Tina's Recent Experience With Starting A Business

I want to start this out with a few disclaimers. Too often we hear things like anybody can do this or guaranteed to work. This isn't guaranteed, it seems quite reasonable to assume that not everybody can do it, and I'm probably the last person you'd want teaching you anything. If you get something out of it, great! If not, well, remember that I didn't promise you anything. This is my story, and my lessons learned, not some damn ebook with a pitch around every corner.

It's also important to note that I'm not targeting anyone for criticism. If somebody else does something another way, that's not my problem or concern. At the end of the day we all stand or fall by our decisions, and I deal with that every day just like you do. I screw things up at least as much as the next person, and I have the balls to admit it. I'm also not going to claim success or failure, you are free to put this experience up against your own and come to your own conclusions.

Now to get started...

In January 2009 I heard about a niche market with lots of opportunity from someone in my extended social network. To be completely honest, it didn't sound very interesting at all. Without going into too much detail (it's not important), it was in the mortgage and insurance industry, and I hate dealing with that kind of crap as a consumer. Never-ending paperwork, nonsensical forms, you know what it's like.

One of the things that made it even less interesting was the person it came from. This guy is soooo not an internet marketer, he's more of the construction worker type. I've met the guy in person like twice in my entire life. He's 10 years younger than me, no family, no kids, really nothing I could connect to, if that makes any sense.

So life went on as usual.

Then sometime around February 1st the topic came up in a discussion I was having with Richard Taylor (RT, I'm lazy), and I started to get curious. That's in italics because it's an integral part of how I form and develop ideas in business, and usually in the rest of life as well. I think it might be necessary somehow, because curiosity always seems to be at the start of a new business for me.

I checked into it, made the phone calls, got myself certified to do the work (clients sort of require it), talked it over with RT, and decided I might as well try it out and see if it worked. I got overwhelmed by the paperwork about 10 times a day, whined constantly because the jargon made no sense, and RT gave me the support I needed. That's another key part of how it works for me. If someone can tell me what to do, there probably isn't a whole lot of profit in it anyway. I find it far easier to carve out a new template than try to fit into someone's "one-size-fits-all" model. I thrive on support, not getting told, and I'm pretty sure that's not uncommon.

I started actually doing business (as compared to talking about doing business) on February 18th. I think I made something like $145 that day, and was nearly in tears when I got done. Getting started in a new business is hard, and it's my personal opinion that anyone who says it's easy is either full of shit or lying through their teeth so they can take your money. Sorry, but it's true. And if you've somehow developed the belief that it's supposed to be easy, you're not really doing business. You get to learn a whole new set of skills, learn the jargon (if you don't believe me, walk into a public place and poll people to see if they know what OTO and TE stand for), and try to create a business culture or integrate with an existing one.

I wanted something that would make money from the starting gate, and there were a few things that were important to me. I'll list them out and you can critique them.

NO selling
I am so sincerely not a salesperson. I don't want to have to ask people to buy my shit, I want them to come to me.

High rate of repeat business
I'm talking 90+% return, without subscriptions. I think it's important to keep it fair, they should want me for what I provide, and keep coming back. Not that I have a problem with subs, I just like the challenge.

No "luck"
I didn't want to wait for someone to maybe decide to buy. I wanted to see a direct correlation between my effort and income. All this talk about "putting it on auto-pilot" is great, if the niche is strong enough to produce sustained sales. It seems way easier to set it up so that if I produce, I get paid. Yeah, it kinda sounds like (gasp) work, but anyone who's ever owned their own business knows that nothing comes without some effort. Think it isn't work to develop a website, promote it, and keep it running? How about properly managing a list?

No building a list
Why the hell would I want to spend years building a list when I have no idea what the average turnover is in the niche? If it's like traffic exchanges (3-6 months?), my list would be crap before I ever started. I know we all hear about people who disappeared for 10 years and then turned up again, but if I wanted over 90% repeats, that kind of garbage just wasn't gonna fly.

Fast development curve
I really didn't want to have to seek out the "gurus" of the new niche and spend a million hours a week with them for six months. If it's that hard, it's probably boring, or I'm not the right kind of person for it. I've spent enough time in college, if I couldn't get the basics there, I'm probably never going to.

Not too much like work
I'm lazy. I like sitting around in my pajamas all day, talking to RT and basically slacking off. Besides, I'm a stay-at-home mom at heart. I have housework, shopping, running the kid all over creation, the usual stuff that keeps moms busy. So for this to work, it needed to fit my lifestyle.

Opportunity
If I decide I like doing what I'm doing, I need to be able to expand. If you can't grow beyond a certain point (unless you're the reason you can't), then guess what? You just got a JOB! So the niche needed to be big enough for me.

With me so far?

Ok, long story needs to get shorter, so I'll just say that the niche met my specs.

I'm going to have some difficulty with this part, because I started the business like 5 months ago. I'll provide the best information I can, but I don't have a tax statement for it yet, and my money doesn't come from PayPal. I also kind of like a little bit of privacy, and have no intention of sharing my niche with anyone.

Here's the breakdown of my income from start until sometime recently:

Invoice Report

And a few pics of the email notifications that I've received lately:

Number One
Number Two
Number Three

I think in the report I pulled it added up to something in the neighborhood of $13,000 over four months, $15k total. It's not the greatest income in the world, but it's part-time and reflects the first four months I've actually been doing it. I should also probably note that it only reflects MY income, and while I'm not the only one making money, I don't believe it's appropriate to talk about anything beyond what I'm personally willing to share.

If you've bothered to read this far:

There are a few things I've learned because of this. Number one, and I can't stress this enough, business is business. It doesn't matter if I do most of my business online, I still have lots and lots of people to answer to. There are rules, and if I had made the mistake of thinking I could somehow get around them, I wouldn't have lasted past the first week. Your niche may be a little more lax, but that's a piss-poor excuse for doing bad business. If you can't follow the rules, or even bother to learn them, the business world is better off without you. The internet isn't the wild west anymore and it's getting more regulated every day, so you may as well accept it now before somebody with some authority comes along and shuts you down for being an idiot. My clientele accepts absolutely zero crap from me, and they shouldn't have to. I'm better than that.

Point number two is another easy one... get off your lazy ass and do it. I didn't start making money until I started thinking for myself and doing something. You can sit around all day long and wait for that great idea to happen, but you'll probably be too broke by then to do anything. If you don't know what to do, maybe it's time to get out of the house and start talking to people again. I had never heard of the niche that's making me money until I talked to someone who wasn't just like me.

Nobody is gonna do it for you. You can wait until the "gurus" notice you, you can kiss butt for the next 100 years, and it isn't gonna get you one step closer to the fabled dollar. YOU make it or break it yourself. And if you're really smart you'll understand that kissing ass is unattractive and demeaning. Any guru who's worth a shit should be able to see your potential and target you as a student, not make you work to catch their attention. If they're at the top of their game, they should have enough sense to keep their eyes open for talent, and not waste time getting their egos stroked. If nothing else, it's a self-defensive posture, they should want you in their stable so you're less inclined to take them out later.

If you get lucky enough to find a niche with no gurus, suddenly you're a guru too! I'm not particularly impressed with this, all it proves to me is that gurus are probably as dumb as the next guy, they just got there first. But if you can work it to your advantage, and feel inclined to do so, you're doing nothing but wasting time if you haven't become the expert in something already. If you want to be a guru, grab it quick before some other enterprising soul does.

The third point is kind of related to gurus, but isn't. Gurus blow, get a mentor. RT has been my mentor for a long time, but when I finally started to listen to him, and communicate openly, it all just sort of clicked. I could listen to a guru tell me how it should be all day long and still not make a dime, but having someone there who shares your successes and failures can make all the difference in the world. I'm an individual, I have different interests, hopes and dreams than you do, so why should I expect a cookie-cutter template for success to work for me?

If this is making you question your mentor or guru, it's a simple test. I'm not the smartest person in the world, I'd describe myself as pretty average. If you're pretty average (or above), and you haven't gotten the same kind of results in the same amount of time, you need to stop and evaluate. Ask yourself if you've honestly tried to do what has been advised. If not, it's your fault. It was my fault with RT, I let some baggage get in the way. Just correct your attitude and stay on course for a while if this is the case.

But if you've honestly tried to do what your mentor or guru has advised, and didn't make about what I've made (preferably in the first 5 months)...

It's time for a replacement, your guru/mentor isn't worth a shit (to you, but that's really all that counts) and now you get the fun of unlearning every stupid thing they taught you. I didn't have to deal with this directly, but I think a good approach might be to do it quick, like ripping off a Band-Aid. It's out of my range though, so that advice might not be any good.

Just a side note: If your current guru can only point to a handful of "successes" that aren't recent, but you know there's a shitload of "failures" they don't talk about (or worse yet, blame and ridicule), they really aren't a guru... are they? It seems silly to think that a real guru isn't capable of spotting and working with talent, and they should also know that not every project will be a success, so those types probably are not nearly as interested in your success as they are your wallet.

The fourth thing I've learned is that there's money everywhere, you just have to go find it. Think about things you like to do, maybe there's a market just waiting to be developed in underwater basket-weaving or whatever your hobby is. If that doesn't work, think about everything you hate to do, then see if you'd like it on the other side. If you still have no luck, go find someone with ideas you've never heard before. Just quit beating your head against the wall. If you're "doing everything right" and still not hitting your goals, maybe it just isn't right for you.

Finally, I had to sit down and really think about what I wanted before I could go get it. Sometimes we have an idea of perfection in our heads that really can't exist in real life. Everybody wants to get paid a million bucks a week for doing nothing, but it's not gonna happen. It's possible that what you want out of life is exactly what you're doing, and I'm not going to be the one to say you're wrong. That was a huge part of it for me, when I stopped and thought honestly about where I am and what I need, I realized that I had changed, and so had my goals. I honestly believe we're all dynamic creatures, so it didn't cause me any distress to realize that my needs weren't static and unchanging. Besides, I have a great mentor to help me over all the little rough spots that are sure to happen.

At the end of the day, I (mostly) enjoy what I do, my clients respect me enough to keep coming back, and my pre-existing values and ethics are appreciated. I don't have to hope for a stroke of luck to bring money into my bank account, and I feel like I've earned all of that. There's a lot to be said about feeling like you've earned something, it brings a sense of accomplishment that you can't find having stuff handed to you or by lucking out. I'm not really sure why not working to earn stuff is such a goal, but this experience has taught me that it's not my goal because I'd lose something that I really value in the process.

I hope that this has somehow helped you understand more about who I am and what I've been busy relearning. Granted, I'm not a total noob, I've been in business for myself since I was 22 years old, but I was completely new to this sort of business. Am I going to be the next "seven figure earner" of the marketing guru crowd? Not so much, but $3k a month is pretty good for something I just started and do part-time, and I can expand if I want to. I'm currently developing SOPs so I can hire a few people, that sort of thing. If you're thinking I'm a slacker for not moving forward faster... duh, I AM a slacker, so what?

I think that it's important sometimes to be able to see what others do, especially if we're considering taking their advice. Anybody who says they have nothing to prove while telling you how great they are is suspect to me, because if you're doing it you should be able to prove it easily enough. If they've been in business for more than a year, they should have tax returns, or P & L statements, or some kind of document available. In this business, income proof is sort of like a medical degree, it validates a person's claims of success. If you wouldn't trust your physical health to a "doctor" who had never been to college, why should you trust your financial health to someone who doesn't have a documented pedigree? Numbers are relative, a great income to one person might be marginal to another.

Please take my gesture of goodwill and "proof" as you will, and feel free to ask for updates if you're interested. I may continue this business, I may not, but I'll be glad to share my success or failure with anybody who asks. Just please don't ask me for specific advice, that's something better handled by innate teachers like RT. He's the real driving force behind what I do, and in total honesty I wouldn't have even tried it without him. (And don't try stealing him either, we have an exclusive contract and are equal partners, but I would consent to people "borrowing" him for a few minutes. Sorry Bubba, had to get that in there, your ass is MINE!)