The condition of having wealth can’t compare to the knowledge and power gained from the process of creating that wealth. It’s not even close.
In sports, top athletes talk about slowing the game down; letting the game come to them. It’s much the same way in business. You have to be aggressive, but you can’t press too hard without making sure you’ve built a strong foundation.
This is a lesson that has come to be with much difficulty. I’ve always been impatient. I always wanted success before I was ready for it. In my early 20’s I started my first web design business. The only problem was…I didn’t really know that much about web site design! I had been a financial analyst up to that point and had begun doing some casual web site design on the side. I really wasn’t that good. But one January, after collecting my year-end bonus from my finance job, I decided it was a good time to quit and start up my own business.
That first venture wasn’t particularly successful. After about a year and a half I was broke and looking for work. But the experience got me out of the financial industry and into the web site design industry, work that I enjoyed much more. Since that time, I have had a number of jobs that all deal with the act of conducting business online in one way or another. Eventually, web site design gave way to ecommerce development, which gave way to search engine optimization and marketing. Through it all, I never really achieved much in the way of material success (not on any kind of grand scale, at least), but I learned a lot. The person I am today, and the skillset I have, is a result of my years working this industry from one end to the other, trying to figure out my place in it.
Today, I am a partner in a company that exists to help businesses be successful marketing their products or services online. I like what I do. I get to apply all the knowledge I’ve acquired over the years directly to helping my clients be successful. It’s interesting work.
For example, we are working with a company that manufactures and sells a very high quality line of socks used by many athletes. The first thing we needed to do was re-work their web site so it could be optimized, and migrate it to a new server. We helped their IT guy do all that, and coded a dynamic landing page that uses a URL rewriting component on the server for friendly URLs. So our work with these guys has been programming-heavy, and we really haven’t even gotten into the marketing side. But it’s all part of the job.
I think a big part of my personal development and path to success has been learning how to be a business man. Early last year (2008), my firm made some nice money on a single client. We got complacent. Rather than continuing to aggressively expand our client base, we rode this one client, content to service it along with our existing client base. Unfortunately, this client was in the financial sector and they ended up basically shutting down. When that happened, it hurt us.
The lesson? If your business is heavily dependent on a single client, then you have got to diversify in the name of survival. Having a strong foundation in this instance means having a wide client base so that you are not hurt too badly by losing any one particular client.
So, learn from my mistakes. Slow down the game. Work hard, but be organized and efficient. If you’re just starting out, get as many clients or customers as you can. Diversify. Concentrate on marketing and sales. If you don’t sell it, you will be out of business quick. It’s not easy building a successful business, but the person you become in the process is a stronger, bigger person than who you are at the beginning.
And of course, if you need help in the area of search engine marketing, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or look us up at www.workmedia.net.