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Structured Procrastination Can Cause A Loss In Your Income
By Andrew Wee
Expert Author
Article Date: 2008-04-23
You might already be familiar with the survivability stats for new start-ups that are commonly cited by entrepreneurship evangelists.
Out of every 10 new start-ups every year, 5 of them will go belly-up in the first year.
Out of the survivors making it past year 1, another 50% of them will cease operations at the end of year 2.
And so on, until only the top 1% make it at the end of year 5.
[The stats are across all industries and according to the company registrars that help these companies and sole proprietorships incorporate]
I don't exactly know the stats for individuals coming into internet marketing, but I think it could be something similar.
A case in point, I've helped sell coaching programs, where we work 1-on-1 with new internet marketers, or people who say they want to make a living on the internet. These guys shell out close to $10,000 a head to enroll in these programs. They're all fired up in week 1, just raring to go.
You ask them to research 5 websites, they research 50. But somehow when it comes to implementing the project later in the program, there's some resistance and inertia to getting started.
Some may blame "affluenza" or middle class syndrome. If there isn't an inner fire to succeed, it's going to be difficult for anything to happen.
One saying that I've been telling new marketers is "If you do nothing, nothing will happen. If you do something, something (which may not be what you expect) will happen".
The inner game - inside your head - is ultimately going to affect your outer game (what you do).
And everyone has had some experience with "structured procrastination" - "I don't know if it's really me" , "I'm not sure if this is going to be a meaningful project", "I don't know how I feel about this" or [insert your favorite excuse/reason here].
So in life, there're going to be the people who sit and do nothing. Then there are the people who go out and do something. And the third group who sit there and blog about it.
Which group do you want to be in?
I was just looking at the updates for Jeremy Palmer's BlackInkProject which we discussed in the last Friday Podcast. Out of the 1,000 people who signed up (the program closed within 24 hours), 759 have filled in the survey... In order words, 24.1% or about a quarter of the people haven't taken action yet.
If you can't take 5 minutes to fill in a survey, imagine the inertia to get your first campaign going...
Incidentally, Jeremy has opened up a BlackInkProject wait list and there is a possibility he might be opening up more places.
My buddy, Amit Mehta's also put up a blog about the value of persistence worth checking out.
If there's a lesson in all of this, it's that you need to climb over the walls to get to the big rewards. If you can't even get over the small wall to get to the next level, success is going to be a long time in the making.
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About the Author:
Andrew Wee is an Asia-based Internet Marketer focused on blogging, social traffic generation and affiliate marketing. Previously rated as one of Asia's top technology journalists, Andrew covers breaking news and industry developments at WhoIsAndrewWee.com
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