Stop Being Afraid and Take Action Today! Advice From An Introvert

Hey fellow offliners,

For some reason I felt really inspired to make a thread to help motivate you guys and really push you to get out there and take action to get your businesses going. Keep in mind that this is all coming from an introvert here, so I know exactly what a lot of you are going through. I'm going to forewarn you that this post is a little long, but I HIGHLY encourage you to read it if you're serious about doing offline.

One thing that I've learned since I first got into offline marketing is that business doesn't come to you. You can sit here and read every thread in the Offline section or spend hundreds on WSO's, but the truth is you will never gain any clients or make any unless you TAKE ACTION. It's been said time and time again by people on here, but there's a difference between just hearing it, and putting it to use.

Even after reading this thread, I know some of you will probably feel really motivated to finally make today the day that something happens. But what will happen to over 80% of you? You might take the step to gather some newspapers to find prospects or go out and find a phone book, but you won't make the phone calls. Why is this? FEAR!

I know this because I've been there before. I spent a couple hours driving around finding local papers to find leads. By the time I got home, I told myself, "well it's getting kind of late, I'll start calling tomorrow." Tomorrow came and went. The papers just sat on my desk until I eventually forgot about them. Was I lazy? No. I was just scared to pick up the phone and make the calls so I thought of as many excuses as possible. You've probably used the same excuses:
"It's too early to call"
"I'll wait until after lunch"
"They're probably busy right now, I'll call when it's slower"
"I don't really want to call on a Monday because it's the beginning of the week"

All of these excuses are just fear. Fear really consumed me and stopped me. I know I've said it already, but I want to express to you just how badly I let fear stop my potential success. I once drove to a networking event and sat in the parking lot for 10 minutes trying to talk myself out of going in. Mind you, this was a fairly small event of about 20 people and I could not work up the courage to go in. I ended up chickening out and going home. I cannot even begin to tell you how disappointed I was in myself that day.

From that day on, I told myself I cannot go on like this. Something has to change. I was so embarrassed and ashamed that I started to really reexamine my life and the way I thought. I had made money in AM and selling on eBay, but I didn't see those as long term ventures. Keep in mind I'm a college student right now, so I was really trying to think long term. At this point, I gave myself two options:

1. Be a wage slave for the rest of my life and work a regular 9-5 (been there, hated it)
2. Get over my fear and build this business

Like all of you, my ultimate goal in life is to be my own boss. So needless to say, I chose option #2.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it was easy. My first cold call attempts were heart wrenching. We all have the fear of rejection, and when you're getting rejected repeatedly, it can be extremely discouraging. There were plenty of times when I wanted to just give up. But I pictured myself waking up at 9AM every morning to go to a job that I hated, being told when I could go to lunch for 30 minutes, and help some other country make millions while I get a fraction of it.

So I pressed on until I had success. I promise you, nothing feels better than when you land your first client. It's reassurance that you're capable of doing it and shows you that success is possible and realistic.

I still hate cold calling and don't enjoy it at all. But guess what? A majority of my new business comes through referrals now! I honestly don't have to cold call if I don't want to, but I still do from time to time because I've gotten pretty good at it.

If I could give one solid piece of advice to anyone that really wants to make money with offline, it would be to get away from the computer. I constantly see people wanting to rely on just emails or sending direct mail. Those methods are fine, but doing them strictly to avoid interacting on the phone or in person is a cop out and a way of letting your fear get the best of you.

I'm not trying to start a debate here about what's the best way to find prospects, just giving you my personal experience. Business owners trust people that they know. Let me break it down to you this way. Pretty much anyone can send an email or send a mailer, but A LOT of people are too scared to go to events or call businesses up. You need to stand out, not blend in with the other hundreds of marketers spamming company inboxes. This is something that a lot of offliners miss or fail to realize.

Stop being a nameless and faceless marketer. Put yourself out there, take action, and you will get results, guaranteed. Otherwise, you can sit in an office with someone telling you what to do, when to do it, and how it needs to be done for the rest of your life. Stop being afraid of rejection and overcome whatever is holding you back.

I went to a networking event the other day and I was the ONLY internet marketing person there. So many people there said that they needed someone to help them, but didn't really know where to look so they ended up trying it themselves. This is why you see so many awful looking sites, improperly optimized pages, and companies with no social media presence at all. They don't know what they're doing, but haven't found anyone that they can trust enough to help them.

You need to get up, take action and hustle. Being lazy doesn't get results. I watch A LOT of interviews with entrepreneurs, and the ones that are truly successful hustled day in and day out to earn what they have. That's what inspires me. With any business, you get out what you put in. If you spend 30 minutes a day making calls and 8 hours browsing WF, then don't expect to be successful.

I've rambled on a lot longer than I expected lol, but I'm sure you get the point. Sorry if there are spelling/grammar mistakes, I just started typing away. No more excuses on why you can't do something or why you have to put off taking action until tomorrow. And by taking action, I don't meet looking up leads. I mean going out and turning leads into prospects by calling and networking.

I'll let Michael Scott close us out:


I'm so mad the Office is over!