One of the key points inside 5 Bucks a Day is the concept of focus.
When I was struggling, I was trying to do it all. I had a business to run. I had emails to answer. I had web sites to develop. I had blogs. I had a desire to purchase every new trick and technique that promised to teach me the “secret” to success. I wanted to write an eBook. I tried pay per click advertising. I tried email marketing. You name it, I was doing it, and therein was the problem.
It wasn’t until I decided to focus on short term goals designed to help me achieve my medium term goals that it all came together. How I did that, and the action steps someone needs to take to properly turn the focus into income is inside the book (even just the cheap Jr. version will teach you that).
When someone focuses, their ability to succeed in whatever they’re focusing on increases immeasurably.
For example, do you think an NFL quarterback practices kicking, tackling, receiving, blocking, and passing skills when he trains? Not likely. He focuses on the passing and play calling skills that he needs to succeed in his position, and ignores all else.
The same deal applies to internet marketers.
For example, you can become very successful if you simply learn how to use Google AdWords to send traffic to affiliate merchants. If you do that, you don’t need to learn how to write sales copy (beyond the short AdWords ad, of course), you don’t need to know how to perform customer service duties, you don’t need to learn how to interface with a customer at all.
For example, you can become very successful if you learn how to write articles, submit them to article directories and social networking sites, and use that free traffic, combined with simple review pages on your own website, to presell affiliate products.
For example, you can become very successful learning how to write sales copy that makes people whip out their wallet and make a purchase. That skill is in high demand.
For example, you can become very successful brainstorming software ideas, and finding others to develop the software programs for you, still others to write the sales copy for you, and still others to perform customer service duties for you.
For example, you could become very successful finding all sorts of neat stuff that you load to a membership site and let your members access for free. You could spend thousands of dollars every month, but if you had a thousand members paying you 10 dollars each, you’d be well ahead of the game. Many internet marketers are doing this at this very moment, there is always room for another one in a niche as yet untapped.
I could go on and on.
If you tried to do all those things, greedily trying to dominate the world, you would fail to do any of them well.
My advice is to pick a path. It doesn’t have to be a lifetime path, it can be simply what you want to do this month. Focus on what it is, and let the desire to become the best at that particular skill, in your chosen niche, burn into the very core of your being.
Say to yourself, for example:
I want to produce the best darn blog on the planet reviewing women’s shoes. Focus on that topic. Focus on finding out everything there is to find out about women’s shoes. Develop a passion for communicating via your blog about everything you find out. If you maintain that focus and that passion for that subject for a sufficient length of time, I have no doubts that you will succeed in that niche. There is absolutely no way that you can fail if you have the intense focus and passion and follow through by making sure you let it shine through on your blog. Plus of course, you have to have a way to monetize your blog, but that’s the easy part.
Now, of course, I’m not suggesting that 500 readers all run off and set up a women’s shoes blog, that’s just an example. Maybe you can get passionate and focus on digital cameras. Maybe you can focus on something else. There are a 100,000 “something else’s”, maybe a million.
Me? For the last year and a half, I’ve focused on eBay. Not selling on eBay, though I do, but my focus and passion has been on their affiliate program, which I honestly feel is the most generous one around for the type of site that it is. I’ve developed skills to put together landing pages that display eBay auction results, mini sites, and Google AdWords campaigns to transform my skills into affiliate profits. I’ve focused.
Not to say I couldn’t tomorrow get bored, let all that go, and start focusing on amazon.com instead. It could happen. I do know that whatever I focus on this week will get done, and most times what gets done will make me money. I also know if I’m trying to do 10 things at once, none of them will get done, or at least done right.
That’s why I’m such a big believer in the power of focus. It’s the primary reason, perhaps the only reason, that my income has grown so rapidly the last 18 months.
In future posts, I’ll talk about how to develop certain skills through the power of focus, but I want you to focus on what I said above. Believe it, decide what you want your focus to be this month, and do it.
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