Success Thinking | You've Got To Have Faith
Posted 30th May 2013 at 08:12 AM by ncairncross
I was reflecting over the weekend on how important it is, as an entrepreneur, to have faith.
No! not that kind of faith, I’m definitely not religious, but I’m talking about the faith an entrepreneur must have, in the beginning of your business journey, the faith that it’s going to work.
That any of it is going to work, or even all of it.
Why would anyone start a business if they didn’t believe it would work?
What makes an entrepreneur feel sure enough that their business idea is going to work, to put in their money and their hopes and dreams. Why would you give up (sorry, invest) your precious time (and believe me, it always takes more time than you think it will!) if you didn’t think it would work?
All of this was running through my mind over the weekend, while I was converting, uploading and then podcasting my jazz singer sister Heather Cairncross’ latest audio recordings and then the concept stayed with me while I installed the PopUpDomination lightbox on her website.
Knowing Versus Doing – An Entrepreneur Must Believe
I didn’t KNOW that her continuing to blog, record the blog as audio, and my work in podcasting both of those on iTunes, would “work” but I have faith it would, or I certainly wouldn’t have been giving up my spare time to do it.
I didn’t KNOW that her investing in, and my spending time installing and configuring, PopUpDomination would have an impact on converting her traffic to subscribers, but I had faith it would, and so we did it.
I didn’t KNOW that spending a morning setting up her Google + page, and a page for her album would make a blind bit of difference but I had to believe it would.
It’s not even as if I’ve ever worked to product launch an jazz album before…..
….. but these actions usually have a positive effect on other product launches so I have faith it will work for Heather too.
I know one thing for sure, as an entrepreneur, if I didn’t do either of those things, or indeed any of the things I’ve done, nothing would happen, for sure!
Actually, that’s how most musicians approach marketing…………they don’t take any marketing action and so nothing happens. Or they take some marketing action and something happens – but not enough.
Did I say musicians? I meant business owners too.
An Entrepreneur Needs To Get Very Specific
That’s made me think of the question I often get asked which is “how often should I blog?” to which the answer is “how much traffic do you want?”.
That’s a bit like asking “how hard should I work on my new business?”
Answer: how successful do you want it to be?
Note, I said work ON not IN. If you don’t understand the difference, go read “The E-Myth” by Michael Gerber. Now, there’s a business life changing book if every I read one.
Sadly, in my experience, an entrepreneur that ask those questions then, most often, doesn’t go on to blog at all. Or network. Or advertise. Or hire a mentor who might be share what’s worked in other businesses like yours.
So nothing happens.
Look, I know it’s hard, as an entrepreneur to keep taking action, when you are just beginning. But you have to have faith because taking action is a more sure fire way to make something happen, than not taking action.
Any action is better than no action as anyone who has ever tried to park a car with no power steering will tell you. It’s much easier to turn that wheel and alter direction when the damn thing is moving!
The problem when you start out in business is that you don’t know what is going to work, in your specific business.
What works in someone else’s business might not work in yours. One man’s busy, engaging blog that converts to subscribers and clients is another woman’s dull, uninteresting wasteland that does not. One woman’s successful media advertising is another man’s expensive mistake. One woman’s lively, outgoing engaging personality at networking events is another man’s boring, boring, terminally boring conversation all about him, him, him.
When describing this to mentoring clients I liken it to tossing pebbles in the pond.
You know each pebble will make a ripple. You know each ripple will reach the edge of the pond and that some will come back. You know that some of those returning ripples will have an effect on the outgoing ripples. You know that the more ripples you make, the more action the pond will see.
But you don’t know which ones.
But you have to have some faith and start tossing them in.
No! not that kind of faith, I’m definitely not religious, but I’m talking about the faith an entrepreneur must have, in the beginning of your business journey, the faith that it’s going to work.
That any of it is going to work, or even all of it.
Why would anyone start a business if they didn’t believe it would work?
What makes an entrepreneur feel sure enough that their business idea is going to work, to put in their money and their hopes and dreams. Why would you give up (sorry, invest) your precious time (and believe me, it always takes more time than you think it will!) if you didn’t think it would work?
All of this was running through my mind over the weekend, while I was converting, uploading and then podcasting my jazz singer sister Heather Cairncross’ latest audio recordings and then the concept stayed with me while I installed the PopUpDomination lightbox on her website.
Knowing Versus Doing – An Entrepreneur Must Believe
I didn’t KNOW that her continuing to blog, record the blog as audio, and my work in podcasting both of those on iTunes, would “work” but I have faith it would, or I certainly wouldn’t have been giving up my spare time to do it.
I didn’t KNOW that her investing in, and my spending time installing and configuring, PopUpDomination would have an impact on converting her traffic to subscribers, but I had faith it would, and so we did it.
I didn’t KNOW that spending a morning setting up her Google + page, and a page for her album would make a blind bit of difference but I had to believe it would.
It’s not even as if I’ve ever worked to product launch an jazz album before…..
….. but these actions usually have a positive effect on other product launches so I have faith it will work for Heather too.
I know one thing for sure, as an entrepreneur, if I didn’t do either of those things, or indeed any of the things I’ve done, nothing would happen, for sure!
Actually, that’s how most musicians approach marketing…………they don’t take any marketing action and so nothing happens. Or they take some marketing action and something happens – but not enough.
Did I say musicians? I meant business owners too.
An Entrepreneur Needs To Get Very Specific
That’s made me think of the question I often get asked which is “how often should I blog?” to which the answer is “how much traffic do you want?”.
That’s a bit like asking “how hard should I work on my new business?”
Answer: how successful do you want it to be?
Note, I said work ON not IN. If you don’t understand the difference, go read “The E-Myth” by Michael Gerber. Now, there’s a business life changing book if every I read one.
Sadly, in my experience, an entrepreneur that ask those questions then, most often, doesn’t go on to blog at all. Or network. Or advertise. Or hire a mentor who might be share what’s worked in other businesses like yours.
So nothing happens.
Look, I know it’s hard, as an entrepreneur to keep taking action, when you are just beginning. But you have to have faith because taking action is a more sure fire way to make something happen, than not taking action.
Any action is better than no action as anyone who has ever tried to park a car with no power steering will tell you. It’s much easier to turn that wheel and alter direction when the damn thing is moving!
The problem when you start out in business is that you don’t know what is going to work, in your specific business.
What works in someone else’s business might not work in yours. One man’s busy, engaging blog that converts to subscribers and clients is another woman’s dull, uninteresting wasteland that does not. One woman’s successful media advertising is another man’s expensive mistake. One woman’s lively, outgoing engaging personality at networking events is another man’s boring, boring, terminally boring conversation all about him, him, him.
When describing this to mentoring clients I liken it to tossing pebbles in the pond.
You know each pebble will make a ripple. You know each ripple will reach the edge of the pond and that some will come back. You know that some of those returning ripples will have an effect on the outgoing ripples. You know that the more ripples you make, the more action the pond will see.
But you don’t know which ones.
But you have to have some faith and start tossing them in.
