Business Building – Reflecting on failure
“Be prepared to get punched in the face 150 times a day because that’s what’s about to happen.” – Troy Dean, WP Elevation
On April 1st, 2021 I failed hard. I want to help you benefit from my failure and I want to help you by delivering a completely transparent reflection on my journey.
A bit of background context here. I’ve been working in online business development since 2008. I hit the ground running as an operations manager at Ohio State University’s Urban Arts Space in downtown Columbus, Ohio. At the time, I had no idea what I was growing myself into, but by my first performance review the deputy director declared me as the unofficial “clearing house of information.” If it was published internally or externally, all copy was passed through my desk, and then some. I created training initiatives, public programming, and so much more. I found a home in communications and business infrastructure.
I started working in the wake of the 2007/2008 financial crisis that struck the US after the housing market crash. This forced all of us to get creative in how to raise funds, put butts into seats, sell tickets, and connect with a completely stressed out public. We adapted by learning how to use social media for marketing, refining email campaigns for maximum impact, and creating websites that were more robust and helpful. By 2012 I was reliably using SEO, social media marketing and email marketing campaigns to drive over $50,000 in sales a year. Not shabby eh?
Now, a decade later with a new crisis at hand and an online evolution with it, I’m transitioning away from client projects and toward teaching. I’ve witnessed a significant technology disparity. I think most of us are aware of the income disparity. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting left behind. Technology is no different except, it’s much harder to see just how big the gap is, even (or especially) at localized levels.
Fuck that.
I don’t like weaving expletives into my professional writing, but this observation really demands something beyond professional and polite. It’s simply not possible to “get lucky” online without having some amount of technological savviness and help. Advertisements sell to us that financial freedom is within reach. Just pay $997 for this self paced course which includes a step by step blueprint, strategy, action step model and you too can work only 1 day a week while making a six figure income and all within 90 days…60 days…or can you believe it! Make that money in less than a month!!
Bull.
What these course, marketing, business gurus don’t tell you about are all of the upfront costs, knowledge, and network that you need in place in order to create cycles of sustainable sales. What most of them don’t talk about are the years of failure that it took for them to land on the right model for them. Their model might not work for your business. They might have had thousands of friends and followers before rolling out their first successful program, product, or service. They probably paid for advertising. And there’s more. You need physical hardware to work online and if your computer isn’t fast enough, web cam not clear enough, or if your internet service is consistently disrupted…you’re not going to make it. This is just the short list of many needs to help get an online business off the ground.
Debbie downer? No. I’m a reality check Ronnie.
This isn’t to say it’s impossible. It’s not impossible to work online, have control over your personal schedule, feel supported doing something you love, and be a happy, healthier person in the process. This is 100% possible. I’ve done it. But I didn’t do it in 90 days. I didn’t do it by taking one course. And I failed. A LOT.
But you know what? It was worth it.
There’s nothing like the feeling of exiting the toxic 9a-5p work cycle to do your own thing. That’s what I have to offer. I’ve gone through the peaks and troughs of working online. I know what it feels like to make pretty much all of the mistakes you can possibly make online. And even with over a decade of experience, I still encounter failures along side of my wins.
I’m creating this blog series to show you how I’m recovering from a recent program launch failure. I’m going to be completely transparent on what went right, what went wrong, and how I handled it. I’m going to include how much time was devoted to creating the program launch along with how much time I’m taking now to rebuild it. I’m going to include all of the details on how much money I’ve spend and on what, how much money I’ve received and where I received it from. That’s all the history leading up to this point. Once I get all of that foundational stuff out of the way, I’m going to check in regularly to reveal what I’m doing to “right the ship.” And I’m spending money to do that. It’s not a whole lot of money, but it’s not zero.
So, welcome on this journey with me. Most online business course creators show you how it’s done coming from their unprecedented success in being coaches, course creators, service providers….etc etc. I’m going to do things a little differently. I’m going to show you how it’s done coming up from failure. It took me about 8 months to develop my recent program launch. It’s probably going to take me another 8 months or more to rebuild and relaunch. What happened? Well, stay tuned. That comes next.