Want to Succeed? Then Fail Quickly

35 replies
One of the biggest lessons I've learned in the 4 years of being involved in Internet markerting, is to FAIL QUICKLY.

Speed of implementation is everything.

Just recently I sat with two high profile internet marketers (one of which does over 10M a year) ...and he said to me ...

"Put up 10 sales pages with buy buttons. Find the ones that make sales, and flush the rest" - repeat repeat repeat.

Find what works and do more of it. Stop trying to cut corners. Treat it like a business. Build quality products. Offer high quality services. Quit wasting time.

While you're messing around worrying about what your sites page rank is, high profile internet marketers are rolling out several products and services.
#fail #quickly #succeed
  • Profile picture of the author Mr. Ken Russell
    The problem with "failing quickly" is it is usually accompanied by being "discouraged quickly". Although I do agree with your claim, testing is one of the most important factors you need to consider with any type of marketing.
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    • Profile picture of the author RogueOne
      I had someone tell me once that the amount of money you make on the internet is directly proportional to the number of buy buttons you have up.
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      • Profile picture of the author Black Hat Cat
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        Originally Posted by RogueOne View Post

        I had someone tell me once that the amount of money you make on the internet is directly proportional to the number of buy buttons you have up.
        Which isn't necessarily true. A million buy buttons won't make you a dime if no one ever finds them.
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    • Profile picture of the author wbgclient
      Originally Posted by Nio93 View Post

      The problem with "failing quickly" is it is usually accompanied by being "discouraged quickly". Although I do agree with your claim, testing is one of the most important factors you need to consider with any type of marketing.
      That is a very good point...and I think I am roght there. I don't even know if I believe in the whole idea anymore!
      But testing remains an importnat factor of the strategy.
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  • Profile picture of the author himanuzo
    Failure is the first step to success. And also as an experience.

    So dare to do any business on the internet.
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  • Profile picture of the author MaryPabelate
    Banned
    Yes, you are right, traffic, targeted traffic is also needed.
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  • Profile picture of the author murtuza
    yeah you're right. I know of few top marketers who focus on speed rather than fiddling around with small things. Even if they get little results doing a small process and it is making an ROI they just scale it up tremendously to it's tipping point and then keep repeating the process. It's like creating a system, testing it, scaling it up and the re-investing the profits...
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  • I agree. Failure and success is a mixed bag. You usually end up with both, so if you fail lots then you will get some success to go along with it.
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  • Profile picture of the author roycewong
    there must several failures before success
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  • Profile picture of the author nav123
    Losers are those that are scared of failing. Winners will never be scared to fail as they know they can learn from their mistakes to be a better person.
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    • Originally Posted by nav123 View Post

      Losers are those that are scared of failing. Winners will never be scared to fail as they know they can learn from their mistakes to be a better person.
      Thats right. If you shoot 100 times and score once you failed 99% of the time, but that 1% success rate may be all you need.
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  • Profile picture of the author CBusiness
    I agree wholly. You can't be afraid to lose and you can't run around expecting you wont lose.

    Just stop procrastinating. Try whatever it is you think is a good idea.

    Law of Averages says you will win big eventually but of course within reason.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sarevok
    Failing is key really.

    I personally learn the best from failure.

    Does this work? Nope.

    Does this work? Nope.

    Does this work? Yes? Aha. Eureka!

    For some of us, it's the only way we learn.

    In any event, we can all learn something from our failures.
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  • yeah it is like trouble shooting. just like sarevok said. does this work? well then try this. eventually you figure it out.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    He also said "Failing is a learning opportunity...".

    So true.
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    • Profile picture of the author Shaun OReilly
      There's a lot of wisdom in your initial post John.

      Someone asked the founder of IBM, Thomas Watson,
      what they could do to become more successful.

      His answer?

      Double your failure rate.

      Unfortunately, most people are conditioned to avoid
      failure - that's why most people are unsuccessful.

      Success and failure are really two halves of the same
      coin.

      Fail fast and fail forward.

      Dedicated to mutual success,

      Shaun
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      .

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      • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
        Originally Posted by Shaun OReilly View Post

        There's a lot of wisdom in your initial post John.

        Someone asked the founder of IBM, Thomas Watson,
        what they could do to become more successful.

        His answer?

        Double your failure rate.

        Unfortunately, most people are conditioned to avoid
        failure - that's why most people are unsuccessful.

        Success and failure are really two halves of the same
        coin.

        Fail fast and fail forward.

        Dedicated to mutual success,

        Shaun
        Well said Shaun.
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        • Profile picture of the author Walter Parrish
          Thanks for the thread John.
          I recently came to the same conclusions over the past week. Making my return to the affiliate game after 15 years and learning the way stuff is done today, while working on sites and maps it hit me.

          1 You want to move fast to be the first to market.
          2 You want to put everything you got out there so you know exactly where you stand.

          3 I learned a long time ago not to worry about search engines, they will find you when your site is popular. It's the people you want to be concerned with and I will tell you all word of mouth still works wonders along with building a good list.
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  • Profile picture of the author paul nicholls
    good post john

    I am always telling people to look at failure as education as it`s now one more way which
    they know does not work

    fail forward and fail quickly

    Paul
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    • Profile picture of the author Bill Hugall
      I was always told that failure isn't actually a word. Learning is the only result produced by not succeeding. Failure was a concept created to keep people from trying to succeed.
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  • Profile picture of the author dafnait
    Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

    One of the biggest lessons I've learned in the 4 years of being involved in Internet markerting, is to FAIL QUICKLY.

    Speed of implementation is everything.

    Just recently I sat with two high profile internet marketers (one of which does over 10M a year) ...and he said to me ...

    "Put up 10 sales pages with buy buttons. Find the ones that make sales, and flush the rest" - repeat repeat repeat.

    Find what works and do more of it. Stop trying to cut corners. Treat it like a business. Build quality products. Offer high quality services. Quit wasting time.

    While you're messing around worrying about what your sites page rank is, high profile internet marketers are rolling out several products and services.
    I like you attitude!!!!
    going to adopt it
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    I recently heard another Internet marketer that does 6 figures a month say "I'm very aggressive...I'll push out 20 sites offering different products and services, even if they don't exist. The one's that work, I'll keep, develop and replicate.

    I get rid of everything else.
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  • Profile picture of the author mickyl
    One problem I have with this aggressive approach is that it fills the internet with junk, and many times hurt other people. I mean - have you ever wondered what happens to people who actually buy all these re-branded "health" products?? or fake making money products?

    So I say, go for it, try, fail and try again. But don't give up the quality factor and don't hurt other people on the way. It's not worth it.
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  • Profile picture of the author jamesrich1
    Great advice to share with us. Paid traffic with a scientific approach to find what converts is what every successful marketer implements. I look at SEO as paid traffic because of how time intensive it is. If your smart your paying for it.
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    • Profile picture of the author Walter Parrish
      Originally Posted by jamesrich1 View Post

      Great advice to share with us. Paid traffic with a scientific approach to find what converts is what every successful marketer implements. I look at SEO as paid traffic because of how time intensive it is. If your smart your paying for it.
      I think the object is not to pay and to save. Only thing I may pay for is some offline advertising or flyers and that's not even on the menu.
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  • The point of the OP is not that failing is needed in order eventually succeed. The point is that you need to roll out a number of products/services to the market so you can filter the losers and expand on the winners. And in order to determine what works and what doesnt, it's important to create, implement and launch those products/services as soon as possible.

    I agree with that: it's best to launch and optimize later whatever works, than to waste weeks/months implement the perfect product before you've had the chance to track whether it'll be a winner or not.

    I've been guilty of that sin: wasting months developing a comprehensive product that eventually flopped. In retrospective, I should have launched a "lite" version, see if the market responds to it, and if so then work on the "pro" version.
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    • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
      Originally Posted by Anonymous Affiliate View Post

      The point of the OP is not that failing is needed in order eventually succeed. The point is that you need to roll out a number of products/services to the market so you can filter the losers and expand on the winners. And in order to determine what works and what doesnt, it's important to create, implement and launch those products/services as soon as possible.

      I agree with that: it's best to launch and optimize later whatever works, than to waste weeks/months implement the perfect product before you've had the chance to track whether it'll be a winner or not.

      I've been guilty of that sin: wasting months developing a comprehensive product that eventually flopped. In retrospective, I should have launched a "lite" version, see if the market responds to it, and if so then work on the "pro" version.
      Exactly.

      I wasted 12 months putting a product together and had 4 buyers.

      You gotta move quickly. Get stuff out there. Test it. Keep the winners. Get rid of the losers. Repeat.
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  • Profile picture of the author suavewarrior
    There's always failure first at the beginning, we just have to work with it to get to success.
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  • Profile picture of the author Magic Mike IM
    Test - Fail - Learn - Adjust - Test...
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  • Profile picture of the author KevinDahlberg
    Good post. I tend to wait till things are perfect before moving forward. The things that I have made me the most money in my life are the things that I rolled out well before I had a completed product (most recently a mobile dj business).

    I haven't been applying that to my IM efforts. I don't have deadlines and gigs that I need to be prepared for, so I procrastinate and try to make things perfect instead of getting them out there to see if they work. Thanks for the reminder of how I should be running my online business.
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    • Profile picture of the author Walter Parrish
      Originally Posted by KevinDahlberg View Post

      Good post. I tend to wait till things are perfect before moving forward. The things that I have made me the most money in my life are the things that I rolled out well before I had a completed product (most recently a mobile dj business).

      I haven't been applying that to my IM efforts. I don't have deadlines and gigs that I need to be prepared for, so I procrastinate and try to make things perfect instead of getting them out there to see if they work. Thanks for the reminder of how I should be running my online business.
      ex dj here
      thanks for mentioning that because I was a master dj when I played music and never waited to put anything out there or try something new. I'm going to apply that to IM along with all the stuff I'm good at.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ttrain
    I'm definitely guilty of spending too long on one project. I guess I like to make sure I give my absolute best before deciding it doesn't work, and moving on to something new. But your right "real artists ship".
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  • Profile picture of the author AnthonyBand
    A man fools me once, shame on him, he fools me twice shame on me. Learn from your mistakes, outsource, invest back into your profitable business and make new products over and over again.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Whilst failure is definitely part of it, I think the focus needs to be more about "speed of implementation" rather than just failure alone. This was meant to be my main point...

    It's quite easy to spend months just on one product. Infact, it's been a terrible habit of mine. Tweaking this, changing that, and while testing is important - you just cant afford to be "fiddling" constantly with the same sites/products/services.

    If you're spending weeks on one project, chances are you're just rearranging deck chairs.

    Roll more out. Do more stuff. That was the advice that my mentor gave me. (But of course, don't sacrifice quality) Pushing out more products doesn't mean selling crap.

    In the last 2 weeks, I've created 6 new products.

    In the past, I wouldn't have thought this was possible.

    The trick is to take what you already have and repackage, repurpose, reformat and restructure.

    If you have a 250 page ebook, sell it in different formats.

    Sell it as a video tutorial
    Sell it as a podcast (mp3)
    Sell individual chapters
    Sell it as a training course

    ..etc etc

    Here's 2 quick tips...

    1. What task have you performed today that you can package up and sell as a product to someone?
    2. Every question on this forum is a potential product just waiting to be developed.


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  • Profile picture of the author Brent Tracey
    Great post, already learned alot from this thread!
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