AP 0918: How Do You Reboot Your Business If You Lose Everything?

AskPat 918 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 918 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.

All right, now here's today's question from Zan.

Zan: Hi Pat. My name is Zan. My question is, what is the first thing you would do to redo your online business if you lose everything today? And that's all for my questions. Thanks.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Zan, thank you so much for the question. The first thing I would do would be to not freak out, and that's easier said than done, but one thing I've learned since starting my business is that it is not the end of the world if you lose something. A lot of times we think that, but it's not the end of the world. And so yes, it's okay to be frustrated. I would be disappointed, and I would try to recover things if they were lost, but if for whatever reason I knew that I had to start from scratch again, I would know that the longer I get frustrated about it, the longer I try to blame people for it, the longer I try to just wonder what would happen, or the longer I try to just wake up from this dream that's actually not a dream, the longer I'm going to be waiting before I actually start to see results again. So that's the first thing.

The second thing would be to realize, okay, when I was successful, what was it that was making me successful? What are the superpowers that I can now bring into a different space or who might I be able to reach out to to begin a conversation so that I could see who I can help? And I would utilize those skills in a way that would allow me to freelance, so I can just get back up on my feet once again. I'm not going to worry about creating passive income. I'm going to be worried about, how can I create active income sooner than later, and that means taking the skills that I know I have, the superpowers that I know I could offer other people, and selling those superpowers as a service to help somebody else who doesn't have that power or who doesn't want to spend the time to learn how to do that thing.

The other thing I would do would be to internalize the fact that I have to go out there and get rejected again. And what I mean by that is I need to get the courage and gain the strength to go out there and begin asking for that work, and seeing if people would want it or not. And I'm going to have to go through a number of noes before I get to a yes most likely. And if I get a yes on the first one, that's awesome, but that's not going to happen. I've now realized since doing business for so long now, that failing is a part of the process and the faster you fail, the faster you can get to a win, as long as you're learning as you go. I mean, it's insanity when you try to do the same thing over and over and over again and expect different results, right? That's what Einstein said. But, you can learn from those failures, try something new, pivot or learn from those mistakes or those experiences to get to that win.

I think I would just literally focus on that first client or that first customer for that service that I'd be offering, whatever that may be. And so that's going to take time to internalize and figure out what that is. I'd likely read my own book, Will it Fly?, and go through the validation process and try to find my very first set of customers to do something for them.

And then, after it becomes active, after I start freelancing, after I start getting involved in that space, whatever that space may be, then I would begin to start to think about the future. Okay, what could I do to potentially begin to automate the process of serving this particular audience? I would try to have as many conversations with people as possible. I would go out and build relationships with other influencers and authorities in the same space, and just really get to know a topic so well where I can find my position in that space and truly own it again, whatever that position may be.

So Zan, I hope that answers your question. It's a lot in a short period of time, but that's just what's gone through my head after hearing your question, and I want to thank you for it. I also want to send you an AskPat teeshirt for having your question featured here on the show, so you will hear from my assistant in the next couple weeks or so and we'll send that to you free of charge. And for those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show as well, just head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page.

So for those of you who are just at the start of your journey and you're kind of lost, or maybe you tried something and it was going okay but then it just stopped and failed, I hope you listen to the words that I said in this episode and you just . . . Yes, it's okay to get frustrated, but the longer you get frustrated and blame others, the longer it's going to take until you start taking action and seeing results. So get over it, get going and get results.

All right. Thanks guys. I appreciate you, and here's a quote to finish off the day by Rutherford D. Rogers, and that is, “We're drowning in information and starving for knowledge.” Love it. Take care guys and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.