“Sloppy Success” and Why You Want It

Posted on 23. Aug, 2009 by Natalie in Entrepreneurs, Inspiration & Motivation

What separates the people who actually get out there and transform their ideas into profitable businesses from those who don’t?

The answer is simple: “sloppy success.”

Back when I first started my career in Internet marketing, I landed what I can still say was one of my favourite jobs of all time – interviewing Internet entrepreneurs who are making $100k or more online for a high circulation e-newsletter.

What made this a truly awesome experience for me was that these entrepreneurs were doing precisely what I dreamed of doing. They were “homepreneurs,” one or two person operations making the equivalent of a full-time executive salary working just a few hours per day selling handmade soap, ebooks, and other hobby-related products on the Internet from their kitchen tables, spare bedrooms or garages.

These six-figure entrepreneurs weren’t sophisticated marketers. Far from it.

Many of them had never completed high school or gone to college. And to be blunt, a lot of the products they were selling online were “hokey” at best (bacon flavoured salt, anyone?) and their websites were far from slick and professional-looking. In fact, most of them bordering on being… well… full on fugly.

But still, these people were enjoying the kind of income and the time freedom that I’d been dreaming of creating, and I always looked forward to interviewing them to find out exactly how they were doing it.

What was it that lit the fire under their butts to start their own business? How did they hone in on a winning business idea? How did they establish an online presence? Who was their target market? And what were the secrets they were using to drive traffic and generate revenues online?

I gained a ton of insights from these entrepreneurs that I still glean value from today. But these interviews also completely shattered a lot of the preconceptions/misconceptions I had about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

Up until then, I’d been a walking evangelist of one of the most widely circulated marketing messages on the planet: “If you don’t plan to succeed, you plan to fail.”

In other words, you need a detailed business plan and step-by-step marketing strategy FIRST before you can build a solid business.

Makes sense, right?

But then staring me right in the face were these homepreneurs who were flying by the seat of their pants, selling gadgets and knick knacks online on ad hoc websites and making over six-figures a year to boot.

And here’s the clincher: Most of them didn’t even know how they were doing it.

In response to questions like “What are the exact strategies you are using to drive 120,000 people to your website each month?” or “What steps did you take to double your sales inside of just three months?” 9 times out of 10 I got an answer that went something like this:

“Hmmm…. that’s a great question. I’m not exactly sure.”

What? How is it that you can be that successful without really knowing how you are doing it or having a plan in place that took you there?

For a chronic list maker and planner like me, it just didn’t compute.

I thought of all of the super intelligent would-be entrepreneurs and marketing whizzes I knew who had the most incredible business ideas paired with clearly articulated business plans and marketing strategies. People who it seems had the blueprint to success laid out like a fool-proof trail of breadcrumbs, but who were struggling to get up and running, let alone generate revenue.

I began to realize what separated them from the homepreneurs who were actually out there seeing the results (i.e. serious revenues and serious time freedom), and it’s a phenomenon I call “sloppy success.”

Many would-be entrepreneurs pour all of their energy into creating step-by-step business and marketing plans that they want to tweak to perfection before taking any actual action in their business.

Often, planning and goal setting feels like action in and of itself, but it isn’t. Creative geniuses, marketing mavens and other “ideas” people often fall prey to this temptation.

Others, like the homepreneurs I interviewed, opt for a less sophisticated but highly effective method. Instead of over thinking and indulging in relentless planning, goal setting, and strategizing, they simply identify the next action to take and then take it.

What they end up with is a business, website or marketing campaign that isn’t exactly perfect, but hey – it’s up and running. Then they course correct after the fact if necessary, and use the forward momentum they gained from taking that first action to propel them on to the next.

The next time you feel stopped in your business venture, I invite you to consider this: Are you letting over thinking or planning to hold you back from just taking the next action?

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Tags: online business, success, taking action