From the category archives:

Inspiration

You’ve Gotta Spin Some Plates

by admin on March 7, 2010

This was my all-time best user response email message, reprinted here.  Thought you’d like to see it :-)

==============

IMPORTANT NOTE: There are NO promotional links in this email.  You
can’t buy anything from it, no matter how hard you try.
I just really want you to understand this message.
Here’s the thing, you are NOT going to want to
read what’s in this email.  It’s probably a mistake for me
to broadcast it, because it’s the polar opposite of what
sells to the IM crowd, and I’ll probably drive my numbers way down
this month by sending it.
Worse yet, a lot of people will unsubscribe, because it’s
not even really such a profound or new point.  But it’s
critically important, especially at this time on the
internet, and I’d rather have a list full of people who
accept this message, and let the rest go.
* MAIN POINT:
If you want to succeed online or off, life is the same
as it’s always been … “You’ve got to spin some plates”
I heard this last month while masterminding with a
pretty powerful crew.  (I’m amazed they invited me
… Perry Marshall, Dave Dee, Charlie Martin,
David Bullock, Scott Tucker, were among the crowd)
Every single one of these people knows that entrepreneurs,
… particularly INTERNET entrepreneurs, are caught up
in a fantasy of having computers do all their work for them
while money electronically piles into their account.
While there ARE aspects of internet life which are like this,
the truth is, every successful internet entrepreneur I’ve
ever met (including, and perhaps especially everyone in
that room) was “spinning lots of plates”.
They were doing research, developing products, managing
customer service teams, preparing for seminars, writing
articles, working on business plans, testing markets,
tracking split tests, getting coached, writing autoresponders,
working on salesletters, dealing with merchant accounts,
managing programmers, recruiting employees, running affiliate
programs, managing their PPC accounts, driving traffic
with SEO, social media, blogs, and videos, sourcing
products, recording audios, writing their books, doing
press releases, building a compensation plan for their
company, meeting with vendors, negotiating, getting joint
ventures, dealing with partners, attending to legal issues,
managing telesales teams, teaching live chat operators how
to do their jobs, running coaching groups, developing next
year’s goals, studying spreadsheets, optimizing their
landing pages, learning how to write better copy, and on
and on and on.
Now, it sounds overwhelming, but I have to tell you I found
it incredibly relieving, because up until that point I think
I felt like there was something wrong with me.
Sure, I’ve had a great deal of success.  And while yes, good money
does really flow into my account separate and apart from the
direct hours I work, and I CAN take off anytime I want to for
a day or even a few weeks and come back with more money in
my account, … I’m definitely NOT hanging out in Fiji
getting paid to eat Cheese Doodles, and won’t be any time
soon.
And I’ll bet, unless you’re already making EIGHT figures,
you’re not either.
And you see, there’s nothing wrong with that … unless you
THINK there’s something wrong with it and start panicking,
and continually question and change your focus.
I really don’t mind spinning a lot of plates.
They’re MY plates.
No one assigns them to me.
No one tells me how long I have to spin them for, or which
ones to spin at which time.
No one makes me do an unproductive dance while I spin them.
No one pretends to know what they’re doing and stands
over me taking pot shots while I do all the work.
They’re MINE, and I LOVE them.
So if you find yourself spinning a lot of plates just take
a deep breath and relax.  That’s the way it’s supposed to
be.  The question isn’t why you have so many plates to spin …
the only real question is whether they’re the RIGHT plates.
And here are two things to keep in mind in that regards.
First (I got this from Perry), … to make an internet
business humm you only need ONE way of driving traffic
and ONE way of converting it.  (Mine are PPC + Research).
Once you’ve got a great system in place, you can just
pay other people commissions to do all the rest.
Second, … the internet is a CATALYST to help supercharge
the value you deliver to the market.  The internet is not
your business.  (Got this one from Bryan).
Listen, when we’re 95 years old, maybe we’ll meet in Fiji for
a Cheese Doodle eating fundraiser.  Until then,
I’ll be the guy with the plates in the air.
All my best,
Glenn :-)
Glenn Livingston, Ph.D.
CEO, Psy Tech Inc.

IMPORTANT NOTE: There are NO promotional links in this email.  You

can’t buy anything from it, no matter how hard you try.

I just really want you to understand this message.

Here’s the thing, you are NOT going to want to

read what’s in this email.  It’s probably a mistake for me

to broadcast it, because it’s the polar opposite of what

sells to the IM crowd, and I’ll probably drive my numbers way down

this month by sending it.

Worse yet, a lot of people will unsubscribe, because it’s

not even really such a profound or new point.  But it’s

critically important, especially at this time on the

internet, and I’d rather have a list full of people who

accept this message, and let the rest go.

* MAIN POINT:

If you want to succeed online or off, life is the same

as it’s always been … “You’ve got to spin some plates”

I heard this last month while masterminding with a

pretty powerful crew.  (I’m amazed they invited me)

Every single one of these people knows that entrepreneurs,

… particularly INTERNET entrepreneurs, are caught up

in a fantasy of having computers do all their work for them

while money electronically piles into their account.

While there ARE aspects of internet life which are like this,

the truth is, every successful internet entrepreneur I’ve

ever met (including, and perhaps especially everyone in

that room) was “spinning lots of plates”.

They were doing research, developing products, managing

customer service teams, preparing for seminars, writing

articles, working on business plans, testing markets,

tracking split tests, getting coached, writing autoresponders,

working on salesletters, dealing with merchant accounts,

managing programmers, recruiting employees, running affiliate

programs, managing their PPC accounts, driving traffic

with SEO, social media, blogs, and videos, sourcing

products, recording audios, writing their books, doing

press releases, building a compensation plan for their

company, meeting with vendors, negotiating, getting joint

ventures, dealing with partners, attending to legal issues,

managing telesales teams, teaching live chat operators how

to do their jobs, running coaching groups, developing next

year’s goals, studying spreadsheets, optimizing their

landing pages, learning how to write better copy, and on

and on and on.

Now, it sounds overwhelming, but I have to tell you I found

it incredibly relieving, because up until that point I think

I felt like there was something wrong with me.

Sure, I’ve had a great deal of success.  And while yes, good money

does really flow into my account separate and apart from the

direct hours I work, and I CAN take off anytime I want to for

a day or even a few weeks and come back with more money in

my account, … I’m definitely NOT hanging out in Fiji

getting paid to eat Cheese Doodles, and won’t be any time

soon.

And I’ll bet, unless you’re already making EIGHT figures,

you’re not either.

And you see, there’s nothing wrong with that … unless you

THINK there’s something wrong with it and start panicking,

and continually question and change your focus.

I really don’t mind spinning a lot of plates.

They’re MY plates.

No one assigns them to me.

No one tells me how long I have to spin them for, or which

ones to spin at which time.

No one makes me do an unproductive dance while I spin them.

No one pretends to know what they’re doing and stands

over me taking pot shots while I do all the work.

They’re MINE, and I LOVE them.

So if you find yourself spinning a lot of plates just take

a deep breath and relax.  That’s the way it’s supposed to

be.  The question isn’t why you have so many plates to spin …

the only real question is whether they’re the RIGHT plates.

And here are two things to keep in mind in that regards.

First (I got this from Perry), … to make an internet

business humm you only need ONE way of driving traffic

and ONE way of converting it.  (Mine are PPC + Research).

Once you’ve got a great system in place, you can just

pay other people commissions to do all the rest.

Second, … the internet is a CATALYST to help supercharge

the value you deliver to the market.  The internet is not

your business.  (Got this one from Bryan).

Listen, when we’re 95 years old, maybe we’ll meet in Fiji for

a Cheese Doodle eating fundraiser.  Until then,

I’ll be the guy with the plates in the air.

All my best,

Glenn :-)

{ 2 comments }

I had a VERY strange weekend which proved to me there’s no such thing as certainty in an uncertain world, despite all our spreadsheets, predictive models, and planning   Sometimes you can do all the research and preparation in the world, and then a tiny, unexpected wave comes along masquerading as a Tsunami and knocks you off course.

Here’s the story …

I worked VERY hard last week preparing my presentation for the AdWords seminar in Maui, and was feeling rather proud of it on Saturday morning as I was about to board the plane.

About 15 minutes before boarding time, I decided it would be good to drink some mineral water before the long flight because I like to be well hydrated on a plane (not because I like to pee).  So I took out my headphones and stopped listening to my outsourcing MP3s just long enough to talk to the cashier when I heard this announcement from the TV:

“Urgent evacuation  required to save lives.  Massive Tsunami is headed for Hawaiin islands after one of the 10 largest earthquakes on record!”

Coincidentally, about 1/3rd of New Hampshire lost power on Friday due to a wicked windstorm.

AND it was my anniversary coming up.

So I said to myself “Am I really going to leave my wife alone in the dark on our anniversary weekend while I travel half way around the world INTO a disaster area”

I called Perry to get his take on things, and we decided I should just try to change my plane and wait until there was more news about how bad the Tidal Wave actually was going to be.

Seemed sensible, so that’s what I did.

And later that day, when I found out there was only about a 1 foot rise in sea level which did virtually NO damage to the area I was to visit (and the route to get there), I went to get another plane.

Well, it turns out that either I wasn’t the only one who had that idea, or else this is really the season for Hawaiin vacations, because the next available seat was on Tuesday evening, which would put me at the seminar just a few hours before it ended.

That’s how  a 1 foot Tsunami kicked my ass.

Live and learn.

G :-)

{ 9 comments }

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