the level you’re at right now is that what you learn is cumulative. What you learn selling ebooks is going to help you a whole lot selling classes. What you learn selling hats retail is going to help you a lot selling hats wholesale. What you learn in your single restaurant is going to help you a lot when you have a chain.
If you rush through the levels, you miss the lessons. Missing lessons = missing money.
Earning is cumulative
The other thing we all like to forget is that if you maximize your money NOW, you’ll make even more money later. Selling more hats now leads to selling more gloves AND hats later. It’s not A or B. More A means more B.
So if you rock the shit out of your hats, you’ll have more fans ready and waiting to buy your gloves. Do a half-ass job on the hats because you’re itching to get on to gloves and you sell fewer of both.
So today, ask yourself this:
How can I make more money at THIS level?
Is there anything I can make better before I jump ahead?
What is the next level going to give me that this level won’t? Is that true, or am I just running around like an MTV-addicted ferret with ADHD?
Natural momentum rather than forced…
I guess it’s a matter of finding the right balance between learning/perfecting your craft and staying put for a while – but not to the point where you get stuck in a rut and become chicken-shit scared of doing anything else!
Rachel
ps thanks for marketing school discount code, this girl loves a bargain ;o)
Ah yes. The balance.
When somebody figures out that balance, I will TOTALLY buy that ebook. :)
I am writing this comment to show you how to make money with comments. Here’s the trick – comments aren’t a way to make money directly. You’re welcome. Please PayPal me a houseboat in Bali.
Great post and I am reminding myself of this all the time, especially since I HAVE a membership site that is already earning me money and if more people sign up for it I make money for not much more work.
But – yeah, new stuff is FUN! And – passive income is pretty passive. I have a IttyBiz I because I like starting businesses. Wheeee!
OMG, thank you for coming. Can I give you some money? Do you prefer it in sacks or through PayPal? SHould I just wire it to your bank in the Caymans? :)
You’re dead on with membership sites. Secret to growth = getting more people in the funnel, not creating a new funnel. Unless you get off on creating new funnels, but that’s more of a personal fulfillment thing than a biz growth thing.
There’s no doubt about it, tweaking, pounding and testing (sounds kinda sexual, eh?) are boring. But being recognized as the best at what you do is really, really fun. And the cool thing is that when you’re the best, customers will pay a premium for what you do. That only comes to those who resist moving to the next level too soon.
So let’s think about it: be the best making more dollars per customer for the same amount of work or be a newbie again working hard to prove yourself. Ummmm.
Yes! Commonly forgotten fact: Being awesome is totally fun. :)
Just one more question: Is it really necessary to make MORE money at the level you’re at? For me, it isn’t. We cannot have eternal growth if we don’t want to blow up this planet. I mean, you need some stuff and some money to live, and then you need a little more to get some more stuff and live a bit better, and then on and on, but THEN you probably could get to a point where you say: “Well, here I am. Fine, happy, with a Cuba Libre in my hand looking at the Caribbean, so fuck growth. I’ll just stay right here.” Or not? Maybe I’m just a horrible business man. D’oh.
“Well, here I am. Fine, happy, with a Cuba Libre in my hand looking at the Caribbean, so fuck growth. I’ll just stay right here.”
AMEN, sir. There’s only so many Cuba Libres you need, you know?
(Dammit. I just lost 1000 readers with that last statement. Shit. “Growth — It Ain’t The Only Thing, Eh?” Totally the new tagline.)
Well, probably it could be something like “Marketing for Businesses that don’t need to provide Shareholder Value”, but that’s not too catchy, either…
I sat at the first level of my one-man-show awesomeness for maybe three years before I finally (right now actually) decided it was time to take it up a notch.
The thing is, to get to the next level, you have to defeat the Boss at the end of this one. Part of that is figuring out what the Boss even IS. (Are my Mario peeps out there?)
Totally unrelated: Please tell me you follow @shitmydadsays on Twitter. Unbefuckingleavably funny.
Naomi, your so right the next level makes me crazy as I’ve been there and guess what there’s another level after that..
Have fun and be happy that should be everyone’s priority..you’ll live longer and sometimes that next level does not bring peace and bank accounts rarely give serenity…I think that’s why I omit making money on my blog I know I’m stupid…oh well at 63 who cares…nice hearing from you ..
Dorothy from grammology
grammology.com
This is very timely advice for me specifically, I’ve been mainly focusing on developing skills, certificates, learning, etc… before I had any clients. Now that I’m starting to have clients, I need to discipline myself into serving them properly as opposed to learning a new thing, or getting a new certificate.
Important to mention that the ‘real’ satisfaction is much deeper and stronger when you improve a relationship with a customer, when you serve them a bit better and when you see yourself mastering the relationship and the offering.
The novelty happiness is not really happiness, it’s just fun, and help alleviate the boredom, but it is not satisfaction.
Thanks for the reminder
This post is actually just what I needed to read. I think that my biggest problem is that I am always looking forward, and do not spend enough time fine tuning where I am at. I begin with the end in mind,but then I want to jump right into the end result without doing the work to get there. Which actually works OK about 20% of the time and for the other 80% I am having to go back to the beginning and straighten shit out.
I KNOW that building a foundation is important if you don’t want shit collapsing later on…..but doing all that work can be boring….especially when you can see all the sparkely and shiny stuff just up ahead.
This is such a great point. I read Mark’s post and agreed with it, but I really like what you’ve added in terms of business and what gets boring. Nice work!
You know, this has always been my biggest problem with the E-Myth book. Michael Gerber states straight out that businesses exist only to grow, and they must continue to grow… or die.
I think that’s bullshit.
Businesses are allowed to stay itty if that’s what serves the business owner.
He also states that “the business” is the product, which is being amply demonstrated by Teaching Sells and OBS, but I believe that’s not the only way to go. Do all “successful” massage therapists eventually HAVE to “graduate” to teaching other massage therapists how to run massage-therapy businesses? No. Absolutely not.
True business success, I think, is trusting yourself enough to know when you’ve reached a level where you’re comfortable…and also to know when you truly want and need to move to another level.
Now if I could just condense that down to a six-word tagline. Hmm.
HA! Indeed. Entire blogs could be dedicated to that very topic and never run out of anything to say.
How ’bout, “When You Feel Like Staying Stagnant”?
There is a lot to learn from what we do each day. When you get to level x, it’s time to celebrate (I don’t think we adults do enough of that) and bask in the moment. Then we need to take the time to see what we’ve learned as we worked to achieve level x and how things can be adjusted to improve level, try it out with the adjusted version and then move to the next level after having considered how level x and level x+1 can work together.
Imagine, just enjoying the moment… no overwhelm, no trying to juggle the last 3 projects you’re currently improving as you move to the new project you’ve just jumped into.
Maybe one day, I’ll get there :-0)
This is a great post. I’ve worked and stumbled and lucked out, and now I’m at a level that I really like. It only needs a little more tweaking, and I’ll be very happy with it.
Wendy: Good point about the e-myth stuff. His perfect business is some McBurger joint. Forget it. I like what I’m doing, and I really enjoy not having any employees. Forget growth, at least that much growth. my product sales are growing several percent a month, which is awesome enough for me.
And Naomi – Marketing School rocks. Nuff sed.
The guy who does teleclasses on making money with teleclasses is apparently Michael Cage, btw. Saw him give a very energetic (and actually quite useful) talk this weekend.
Gerber is very annoying with the “this is the only possible way anyone can do it.” Actually, there is a lot that I find annoying about Gerber.
“If you rush through the levels, you miss the lessons. Missing lessons = missing money.”
Yes! Another justification to still sit on my ass.
Cheers,
You are right. I asked myself (and others) several times a question like “What the hell is wrong with this level?” and there’s allways something left to learn and achieve at the level I’m at. Thanks a lot for this Post!