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Follow Up: How Do You Know When It’s Time to Move On (From the Readers)

On Wednesday, I asked the SPI community to share their answers to a very important question, a question that most entrepreneurs come across at least once during their journey:

How do you know when it’s time to move on?

Nearly 100 comments came in and I must say, I’m very impressed with the knowledge and experience that my readers are willing to share.

After reading through all of the responses, I noticed a few common themes throughout:

Knowing when to move on is never an easy thing to do, and it’s something that a lot of us struggle with at some point.
The “when” is different for everyone. There’s no definitive answer, no universal “golden rule” and most people have their own personal set of criteria for when it’s time to move on.
Moving on does not necessarily mean failure. Several people see it as an opportunity and a learning experience instead, and I completely agree.
Before moving on it’s smart to re-examine what your goals are and ask others who may be able to help or at least give you some advice or an outside perspective first.

Here are a few comments (or parts of comments) that really stood out to me: Click Here to Read Some Stand Out Responses…

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Ask the Reader: How Do You Know When It’s Time To Move On?

Ask the Reader When I wrote about my failures last week, my intention was to show you that failing is perfectly normal and if you dig deep enough into any success story, it will be a journey full of failures and mistakes.

One thing I didn’t touch on much, however, was the idea of knowing when to move on – when to scrap an idea, consider it a learning experience and move to the next.

How do we know?

It can be extremely difficult to let go of an idea that we once had a ton of excitement for, especially if we’ve already devoted so much time and effort (and possibly money) into it.

Also, how do we know if all our idea really needs is just a little bit more time?

Today, I’d like to hand the baton to you and see what you think.

In the comment section, please share your thoughts and on Friday I’ll highlight some of the responses in a round-up post. If you have a website, please be sure to add it to the “website” field (not in your actual comment) so that I can link to it if your comment is featured.

This is a very important subject that I know is on a lot of people’s minds, so please share what you think because we’re all here to help each other!

Thanks, and I look forward to reading your responses!

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Reader Challenge Roundup: Mini-Product Creation and The Next Challenge

“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” – Bernice Johnson Reagon

Every few months, I challenge you, the readers of SPI, to do something specific that will take your blog, business or brand to the next level.

In November of 2010, I asked you to write a Pillar Article, which yielded 51 posts, over 200 hours of writing, tens of thousands of additional visitors to your blogs and one person even landing a book deal.

In January of 2011, I then asked you to write a List Post, which resulted in 1,003 “things” in a total of 63 posts that were shared (and are still being shared) all around the web.

In March of 2011, I then asked you to step out of your comfort zone and publish a YouTube Video. There were 44 participants, most who have never before recorded or published a video in their life. The most viewed video now has over 15,000 views since then and is ranking #1 in YouTube for its particular keyword. I love it!

In May, I asked you to do something a little different that would take a lot more time to produce, which is why I waited so long to publish this roundup post.

I asked you to create a report, document, white paper, manifesto or mini-eBook about anything related to your industry, niche, website or business, and it should be given away for free. Click Here to Read More About the New Reader Challenge

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Reader’s Choice: Who Would You Nominate?

I thought I would do something a little different today as I work on a pretty beefy monthly income report for Monday’s post.

I want to give you, the SPI reader, an opportunity to share the bloggers and online entrepreneurs who you feel are doing extraordinary things and deserve some recognition.

Although I won’t be doing a tally and give out awards or anything like that, I thought it would be a great opportunity for all of us to see who is making an impact in the blogosphere, and why.

To keep this open ended and interesting, I’ll provide you with a sentence and you can fill in the blanks with any category and the person who you’re giving recognition to.

Use the category to tell us why we should pay attention to the person you are “nominating”.

Please keep it clean and positive, and any defamatory or discrediting remarks will immediately be deleted.

You can recognize as many people as you wish (put them all in the same comment field), and please do not nominate me or yourself for anything.

Spread the love yo!

Here’s the sentence:

For the category of (name of category), I nominate (name of person and/or website). Click Here to Leave Your Nomination!

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What’s Better: Having 1 Site or 10 Sites?

A simple question to tickle your brain this weekend:

Would you rather have 1 site earning $1000.00 per month or 10 sites each earning $100.00 per month, and why?

The question is left without details to spur more discussion.

I had asked this question to my Facebook community the other day, and within 30 minutes I had a ton of answers that really started to make people think about their approach to online business and making money online, which is the purpose of sharing this exercise with you today.

Please leave a comment, and just for fun, I will give one random person a very rare, Smart Passive Income T-Shirt, as shown below.

Smart Passive Income T-Shirt All sizes are available, and you must answer the question in order to be qualified to win. One entry per person, and the winner will be randomly selected and announced one week from today (Friday, June 17th).

I look forward to reading your answers. Have a safe weekend!

“Likes” (below) are very much appreciated!

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Ask the Reader: What Makes You Leave a Website?

What I truly love about my blog here at SPI is the unbelievable and amazing community of people that have congregated here, not only to support the blog and what I do, but also to support each other.

Some of the best and most valuable content on this site has been posted by you, the SPI reader, in the comment sections of my posts. And although I always aim to provide the best content that I can myself, I know you’ll always come back with more, and that impresses the heck out of me.

Today, I have a quick but very important question for you, which I know will help everyone who sees this in the future who is looking to improve their online properties.

I’ve asked similar questions to my Facebook Page in the past, and I always get a few responses like:

“This stuff is Gold. Big companies would pay big money for information like this!”

So, let’s all help each other out, and try to make the web a better place by answering the following question:

What makes you leave a website?

In other words…at what point do you say “I’m done with this” and click on the back button? Is there something on a site in particular that triggers the idea of moving on? How much time do you give a site before you take off?

Think of this as leaving when you know the website you’re viewing isn’t ready for you to leave (like after you’ve made a purchase, or you’ve found the information you were looking for).

I look forward to reading and learning from your comments.

Cheers, and for those of you in the US – have a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend!

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A Mastermind Group Exercise You Can Try Right Now

I attribute a lot of my success as an online entrepreneur to my participation in mastermind groups. I can honestly say that without mastermind groups, I would not be where I’m at today.

A mastermind group is a small number of like-minded people who get together regularly to discuss business ideas, share business goals, offer advice and hold each other accountable. I am involved in two at the moment, one of which meets via conference call for an hour Monday morning, and another that meets webinar style later that afternoon.

It totally sets the right mood for the rest of the week, especially when it comes to goal-setting and taking massive action. Simply coming up with a plan and announcing it to the group motivates me to actually get things done and make progress in my business.

A Mastermind Group Exercise For You

I’ve written about how to find mastermind groups before, but actually finding one is not that easy. That is why today, I’d like for you to think about this post as an easy opportunity to participate in a “super mastermind group”. Click to continue…

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Passive Income Polls – Revisited

Solvang, CA I’m off to a mini-vacation this weekend to a little Danish settlement in mid-California called Solvang, but for fun I thought it would be interesting to ask a few poll questions about online business and lifestyle while I’m away.

What’s unique is that I’ve asked these exact same questions before back when SPI was less than a year old and only a couple of hundred subscribers strong, so it’ll be interesting to see how the results compare.

I would love you to participate so we can get a large pool of answers, and it should only take you a minute to click your answers for the following 6 questions.

Please answer and VOTE one question at a time. Click to continue…

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I Challenge You To Fill In These Blanks

One of my favorite things to do here on the blog is to challenge you.

I’ve found that challenging you will often provide you with much more insight and education for your blog or online business than any type of pillar post, tutorial or video that I could create.

And the coolest part is that by participating, whether you share results publicly or keep them private, you’re teaching yourself and learning on your own. I’m just here as your guide.

I’ve challenged my readers several times before that have really made people think in a different way or step out of their comfort zone and try something new – which is amazing. That’s exactly what it takes to get results and see major changes.

You’re welcome to go back to these old challenges, read through them and participate publicly or privately if you wish:

Today, I’d like you to think about what you do online and fill in the blanks to the sentence shown in the image below. It looks simple, but I must warn you – for some of you this won’t be as easy as it sounds and it might cause you to rethink how you’re approaching whatever it is you do online.

But that’s the point.

In your head, fill in the blanks below: Click to continue…

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Is Giving Away Free Information Bad?

Is Giving Away Free Information Bad? On this blog, I give away a lot of free information. But is it too much?

Of course, those of you on the receiving end of that information would say, “No way! Keep it coming!”, but put yourself in the shoes of a blogger with a large following, raving fans and a decent sized email list and ask yourself, “Should I really be revealing all of this information…for free?”

Am I losing money, or am I gaining trust which will help me make money later?

Am I attracting buyers, or just people who want free information?

I think this is a very important subject to talk about because it could determine exactly how we should run our businesses. I definitely have some thoughts about it, but I’d like to hear what you think first. I’d like to feature some of your thoughts on an upcoming podcast episode about the subject.

One random commenter will receive a $25.00 gift card to Amazon.com. I will announce the winner next Wednesday, but in order to qualify, you must leave a valid response in the comment section of this post which has your answer to the question:

“Is giving away free information bad?”

I’m looking forward to your responses, and please – don’t be shy. I’m not looking for a right answer…just your opinion.

Cheers!

Update: Congratulations to Jeff Flannery who was randomly selected to win the $25.00 Amazon.com Gift Card.

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