Reasons Why Your New Online Business Will Fail and How to Avoid Having These Things Happen

10 Reasons Why Your New Online Business Will Fail and How to Avoid Having These Things Happen:

I read a statistic recently that said 90 percent of new online businesses fail in the first four months. Four months! The reasons for this? There are many. Having been through the journey myself recently here are the 10 main reasons I’ve seen people fail at starting their own online business.

10 Lack of commitment. You talk about how much you want to start your own business with your family or friends, but you never really commit to getting started. You keep waiting for the ‘right time’ or continue to ‘think about it’ without ever getting started.

9 Poor planning. You finally get started but you didn’t plan well enough for the financial, emotional, mental and physical implications. You didn’t save enough money, you didn’t do enough research. As a result, you run out of money and ideas very quickly with no plan of how to get yourself back on track.

8 Lack of action. You simply don’t take enough (or any) action. Or if you do, because you’re new at business your actions aren’t properly aligned to your business so you waste a lot of time.

7 You attempt to grow your following on Facebook and Instagram but instead of being tactful and succinct you spend entire days on there browsing aimlessly.

6 You don’t know who your target clients are, or where to find them. So when you do get yourself all set up with your new website, Facebook page and business cards you’ll be completely baffled as to why new customers aren’t queueing up out the door.

5 You have no idea about copy, SEO or sales, so as much as you are fantastic at what you do, you can’t sell yourself, so you get very little business.

4 Business plan; you don’t have one. Or if you do, you’ve just made it up with no real idea about how to generate the numbers or how to hit any of your targets.

3 Visibility. You keep yourself hidden behind the curtains (i.e. your laptop) as opposed to being as visible as possible.

2 You try to do it all on your own, without the support of others. You decide not to enlist the help of professionals and instead try to figure out everything on your own. You spend hours each week on non-money making tasks, such as fixing annoying tech issues with your website or mailing list. You end up scared, overwhelmed and lost, and frustrated at your lack of results. You realise there is a long road ahead that you aren’t prepared for.

The number 1 reason I see people fail at their new online business:

1 Comparison.

Social media can be dangerous for motivation, especially if it makes you feel negative about your own situation. Looking at what everyone else is doing and getting overwhelmed by their results can spell new online business disaster. Comparison crushes your creativity and feeds self-doubt, worry and concern. Concern that you’re not good enough, smart enough, young enough, old enough, not ‘liked’ enough, not earning enough or that there’s something wrong with you in general can really knock your confidence.

I faced this challenge a lot in my first year — looking at other people and comparing myself their success. I’m a member of a number of entrepreneurial Facebook groups where celebrating your success is encouraged. Success (apparently) breeds success, but what I found is that when you’re looking at other peoples skyrocketing results day after day, it can leave you feeling down and deflated, certainly NOT motivated, if you’re not getting those same results.

So what can you do to mitigate these 10 reasons why new online businesses fail?

10 Decide to do it and commit to doing it.

9 Plan ahead. Save as much money as you can and do your research. What software will you need? What marketing programmes will you use? Connect with other entrepreneurs and ask them for advice. What worked for them and what didn’t when they first got started?

8 Take consistent action that is aligned with your business. What is your end message? Who is your ideal client? Where can you find them? What problem are you trying to solve for them? How can you monetise what you are doing?

7 Use social media with intent, don’t just aimlessly browse. Get on there, do what you need to do, then get off. Staying off social media allows you to focus on your own creativity and progress, as opposed to being distracted by what other people are doing.

6 Get clear on who SPECIFICALLY you want to help. Tailor your website, Facebook page and any other form of marketing to reflect the ideal client you are trying to attract. You may have the ability to help a wide range of people, but this muddles your message and confuses people as to what you do. Choose your speciality, research it and promote yourself accordingly.

5 Learn sales. Chances are your marketing and promotions will start to attract clients to you, so it’s essential you can assist them through the process of actually signing up. Sales is matching their problem with a solution. Your solution.

4 A business plan is essential. What’s the minimum you will need to earn in order to survive? How can you ensure you achieve this? What’s the ideal amount you want to earn so you can thrive? How many clients will you need/units will you need to sell to achieve this? Understanding conversion rates brings your numbers to life – how big does your audience need to be in order for you to achieve your goals? Online purchase conversion rates are typically 1%….you do the math and add up the required numbers to hit your targets.

3 Be as visible as possible, daily, either using images of yourself or videos are even better. People connect with images and video content far more than they do with written text. Yes, creating an online business requires you to be visible – no negotiation.

2 Seek professional advice and support with anything you are struggling with. Sometimes money can be tight when you’re in your first year of business, so in that case shop around. You don’t have to pay for the biggest best latest guru coach on the market. Just get started with some sort of support and upgrade things as you can afford to.

1 Give up comparing yourself to others. The internet is saturated with online entrepreneurs. Protect yourself from overwhelm and simply don’t look too much at what other people are saying and doing. Sure, it helps to get ideas and see what works and what doesn’t. But avoid getting caught up in the hype of others peoples success and results. Everyone is on their own path, stay focused on your own journey and keep yourself moving forward step by step. Social media can be very invasive, turn off notifications or leave groups that don’t make you feel good about your situation.

When it comes to comparing your progress to that of others, I want to expand on that here. It took me a little while to realise that it can be misleading what other people post. A lot of people say they’ve ‘hit’ an income goal or ‘made’ X dollars in a certain month, but after getting to know some of these people better I realised this doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve got that cash in the bank.

When I worked in the corporate world, no company ever claimed it had ‘made’ X amount at the beginning of a new contract or when they’d signed on a new client. Often payment disputes could occur or clients simply didn’t pay. Unexpected costs could crop up or deals could be dropped all together at a moment’s notice. The money each company MADE was how much profit remained at the end of each month, quarter, financial year or contract – when all incoming and outgoing money had been processed and confirmed.

I’ve come to learn this is not the way a lot of online entrepreneurs promote their success. What they say they are making in their business sounds better than what it is. Not many tell you how much they’ve spent in a month, for example.

So if you’re looking at other people’s results and freaking out that you’re not there yet – relax. It’s possible that what you’re reading isn’t entirely true.

However, credit must be given where it’s due. Those people out there that are streaking ahead – chances are, it’s taken a lot more time than they let on to get there, they’ve invested a decent amount of money into professional assistance AND they’ve worked their butt off for it. They’ve applied themselves, promoted themselves, given away a heap of free stuff, been knocked down and got back up or failed at several other things before they finally got it right.

Being an entrepreneur is tough, mentally and emotionally, especially when the results in the first year are often inconsistent. But you can do it. Learn from your mistakes, try new approaches, and most importantly keep showing up. Sometimes obstacles can slow your progress (sometimes a whole lot at once can really throw you off track) but you’ve just got to deal with each one as it arises, keep coming back and showing up. You can do it. You can make your new online business a success.

Why Are So Many Internet Start-Up’s Failing Today?

In the real world of brick and mortar business, every day millions of people are dragging themselves from their comfortable beds, performing their morning rituals of washing and breakfast to head to their jobs. In their daily grind some are thinking that there must be a better and easier way to make a living.

All these millions know someone or know of someone who has “made it” by quitting their boring existence and become their own boss using their own computers in the comfort and ease of home.

While the idea of working from home sounds like an ideal solution, most are just not preparing. Many of these unhappy people will just quit their jobs and jump right into the first internet marketing business they find with no preparation, no knowledge of what they are doing, no education, and no hope of success. Failure is their only option and they are not even aware of it.

According to many sources, more than 90% (Ninety percent) of all Internet business start-ups end in failure within the first 120 (one hundred twenty) days. And that number is all too accurate: NINETY PERCENT!

This alarming failure rate goes unheeded for a number of reasons:

1. Many don’t know the statistical probabilities they face.
2. Many don’t see themselves as being part of the failures or they wouldn’t leap.
3. Many are talked into things they are unprepared for.
4. Many don’t know the basic tenant of – “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.”

Of course, success is still a possibility. There IS that other 10% (ten percent) that do succeed. For them, success doesn’t happen by accident. And success isn’t just a crap shoot. Success happens because of some very important factors.

Success happens because people learn about internet marketing and how it works. They do not expect to get rich quick or be able to make a killing overnight and retire to a tropical isle.

It is strange but somehow the same people, who wouldn’t dream of starting a real world business, think they can make a go of an internet business even though they have no business background.

People think that an internet business just means that they no longer have to get up and go to work. They think they can simply work when the feel like it and still make a good living. They do not understand that any business requires them to work hard and sometimes work long hours.

Some Wrong Ideas on the Internet

That 90% failure rate of new Internet businesses really is not surprising when you think about the sort of people who start an internet business.

Most people seem to think that being a successful internet marketer is as easy as getting a website built and getting their own domain name and they could not be farther from reality.

Being a successful internet marketer requires self-discipline.People read books like “4 Hour Work Week” and think that partying all night, sleeping until noon and then 3 or 4 hours with a computer will make them rich.

There is not a magic button to push to have instant massive traffic to their million-dollar-like website and fistfuls of cash in their bank. It is just not going to happen.

Internet marketing does not run on auto-pilot. And while established internet marketing types do not put in the long, boring hours they have built their businesses by doing that in the past.

It does not happen overnight for anybody. Most people are not prepared for the time requirement necessary for an internet business to achieve success.

They Do Not Have a Business Background

All businesses whether large or small, Internet or “brick and mortar” have two things in common: they are a BUSINESS and must be operated like a business! Business people must understand accepted business practices.

There are simple and basic concepts like “acceptable over-head expenses in relation to projected income”. All entrepreneurs need to understand profit and loss and what constitutes each.

It is not a requirement to have a college degree in business to be successful but it wouldn’t hurt. On the other hand some basic business knowledge is an absolute necessity.

If it is difficult to balance your check book, then it might be a good idea to keep your day job and forget about being in business.

Yes, you can hire an accounting firm that will tell you WHEN to make tax deposits, but they will not tell you IF you need to make tax deposits.

An accountant can tell you if you made a profit but not how you make it. If you have no business background get some good business advice before you consider opening any business.

The fact is that all successful businesses follow the rules of sound business principles. A successful business is not an accident. The numbers tell the story that only 10% of all new internet businesses are successful or are even still in existence after their first 120 days.

Even the expectation of profit is not reasonable for the first few month.

Have sufficient resources available for everything from startup costs to personal needs for a period of time. It’s called “capital” and there is no alternative to plenty of it.

They Do Not Have The Right Mindset!

Most of us have heard the phrase, “He has an attitude!” And it is often a derogatory remark made about a person with a negative attitude.

The word “attitude” is important when thinking about marketing start-ups. A good attitude or a good mind set will not guarantee success but a bad attitude or a bad mind set can guarantee failure.

Let’s examine a few attitudes that will absolutely guarantee failure:

1. I can work when I want to. This is absolutely wrong! You cannot just work when it suits you. Expect many long and sometimes boring hours of hard work for your business to succeed.
2. I can get rich quick! This is a dangerous one. While getting rich quick is possible, there are too many “get rich quick” schemes that are only ways for the unscrupulous to take advantage of the willing. Expect to be wealthy in whatever time it takes. It is possible to make a very comfortable living in internet marketing but it is not usually quick or easy.
3. I don’t need a business plan. Internet business is still a business. All business principles apply to online business as they do to brick and mortar business. It is imperative that you have a plan for your success based on sound business principles.
4. Internet business people do not have a boss. You are the boss. A good boss sees that all work is completed on time and in full, or you will fail. Set up a work schedule and goals to meet or you will find yourself working at a job under a boss who does do those things and maybe for minimum wage.

Ways to Avoid Failure

Starting a business … any business … has no guarantee of success, period!

Even large multi-national businesses can fail in a new business venture. Failure is always an option and the possibility or probability of success can be enhanced.

You can increase your possibility of success by:

1. Making a business plan BEFORE starting your online business. To remind you one of the things I said at the beginning: “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.” A plan for success is a requirement. Have the steps listed in great detail including reasonable cost estimates for completing each step.
2. Expect to work hard to achieve your goals. Never expect things to be easy. Most of the time things are not as easy as they appear. Each successive step will require its own work, time and patience. Sometimes things don’t go right on the first try. Be willing to keep going again and again until you succeed.
3. Do not fall for a get-rich-quick schemes. The internet woods are full of those who prey upon those who are looking for quick and easy ways to become rich. Most are ways for the other person to get rich quick from your money.

Remember those statistics! Ninety percent of all new internet businesses fail in the first 120 days. You don’t have to be part of that majority. You can become a part of that 10% minority of successful internet business enterprises. Find something that others are having success with – to the level you want your own success, do what they do, and you will have your own success. Be prepared to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes.

8 Reasons Why Ecommerce Businesses Fail:

Starting an ecommerce business can be fast, relatively easy, and not very expensive. But with something like an 80-percent failure rate, creating a successful online business is more challenging than some entrepreneurs imagine.

Although each new business is unique, there are common contributors to ecommerce failures. Understanding these possible pitfalls should help you to avoid them, beat the statistics, and have a successful ecommerce business.

1. No Real Investment

It is possible to open an online store for just a few hundred dollars. But that in no way means that a few hundred dollars is all that you will need to invest.

Like any new business, a fledgling online store may require several infusions of capital and a significant amount of labor.

Brick-and-mortar retailers are often the worst about adequately investing in an online store. If you already have a physical store and are adding an online shop, think about that new ecommerce business like a new location. It is going to need a similar investment in time and at least a portion of what you would invest in money.

Even relatively small retailers will happily invest $50,000 or $100,000 into a physical store, but decline to spend $5,000 for an online one which may actually have greater sales potential.

2. No Cash Flow

At the most basic level, cash flow is the movement of money into and out of a business. New ecommerce companies can get into trouble when they don’t have enough cash to keep operating. An example of this is when an entrepreneur invests all his cash in inventory and there is no money for marketing — so sales don’t rise and the business is stagnant.

To avoid cash-flow problems, try to spread out expenses, so that everything is not due at once. Look for the opportunity to pay for inventory on terms of 30, 60, or 90 days. Don’t over invest in advertising or would-be search-engine-optimization gurus. Also spend or reinvest based on actual revenue, not projected sales.

3. Poor Inventory Management

Depending on the business model, inventory management can be one of the most significant problems new ecommerce operations will face. Buy too much inventory, and, as mentioned above, you could cripple cash flow. Buy too little inventory and you might be missing out on sales or even disappointing customers.

What’s more, ordering products is often not as simple as you might think. Vendors may have distinctly different lead times, meaning that it might take one supplier a few days to get a reorder to you, while another supplier could take a few weeks, so that you would need to place reorders at very different times and at very different inventory levels.

Freight costs, associated with getting inventory to your business, can also be significant.

4. Too Much Competition

The Internet is a land of opportunity for even the smallest of businesses. But almost no online startup can survive in the face of significant, established competition.

This is most often a problem when new ecommerce stores seek to sell the very same products that are offered by much larger retailers.

Walmart can be serious competition for new ecommerce businesses.

As an example, it could be very difficult for a new ecommerce store to try to sell Microsoft’s Xbox, which is already available at hundreds of online retailers, including Walmart, Amazon, Best Buy, GameSpot, Newegg, Toys”R”Us, and many more.

Simply put, it will be difficult — or at least relatively more difficult — to sell mass-market products than it will be to sell niche or unique products. So find your niche.

5. A Bad Website

Even the best business plan cannot always overcome a bad website.

A modern ecommerce site must be secure, functional, have great search, adapt to mobile devices, and load very quickly. Anything less is unacceptable.

What’s more, there are many excellent ecommerce platforms from which to choose. Many of these require very little technical expertise, so there really is no excuse for having a bad site. (I addressed the many choices of platforms earlier this year, in “Navigating 2014’s Crowded Ecommerce Platform Market.”)

6. Poor Product Photography

Online shoppers cannot physically inspect the products you sell, so they will need a strong visual representation of those products to help them understand it, want it, and buy it. Thus, poor product photography is one of the cardinal sins in online retailing.

Use successful online sellers as the standard for your own product pictures. If the product photography you’re using is not as clear, focused, and clean as what you would find on sites like Zappos, L.L.Bean, Suitsupply, and Best Made, those photos are probably not good enough.

L.L.Bean is an example of a retailer with excellent product photography.

7. No Website Traffic

Few things will kill a retail, or even a wholesale, business as quickly as having no shoppers. In the ecommerce context, website traffic is the flow of shoppers into and out of your store. If you want to make sales, you need traffic.

A fast way to get traffic is with pay-per-click advertising. But it can be expensive, so make certain that you understand it before investing a lot.

A much slower, but ultimately more powerful, way to drive traffic is with content — i.e., content marketing, social media, or on-site product merchandising.

8. No Patience

An ecommerce business takes time to grow. Too often new business owners imagine that they will earn profits immediately. But that is not typically the case. Don’t be surprised if it takes several months to earn even meager profits.

10 Reasons Why People Fail At Online Business:

10 Reasons Why People Fail At Online Business

Online Business and Internet marketing is one of the fastest-growing and profitable businesses today. It is an excellent way for anyone to start a small business with little investment, no overhead, and high profit margins. Anyone can get up and running with an online business in hours. Sounds like an easy way to make money, doesn’t it? Compared to other offline small business ventures, it is.

Internet marketing failures still vastly outnumber those who have succeeded in internet marketing. For every story you hear of someone making $10,000 a month at internet marketing there are hundreds of untold stories of those who failed to make a profit or only made a few dollars and then quit. Why do so many fail when the potential to succeed is high?

 

1. Failure to plan– No matter what type of business you are running you need a business plan with well-defined goals. What are your short-term and long-term goals? What steps do you need to take to meet those goals? Write out your plan and review it frequently. You are running a small business. Treat it as one.

2. Failure to work the plan– So you already have a business plan? A plan means nothing if you don’t follow it. Work the plan every single day.

3. Making goals too big early on– Many internet marketing failures try to do too much too fast. You are not going to create the ultimate web site for dog lovers overnight. Start small with dog training tips and add content daily. Those 1,000+ page web sites took months or years to build, so will yours.

4. Lack of knowledge– Would you be a successful plumber without knowing anything about plumbing? No. To be a successful internet marketer you need to learn internet marketing. Find a successful mentor willing to help you and you will be way ahead of the crowd.

5. Not investing in your business– You won’t get any support or very much web traffic on with a free web host. Many times, the best ebooks, scripts, and tools are the ones that cost money. You can run an online business for next to nothing but you’ll achieve faster and more profitable results by investing in the right tools.

6. “If I build it, they will come”– You can have the most comprehensive and informative website on natural healing in the world but if you don’t promote your site and work to drive traffic to it no one will know about it. There are many ways to drive traffic to your website.

7. Internet marketing is not a get rich quick scheme. In the beginning you might actually lose money and this is when too many people give up without giving their business time to grow.

8. Find a niche but make sure it’s profitable. Too many times people create the product first then try to figure out how to sell it.

9. No Uniqueness– There are a million low carb diet books out there, what makes yours so unique? Why should I buy your widget when Bob’s widgets are just as good and he’s been selling widgets a lot longer than you?

10. Behind every success story there are many hours of work and dedication. You’ll need drive and determination if you want to be the next internet success story everyone is talking about.

Print out these ten reasons for failure and post it next to your computer monitor or tape them to your bathroom mirror.

Everyday review your online business and make sure you are not making any of these mistakes. Do this and you are well on your way to being an internet marketing success.

Internet marketing and online business is one of the fastest-growing and profitable businesses today. Making goals too big early on– Many internet marketing failures try to do too much too fast. To be a successful internet marketer you need to learn internet marketing. Internet marketing is not a get rich quick scheme.

20 REASONS WHY MOST PEOPLE FAIL TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE BUSINESS:

1. LACK OF BELIEF, CONFIDENCE, AND CERTAINTY IN THEMSELVES

Number one, reason number one, and none of these are in order of importance, they’re just random reasons that I came up with. Looking at the thousands of people that I’ve worked with. I’ve identified the patterns of success and the patterns of failure. Number one reason is a lot of people, they fail because they lack belief, confidence, and certainty in themselves, and in the process, and in their business.

A lot of people, they lack confidence. They lack belief. You can’t be successful if you’re not confident. Show me someone that’s massively successful that doesn’t have the confidence to go along with it. You have to believe in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, then you’re not going to take action. You’re not going to do what’s necessary to build your business because you don’t believe in yourself. You don’t even believe that you’re going to be successful.

So, how can you possibly create success if you don’t have that belief if you don’t have that confidence, that certainty? If you’re uncertain, if you have doubt, then you’re going to do a little bit here and there, but you’re not going to be all in. You’re not going to commit yourself fully. You have to have confidence and belief in the business, in the opportunity, in the process.

If you don’t believe that your business model is going to create the success that you want or help you achieve your goals, then you’re not going to take action either. I see this time and time again with people that invest in my training, but they didn’t even believe fully that the training is going to work for them. They’re kind of like, have one foot in and one foot out. They dabble with it a little bit. Then, sure enough, they look for reasons to reinforce why they’re not going to be successful. Right?

They publish a book or they do something, start a business and it doesn’t work out their way. They reinforce that belief and say, “See? I told you. I told you that you’re not going to because successful. I told you this wouldn’t work. I knew that other people, my family, or my friends said that you’re not going to be successful. It’s not going to work.” Then, you justify that belief, because you’re holding onto that story.

That’s stopping you and holding you back. You’ve got to overcome the limiting beliefs that you have and believe. You got to have faith. Faith is a stronger level of belief, that’s believing even when there’s no reason to believe. That’s what faith is. You have to have a delusional belief in yourself that you will be successful no matter what. That this business will work.

I know for myself, I had that belief when I was younger. I just knew that I would be successful. I had no doubt whatsoever. I knew that I was going to be a millionaire by the time I was 30. I just knew it. Once I discovered Internet marketing, online business, there was no doubt in my mind, because I saw all these other people that were successful. I knew that as long as I work my ass off and do what it takes, then I’ll be successful as well.

I had that unrelenting belief in myself even though there were no reasons in my life to believe. I was a failure. I was a loser. I had a lot of issues, a lot of limiting beliefs. I was living in my friend’s living room. I was struggling. I was in debt. I had no reasons to believe that I was actually going to be successful, but I had faith that I was. That’s what faith is, guys, and you need that to be successful.

I can give you a few tips on how to build and develop that belief. A lot of what I share on my YouTube channel can help you with that, but number one is feed your mind. Feed your mind with stories of people that are successful. When you see other people that went from failure to success, that shows you in your mind that you can do it as well. If they did it, you can do it. Find role models.

Maybe I’m a role model for you, great, but find more. Find other people that failed and then created success, because that will reinforce to you that you can do it, that you’ll be successful. If your entire role models in your life are people that are failures around you that have a negative attitude and they’re all broke and struggling in it, that doesn’t give you any hope. That doesn’t give you any belief that you’re going to be successful as well. So, you’ve got to change that.

You’ve got to find people that are more successful than you and feed your mind and surround yourself with them. Read books, or invest in training, or maybe from my YouTube, whatever it is. Learn from people more successful than you. I try to interview people and share them here on my YouTube channel, hoping that you guys get that.

You could see other people that have done it, other people that are successful. That’s showing you the way of success, that you can do it as well. Anybody can do it. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you live in the world, what your circumstances are. I’ve never encountered a type of person that doesn’t have the potential for success, but you have to believe in yourself. All right?

I believe in you without a doubt and I might not even know you. I probably don’t even know you, but I still believe in you. Because I know that if you’re here watching this video right now, you have the potential to change your life.

If you’re someone that subscribes to me, follows me in some way, you have that courage. You have that faith. Because to follow me, to invest in my training, to invest in one of my courses takes courage, takes faith, takes trust. Maybe it might not be consistent for you, that belief, but I know it’s there. You got to cultivate it. One of the best ways to cultivate it, that you guys know I’m huge on, is a morning ritual.

Taking that time every day, you’ve got to condition your mindset, your belief system, every single morning, to prepare you for the day. You’ve got to start the day with that belief. If you don’t have it, you’ve got to work on that every day. Affirmations, incantations, reading books, doing everything that’s necessary, that prepares you, that gives you the confidence and determination to put yourself in that state of doing what’s required to build your business every day.

It starts with a morning ritual, guys. Again, if you guys want my training program, what I’ve created on creating a morning ritual, then check outmorningritualmastery.com. It’s helped thousands of people now. I’m very proud of that program and it will share with you how you can make that shift in your psychology, your mindset, your belief system to be more productive, to achieve more success in your life.

Create a morning ritual, that’s one of the best ways that I know of that I did for myself since I was 17 years old to condition myself, to make who I am today. Because everything that I am today, everything I’ve created, I created years ago through repetitively doing my morning ritual every single day to condition myself to be who I am today and who I’m going to be in the future. All right, so believe in yourself and the process.

2. LACK OF PATIENCE

Number two reason why a lot of people fail is they don’t have any patience. They focus on the short-term, not the long-term. Listen, if you want to build anything that’s meaningful, anything that is a success in your life, whether it’s a business or anything, it takes time. It’s not going to happen overnight. You have to be patient, you have to trust the process.

I don’t know anybody that just invests in a training or starts a business and then all of a sudden, just like that, they’re a success. Doesn’t happen that way. Most people fail, most people go through setbacks and adversity along the way, but because they’re focused on the long-term, they’re patient. They’re willing to get through those adversities and get through those little speed bumps because they’re focused on the horizon.

You’ve got to focus on the horizon, you’ve got to have a vision for what you want. Then, work hard and be patient along the way, but the problem is there are a lot of people looking to get rich quick. They’re looking for a loophole, a gimmick, they want to press a button and make all this money. That’s a surefire way to fail in business. You might make a little bit of money here and there, but it’s not going to last, it’s not going to be sustainable.

You have to give up the short-term thinking. Focus on the long-term, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Focus on not what you’re going to get a month from now or three months from now, or six months from now, but a year from now, five, ten years from now. That’s how far you have to think. You’ve got to prepare and take action today, knowing that what you’re doing is going to benefit you five years from now to create the life that you want. So focus on the long-term guys, have patience. Don’t make that mistake.

3. THEY’RE NOT WILLING TO DO THE WORK

Number three, people fail because they’re not willing to do the work. They’re not willing to fully commit themselves and put in the work that’s required to create the success that they want. Success is not easy, guys. It’s a lonely road. There’s a lot of work. That’s why a lot of people don’t achieve success is that they’re just not willing to do the work.

You have to want it so bad, that doing the work it is just something that you understand, that you’re willing to do, because what you want is so important for you. I mean, if you guys had any idea how much I work every day and how much I’ve worked throughout the years. Most people wouldn’t even be able to relate or fathom the amount of work that I’ve put into my business and myself.

If you guys follow me on Snapchat, which I recommend that you guys do. There will be a link in the description, but my username is stefanjames1. You guys will see every single day, it’s a Sunday, it’s a Saturday, I don’t care what day of the week it is, I’m working my ass off to build my business. I’m in a position where I don’t need to be working as much. I’ve already made millions of dollars online.

I’ve already created a lot of success and I’m living the life that I want, but I want to create more. I want to make more of an impact. I want to make more of a difference. I want to grow and become more. I love the process of it. I’m focused on my goals, my vision, five, ten years from now. I’ve never lost that hunger. You’ve got to have that hunger if you want to have success and you have to be willing to hustle and grind and do things that most people are not willing to do.

If you want to have in your life, what very few people get a chance to have and experience, you’ve got to work your ass off. I can’t tell you how many days and nights that I’ve worked, from morning till midnight, beyond midnight. I remember one time I was in Bogota in Columbia, struggling back in 2012. I was, at the time, just building Project Life Mastery. I remember one time, I stayed up two days straight. Did not sleep, two days straight.

I was renting this little place. I didn’t go out at all, I hardly left, except I went to the store to buy a loaf of bread and like sandwich meats and mustard. That’s all I ate for like a week. I just had bottles of water. I just couldn’t even, I didn’t even want to spend any time to grocery shop or even think about food because I wanted all of my focus, energy, and attention going towards building my business.

I was operating from a place of desperation. People are driven by desperation or inspiration. Often times, desperation is a much more powerful motivator, but that’s what it was for me. So, working hard guys, that goes without being said, but you can’t be lazy. I see people, they just don’t have the work ethic. They’re lazy. They’d much rather watch TV and play video games than spend that time to grow a business or achieve their goals.

They’re not going to achieve anything being a lazy person. You’ve got to overcome procrastination. You’ve got to change your habits. You’ve got to change and develop discipline in your life. I can’t go into all the how-to’s of everything but, guys, check out my YouTube channel, my blog, my podcast. I’ve got videos on all this stuff that can help you guys make these changes, but that’s another common reason why a lot of people fail and don’t have success. All right, so look at yourself.

Write this down, guys, Hopefully, you guys are writing this down. Is this where I’m coming up short? Do I have the work ethic? Am I doing whatever it takes? Am I working hard? My habits that are holding me back, am I procrastinating? Am I focused on the short-term too much? Am I focused on the long-term? I don’t have any patience. Is that what’s holding me back?

Is it the belief? Is it the confidence? All right, I want you guys to really think about it. That’s how you’re going to make that change. It’s not just by listening to me, but actually asking yourself these questions. Look at yourself in the mirror, that’s how you’re going to make that change.

4. THEY TRY TO DO THINGS ON THEIR OWN

Next reason why people fail. This is a big one. They try to do things on their own. Man, trying to do things on your own is just stupid. It’s just stupid. If you’re someone that’s watching this, I warned you that I might offend you. If you’re trying to do things on your own, you’re an idiot. Trust me, I’m not pointing the finger because I’ve been stupid before too. I’ve been an idiot before myself.

I remember I spent years trying to just learn how to build a business from looking at message boards, forums, Google and stuff. Trying to put together these pieces of these unverified sources of people that were out there on the Internet, sharing different articles and stuff. Trying to put everything together, and as a result, I’m spending all this time and making so many mistakes along the way.

I was so stupid that I didn’t realize that I should have found a training program, a product, a course and invest 100 bucks or less, whatever it cost. Even if it’s 1,000 bucks, whatever, invest that money to invest in something that could help me, that has the structure, the step by step, that can guide me a long the way to make it a seamless process to get to where I want to go. That didn’t occur to me at the time.

It took me a long time before I realized that, because I was too stuck in the mentality of, “Oh I can just figure it out on my own”.  I had too much ego. I was closed off. I was too proud to invest. I was just trying to be a know-it-all. I was afraid to invest the money or do what was necessary to get to where I wanted to go. It was just stupid for me to think that way.

Eventually I realized, I’m going to spend years trying to do it this way and the time that I’m spending is much more valuable than the 100 bucks or even 1,000 bucks that I can spend, because that 100 bucks or that 1,000 bucks I can earn that just working a few weekends doing car washes and working at a temp agency or getting some extra work doing construction.

I can earn that money in a much shorter period of time and use that money to invest in a training that can get me there a lot faster and save me the time, save me the money, the stress, the failure, the mistakes that I would make along the way.

It blows my mind, how many people don’t think that way. They’d much rather spend so many hours of their life and time. They don’t realize how valuable their time is, instead of just investing in something that will get them there much faster. That’s how I think now. If I want to get anything in my life, I think about where’s the training, the product, the resources, the people that I can learn from, that can show me the way. I’m not going to reinvent the wheel. I’m going to learn from other people and model them and get there much faster.

That’s another huge mistake that I see people make time and time again, I can’t tell you how many people, they eventually invest in my product or coaching or whatever it is. They always say I wish that I got this from the start because now they’ve made so many mistakes and they realize how many mistakes they made. They have to go back and I have to work with them to fix all those mistakes that they made, all those bad habits that they made and all those screw ups they made in their business.

When they could have just gotten the training from the start, from the beginning and created the success that they wanted, and much faster. That’s been a core thing that has helped me be successful in my life today is I learn from other people. I don’t have any ego. I will learn from anyone who is more successful than myself. Even people that know things that I don’t know, I’m obsessed with learning from them. I’m not afraid to invest the time, the money, whatever it takes, even if I didn’t have money, I still did this.

Back when I was broke and struggling I realized that I needed to invest in training, because what I was doing wasn’t working and if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve always gotten. Things have to change, and you can’t do the exact same thing, expecting a totally different result. It doesn’t work.

5. THEY HAVE CRAZY, UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

Another reason why a lot of people fail is they have crazy, unrealistic expectations. This kind of goes back to #2 that I mentioned, and #3 is lacking patience. People get caught up in this short-term thinking mentality, the get rich quick mentality. As a result of that, they think that “I’m just going to start this business, or whatever, and I’m going to make millions of dollars. I’m going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

If it was that easy, then everybody would be rich and successful. It’s not that easy, guys. Often times, I’ve done videos on this, what I recommend for people is your first goal is always to make $1, $1 online. That’s it. If you can make that $1 it gives you confidence. It verifies for you that this works. It’s supposed to give you that belief in the process and in yourself. If you can make a dollar, you realize, oh my god, I can make $10, I can make $100. You start to see the vision of what’s possible.

Understanding that you’ve got to have realistic expectations if you’re brand new, if you’re a newbie to something, you can’t expect to get the results of somebody that’s more experienced than you. Someone that’s maybe already been building businesses or already has a background or has more experience with computers or technology. They’ve already been through different businesses before, or different training before. You can’t compare yourself to other people.

What’s most important is you’ve got to have realistic goals for yourself. So make it $1, then after that, maybe $100. At the beginning, you’re not going to have these amazing results, but you work away at it, the real results are long-term. They’re six months, a year, five years from now. That’s when you’re going to be able to create the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the millions of dollars that you want to create in your business. All right, so make sure that your expectations are realistic.

There’s no program, there’s no business that you just invest in, you don’t have to do any work and you’re going to make all this money – it doesn’t work that way. It takes a lot of work, it takes time, patience, everything that I’m sharing with you guys.

6. THEY’RE AFRAID TO INVEST MONEY

Another reason, I’m going to try to move through these a little bit for you guys. Another reason is, they’re afraid to invest money. Listen, to build a successful business, you’ve got to invest money. I can’t tell you how many people, that are afraid to invest a little money here and there in building a business. You need to invest in technology. You need to invest in maybe a graphics designer and a product.

People are looking to cut corners, they’re afraid to invest here and there. They’re trying to save $10 here and there, it’s just crazy to me. Often times, I’m working with people publishing Kindle books and stuff, and they complain about a service that costs an extra $10. I’m like, “Dude, what are you talking about, man? It’s an extra $10, you’re going to get a better product and you’re too focused on saving money and you’re not focused on making the best product that you can have, that can help people.”

They’re getting a cover for their work done, or something like that, a graphic. They’re going to go with the cheaper option of $5 or $10 rather than spending the extra the $5 or $10 to get a much better quality cover and product. That’s going to make the difference in your success.

I mean, it just drives me insane when I see this. I don’t know what to say. You have to spend money in your business to grow it. You have to invest money. When you make money you have to invest it as well. Any business you want to start requires an upfront amount of money and capital that you invest. You’re always going to be running at a deficit at the beginning. Show me a business that doesn’t operate that way.

You want to start a restaurant. Okay, great, you know you need $50,000, $100,000 to start that restaurant. Maybe you’ve got to take a loan from the bank or whatever. You have to put money aside and save up and do that. You’re going to make money from it and you’re going to have to pay off that deficit that you’re operating at.

That’s what’s required to start a business. You’re going to have to invest money to create a product, to create a book, to create whatever. You’re going to have to invest a little bit to market it and the tools, the resources that you need to help support you to grow your business. At the beginning, you’re going to be operating at a loss. That’s just how it is. I mean if you don’t understand that, then don’t be in business. Business is not for you if you’re not willing to invest some money in starting your business.

It blows my mind, how people are just, they don’t realize you’ve got to invest money, not just in the training, but you’ve got to invest money. If you want to build a website, you need a domain name, you need hosting. You’re going to need a logo, you’re going to need some graphics, you’re going to need some things. If you want to start an Amazon business, you’re going to need to invest in some inventory.

You’re going to need to get a logo and labels done. You’re going to have to ship the product. It’s going to cost you some money before you start making some money. You want to build a publishing business, you’re going to have to order the book and get a book written. You’re going to have to get the graphics. You have to spend some money to market it. You might have to hire an employee, someone that can help you build your business.

These are all things that prevent people from success, is they don’t realize these sort of things. If you don’t have money, then go out there and make money. I don’t know what you’re doing with your day and your life, but there are seven days a week. You can get jobs out there. There are many opportunities. There are 24 hours in a day. You can work eight hours a day, you can spend your weekends. You can work construction.

You can work at a temp agency. You can be resourceful. You can do some extra work on the side or whatever to make some extra money that you can invest in your business. Sometimes that’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to work hard and make some of the capital from your job and what not, then use that money to help your business grow and support it. That’s another reason why people fail, and again, look at yourself. Is that you? Are you one of those people that are held back by money or one of these reasons?

7. THEY TRY TO CUT CORNERS AND FIND LOOPHOLES

Next reason, they try to cut corners and find loopholes. Again, that may make you some short-term money. It’s not going to last. Look at the long-term sustainable strategies, not the short-term loopholes. People are always obsessed with that. They’re looking to get rich quick, again, they’re focusing on the short-term.

For me, there’s a lot of short-term loopholes in my business. There are short-term loopholes I can use to rank my YouTube videos, to attract more people in the search engines, to make more money, but I ignore those. I said, I’m not going to do those things because I’m focused on the long-term sustainable strategies.

I don’t want to cheat the system for the next six months and make some money and then have that go away. That money that I was depending upon or risk my accounts in some way or my reputation. I’m not willing to do that. So don’t look for the short-term shortcuts and the loopholes and the gimmicks. Focus on the long-term solutions to strategies.

That’s a really important one. I’m not going to go too much deeper into it. I’ve shared some other videos on that before, but again, it comes down to focusing on the long-term.

8. THEY LEARN FROM THE WRONG PEOPLE

Next is people learn from the wrong people.  I see this time and time again as well. A lot of people that I work with, they invest in my training and I’m trying to help them create success. They’re learning from someone that’s done it, that’s created a lot of success. I’ve built many different businesses, success in different businesses, I’ve made millions of dollars now online.

Then they start learning from other people that I mean, have made a couple hundred bucks, a couple thousand bucks, they start listening to them. I’m like, “Dude, what are you doing? You’re trying to learn from someone that’s making a little bit of money, and you’re going away trying to do all these different things that are not from the right person that you should be learning from”.

I think a lot of people, again, it comes down to a lot of things I’ve already shared. People looking for short-term results, not having patience and what not. So they start to get frustrated and they start to look for other answers. They start to look for other people that can short cut them the process and get them there a lot faster. They end up going down this totally wrong path.

I can’t tell you how many people that I’ve worked with that hire me for coaching or other people that I’ve worked with as well. They’ve gone to my training, they’re doing it, but then they start doing all these other things. I’m like, “Dude, what are you doing here? Where did you learn this stuff from?” They’re like, “Oh, I learned from this guy. Here who’s making $500 a month and I want to try and learn from this guy.”

I’m like, “Dude, I made, I built a six-figure publishing business and I’ve made millions of dollars online from my businesses and you’re learning from this guy who’s making $500 or $1,000 a month? You’re doing something that’s totally different?”

Again, that comes down to not trusting the process. Learn from the right people. Learn from people that have created the success that have the results and the business and that have the reputation, they have the success stories of people that they’ve worked with. Learn from those people, not from the people out there on the Internet. The keyboard jockeys that know all the theory, but they’ve never actually built a business before. You want to avoid those people.

9. THEY DON’T LISTEN TO ADVICE FROM SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE

Another reason is, they don’t listen to advice from successful people. This is where people have an ego, they’re close-minded, they’re too proud, they think they know it all. I’ve encountered people like this. They’re the keyboard jockey guys that know all the theory and they’ve done all the research, but they’re not doing it. They have a closed mind and they think they know it all and that their way is the right way.

That is another important reason that people fail. I’ve worked with people, coached them, and I’m trying to help them but they’re arguing with everything I might tell them. You can’t help someone like that if they don’t have an open mind, if they don’t trust you, if they don’t trust the process. So if you’re going to learn from someone that’s more successful, listen to them, listen to what they say.

They have the experience, they’ve been doing it for years. They’ve created the results, not just with themselves but countless other people.

I see this time and time again with people, even when they invest in my training.  I have certain things that I say, “Okay, do this, do this, do this, do that”. I guide them step-by-step how to do things and how to grow their business. I’m blown away by how many people that don’t even listen to it. I recommend, “Okay, you’re going to need this to grow your business”, and then they go out there and they get this.

Or, they just end up doing totally different things, the opposite things of what I’m trying to teach them. You can’t have success if you don’t trust the process and the training and actually, listen to your coach or the mentor or the role model that you’ve invested in.

If you’re going to invest in something, if you’re going to learn from people that are successful, listen to them. Do what they say. There’s a lot of things that I share with you guys on my YouTube channel and my blog, and things that I can help you with. If you guys just did what I share with you guys, you’ll be able to have success.

You’ll be able to create it, but most people aren’t willing to do it. I remember one thing for me, I struggled with, for a period of my life. I remember learning from successful people, you’ve got to give away a certain percentage of your income to charities and organizations. You’ve got to give back.

For me, I was like, “I’m not going to do that.” Because I didn’t have the money, I was in a scarcity mentality. They said, “That’s why you have to give because the scarcity, the fear that you have right now in your life is preventing you from attracting and making more money”. So I looked at myself, I decided, “You know what, they’re right, if I’m listening to these mentors, these role models I’m learning from and I’m not doing what they say, which is to give away 10% or a certain percentage of my income to charities, then I’m not even listening to what they’re saying, what they’re trying to teach me. They have the success. They have the proven track record.

I can’t think that I know it all and let all these things, my ego, get in the way because I just got to trust this person who I’m trying to learn from. They have the best intentions for me. If I listened to them, I’ll create the success.

I started doing it. I started giving away 10% of what I make supporting charities, organizations, giving to homeless, giving to my church. Sure enough, what I found is that it got me out of that scarcity, that fear-based mentality, opened me up to new opportunities and making more money, It really changed my life. So that’s just an example, but you’ve got to be willing to listen to what people, especially that are more successful than you, what they’re trying to teach you. Just do what they teach, it’s really as simple as that.

Another reason that I have here, my battery or my memory card is going to die in about four minutes. So I’m going to have to clear it. Maybe I’m going to have to do a part two or pause the video for a second here.

10. THEY DON’T FOCUS ON ONE THING

The next one that I have here is people don’t focus on one thing, they easily get distracted by what I call the “shiny objects syndrome”. So there are so many opportunities out there to build a business, to make money online. Often people get distracted, they’re doing one thing, they’re building their business and there’s this other opportunity and they totally get sidetracked. They jump from one business to the other. Again, this comes down to people not seeing results fast enough.

They’re focused on the short-term. They’re not having patience and focus on the long-term, but you have to focus. I tell people when you sign up for my course, my training, unsubscribe from everybody else because that’s only going to distract you. It’s only going to do you a disservice. You don’t need to be on 100 people email lists because they’re going to market and promote the different opportunities. There are always going to be things that come up.

You’ve got to focus on what you’re doing and say no to everything else. You’ve got to learn to say no and focus. Say, “I’m doing this”. I get opportunities all the time, every day. They’re sharing this business opportunity. They want to partner with me, They want to do this or that. I’ve got to ignore all that because I’ve got my goals. This is what I’ve committed to.

It’s there on my blog. It’s there on my YouTube channel. That’s what I’m committed to this year. Anything that’s not in alignment with that, I’m saying no to. Maybe next year, when I set my goals again next year, but for now, this is what my focus is on and I’m not going to be distracted by any other shiny objects out there. So don’t fall into that trap.

11. THEY CAN’T DEAL WITH FAILURE AND ADVERSITY

Another reason why a lot of people fail is they can’t deal with failure and adversity. Now listen, show me a person out there that’s massively successful that hasn’t failed. Doesn’t exist. Everybody that’s successful today has gone through failure. They’ve gone through challenges, adversities, set backs. Part of the process, you’ve got to realize that.

A lot of people, it might be their first time starting a business. You’ve never encountered failure, because when you have a job, there’s no failure when you have a job. You have that security. You just show up, eight hours a day. You get paid for your time. Doesn’t matter what you’re doing. You’re not getting paid on the results, you’re getting paid for your time and the hours that you’re putting in.

So when you have a business, you don’t get paid for your time. You get paid based on results that you produce. The only way that you learn is through failure. It’s by making mistakes, having setbacks, going through adversity. A lot of people don’t have what it takes because they’re so sensitive, they take failure personally. They can’t deal with it when it comes up. They create a negative meaning and association to failure and they end up giving up as a result of that.

Listen, you have to have a core belief and understand that failure is expected. It’s part of the process, but failure’s a good thing. Failure is feedback. Failure is an opportunity for you to learn and to grow and help improve your business. I failed thousands of times. I can’t even tell you how many times I failed in my business, but I don’t view them as failures.

That’s the difference between someone who’s successful and someone who fails. The failure lets the failures in their life define them. They get discouraged, they give up because of those failures. The successful person still fails just as much as the failure does. The difference is, he doesn’t view them as failures. He just views them as opportunities to learn and he actually sees them as a good thing, so don’t be afraid to fail.

I see a lot of people who are afraid to try different things. To invest money on this, and maybe it doesn’t work. I’ve invested money on different marketing things, and all that. It doesn’t work, I lose a couple thousand bucks, whatever. That’s okay, that’s how I learn. I invest in training, sometimes I don’t get as much value from it as I expected. That’s okay. I invested in an Instagram training the other day.  It was like a $60 program, I didn’t learn anything from it. I was like, “All right, that’s fine”.  It helped me reinforce what I already knew so there’s still some value in that because it helped me internalize what I already knew at a deeper level.

So I still find the good in everything. I don’t believe in failure whatsoever. I think every experience has value in it. You’ve got to find where that value is. So what I’m going to do, I’m going to pause this and continue this because my memory card’s going to die here. We’ll resume this in a few seconds.

12. FEAR OF REJECTION

All right, I’m back. Reason #12, why most people fail, is that they care too much about what other people think of them and they have a fear of rejection. Now listen, in order for you to create success in your life and your business, there’s always going to be people that disagree with you. There’s always going to be people that make fun of you, that are going to doubt you, that are going to be negative and try to hold you back from creating success.

If you think that once you become successful that that’s going to go away, you’re deluding yourself, because the more successful that you become, the more people will dislike you. There’s a lot of people that will like you, and love you, but also what comes with that is a lot of people that dislike you.

The haters, the people that are going to be negative. They’re going to try to pull you down because they feel insignificant.  If you want to have the tallest building in the city, you can build your own, it takes a lot of hard work, sacrifice, faith and belief, a lot of the things that I’m sharing with you.

Or, you could tear down every other building and then you can have the tallest building in the city. Most people focus on tearing down everyone else’s. So understand, if you’re starting a business, you’re going to have people in your life that aren’t going to believe in you. Maybe it’s your family, maybe it’s your friends.

People are going to make fun of you. I had plenty of that when I started back in 2012 even, back with Project Life Mastery. I shared my YouTube videos and I was enthusiastic and passionate about my goals and all that stuff. A lot of people made fun of me. They didn’t believe in me. They thought what I was doing was stupid or silly.

They just thought it was ridiculous for me to put myself up there on YouTube and do what I was doing. They didn’t believe I could make any money from a blog. They didn’t believe that YouTube was a viable career or this Internet thing, right? A lot of people in your family, they might think, you’ve got to go to school, you’ve got to get an education, you’ve got to get a 9-5 and all that sort of stuff.

If you buy into that, you’re going to have to settle for a similar life as them. You have to ask yourself, “Do they have the life that I want”? That’s where it comes down to the belief in yourself again and having that faith. You have to believe in yourself and the process. You can’t let other people, what they think, their opinion, hold you back or stop you.

Like I said, there’s going to be plenty of that along the way. When you become more successful, you’re going to have to deal with a lot more of it. Trust me. A lot of people out there, that don’t know me, but there’s always some negative opinions about me or assumptions or accusations or whatever it is, of people who really don’t know who I am or what I’m about. That’s totally fine.

I don’t focus on that, you can’t focus on and care about what other people think and let them define you. You have to have confidence and decide for yourself. I decide I dictate who I am, nobody else. I know who I am. I can look in the mirror and I feel proud of myself. The shadow that follows me, I’m happy with that shadow, because it’s never going to escape me for the rest of my life.

As long as you know in your heart of hearts, that you’re doing the right thing, that you’re building something. You have your vision, you believe in it, that you’re not willing to give up, and you don’t care what people think. You’ll be successful. Again that takes courage, I’m not going to lie. It’s not easy. If you can have that courage, you’ll be able to, again, create the life that very few people get a chance to create. Then, when you have success, there will be people that hate you, while a lot of people will love you.

A lot of people are going to say, “Hey I want to learn from you and find out what you’re doing.” That’s what happened to me when I started having a lot of success with the Kindle publishing. All of a sudden, my family, my friends, my cousins, all of them wanted to know what I was doing. I started teaching my sister, I taught my brother, I taught my cousins, I taught friends of mine as well.

They went on to have success also. It’s kind of funny how that is. At first, they doubt you, but eventually when you have the proof, it really changes how people perceive you, which is a pretty interesting thing. You can’t have that fear of what other people think. You’ve got to believe in yourself and the process.

13. THEY HAVE LIMITING BELIEFS OR NEGATIVE MINDSET AND ATTITUDE

Another reason why a lot of people fail, is they have limiting beliefs or a negative mindset and attitude. Very important. This kind of goes back to what I already shared. Low self-esteem, a negative attitude, I see people like this. They’re just negative about everything. If you’re always looking for what’s wrong, you’re going to find it. You’re going to find what you look for. You look for what’s good, you’re going to find the good.

In every situation, there’s good and there’s bad, it’s all how you interpret it and the meaning that you create. This goes without being said, you just can’t have a negative attitude about things. You have to be positive, positive in your process and your business, in the journey.

You’re going to work on yourself and work on that attitude and mindset. Again, part of that comes down to the morning ritual. I’ve encountered customers and people that just have a horrible attitude and often times, those are people that I don’t want to work with. I really don’t want to help those people. I’ll say to them, “Listen, you’ve got to work on your attitude, you’ve got to work on your mindset. You’ve got to be more positive”.

Here are some free videos that I have here on YouTube, my blog. Go through those. Right now, you’re not ready. You’re not ready to build a business. You’re not ready for my course, my training.” I’ll actually refund them and kick them out of my program because I don’t want negative people. I don’t want to deal with those customers. I’ve got a Facebook group, communities that I manage. I don’t want negative people in that. I have no tolerance for that whatsoever.

I found for myself, if people have that attitude, they need to work on their attitude first, their mindset before they’re ready to build a business. If that’s you, your attitude, your mindset is negative, then I recommend you read some books, that you start to feed your mind with some more positivity. Work on that part of yourself, because you’re going to need it to be successful.

Another reason why a lot of people fail, going back to that, limiting beliefs was part of that. You’ve got to identify the beliefs that are stopping you. A lot of the beliefs that you have are self-sabotaging your success. If you have a belief that you want to be successful, but you have another belief that says that you don’t want to put in any work or you want short-term results.

That’s what’s called an “inner conflict”. One belief is positive and one’s negative. They counteract each other and they’re going to pull you in two different directions. So you’ve got to really identify your limited beliefs and address them. Again, morning rituals are one of the best ways to do that.

14. THEY’RE NOT COMMITTED TO LEARNING A CONSTANT, NEVER-ENDING IMPROVEMENT

Number 14, I think I’m at right now. This is a big one as well. A lot of people fail because they’re not committed to learning constant, never-ending improvement. If you want to be successful, you have to learn. You have to keep working on yourself. The more that you learn, the more that you earn. So you have to continue learning, you can’t just learn and do something one time and expect to have all this success afterwards.

A lot of people even invest and start their business, they invest in training but they don’t keep investing in training. That’s part of the process, because whatever training you learn, understand that it’s only going to get you to a certain point. As Einstein said, “The level of thinking that’s gotten you to where you are right now is not the same level of thinking that’s going to get you to where you want to go. It requires a different level of thinking”.

You always have to be looking at how you can improve things and become better. How you can improve yourself, how you can learn more about your business or industry. Learn the latest of what’s working, how you can improve your products and always making those better and better. That’s one core thing that’s really helped me get to where I am.

I’m always looking to improve myself. I’m improving my products, everything that I put out and sell, I’m always making it better and improving it. I’m always improving my YouTube videos, my blog, my channel. Everything that I do, I’m improving it.

I’m improving myself. I’m investing in training. I’m investing in coaches. I’m investing in all these things. I don’t have to be because I’ve already created a lot of success, but I still am, because I realize what’s gotten me to where I am is learning, growing, and improving myself. I need to keep doing that to get to where I want to go. I just signed up the other day, one of my goals for this year, is to go to Tony Robbins’ Business Mastery $10,000 seminar. Invest $10,000 for a seminar. People are like, “Why would you do that. That’s a lot of money. Why would you spend that money on a seminar?”

Because what I’m going to learn from that seminar is going to help me make millions of more dollars over the next few years and the rest of my life. I can’t afford to not learn the latest and to learn things that can help me grow and improve my business.

I’m going to be missing out on the money.  If I invest in the training, there’s a lot of money I’ll be missing out on, if I don’t gain the skills and the knowledge that I need to gain right now, early on in my business career. So I’m not afraid to invest in myself. Back when I didn’t have money, I remember I invested to go to Tony Robbins’ Date with Destiny seminar, which is a $5,000 seminar.

I remember I invested in coaches when I didn’t have any money. Thousands of dollars on coaches. That’s what helped me get to where I am today. So I’m going to keep doing it, and I’m going to keep learning, evolving and improving myself. I’m investing in training all the time. I’m going to tons of different seminars and doing different things like that. You always need to be learning, evolving, and improving yourself.

15. THEY FAIL TO ANTICIPATE CHANGES AND ADAPT

Another reason why a lot of people fail is they fail to anticipate changes and adapt. The Internet is always changing. The world is always changing. It’s changing at a much faster pace than ever before. If you don’t anticipate the changes, you’re going to be left behind. You’re going to end up failing. There’s going to be things that are going to happen and if you don’t prepare for them now, and get ready for them, then you’re going to pay the consequences.

So you have to be able to anticipate, see the road ahead. I was able to anticipate changes with Amazon. That’s why I started teaching, changing my strategies and my model because I knew things were coming that were going to change. I wanted to change early so that I could get an advantage over everyone else and it wouldn’t effect me as much.

A lot of people react when changes happen. They’re not anticipating. You’ve got to anticipate and see the road ahead. You always have to be willing to adapt. I’ve always been adapting as changes happen. Facebook changes, I’m changing my Facebook strategy to adapt. There’s a new technology coming out and there’s Snapchat. Okay, I need to adapt, I need to get on Snapchat.

Amazon just released video on demand, or Amazon video direct or whatever. Okay, I’m going to test it out. I’m going to adapt, because who knows what’s going to change with YouTube. Who knows what’s changing with Google. You always have to stay one step ahead and anticipate and adapt. Be flexible. Very important.

16. THEY LACK CREATIVITY OR BASIC INTELLIGENCE

This is a really important one. A lot of people they just look to copy someone else. They just want to follow the formula and not use any creativity or thinking for themselves. You might have some moderate success with that, but in order to be successful, you have to use your creativity. You have to have some basic common sense and intelligence. Often times I get frustrated with people that just follow things exactly.

I have templates and stuff. They want my training. They follow things exactly the same. They’re not realizing there are other people doing the same thing. You’ve got to think outside the box and use your own ideas. Come up and use your own brain and creativity and do things differently than everyone else if you want to be successful.

You learn from people that are successful, but then you also enhance things. You do things better. You’re going to have to have some creativity and intelligence if you want to have success in your life. There’s a lot of people that I see that are just, honestly, they’re just lacking intelligence. I don’t know how to fix that.

I think just learning and improving yourself and a lot of experience can help you, but you’re going to have to have some basic intelligence and improve your creativity if you want to have success. Work hard on yourself, improve yourself and just become a smarter person is all I can really say. Very important, though.

17. THEY DON’T HAVE CLEAR GOALS OR CLEAR OUTCOMES FOR WHAT THEY WANT

Another reason why a lot of people fail, is that they don’t have clear goals or clear outcomes for what they want. You guys know this. I preach this all the time on my blog, my YouTube channel. If you guys still don’t have goals, I don’t know what to say. I mean, if you don’t know what you want, you’re not going to ever get what you want. I remember I put out a YouTube video, I think it was one of my monthly goals reports.  

Someone left a comment. He’s like, “Maybe I should start setting some goals”.  Yeah, I’ve been sharing goals setting for years, How can you not have goals? You’ve got to have goals, guys. I share this with all my products, my Money mastery course, my new course that’s coming out.

First thing, you’ve got to have goals. You’ve got to have realistic, attainable, smart goals. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic. Having a timeline. You’ve got to set goals for yourself. You’ve got to know what you want. Have that clear outcome. If you don’t know what you want, you’re not going to get there. It’s like you get in your car, but you don’t have a destination. You’re just going to drive around in circles. You’ve got to have goals, that’s a big one.

18. THEY DON’T HAVE COMPELLING REASONS FOR WHY THEY WANT THEIR GOALS

Also, # 18, you have to have compelling reasons for why you want your goals. You’ve got to have hunger. You’ve got to be hungry and want it bad. Again, that’s another big part of the 80% of the psychology, is why you want it. 20% is how. You’ve got to have a strong “why”. You have to have strong reasons and you have to have reasons that are your reasons, not anyone else’s.

You can’t be doing it because what your parents want you to do, or your friends or society. They want you to do this or that. That’s not going to drive you, long-term. You’ve got to have reasons that drive you and motivate you to create the success that you want, the life that you want.

For me, every moment that’s created my success is because I have these reasons, I have this hunger, this motivation, this drive that pushes me every day. That wakes me up early, that keeps me up late, focusing and working hard towards creating a life that I want.

Your reasons can be positive or negative. Maybe it’s to create a better life for yourself, to travel the world, to make more money, to be financially free. To be able to take care of your family, your friends, or to give and make a difference. Or, it could be more pain-related reasons, to avoid pain.

Like, you’re tired of settling in your life, you’re tired of being broke and struggling and working at a job that doesn’t fulfill you, building someone else’s dream and not fulfilling your own dream, your own mission in your life. You’re tired of being a slave to someone else.

Whatever those reasons are, you’ve got to identify what they are and associate with them. Then, have them drive you and pull you towards where you want to go. If you just have a reason to make a little bit more money, you’re not going to be driven. You’re not going to be motivated enough. It’s too tough of a battle. The war’s too tough. You’re not going to survive. So, you’ve got to have reasons that really drive you, that are really emotional for you, and will keep you going over the long-term.

19. THEY DON’T SURROUND THEMSELVES WITH LIKE-MINDED SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE

Another reason why people fail, #19, is that they don’t surround themselves with like-minded successful people. I’ve already mentioned this one a little bit, but who you spend time with is who you become. I remember reading a study or a stat, that the income that you make right now is similar, or like 10 to 20% off of the five closest people that you surround yourself with.

If you currently make 50,000 a year, then my guess is the five closest people that you spend time with also make around 50%, maybe $50,000, $60,000, $70,000. Maybe 10-20% less or more of the amount that you make. If you want to get ahead, it’s not going to serve you being around people that are making the same amount of money as you. You’ve got to be around people that are more successful than you are.

You’ve got to surround yourself, at least with people that are like-minded. People on the same path, the same journey that are just as committed as you are. That’s why I created communities, Facebook groups for my courses. So that you can interact and meet people, you’re not going at it alone. The friends, the peers you have, they don’t want you to change. It’s the truth, it’s the reality of it, because they’re afraid that if you change, what is it going to mean for them?

They’re going to lose your connection, the love that you guys have together. That’s going to make them feel insignificant or not enough. So they want to be comfortable. Everybody wants to stay in their comfort zone. Part of their comfort zone is having you be just like them, the same way that you already are. So you have to recognize that in a subconscious, unconscious level, your peer group is actually holding you back. Not intentionally. But because it’s human nature.

If you want to have a great body and get in amazing shape, but your friends are all overweight and you are as well, then they don’t have any bad intentions for you, but just being around them, their belief systems and their actions and habits are going to hold you back from creating the body that you want.

You’re going to start to eat healthier and try to go to the gym, but then they’re going to say, “Let’s just go watch TV tonight, or let’s order this. Let’s go to McDonald’s or whatever it is”. That’s going to hold you back, that’s going to influence you in some way. You need to be around people that are more successful than you, that are at least like- minded and positive, on the same path, on the same journey. Surround yourself with that.

20. THEY GIVE UP

The last one, just to wrap this up, because this has been a long video. Thank you, guys, for sticking with me, but all these reasons are very important. Last reason why people fail is they give up. They give up. They quit. If you quit, there’s no chance of success. They just decide that this is too hard. I’m just going to go back to having a job. A job’s much easier. I get short-term money from it. It’s secure. I don’t have to deal with the failure.

I don’t have to deal with the hardships and everything. They settle, but there’s a part of them that’s never fully fulfilled and satisfied, because they know that they’ve given up. They know that there’s a greater life out there that’s possible for them, that’s waiting for them, that they got a glimpse of. It’ll haunt them for the rest of their lives, knowing that. Every time they look in the mirror, they’re always going to wonder, what if?

What if I just went at it? What if I just committed myself? What if I overcame these 20 reasons and I stuck at it long-term and I created that lifestyle? So you can’t give up. Giving up, quitting, can never be an option. It never was for me. One thing that often inspires me is this story of Sylvester Stallone, when he started his path of being an actor.

He was struggling and broke in his life. He wanted to be an actor, that was his mission, that was his dream. Everybody said he should give up. He got turned down at over 1,000 different agent offices in New York. All saying that he looked stupid, he sounded stupid. He just believed in his vision, his dream, and would not give up.

He refused to get a job. He believed if he got a job then he would lose his hunger. He would be seduced back into being comfortable. So he refused to go back to get a job, even though he was so desperate he had to sell his wife’s jewelry and his wife left him after that. He got so desperate that his best friend, his dog, he needed 50 bucks so he went to the liquor store and tried to sell his dog. Eventually, someone bought his dog for like $30.

It was the worst day of his life, but he would not give up. Sure enough, he got the idea for Rocky. He wrote the script. Rocky became this big success. People said an overnight success, but they didn’t see the years of struggle and hard work that he put in, and the rejection and the failure. Everything that he went through. All of a sudden, all this success, fame and money. He got the life that he wanted because he wouldn’t give up. He kept at it. He believed in himself and his vision.

You do that. You have that belief. You have these reasons here. You overcome these reasons here that I shared with you so far. You’re going to be able to create the life that you want. I can’t promise you guys that’ll happen overnight. I don’t believe in that. It takes time. Everybody has their own path to success. Some people are faster than others, it doesn’t matter how long it takes to get there, as long as you finish.

WHAT MATTERS IS THAT YOU FINISH THE RACE

Man, it’s like you start a race a marathon.  It doesn’t matter how long it takes. Other people are faster, other people have been training longer and are more experienced. What matters is that you finish the race. You make it to the other side. You don’t just give up and throw in the towel, wondering “what if”, later. One of my favorite quotes from Jim Rohn is that “discipline weighs ounces, regret weighs tons”. You don’t want to have regret.

So, that’s it for the 20 reasons, guys. I want to thank you for sticking with me for this, I want you guys to look at yourself, ask yourself, be honest with yourself, “Where am I coming up short? What’s holding me back? What do I need to do to overcome it and commit even more to your success than you ever have before?”

Five Reasons 8 Out Of 10 Businesses Fail:

According to Bloomberg, 8 out of 10 entrepreneurs who start businesses fail within the first 18 months. A whopping 80% crash and burn.

But why? What can we learn from the colossal amount of failure with small business that we can apply to our own business aspirations?

In my 30 plus years as a serial (yes – hate that word too) entrepreneur, and through my exposure to thousands of entrepreneurs via my company Mighty Wise Media, I have seen plenty.

And yes, at surface level the primary reason businesses fail is they simply run out of cash.

But trust me — the cracks in the foundation start well before the brutal day of financial collapse.

Thus I give you 5 reasons for failure and more importantly, what you can do to avoid it happening to you:

Reason #1: Not really in touch with customers through deep dialogue.

An amazing thing happens when an entrepreneur sees a potential opportunity in the market, or dreams up a new idea for a product/service: they retreat to a cave.

In my experience, this is the worst move an entrepreneur can make because complete understanding of your customer is imperative to your success. Listen — in my mind entrepreneurs must walk 1,000 miles in the shoes of their customers. Not 10. Not 100. One thousand.

Your customer holds the key to your success deep in their pain, behavior, dreams, values and the jobs they are trying to accomplish.

Your Solution: In 1999, four smart guys wrote a book called ‘The Cluetrain Manifesto’. Although the book is a tough read in my opinion, there is one silver bullet piece of wisdom shouting from the pages.

Markets are conversations.

Dialogue is key. And 140 character tweets don’t count. Real dialogue with real customers (via whatever channel is best for them).

Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom, co-authors of the book ‘Nail It, Then Scale It’, said it best:

Which would you rather do — talk to customers now and find out you were wrong or talk to customers a year and thousands of dollars down the road and still find out you were wrong?”

Reason #2: No real differentiation in the market (read: lack of unique value propositions)

Entrepreneur.com just put out a story entitled “Why Everyone Will Have To Become An Entrepreneur”. If this holds true (and I think it will), instead of your competition being 5,000 other Tom, Dick and Harrys, it will soon be 50,000 of these guys.

Meaning? Plenty of noise and chaos for those without uniqueness fighting for the bottom scraps. Most times this is a slow killer of businesses. Barely hanging on, entrepreneurs with some customers and some revenue skimp along for months or even years. Every painful inch wondering to themselves if this is all there really is.

Your Solution: First, agree with me right now this is a core element which must be addressed. Entrepreneurs who take this lightly end up in trouble. Grab a tool like Alex Osterwalder’s ‘Value Proposition Canvas’, stick it on your wall and work it. Dig in. Figure out the true value you bring to the table which is unique and different than others in the marketplace.

For example, if you read my stuff you’ll immediately notice I write different than others. It’s not the same. You may or may not like the writing style, but it is unique. It sets me apart from other writers on Forbes and thus, it’s one of my personal UVPs.

Now go uncover yours.

Reason #3: Failure to communicate value propositions in clear, concise and compelling fashion.

Next up is the debilitating disease called ‘failure to communicate’. For those old enough to remember the classic 1967 Paul Newman movie ‘Cool Hand Luke’, seared on the brain is a key line spoken by the prison warden to Newman who plays the maddeningly defiant inmate named Luke. “What we have here is a failure to communicate…”, upon which Newman is shot in the neck and on his way to exsanguination (aka bleeding to death).

Many entrepreneurs work hard to discover a point of differentiation then blow it because they do not communicate their message in a clear, concise and compelling manner. I watch many entrepreneurs bleed to death through their failure to communicate.

Your Solution: It’s pretty simple. Learn how to communicate better. Again, I reference point #1 above. If an entrepreneur is truly engaged in conversation (read: dialogue, not monologue), then you’ll learn the language of your customer. If they speak Russian, then please stop trying to speak French to them. Listen to the words they use and then use them right back at them. Do so through focus on these 3 points:

• Be clear (are your customers unclear about who you are and what value you bring to them?).

• Be concise (are you somewhat clear but go on and on and on in your messaging?).

• Be compelling (do the words you use persuade your customers to take the action you want them to?)

Reason #4: Leadership breakdown at the top (yes — founder dysfunction).

You see it all the time in the media. Right off the deep end goes another athlete with unbelievable talent. Painful to watch the self-sabotage of the likes of a Lance Armstrong, Mike Tyson or Aaron Hernandez, all of which fell short from truly remarkable success because of their poor decisions.

Now startup entrepreneurs who go down hard might not have their names splashed across the headlines of tomorrow’s New York Post, but I submit to you their reason for failure is sometimes the same. Self-sabotage through extremely poor decision making and weak leadership skills.

Your Solution: Wake up to realize it’s your baby. You’re the founder. Which makes you the leader. Matters not if you’re a business of one, or 1,000. Lack the ability to strongly relate with people? Gain the skills necessary to do so. Struggle with anger issues? Solve it with anger management. Entrepreneurs who succeed spend time with personal development. I have never once met an angel or venture capital investor who doesn’t investigate the character of a founder and his/her team before whipping out their checkbook. It still amazes me how many business owners who actually have good ideas with the ability to execute them — crash and burn because of their own dysfunction.

Please don’t be one of them.

Reason #5: Inability to nail a profitable business model with proven revenue streams.

In the end, this is the sum total. Fail to accurately achieve product/market fit where money gets made, and you’re sunk. Entrepreneurs can actually have each of the four above reasons solved, but still miss the business model boat. Twitter is a perfect example of this (although 2013 may be the year they finally turn black in the profit/loss column).

Your Solution: Startups need to move swiftly without spending tons of cash to figure out their secret sauce. Using tools and methodologies such as Minimum Viable Products, Lean Marketing and Experimentation is critical.

A perfect example of this comes from Tony Hsieh’s book ‘Delivering Happiness’, wherein he describes the early days of Zappos. He and his co-founders weren’t even sure back in the late 90’s that people would dare order shoes over the Internet. So they ran a quick test: Up goes a website with shoe images taken from manufacturers’ websites, some buy now buttons and watch to see what happens.

Cha-ching. Order comes through, one of the guys sprints to the local shoe store, buys the requested shoes at full retail, and then scurries home to ship them out. Did they lose money on every pair of shoes shipped? Yes they did. But did they quickly ascertain whether they had a potentially viable business idea? Yes again. All with zero inventory or fulfillment capabilities.

Think and move quickly, ‘fail fast’ if you’re going to fail at all, and nail your business model.

5 Reasons Why Most Internet Marketers Fail:

When it comes to starting any endeavor, whether it be learning a new hobby or starting an online business, we all have to start at ground zero. We all have to start at the very beginning from the very same place. Granted, we each bring different skills and backgrounds into the mix, but for the most part we are all on equal footing at the starting line.

If this is the case, then we really have to ponder why is it only a choice few go on to succeed, while most people don’t. Just what are the reasons why most online marketers fail? This is the core question that has to be answered if you want to fully understand Internet marketing and how it works.

What are these basic reasons?

What are the causes or stumbling blocks that hold many marketers and webmasters from reaching their full online potential? If we know these factors, we can learn how to avoid them and even overcome them in our own online marketing. These reasons can be a solid reference point or even a source of inspiration for any online marketer just starting out.

Speaking from the viewpoint of someone who has started from the very beginning with little to no knowledge of computers or even marketing for that matter, I can honestly relate to the beginning marketer. I even had to learn HTML from scratch in order to construct my own webpages. Probably my only advantage, I did have a background in art but designing webpages was completely different from anything I had done previously to starting in online marketing.

But from my own experiences I have drawn some general conclusions about Internet marketing and why some people succeed while most people fail. So here in my honest opinion, are some of the main reasons why many online marketers fail:

1. Overwhelmed With Information

Perhaps, one of the biggest obstacles I faced when I first started my website – I was bombarded with so much information on how to proceed I didn’t have a clue which direction to take or who to believe. Thousands of different info products telling you to do this, not to do that… so much marketing information to absorb that you end up scratching your head and looking like someone auditioning for a zombie movie.

Completely overwhelmed with so much information, many marketers or webmasters enter a state of paralysis where nothing gets done. You go from one course to another or from one method to another, without any real understanding of how to proceed or how to get a detailed blueprint to follow.

Information overflow can effectively crush all that novice enthusiasm and literally kill even the most eager of entrepreneurs. Anyone starting out must be aware of this obvious but insidious pitfall you have to avoid at all costs. One of the best remedies, simply try concentrating on just one or two marketing plans/marketers for all your information. Try to eliminate the clutter by just working on one marketing system. Just have a few key marketing resources you go to for information, not a hundred! And do your homework, only pick marketers who can back up their claims with observable results on the web. One obvious checkmark – just see if those marketers have top rankings for their sites for popular profitable keywords associated with their sites or products.

1. Lack Of Key Marketing Basics

There are some key marketing basics or fundamentals you must learn about marketing online. Internet marketing has some key elements you must get right or you will have a difficult task in succeeding on the web. Just simple factors you must get right or it’s game over before you even get started.

Most marketers fail to realize the web is “information driven” and you must supply quality information or content in order to truly succeed. You must provide a valuable service or function to your visitors. You must help solve their problem. You must give them a solid reason to use your site or product. Quality content is and always will be King on the web.

You must also understand much of the web is “keyword driven” and you must construct your webpages to take full advantage of these keywords. You must have at least a rudimentary understanding of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and how you can use it to get top rankings for your keyword phrases.

1. Lack Of Time And Resources

Another major reason why many marketers fail is because they simply can’t afford the time to learn and build their online business. Most people just can’t stop everything and work full time online because they have bills to pay and families to support. It may take months, probably years, before you can build up a successful online business that gives you a comfortable living. The average person just doesn’t have the time or the resources to spend months learning how all this works.

Keep in mind, getting a business or website going is probably the most inexpensive way to start your own business. Domains are cheap. Web hosting is cheap. Web design is cheap if you can do it yourself… Compared to starting a business in the “real” world, creating an online business will only cost a faction of the normal expenses connected with starting a business. But the main problem is having the resources to pay your living expenses until your online business is profitable. Many beginning online marketers don’t have these resources and the main complaint from these marketers: “I Simply can’t afford the time to work at this online stuff.”

One solution is to work at your online marketing in your spare time and gradually build up your business until you can afford to do it full time. It will obviously take longer but you can still get to the same end goal.

1. Lack Of Necessary Skills

Actually, you don’t need many skills to succeed online. However, one of the major skills you must have or you must learn is communication. You must learn how to communicate. The web is all about communicating your points to your visitors or viewers so you must acquire good communication skills.

It really helps your marketing if you are a good writer because you can easily get your points across with written text or copy on your site. Writing skills can be learned but many beginning marketers don’t fully understand how important their writing skills will be to their success. You must be able to communicate on your site, in your newsletters, with your customers… might sound a bit obvious but you would be surprised at how many marketers lack this simple, yet necessary skill.

But don’t fret, because once upon a time, the written word was king online – but not any more. Videos are rapidly taking the place of the printed word so anyone with a camera can now be a success online. Of course, you still need good communication skills even using videos, but many marketers have found this is a much easier way to communicate information about their site or product.

1. Lack Of Persistence

For me, one the most significant reasons most online marketers/webmasters fail, is because of a lack of persistence. They simply give up too soon. They try something for a few weeks, even for a few months and then they conclude this is not working and they give up.

Building a solid online business or viable website takes time, a lot of time. Just because your business is online, doesn’t mean everything will fall into place overnight, it takes time to establish a customer base. It takes time to build your business relationships with others in your field.

Sometimes, it may take years before you see some solid returns. It was three years before I saw any significant revenue coming from my online ventures, and another year before I could summon enough courage to do this online marketing full time. If I had given up and not persisted at this web stuff, I would not be writing this article right now.

Building top rankings for your keywords in the search engines (especially Google) can take months, even years before you see any results. The real key is to be persistent and keep at it, day after day, until you get those top rankings. You simply must be persistent or you will fail.

In conclusion, having said all that, you must also realize there are plenty of exceptions to all of the above. There have been countless success stories on the web where someone has come up with a novel idea or product and become successful overnight. The web can offer immediate success for some, but for most of us, it will take some time and hard effort on our part to build a successful online business. Just try to avoid many of the pitfalls or reasons listed above and you will have a better chance of placing yourself in the success column.