Look in the Mirror. Are YOU an Extremist? THEN STOP!! (dammit)

[tecHead]

Disclaimer
This is a hard hitting, look at yourself and don't lie to yourself, smack you upside the back of your head, stop ya bitchin', don't respond by bitchin', I love you and hope this helps a lotta people post. So, if you don't meet the "lack of ego height requirement"; just keep it movin'.

OK; all that being understood...

I have this client; (names will be withheld to protect the ignorant.. err, innocent); who can't seem to get out of the "what do YOU think?" syndrome.

What is the "what do YOU think?" syndrome; (some of you might ask)? Well, its when you don't have enough of your own self determination to say to self, THIS is a good thing and will be successful... and you ask everyone you come in contact with what they think about your project before you've launched it.

I've been there and I'm sure a lot of people have been there, too. Fact of the matter is, you can not get stuck there or you'll either never get to lauching the project OR by the time you've implemented all the various "changes for the better" that are suggested to you by those individuals, it will be something totally different than what you originally started out for it to be.

Side Note:
Something turning out to be something totally different than what you originally started out to create can be a good thing; yet, there's a lotta times it can be a pretty bad thing too. For myself, 8x out of 10 its been a bad thing.

Bottom line is, if YOU don't have enough GUTS to put your foot down and believe in what it is you're doing (the way you're doing it), then how in the HELL do you expect to convince prospects to gain that confidence in your product or service enough to purchase it from you? Especially in THIS economy; (yeah, I added the catch phrase.. but its true).

The title of this post is about being an extremist and the above mentality of this client of mine is one of the deadliest extremist mind sets I've encountered in my 10+ years in Internet Marketing.

Another is getting hung up on aesthetics. Lord have mercy on those that will tweak every pixel to the point of total morph. I mean C'MON MAN! How many different shades of orange do you honestly think the average human color recognition spectrum is going to respond to? Orange is orange!! dammit!! lol.. sheesh

If you spent as much energy perfecting your sales process as you did/do on getting the font right, you'd simply will your way to mega bucks! Seriously.

We're not even going to get into "copy"; oooo... that big connundrum that has more people frozen in their own footsteps; its crazy. No matter how many times I've suggested to someone, "just TALK TO the prospect".. I still see more people literally sleeping with their thesaurus under their pillow hoping for osmosis. (OK, so maybe that's a bit of an exageration... but, C'MON MAN!)

OH OH, then there is the OTHER end of the extremist's rope where dude grabs a boatload of PLR articles and thinks he just tricked Shamrocka the hip hop leprachaun out of his gold, throws them in an autoposter for a WP blog (as is) and then sits baffled as to why they're not in Google yet. (dumb ass!)

THINK! Don't OVER/UNDER think.
DO! Don't OVER/UNDER do.
WORK! Don't OVER/UNDER work.
READ! Don't OVER/UNDER read.
PERFORM! Don't OVER/UNDER perform.

You get the jist.

Bottom line is, you can't win the race.. hell, you can't even come in 17th place in the race if you ain't IN the race (and moving).

Now, if does NOT specifically and/or personally apply to you OR it does and you're just in denial; PLEASE don't respond with some bullsh** response telling me I'm arrogant or need to get off my high horse or whatever else you might come up with. If you don't have anything positive to add to the thread, just refrain from posting, (and if you can't refrain from puttin' your foot in your mouth... hey, sole power to you).

Hopefully, this will help "somebody"...
PLP,
tecHead

[Writing Pete]

Yep - you definitely need to be moving to stay in the race. I used to over-analyze everything and I ended up stressed out and seriously lacking in money.

Of course planning and making improvements are great, but it's not everything.

Good post tecHead!

[Eric X Vignola]

well i tend to disagree on a few final points you mentioned. I think people should

Over Perform and Over Work but correctly.

Like you said:

Originally Posted by tecHead

If you spent as much energy perfecting your sales process as you did/do on getting the font right, you'd simply will your way to mega bucks! Seriously.

People need to concentrate, and think, and do, and work, and perform on what matters in their business and drop all the rest till later - i.e. when you can hire someone to do it for you because it is to d@mn time consuming.

Enjoyed the post though! Good luck with your client, they probably wont stop the "What do you think?" until they really start to bring money in though.


What do you think? ;D

[tecHead]

Originally Posted by Eric X Vignola

well i tend to disagree on a few final points you mentioned. I think people should Over Perform and Over Work but correctly.

People need to concentrate, and think, and do, and work, and perform on what matters in their business and drop all the rest till later - i.e. when you can hire someone to do it for you because it is to d@mn time consuming.

Enjoyed the post though! Good luck with your client, they probably wont stop the "What do you think?" until they really start to bring money in though.


What do you think? ;D

Of course you're within your right to disagree; but, the point of the post was to attempt to warn people about overage to the point of stagnation.

Over Perform? hmm.. that's a double edge sword, but just like an actor can "over act" (or over perform) they can be labeled as a hack; I'm sure we can simply look around and find merchants/vendors/marketers that can be labeled as hacks as well.

Over Work? I don't know about you but when I get burned out I tend to make stupid mistakes. I need to step away every now and again just to revitalize my brain.

As for the client; thanks, but over the years I've learned that its best to step back and just give the client what they ask for regardless of how "I" feel about it. Its not "my" business, after all.. its theirs.

Glad you enjoyed the post
PLP,
tecHead

[Eric Evans]

Don't you just love when you get to Version 40 of something and your client goes "hmm...can I see version 2 again...yeah...version 2...let's go with that."

[innocent07]

"Look in the Mirror". Are YOU an Extremist? THEN STOP!! (dammit)

Gosh, what a handsome guy!

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by tecHead

Now, if does NOT specifically and/or personally apply to you OR it does and you're just in denial; PLEASE don't respond with some bullsh** response telling me I'm arrogant or need to get off my high horse or whatever else you might come up with. If you don't have anything positive to add to the thread, just refrain from posting, (and if you can't refrain from puttin' your foot in your mouth... hey, sole power to you).

Your entire post borders on pontification but, ironically, the only part that actually makes you look arrogant is this paragraph.

[tecHead]

To those I may have offended; I extend an empathetic hand of apology. The intent was not to offend, but to rather invoke thought and possible self analyzation.

I find myself, as well in need to analyze my position on certain things; and feel that if we don't, we'll find ourselves so far removed from true righteousness that it takes too much time to find our way back.

Yet, as this is a borderline public forum; one must accept scrutiny with each pontificated post... and I do.

Peace, Love & Prosperity (PLP)...
tecHead

[s4nt0s]

I'm a noobie and took no personal offense to this at all...As a matter of fact I find it pretty motivational.

A lot of the stuff you talk about is what the noobies to internet marketing struggle with...including myself.

I enjoyed the post.

[tecHead]

Originally Posted by s4nt0s

I'm a noobie and took no personal offense to this at all...As a matter of fact I find it pretty motivational.

A lot of the stuff you talk about is what the noobies to internet marketing struggle with...including myself.

I enjoyed the post.

...and that is motivational to me because that is what my intent was all about.

Thank you for speaking up

I remember being a newbie and feeling all alone and not really connecting with a lot of the "norm" (of the latest and greatest). I always try to give back to thwart that feeling in others, as much as possible.

PLP
tecHead

[Charann Miller]

Love your very straight up post. I made myself take massive action this year because I'll admit it, I'm guilty I am a bit of what you describe as a pixel tweaker.

I wouldn't release anything until it was 100% perfect, tying up my time making unnecessary cosmetic changes, little things that on a grander scale probably didn't make a whole heap of difference anyway.

What I have learned is that we can only release a product that is to the best of our abilities at that moment, that is by no means an excuse to release any old thing because it should always be the best you have to offer I'm just saying that it doesn't have to be perfect straight out of the gate.

The perfection part comes through doing. That sales copy becomes refined through real world data and split testing and no amount of polishing it up and shining it on your desktop can ever compensate for that.

I have learned 10 fold more by taking action than I ever did just reading about it.

My advice, you can't learn from the mistakes you don't make. Get in there and just do it.

Thanks for the post.

[tecHead]

Originally Posted by Charann Miller

Love your very straight up post.

...
What I have learned is that we can only release a product that is to the best of our abilities at that moment, that is by no means an excuse to release any old thing because it should always be the best you have to offer I'm just saying that it doesn't have to be perfect straight out of the gate.

The perfection part comes through doing. That sales copy becomes refined through real world data and split testing and no amount of polishing it up and shining it on your desktop can ever compensate for that...

Thanks for the post.

Excellent points, Charann! Back in my 20's I was blessed to have a very wise man teach me something very similar. He said,

Never plan your business strategy in pen because you can only work with strategy methods you know "today"; if you're writing in pen, tomorrow when you have more information to work with, you will rip the paper trying to erase and modify your original antiquated strategy.

I still try to plan every business project with that mentality, to this day.

Thanks for your input
PLP,
tecHead