Woman with arms raised using laptopIf you’re like me you’ve spent a huge amount of time and money on products, systems, procedures and more. Only to find that in your experience none of them actually worked. Or so you thought. Of course once the system does not work you found a push button solution that promised $100 on autopilot. When that didn’t work you were about to give up when suddenly an email from PayPal announces you made a sale.

You get excited but say “dang where did that sale come in from, I need to repeat whatever I did”, but then you have no idea what you actually did. Pity as if you knew you could repeat it.

Here’s the thing, 90% of people online aren’t successful. You know one of the reasons?  The “I want to see results right now and if I don’t I’ll try something else” syndrome. Yup it’s an actual syndrome :). Most of us call this the shiny object syndrome. It’s jumping from one thing to another.

The other issue is setting out time to actually do things. There are lots of people who are working in a job and they have limited time to devote to their online ventures.

In my years of coaching I’ve found that people waste what precious time the have on the Internet venture. Spending time “researching” a new shiny object or new system. Convincing themselves that this system is it.

If you look at what John teaches you’ll see he has a process and one that he follows. He’s perfected it and it works. But of course what do we do? Instead of following it there are many who pick it apart, try to find weaknesses or even try to improve it without even trying it out first! In fact sometimes we end up with analysis paralysis, and guess what, we don’t do anything.

Even if you can only commit 1 hour a day to your business you must make sure that it’s a productive hour where you are working towards an end goal.

So that’s important, but what is also important is that you review what you’ve done each week. Why? So the following week you know what you did, what worked, and what did not. This means that every week you’re refining your process.

Let’s say you select a task to build your list and your sales funnel. You throw up a squeeze page, give a product away and then you wait. Your list does not grow. You make no money, so you blame the process. To be honest what you did was not bad, but it could have been better. You could have planned things out more.

Being fast at the beginning and perhaps taking a shortcut does not necessarily mean you’re getting more done. You have to plan and evaluate everything you do.

I’m sorry to burst your bubble but that product that is promising a push button overnight tags to riches story won’t work for you.

You have to plan and evaluate. Now let’s say you were to write everything down that you did and evaluate it. Don’t you think after a month you would be in a better position? What about after two months? The systems you are implementing are now working. Each week you write down what you have done and you evaluate and refine your processes.

Say you’re breaking into a new niche. Where do you start? You’ve got it all written down so now it really is rinse and repeat! You look back on what worked and you rinse and repeat. You do this each time you have a new niche.

Now after 52 weeks you have a complete blueprint of success that you can refer to. I’ve been there just like you. Attempting this and that, then forgetting what I did when I set up this system etc. But know I have it all written out so when I go to create a new product I can refer back to my ‘success diary’ as I call it.

The truth is all the top marketers follow a rinse and repeat formula. They want to promote an affiliate product? They use the same process they used in their last promotional campaign.

Sure they went through some trial and error, but they noted what they did and refined it.

So let me ask you this. Will you start recording what you are doing, stick with it and evaluate your outcomes?

I know you are thinking ‘but how will I do that or what will I use?’ I’ve got you covered there. I invite you to download my weekly planner and success diary. You’ll see what others have said.

Here’s something. I want to feature you as one of my success stories so download now, promise me you’ll stick to one system and show me your results.

To your greater success

Richard

This is a guest post written by Richard Butler, if you would like to be considered for a guest post contact me.


    20 replies to "Your Key to Unlocking Success Online – Planning and Recording"

    • Carl Picot

      Great post thanks Richard

      Yea there are so many distractions online and sticking to one method until it is optimised and systemised is one of the best things that people can do in this game to make success much more possible.

      I think we are all guilty of the curiosity thing – I know I am – but heads down and focus on one in the key without a doubt.

      Thanks for the great post 🙂

      cheers Carl

      • Richard

        Hi Carl

        Thanks for the comment, it´s true, and yes I think all of us are guilty.

        I can be we all have X amount of half finished or nearly finished projects. and what happens just before we finish we start something else, so instead of finishing one, profiting, refining and then moving on we start one, think of something else, move on and then neither profit or finish and then give up.

        I do think follow a system, and I think stuff that John puts out is gold. Try it and be true to yourself and record your efforts. From there keep focusing and working and don´t let anything else interrupt you.

        Ok better finish this comment or it will be another blog post!

    • Ste Murphy

      Great post Richard

      Just purchased it now, going to work through the planner and see how it goes, it looks great.
      The PLR are a great bonus to it.
      Thanks again Richard

      • Richard

        Thanks to you
        Please promise me one thing, that you will use it every week, and record your success, remember there is no failure just feedback. Learn from everything you do and that´s the point of this planner

        anything I can do let me know

    • J Mark Diaz

      Richard,
      Your post on planning and recording is something that needs to be engrained in the minds of all those who aspire to run their own business, on or offline. I agree with your system of writing down our actions to enable us to look back, evaluate and refine our processes.

      Committing to this success/action diary is another way of holding ourselves accountable for what we are doing. And yes, it surely can become a complete blueprint of success that we can then refer back to when we look to duplicate the process.

      I think it’s great that you have put together a weekly planner to simplify this worthy and valuable business activity.

      Keep adding value.
      Cheers,

      J. Mark Diaz
      IM RHINO

      • Richard

        Thanks J.

        It´s true but then people read it and then forget about it.

        Listen do you think people who run “real businesses” (notice the ” ” marks!) just get up every morning, find out what the latest fad is and then jump on it

        what about facebook, would they be where they are today if they acted like that? I guess not!

        Sure now they can add a shiny object or two to their portfolio, but the big cheese had an idea and stuck to it, and never gave. Sure he made and makes mistakes but he learns from them

        and of course he plans things out, so come on guys lets get you creating your own diary of success and blueprint for freedom

    • Erwin

      Hi everyone,

      nice and simple post. We are very often forget about what we do, so to plan and write down is a very good idea.

      The same is with our time we waste it daily a lot so if you know what your day will like and you will have all planed you won’t wast any hour.

      Thank you.

      Erwin.

      See you on top.

      • Richard

        Erwin you bet i´ll see you on the top 😉

        yes the key to success is knowing what you have done and how you did it:=

    • Glenn Shepherd

      Thanks for the informative post Richard, this is advice that so many people need to take on board. I have spent years hopping from one thing to another, getting disheartened and overwhelmed and ultimately getting nowhere. It’s only since I started to focus, plan, take decisive action, follow up and build upon this action that I’ve actually started to get anywhere. Traffic, list-building, making money – it’s all coming good for me now, simply as a result of organisation, planning and sticking with focused, consistant action. As you say, it’s not necessarily the case that certain products, systems, etc don’t work but they’re sure to not yield any results if you don’t follow through but instead hop onto something else, then something else and so on. This is just a recipe for self-destruction. But even once you’ve found something that you stick with, proper planning is vital and, as you say, write things down!

      • Richard

        Glen

        It´s true, i was watching the videos of John´s affiliate promo series, he sets out a simple workable plan, but of course too many people will watch it and think they can improve it and then possibly fail

        my advice, follow a trusted marketer and their trusted system, from there you can work the plan, when it works for you time and time again then start to tweak it and not before

        and of course don´t forget to write it down !

    • Duncan Abel

      Hi John,

      This post by Richard is awesome. I indeed have a week planner sitting on my desktop for God knows how long and i have never used it.

      Now i know it is not going to be a waste of my time to spend a few minutes on it daily.

      In fact, i am going to start with my latest product http://www.howtoromance.org

      Thanks for putting me right on track.

      • Richard

        Hi Duncan. Ha you need the weekly planner not a weekly planner 🙂

        Thanks for the great comments and glad you are back on track

    • Matt Morgan

      Hello Richard, how are you doing?

      This is a good post which amplifies methods that most marketers don’t even look at or apply.

      The outcomes of actions taken by you should be noted and checked so that you know what works and what doesn’t in your marketing.

      You have made it for marketers to understand this in your post.

      Tracking and testing is a good way to check progress of things such as you:
      -Sales page conversion
      -Where your traffic is coming from
      -What works, and what doesn’t
      -What price point converts the best, etc etc.

      Otherwise planning is an important part of your success.

      If you fail to plan, you plan to fail

      Here are a few tips,
      -Write down your plans and ideas on paper
      -Remember things take longer than you expect
      -If it doesn’t work for somebody else, it doesn’t mean it wont work for you

      Matt Morgan.

    • Dave

      Great Post Richard, agree with you 100% without a plan your sure to fail.The great thing about John thornhills products is that they are step by step guides so if You dont suceed you only have yourself to blame

    • igor Griffiths

      Well hello Richard

      Great post and love the posters you provided in your offer. I am massively guilty of multi-tasking and of course coming up empty.

      Your advice is very timely as I struggle to get to grips with a system for affiliate marketing. The instinct of course is to dismiss the system as you could not get it to work initially however as I now process map everything I do which I recommend everyone does, it would appear my initial notes missed a couple of steps.

      Thus as you say if the system does not work at first then work out why, record that and move on from that lesson. This is especially important if you are working with a system that you know for definite works which I do as I have met the creator of my latest strategy.

      igor Griffiths

      • Richard

        Igor. They do say when the time is right you’ll get what you need. Lol paraphrasing a little but you know what I mean

        Promise me you’ll stick to what you’re doing and see it thru

        I do recommend johns affiliate product. Good price and sound advice

        If there’s anything I can do let me know

    • Richard

      Thanks Matt and your comments are really appreciated you make some great points in your post which is really valuable

    • Gordon Smith

      Hi Richard,

      I can certainly relate to this experience. Failing to plan is planning to fail, trite but true.

      If you keep taking the same action you will continue to receive the same result. Another very common saying, but true, the trick is to keep taking the same action that is producing good results and quit taking the actions that are using your precious time to no effect.

      Following a “Proven System” is taking the action that is producing the result you want, but you must follow that system and give it a sufficient amount of time before you analyze your results.

      If the results you are achieving are not the results you want then you have to ask yourself why this is so, and then tweaking what you’re doing may be appropriate.

      You have to remember people are different some are good at one thing that others are hopeless at. The psychology of individuals plays a part in how and with what they will find success, whether in building an Internet business or anything else.

      Gordon

    • Richard

      Too true Gordon too true, the unfortunate thing is that a lot of guru´s play on this emotion and keep offering more and more solutions that just get people more confused.

      I am a living testimony to this i must admit, 1000s spent on over priced courses which were good but over priced!

    • Shireen

      Hi Richard:

      Thanks for the great post 🙂

      Besides your great tips, here’s some of the principles that I always follow:

      Principle # 1 – Do Not Expect To Get Rich Quick

      Principle # 2 – Take Full Responsibility

      Principle # 3 – Focusing on Solutions Instead of Problems

      Principle # 4 – Always Expand My Comfort Zone

      Principle # 5 – Focus & Persistent

      Principle # 6 – Invest Some Of The Profits Back To My Online Business

      Principle # 7 – Always Committed to Success

      Principle # 8 – Doing Whatever It Takes

      Principle # 9 – Provide Great Value

      Hope it helps 🙂

Leave a Reply to J Mark Diaz Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.