May be a silly question, but I'm asking here.

Pretty much spot on to be honest.

I'd like to add to the list: self-belief and a keen interest in what we are doing. I am passionate about knowledge, it's my thing, like a football to a footballer.

The good old three D's. Determination, dedication and discipline.

Ghost Shinobi

P.S - Excellent post GordonJ

It's not really hard work. The hard part when you are new is to find a marketing strategy that will work for you along with 'implementing' it consistently...day after day.

Plus a new marketer most likely won't make any money for their first 3 to 6 months. So to keep going when you are new...it can be hard. Yes.

I don't think I made much in my first year.

Providing value and being consistent helps a lot. One problem we face is our thinking, if you are a small business owner, don't think of your business as small, think of it as a big business and it will motivate you to give in your best to make it thrive

Focus = Follow One Course Until Success

As a guy with ADHD, that's not always easy for me. However, when something is big enough to keep my attention, I can hyperfocus on it.

When we were first married, cleaning for other people as sub-contractors and they lost their contract, FOCUS let me to cold call and start a business that we still operate 17 years later.

When the large property management company that we worked for sold off and went their separate way, FOCUS let me to start a mobile auto detailing business out of thin air to get us by while we regrouped.

When we owed $55,000 in back taxes because of a lack of financial knowledge and focus, it was FOCUS for 18 months that led us to making an extra $80,000 by working non-stop until it was fully paid off plus the money to pay tax on those earnings. That one nearly killed us, lol. That's a LOT of cleaning.

When I realized that I had put on weight and got to 250 lbs it was FOCUS that led me to get down to 199.

When I started looking at the religious beliefs I was raised with I finally FOCUSED on them and realized I was brought up in a cult at 38 years old. Two years later and FOCUS brought me a whole new life that I love despite cult-sanctioned shunning that cost my wife and I our families and everyone we knew. I just did a 9 part podcast series on it to help others.

We set one FOCUS each year. But the key for us is that the rest of our life has to be routine enough not to take from that new focus. So we have systems for things. Then we can successfully focus on things like our year of paying off debt, or losing weight, or adventure, or building new relationships, or this year it is self-actualization. So yeah, FOCUS is key.

Maybe the real question is how to manufacture focus. Mine was all in response to external stimuli or semi-desperate situations. It's hard to focus when comfortable. There needs to be something driving that focus.

Most of the people go dabbing here and there, start a system and then give up and try another system..

What If instead of jumping, they stick to email marketing? Build a list and rinse and repeat?

Go in deep in every phases, study hard and try to stick to this plan?

There would be more people gaining success and less people asking about the next quick rich scheme

I'm not exactly sure it is focus, but maybe that's the best word.

i read a lot of posts that talk about hard work, positive mental attitude, self image....

I read few posts about actually learning how to be successful. In every business there are failures. But there are also people making fortunes. The same business, the same country, language, monetary system....Why? The successful people learn how to do what makes them successful. They are students of their craft.

I remember as a young man, driving with some friends through a very high end neighborhood. The homes were beautiful, the yards immaculate. My friends said things like "Must be nice" and "It isn't fair".

I remember saying "I wonder what they know that we don't?". The idea that these people knew what makes you wealthy, and did the things that make you wealthy, simply didn't occur to the other people in the car. And it doesn't occur to most people.

For example, when I decided to open a retail store selling vacuum cleaners, I sought out the best retailer of vacuum cleaners in the state. I went to work for him for six months, learning every day what made his business so successful. How to sell at retail, how to buy, how to advertise, how to manage your money....

When I opened my own store, I was successful from day one. Why? I knew how.

When a person asks me about how to be a great salesperson (I write books on selling), the first thing I ask them is which sales books they have read...Almost always, the answer is "None". And then I know the problem. They don't know what they are doing.

Threads keep popping up her about "how to cold call". But there are excellent books that are cheap that teach everything. I read that someone says "I make 300 calls a week". But what they are saying on those calls is gibberish. Buy ten highly reviewed books on cold calling. Read them all. While you are doing that, work for a company that sells something over the phone. Do that for a few months. Then you can hit the ground running......instead of asking us to tell you a "tip" that will change your life around.

Working hard on your business doesn't help much, if everything you are doing is wrong.
Having a great attitude doesn't help much if you never learn how to make real money in your business.

Want to know why some people in your business are very wealthy and most aren't?
The wealthy people do things every day that make them wealthier. And poor people don't. It's that simple.

If "Focus" means concentrating on your task, and figuring out the best way to do it..and then doing it...yes, I agree.

If "Focus" means just working harder, then no.

Anyway, it's a thought.

I had a bit of a think about your question and it prompted another question:

What is it that precedes or results in the focused hard work?

As far as I've been able to tell, it's how the person feels about themselves.

When we feel like crap, not valuable, we sit there and don't do anything.

When we feel like we're expanding, valuable, we take action that matches.

Much of this stems from what we believe is possible. And that is a moving line depending on how we feel about ourselves.

When someone doesn't believe they can do something, despite others being able to do it, they won't even try.

If they believe they can, it doesn't matter whether someone else has done it or not; they'll do the work and stick with it until they succeed.

Let's look at an example: I tried an experiment recently. Email marketing has never been my thing...I can do it for others but until now not for me. People tend to discover content of mine, consume a ton of it, and then get in touch with me to buy within 48 hours. So I have a limiting belief that "email marketing does not work for me." But I'm aware of it, which allows things to change.

Someone showed me email marketing 'their way' and while it wasn't outrageously different than what I'd been doing before, I agreed to try it.

I immediately (that day) put together all the things necessary.

Initially I got a bunch of clicks to the opt-in page but few signups.

I want you to note that I could have given up right there. Shouted, "It doesn't work for me", thrown up hands and exit stage right. I know many people who would, and have.

But behind the focused hard work is how I feel about myself: I feel and know I am the kind of guy who does not give up. So instead of blaming the results on the whole process and quitting, I went back to what I know to be true: the funnel falls down at every stage and you have to pick it up and fix it.

Traffic flow was working but not conversion (the opt-in form). I felt good about being patient and making the adjustments to the conversion page until I got the desired results. One adjustment later and the opt-ins started pouring in. "Success" wasn't that far away.

But if I had been feeling dismal about myself, I wouldn't have tried. I would have dropped the plan right there--in fact, I probably would not even have taken action to do the setup of the funnel as fast as I did.

So it appears to me that the determining factor is how you feel about yourself. That's the cause and the focused hard work is the effect.

Hard work is one thing... Smart work, or working smarter is another.

Using Jason's example... ( Great to see you btw ) He was taught a slightly different method to obtain e-mail address' right off the bat it didn't work... with PATIENCE and one minor change he dialed it in.

As an example in Internet Marketing this is a great one. In most funnels there are 3 conversions that take place. The bait ( or the traffic portion of the equation ) There is then the opt in, and finally a sale of some type or another. Jason was fortunate enough to already have a steady flow of traffic, and only had to work on the opt in conversion.

Unfortunately for many, the first road block is the traffic. They become so obsessed with tweaking the whole funnel, and really don't understand they can be working on this in phases. Get the traffic right, then test and tweak the opt-in, and then finally tweak the offer. I preach this stuff all the time, and honestly 99% of the time it falls on deaf ears. They actually are taking working smarter, and turning it to harder, and then making it damn near impossible, when they manipulate the funnel as a whole vs in its segmented sections.

The other thing I read all the time.... "I write great content but I'm not getting any visitors". When you look at stuff like this I generally see they are writing on topics, that they may very well have great content for, but the competition for the terms they are targeting is well out of their reach. Content Marketing in the hands of someone that knows what they are doing is 100% an SEO STRATEGY. All of this "just write naturally" etc etc crap.. your kidding yourself, and being beat out by someone with a STRATEGY, and probably not as good content.

The key to working Smarter be it online or offline. #1 knowing your ideal target. Claude as an example.. his ideal client? Someone that has bought whatever it is you are selling in the manor you are selling it.

#2 for online or offline efforts. Understanding WHERE you can directly communicate with these people. Be it a forum, FB, Insta, Pin up board at Walmart, wherever.

Find those places and analyze the questions being asked... If you are writing content based on questions vs experience ( allow your experience to answer the questions ) your content will become more SEO friendly - IE People will and do type questions in a search engine... you answering questions creates long tail keywords IE SEO gold

#3 Understand that in all of these efforts there are segmented pieces to the puzzle. Identify and place in order these pieces and see where there is a lack and work on that ONE segment only till it is correct, and then move to the next. Have PATIENCE in your efforts. Giving up and quitting is usually not an option. Methodically and deliberately working through a process is always the way to go ( the tortoise wins the race )

Yup, newbies are always trying to combine Traffic and Conversion into a single step. I've been talking about this a lot in the past year.

I run a high ticket closing business with a partner during the day and do a little consulting here and there when we're not swamped. I type so fast that posting is not a huge effort or big time investment. There seem to have been enough changes here I figured I could give contributing again a chance. Especially since I'm not emotionally invested lol. BTW if I drop off again it's because we're too busy...I review the recordings of our sales team for 4-6 hours a day for quality control.

What has struck me the most is how slow the forum is compared to a few years ago. I wish more people interested in sales & marketing would come in here...they used to ask questions every hour back in the day. Up in the main forum I've found many people aren't even aware the subforums exist.

Interesting that PATIENCE has stood out for us as a success factor. Is our thesis that patient persistence is the impetus of focused hard work?

For many, the really hard part is not abandoning something that's working well because implementing it consistently...day after day can get boring. Same as the business owner that trashes a winning ad because he's sick of looking at it.

It was moved because the conversation in this thread will benefit people who might never visit the offline forum.

Most of the time, it means moving threads from the main forum to the proper subforum and leaving a redirect. In your case, it was the other way around.

I find that so many clients are trying 77 (give or take) avenues in making their revenues.

I guess it's possible but rare for anyone to do 77 actions (plus or minus) expertly.

They also tend to jump onto the next "big thing" because they see others doing it.

But there can be problems usually not keeping accurate records so nothing is evaluated properly. Getting a bad idea and sticking to it. Get a good idea and changing it. Get a good idea and not doing it enough.

I have to persuade them to concentrate on the good ideas and start making money a lot faster and easier.

Simplicity does require a fair bit of effort (you must make it enjoyable).

And a lot more fun than hard almost futile extreme hard work.


Steve

According to me its your keen interest which brought you here.How much focused and smart-working you are decides all the parameters of success.

Dedication is very important!