eNicholas

As I spend more time in the coaching/mentoring side of IM the one thing that fascinates me is how there is such a divide between the people that say they will act and those that ACTUALLY take action. I’ve always been intrigued by human psychology and what makes people tick, but now that I’m in a coaching capacity I want to know more about the subject as I have such high hopes for my students. I’m not just talking about motivation either, this is mostly about the issue of identifying those in a group who will do what is required… no matter what the task.

I’ve said this before, but it amazes me when I meet people at seminars and conferences who happily tell me that they’ve been into IM for 3-5 years, they’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on various programs… but they’ve not made a cent yet.

YET?!?!

I would argue that if you can’t make money from IM after 3 years, then it doesn’t matter what you learn and it’s safe to say you’re not going to make it in this game. That may not sound like the most positive attitude to have, but the reality is that education only goes so far and in the end it comes down to the individual and their ability to do what they’ve learned.

I’m talking about ACTION people. You know, that little process of getting of your bum and doing the things that must be done to achieve your goals

With my current workshop I did some covert screening and profiling before accepting people into the group… basically, I wanted to identify the people who are committed to taking action from the rest of the crowd who simply get excited about internet marketing but never actually do anything. Out of over 60 applicants, I chose 12 of the most promising and dedicated people that fit the criteria and appeared to have the correct attitude for success. There are 2 reasons for me being so stringent in my selection process:

1. I don’t want to waste my time and knowledge on people that are there just for interest and entertainment who wont take action
2. I want to have a high success rate in the end of the workshop (I planned to have over 70% of delegates earning money straight away)

I’ve heard many of the big guys mention amongst themselves that 90% of the people that buy their Internet Marketing courses don’t actually do anything with it. I thought that was just a bad attitude on their part and perhaps the 10% strike rate had more to do with the teacher than the students. So off I went, all idealistic and positive, on a mission to prove them all wrong by having all of my workshop delegates do the SIMPLE tasks required to make money online.

Well folks, after 3 months of teaching my class as we approach the final workshop, the results are now in…

Out of the original 12 delegates, there are only 4 people left!

Some dropped out for reasons unknown, some found it too hard and reverted to excuses instead of action, a couple of them are genuinely too busy right now and plan to return in the near future. Of the 4 that remain, I knew that 2 of them would always make it to the end but the other 2 I thought would struggle and possibly drop out… I gotta say that I’m really proud of the 2 strugglers, as they’ve had to try the hardest to understand the fundamentals and take action. They’ve constantly hit walls and steep learning curves, only to pull through like absolute champions. I admire people like that, because I know that technology can be a scary beast for some people and when they push through obstacles it shows how much character and tenacity they really have!

So I guess that means I have a 33% success rate for my workshop. That figure isn’t what I was hoping for but the entire experience has been a sobering realisation that no matter how much I try, I can’t get people to help themselves. Like the cliche goes “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”.

I was talking to my buddy about this late the other night and we tried to analyse why there was such a low follow through rate from delegates. Initially, I simplified everything down to being a case of people just wont take action no matter how easy you make it for them. But after 2 hours of midnight deliberation, it finally dawned on me when I compared the workshop results to his own (lack of) action and procrastination with IM…. it was risk, specifically the fear of it.

*BING* we have an aha moment!

Now it made sense. It didn’t matter that I had explained the minute details of the process and given them a step by step guide to taking action, as the problem wasn’t with the content. It didn’t matter that I’d given them 3 weeks for each module to do tasks that would only take 1 week or less, the problem wasn’t time. It didn’t matter that I demonstrated ways of developing an information product for around $100, the problem wasn’t money. The problem was that they perceived the end result as a risk… deep down they either feared creating something tangible that could fail in the real world, or they feared success itself.

It sounds crazy I know, but humans are literally afraid of their own success and most of them sub-conciously sabotage any efforts that could possibly lead to success. There are thousands of studies done on the subject so have a look around if you don’t believe me… but I know emphatically, absolutely 100% that this is why people are breezing in and out of the IM community.

They come in thinking that Internet Marketing is so exciting and easy, they run around on the forums being inquisitive leaving magnanimous comments, they download as much course work as they can get their hands on, then they find a plan that feels comfortable and begin executing it… only to stall somewhere around the half way mark. Did things become too difficult? Hell no, this isn’t difficult work (especially when you have a road map and formula). What happens is that after they take action, the mind becomes cognizant that a process has begun and soon there will be a final result which attracts a judgement or score…. so then the dummy brain kicks and says things like “what if it doesn’t work, what if I muck up this simple process and look like a failure?”.

Next comes the ubiquitous excuse that something unforseen has come up and they are too busy, but they’re sure they’ll come back to this soon. This allows the person to avoid any risk of failure, as the process is never completed and in their defense they can always justify it with the excuse of “oh I was too busy, but I haven’t given up as I’m going to come back to this next year”. But deep down on a sub conscious level, they actually chose the distraction and kept themselves busy with other stuff. Procastination is a funny little thing, as it gives you instant gratification. When faced with the task of doing real work and possibly failing in the end, you literally get a good feeling straight away by giving up. If you are known for procrastination, think about that for a second… would you rather feel good for a few minutes by giving up, or would you rather endure a few weeks of uncertainty to be rewarded with something that will make you feel good for years and decades?

So I think I’ll end it on that note and challenge you, the reader, to think about Internet Marketing in these terms:

would you rather feel good for a few minutes by giving up on something worth while that is proven to work, or would you rather endure a few weeks of uncertainty to be rewarded with something that will make you feel good for years and decades to come while paying you passive money that gives you financial freedom and the options to have everything you want in this lifetime?

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