MAKING BEAT SOFTWARE

My girlfriend is just starting out a business and wants to market it online.

And guess who's the lucky guy that gets to help her with the marketing front? That's right, you guessed it, ME!

When we first started out, all she could think about was making a "pretty website". She wanted to learn HTML and all that "flash" jazz so she could make an impressive website.

This is very typical of those just starting out their online marketing venture. After some coaxing and my explaining how much time and effort it would take for her to really learn the skills necessary to make a razzle-dazzle website, she agreed to take a canned template and run with that.

Of course... after we put together the template for her she immediately transitioned her attention to the logo design. She spent a few days tweaking the logo and trying to get it to be "perfect".

Again, I had to do some coaxing before she finally stopped tweaking her logo.

And then there's that darned font selection and how "boring" the Verdana font looks.

It seemed like everywhere we turned there was a distraction of some sort that captured her attention.

Now, you may be asking yourself, what's so bad about creating a nice looking website?

Nothing.

What's so bad about creating a kick-arse logo?

Nothing.

What's wrong with wanting to pick a pretty font?

Nothing really...

That is, nothing except you are focusing your effort on the wrong things!

It's like your house is burning down and you focusing on fixing your A/C... Having a functional A/C is nice and dandy, but only AFTER you put out the fire.

All Too Familiar

This is the same problem that I had when I first got started and I am sure many of you can relate. I would convince myself that what I was focusing was critical and important; however, when I became honest with myself, those things, while useful, really weren't even remotely close on the priority list.

Truth be told, I chose to do them because they were more "fun" than the other things. Or perhaps they were "easier" and flashier. The bottom line is, I found excuses to NOT do the things that had the highest priority (and of the greatest importance).

I ask you this, are you doing the same thing? Are you avoiding doing things that could have a drastic impact on your business in favor of things that have little impact?

If so, you need to familiarize yourself with the MLM Pareto principle, which states that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts and 20% of your results will come from 80% of your effort. What this means is that there are some things you can do that will produce drastic results and there are loads of little things (that take a lot of time) that may produce little results in comparison.

The secret is to always do the things that get you the "best bang for the buck" before you do the others.

What are YOU Doing?

This concept can be applied to your MLM business in just every aspect. When prospecting, are you spending too much time on the tire-kickers and looky-loos? You know who I am talking about, the ones that have 5 gazillion pessimistic questions and negative remarks for you - and you find yourself spending hours on end defending yourself and your business.

Or are you spending time with the movers and shakers who are interested in just "getting it done".

Are you spending all your time reinventing the wheel because the canned software available just isn't "good enough" or are you making do with what's available now and moving on to something more meaningful like creating powerful content?

Stop missing the forest for the trees.

At every step of the way in building your business, always check your priority list and ask yourself if you what you are doing warrants your immediate attention and would produce the most drastic positive result for your business than the other action items on your list.

If so, great, carry on. If not, perhaps you should refocus.

With this in mind, my girlfriend and I were able to focus our efforts. In a matter of a few days, we had a few capture pages up (for split testing), 150 ad groups in AdWords each with 2 or 3 ads for split testing.

And now, I am having her contract out the logo and website design while focusing on reading and creating content for her business. This sure beats banging our heads against the wall figuring out just how much we suck at logo and website design... :)