Pat’s Three Laws of Business and Success: Law #1
I thought this might be a fun way to get you to think about your entrepreneurial journey in another light. I hope you enjoy.
If you ever get stuck and want to give up, or don’t know why what you’re doing isn’t working out like you thought it would, think back to these laws and how they apply to you. Please note that when I say ‘business’, I mean your website, your online or offline store, your blog, your email list, your twitter or subscriber follower count, your love life – ANYTHING. Here is the first Law.
Law #1: Every business in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.
Law #1 can be applied to your business in many ways:
First, if you don’t already have a business, you can hope and dream all you want, but you will not see any results unless some kind of action is taken. This should be obvious. In order to find success, some kind of productive action must be taken, some external force by YOU to get your dreams of success out of rest and into motion.
If you have a business, but it’s not going anywhere, you’re not alone. I’ve talked about this before, but how many blogs have you come across where the last post was from over 6 months prior? Many of these people setup their businesses (blogs) but after a while are met with less than satisfactory results. Maybe no one is visiting their blog or they are not selling any products, and they are just flat-lining on the results axis. If you’re business is in a state that you don’t like, apply an external force. A marketing campaign, a redesign, a new product, a joint venture – something that will get you the results you want. Don’t give up just because you’re not seeing results right away. Have you tried applying an external force? If not, you didn’t fail – you’re just not done yet. See unnecessary graph below:
If you have a business and it’s doing really well – awesome. Now, you have two choices:
- Keep it that way. This is done by making sure no external forces are negatively changing your results and getting in your way. For example, making sure your product(s) are meeting the needs of changing markets, making sure you’re satisfying your customers, making sure you’re staying on top of your keyword research and SEO, making sure you’re on top of your company’s financials, making sure you’re getting enough sleep and have enough energy to see things through, etc. Or, you can…
- Make it even better and take it to the next level. Use external forces to make your results even better. For example, I was selling an eBook Study Guide for $29.95. I was happy making $7-8k a month. Insert audio guide…Booyah! Up to $30k in one month. Again, see graph below:
Lastly, If you have a business and it’s going downhill, figure out what external forces are causing this to happen, and then counter accordingly. You’ve heard the phrase “everything happens for a reason”, right? Well, this applies to the online business and marketing world too. Do what you can to find out what is causing you to lose visitors, decrease sales, have unhappy customers, whatever. An easy way to do this is just to stay involved with your business and the trends in the industry. No, this doesn’t mean reading about it 24 hours a day, but reading emails, listening to customers, and staying focused on what’s happening every once and a while can help you figure out what the deal is. Here’s a personal example:
Between June and July of 2009, my monthly income fell from about $26k to $9k. That’s huge. Luckily, because I knew the exam I wrote a study guide for was expiring, I expected this drastic change. In fact, I was still able to generate $9k by creating a product for the new exam just in time for the change. If i didn’t know the exam was going to expire, it would have been $26k to absolute zero. This is an example of an external force that cannot be changed, but one that I addressed to keep my business running as strong as possible.
Unfortunately, there may be external forces that we just cannot control and may not have an answer for. For example, you may have read that I was recently forced to change my domain name from intheleed.com to GreenExamAcademy.com. Because of this, most of the SEO work done for intheleed.com will have to be redone for the new domain, which will take some time and will definitely have an impact on my income from this source.
What I’ve learned is that you should do everything in your power to create the results you want, but make sure you do the proper research first so you don’t have external forces acting upon you later which may eventually put all of that motion you’ve been working on back to rest. Using a trademark in a domain name, although may not be met by an external force all the time, certainly opens up the possibility.
So, how does Law #1 apply to you? You don’t have to comment (you can if you wish), but at least give it 2 minutes of thought.
Law #2 is next. Can you guess what it is?
Posted on : September 9th, 2009
Related posts:
- Pat’s Three Laws of Business and Success: Law #2
- Pat’s Three Laws of Business and Success: Law #3
- Why I Closed My Service Business to Start an Internet-Based Business
- The Order of Operations for Online Business and Blogging
- Cool Things We Can Learn About Internet Business From Analytics
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16 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)
You are right, Pat. Everything needs a force to be successful.
Good post, Pat.
This is a good kick in the butt to quit whining about how hard this is and just do something. Create inertia. I needed to be reminded of this.
By the way, love the “unnecessary graphs”. They are very graphic….
Andy
Great post! So simple yet so true… Looking forward to the next Law!
Cheers
I really enjoyed this post and your take on relating force back to a business. I also enjoyed the hand drawn diagrams. Nice touch! If something isn’t going the way you want it to, then it’s time to make a change.
Great post, and I love the link you’ve made between basic physics and basic business. I just started a new blog (related to marriage) three weeks ago, and although my initial feedback has been very positive, it is certainly a struggle to gain readers and feel like you are picking up traction. I figure all I can do is follow your Law #1 and keep applying external force in the form of new content, more exposure and additional knowledge of how this internet marketing world works. Thanks for your help!
Dustin
EngagedMarriage.com
Four quick points:
1) Very good post.
You have a knack for writing so that readers with various issues can all relate. Like you said this applies to, “your website, your online or offline store, your blog, your email list, your twitter or subscriber follower count, your love life – ANYTHING.”
2) No idea what Laws two and three will be.
3) It’s great that you have such topical examples to illustrate your points (study guide examples). I guess that’s not a coincidence.
4) I enjoyed the graphs and the term ‘force.’
Your description of Force makes me think of the Einstein quote about the definition of insanity being to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. Sometimes hearing a familiar message presented in a new manner can be a tremendous reawakening.
This is definitely a concept I’ll keep in mind as I inevitably continue to stumble upon stagnant positions in my personal and business lives.
[...] Pat’s Three Laws of Business and Success: Law #1 [...]
Interesting post as usual, it’s all about taking action.
I too have changed the name of my domain to avoid
legal issues you spoke about in your last post. Thanks for the heads up.
Hey James, glad I could help. It’s better to catch that now than later, especially when things begin to take off. Best of luck!
Right now I am doing a lot of dreaming without taking action. This post is great motivation to get to work! However, thanks to your last post, I am trying to take it slow and develop a good plan before I quit the 9 to 5 life.
Pat, reading this post I have a feeling you’re writing to me… and about my recent project. I know you probably didn’t have exactly my case in mind, but your words describe exactly what I feel.
Thank you for this post… It made me feel a bit stronger… and definitely helped me not to give up.
Chris,
Glad I could help. Sometimes all we need is that boost of confidence or encouragement to get things going again. Keep at it and things will eventually happen in your favor
Nice post.
I have people who TALK to me about starting a business . . .
But that’s all it is– TALK. One person in particular, likes to bounce ideas off me all the time . . . then I ask, “So what are you going to do about it?” Silence.
The problems with the person in questions is:
1) Lazy– hard work is a problem
2) Instant gratification– it it won’t work by tomorrow, he isn’t interested
3) Fear of failure– he is afraid to fail due to lack of self esteem
The bottomline is to STOP TALKING AND START DOING SOMETHING!
[...] Flynn on his blog made great post on his blog where he applied the laws of Physics to internet business, you can also apply these laws to your [...]
[...] Take action. As I mentioned in my first law of business and success, every business in a state of motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external [...]
[...] Pat’s Three Laws of Business and Success: Law #1 [...]