You bought a plant.
It makes you happy when you see it so you want to make sure it thrives. You bought everything needed for it and then you put it in the perfect spot.
The next day you wake up to see the plant still looks the same. You want it to grow so you water it.
The day after that you go to see the plant and the plant still looks the same. This is frustrating so you water it again.
The day after the day after you go to see the plant. It doesn’t look the same. It looks worse. This isn’t good!
Because plants grow from the roots it must be the roots that are the problem. So you dig the plant up and investigate the roots. One looks like it’s dying.
Ah ha! You found the culprit so you clip the root and put the plant back.
The day after the day after the day after you check on the plant and its leaves are falling. Hmmm, must be another root problem so you dig up the plant and scope things out.
Ah ha! Another root looks off so you make sure to cut it. That should solve everything.
The day after the day after the day after the day after you wake up and run to the plant. You’re excited to see its growth, but there is no growth.
In fact, the plant is dead.
You call your friend over who knows a thing or two about plants. Maybe an outside party can find out what happened.
Your friend comes over and looks stunned.
“Has the plant been in this spot the whole time?”, they ask.
Yep.
“Where’s the light?”
Light? You look around and it hits you. The plant was getting no light.
Water wasn’t the issue. The roots were dying because they had no energy source to work from.
But you got so caught up in thinking it’s the small details that you were missing that you missed the most obvious thing.
There was no light.
—
We truly want to believe that business is complicated. That gives us a good excuse for when it doesn’t work out.
It also makes us feel good when have to go back for more advice because obviously, we must be missing something.
But what we do isn’t complicated. People want something and we give it to them.
Read that again. Here, I’ll write it again.
People want something and we give it to them.
That’s the light to the plant.
In my courses, I don’t give you the secret sauce because there is none.
People want something and we give it to them.
What I do is ensure you understand what the light is for your Customers. I try my best not to mask it behind fancy language.
It would be easier for me to sell you on a solution that felt like a secret, but the secret is that if your business isn’t growing it’s because you’re missing the obvious for some reason.
Now, the obvious can be different things for different people:
- They aren’t clear on what outcome they can deliver
- Their audience isn’t people that want what they’re selling
- They aren’t talking to the right people
- They aren’t interesting enough for anyone to care
There are plenty more. If you looked hard enough you can see these obvious things for yourself.
—
In August of 2018, I made over $120,000 in one week. Around March 2019, my business was falling apart. What happened?
Every month as my revenue decreased do you know what I did? I fell into the classic trap of believing I needed to improve my offer. So that’s what I did.
I added more videos, lessons, bonuses, and anything else I could think of. Each time I would email my mailing list and each time my sales numbers dropped.
But you want to know what the problem was? I stopped creating new Customers. I stopped taking my time in creating content that continued to walk people through the Customer journey. I stopped making sure they knew this content was available.
Now why I stopped doing that is a whole other story, but it’s funny because I remember one day going, “Man, I don’t know what’s going on here.” But if I would’ve explained my business to you then you probably would’ve slapped me and shown me that I wasn’t using a light to grow the plant.
Don’t worry about the roots until you get the light, water, and soil right.