Today, I was filming a video for my own blog when I came across an interesting quote that literally just rolled off the tip of my tongue, “by accident” so to speak. That quote was “leverage in the form of expectation”. So, what exactly does this mean, and why is it so detrimental to building a business online? Let me cover a few basics of where this quote came from.
In many of the interviews that David Jenyns conducts, one of the key phrases that comes up very frequently is how to gain leverage online. By this, I am talking about how to be one up on your competition. The very thing that continues to make you more valuable to your niche than your competition. This can come in various shapes and forms, in particular it can be a specific method that you use, it could be what propels you to the top of the internet marketing chain, in a nutshell, it is that very edge that you have that your competition doesn’t have.
So, if I were to teach you how to gain leverage in the form of expectation, I would have to go back to the very start of my story, and that was when me and David Jenyns first spent an afternoon just talking about internet marketing and online business on the balcony at Melbourne SEO Services HQ. When I told David my (at the time) confused current state, and he corrected me by basically telling me that I need to focus on one thing, set a target, and work towards that, the thing that really capped that conversation off was when he told me, “Now, I know that you are going to go and do this, because you have my expectation to live up to”.
Now, for those who are accomplished internet marketers, this form of expectation comes in the form of customers who you are constantly needing to please and convert into return customers. However, for those who haven’t quite made it yet, this form of expectation is only ever really acquired in the form of your own expectations, which as we see from the various internet marketing forums on the internet, these kind of expectations are generally over inflated, and contain more a monetary value rather than the value of knowledge.
So, having said that, I will quote someone very close to me who travels the world selling multi-million dollar tractors and equipment. “It is not what you know, but who you know”. This is the very foundation of what I mean when I say that to gain true leverage is to gain it in the form of expectation. Still confused? That’s OK, I am about to get to the crux of this right now…
For the vast majority of Internet Marketers and SEO wannabes, our e-mail inbox contents reflect nothing more than confirmation e-mails for blog directory submissions, and PayPal receipts which act as nothing more but a reflection of us spending but not receiving, but truth be told, the only thing that we need to spend to gain this kind of leverage that I speak of is our time. Send an e-mail to someone who fits the image of what it is that you want to achieve, talk to them about what it is that you want to do, and ask their advice. Maybe even offer them something nice. More than anything, try to make a friend, get to know them, learn from them, and allow them to learn from you. Once you have made those initial steps, then you have what I call “Leverage in the form of expectation”, as you are not just living up to your own over inflated expectations of what you want to achieve online, but you have those expectations as set by someone who has been there, and done that.
Now, I can tell you, it may not be easy to make friends in the right places sometimes, I count myself quite lucky to be in this position, and I am sure that the Ed Dale’s and the Frank Kern’s are probably going to hate me for telling you to simply go out there and contact those who have had some kind of success, so this is where I will say it straight up as it is, and give you some of the best advice you will ever get. Don’t contact those super affiliates who everyone wants to be like. Contact someone who fits the description of the path that you want to take. This person doesn’t have to be super famous (C’mon, I got lucky with Dave!), they simply have to be someone that you can learn from, who could potentially learn from you. Remember that for most internet marketers, a newbie to the IM scene may very well pose a unique opportunity to research their own market, and may even be a potential Joint Venture opportunity around the corner. Start small, then work your way up.
Start by finding out one thing that you want to succeed at doing. Set a goal, for example, you want to earn a thousand dollars in your first month. Split that thousand dollars into segments, and find out how you can earn a hundred dollars here, and three hundred dollars there. Keep in mind that there are various methods of monetization out there, think of a hundred dollars as being two products on Clickbank, and that other 300 dollars as being that website you created and sold on Flippa. Then talk to your mentor, or associated partner about where you can go from here, then live by that expectation, and keep it in the back of your head that when it comes to the end of the month, even if you didn’t quite get there, you can still come back and say “Hey, this is what I did. I didn’t quite get there, but this is what worked and what didn’t.”. And from there, success is guaranteed in any form. Remember, whether or not you succeed initially, or fall flat, you have two ways in which you will succeed. The first is that you would have mastered the internet marketing game, and the second being that you learned what doesn’t work, and know what path to take from there.
To put it simply, those who we can learn from, who are successful or on the right path, aren’t just a pretty face. They are people who want to work with us, want to help us learn, and want to learn from us. This, in its entirety is “Leverage In The Form Of Expectation“.