From the "Lack of Followup Will Kill You" Department

Ouch... this happens to people all the time. They think of an idea, write it down or do a little, then put it away. Someone else later makes big bucks with the same idea.

I wrote the beginnings of a course many years ago that was at the time new and no one had one. Later several were making big bucks pitching the very same "how to" information. Needless to say my "course" was safely in my file where only I was able to read it.

I had this great idea back in 1996 to start an Internet Marketing Forum...well, you know how that turned out...

Dan, this is a good little thread. Oddly.

I say "oddly" because your OP might easily be skipped over as simply a "**sigh** ... If only... oh well..." comment that does little to get people moving.

Yet I think there are a couple of salient points that have already unravelled from it:

1. The old F.O.C.U.S. (follow one course until successful) motto comes to the fore again

[Note: Not that I'm too dogmatic about F.O.C.U.S.; it certainly contains a useful point, but sometimes you really do have to jettison things (projects, angles, attitudes, behaviours, etc.) that are simply not working for you despite prolonged pursuit. But that's a more complicated issue for another day methinks...]

2. When you have killer ideas (or what you think are killer ideas) -- as opposed to just interesting or cool-sounding ones -- that go in the notebook, it might be a good idea to take one day out of your schedule and do some hardcore market research to see if it's got even the wobbliest of legs. If so, set up a traffic campaign (using your tool of choice) and send visitors to a survey.

Let it roll for a few weeks while you keep your eye on "Operation Money Suck", John Carlton's way of saying "Work everyday on what produces income."


3. Having said all that, Scott raises an excellent point in that this happens all the time to people. All the time.

And I'd bet that for every idea that failed to get off the ground for someone... only to pop up somewhere else and be raking it in... there are millions and millions of ideas brought to fruition by long hard months, maybe even years(!), of hard work... only to end up being shattered and broken husks because nobody gave a rat's.

Talked to any novelists with no marketing smarts lately?

So I think there's a danger in looking at cases like these and falsely assuming that every idea I think is killer, for example, is gonna be a winner.

Heck! I might think it's killer (and it might actually be so), but I may not be able to get it to work -- despite my best efforts. Then someone else comes along, makes a few tweaks, does a bunch of stuff more effectively than I did, et voila!

(Not that I thought you were trying to mislead people there, dude. It's just got me thinkin' y'know...)

4. "Ready, fire, aim" also comes to mind. Like Scott, I also have an outline for a course that no one else seems to be teaching (nothing connected with IM) which is "safely in my file where only I [am] able to read it."

Which is dumb, of course.

I need to do some more market research to see if it really could be (Note: not "is") a go-er, get a test version up and running, send it to some folks in that niche (where I have a very small list) and get some feedback. Then go from there. Classic "Ready, fire, aim".

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But... there's an odd little necessary balance to strike here, is there? Between following up on ideas we think are going to be big hits and keeping on top of OMS in the meantime.

I've heard the expression "buttefly mind": flitting from one project to the next before the first one has been finished. Hence never really getting anywhere.

I must admit that I've been guilty of this. I'm guessing that most or at least a lot of the folks here at the WF have, like me, notebooks and notebooks overflowing with ideas. I quite literally have half a dozen A4-sized notebooks of handwritten ideas for various things (not all business-related) and countless little spiral bound flip-top ones (which are easy to drop into my pocket when I go for a walk, say).

Yet... I've also learnt the hard way that raw focus and elbow grease is not enough to simply achieve success on a project.

Ever spent months on a project without having done the proper keyword research, folks? Dumb arse here has.

Do I feel like a failure in relation to those projects? Certainly not! Those projects failed, but I'm not a failure. I learnt a boatload of stuff that's making the move towards not having to work for The Man that little bit more within my grasp.

Designing webpages, coding, wrangling graphics programs, installing and configuring scripts, learning how to write copy (which I still suck at soooo hard!), split-testing/flow-testing/multi-variant testing, link tracking, banner advertising, the whole affiliate thing, setting up my own Affiliate Tools Centre, brandable PDFs... the list goes on. You guys and gals know the score.

One man band stuff (And no freakin' Leo Sayer jokes, either, ok? :p). I have nooooo desire to be doing all that stuff all the time, but when you start out with more time than money, ya gotta.

I just wish I'd learnt how to do proper market and keyword research much sooner. In fact, I'm still not confident that I've got it handled, to be perfectly honest (so any recommendations or tips, please post to this thread for the benefit of all).


Anyway... Dan, I'm glad you wrote this thread; it got me thinking.

Nice one.

TheNightOwl