What’s the Biggest Mistake Learning Opportunity You’ve Had?
Following up on my small rant about “correctly“…
Often when I’m interviewed, people ask me “What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made with your online business?” I always find it hard to even process that question.
Sure I’ve goofed up a lot, but I prefer not to view things in terms of mistakes or negative experiences. For me, every goof up, mix up or blip has been a learning experience for me.
From causing my whole website to disappear to setting up my Yahoo group newsletters so people could spam it, to delivering the wrong product to customers… I’ve learned a lot of things. I still make mistakes, but it’s a part of life.
I think a lot of people focus on mistakes and worry so much about making them that they are paralyzed.
They think:
1. What if this isn’t the right autoresponder for me? (Result: mailing list not built – lost profits)
2. What if my info product isn’t good enough? (Result: no products are sold)
3. What if this isn’t quite the right WordPress theme? (Result: blog isn’t updated – lost traffic)
4. What if my sales copy isn’t good enough? (Result: no products sold and no opportunity for split testing an improving conversion)
I think you get the point. Without action, nothing happens. And without action, you don’t get to learn the best course of action. Sometimes you just have to DO to get where you want to go.
So what is my biggest mistake? I don’t have one because I can’t consider something that helped me learn and grow to be a mistake.
So maybe the question for you is: “What was your Biggest LEARNING Opportunity?”
About: Alice Seba
Alice Seba earns a full-time online income as an entrepreneur and loves to help others achieve the same. With a focus on using content to create relationships, loyalty and results from the written word, she co-owns both a ghostwriting service and a private label content business. To get more tips for your content marketing, visit Contentrix.com - your free resource with plenty of tips and strategies.Freebies
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Melissa Ingold
Twitter: imsweetie
Great question Alice
I would say that my “biggest learning opportunity” was to stop worrying about what everyone else was doing, and just focus on what I wanted to do. And for me, that led to a successful business because I was taking action instead of fretting and over-thinking everything.
Alice Seba
I think a lot of people go through that for sure, Melissa. Focus on you and your business.
Marya Miller
My biggest mistake was the typical newbie mistake of ordering too many products as a result of being bombarded with sales letters and offers, before finally unsubscribing from most. But it was a good learning opportunity, because I learned to do all sorts of marketing things I don’t personally need – which helps when I’m writing about these methods and modalities for clients.
Yelena
Alice,
this is great stuff. I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my biz that cost me money. But I learned and even made money from them. I even get “My BIG Mistakes” category on my blog and it gets lots of visits. What I didn’t make money from was time I wasted over-analysing, triple-guessing and otherwise staying away from actually doing things.