Consulting or Tutoring, Inbound Marketing or Chemistry:

Success or Failure is Phone Call Away

I tutor kids struggling with ADD and ADHD. I also work with students who are struggling with complex issues in their lives. I have been a tutor, teacher, professor, and coach my entire life, at least part-time, so I am not about to give it up now.

I have also been in sales and marketing most of my adult life, aside from a short stint in academia.

Whether in business for myself or working as an advertising and marketing consultant for a “big dumb company,” as Dan Kennedy would call them, I have learned a great deal about how to build businesses from the ground up. Over the course of the last 35 years or so I have become a black belt of sorts, understanding not only the nuts and bolts of business but how to get clients through the door; and, converting those prospects into buyers and, ultimately, into life long clients and friends.

Incredibly, many of the same behaviors I witness in parents exploring options for their failing sons and daughters, I witness in prospective inbound marketing clients, the business owners I talk to about their business’ advertising and marketing strategies or lack thereof, usually the latter.

Whether tutoring or marketing assistance, the similarities are striking!

Please understand, I don’t see it all the time, but enough to notice similarities in behavior, a definite pattern!

The pattern goes something like this:

• Tutoring: I often get the call for help when the child is drowning. Rarely do I get a call at the beginning of the year, instead I get the call when the student is going down for the fourth and final time, often failing across the board, every class. I have been consulting and working with kids long enough that I can pull a student back from the brink, usually. However, had I been called sooner? Well, my job would have been a lot easier and there would have been a lot less stress all the way around.
• Consulting: The same is true for many of the businesses contacting me for assistance. Unfortunately, I get the call when the business has a month to live and little hope that last ditch marketing CPR is going to do the trick. I am brutally honest with these business owners and, while I have taken on a few clients in this condition, I make sure they go into our relationship with their eyes wide open.

The kids and the businesses who do the best, have the best overall results, are the ones I get when they first start having issues. Recognizing and admitting that there are issues and they must be addressed, in other words being proactive, invariably leads to a good result.

Those parents and business people who are of a more reactive mindset?  Well, it hasn’t been as easy and it is always more expensive…often at a time when the added expense is a significant factor.

It’s like the Framm Oil Filter ad campaign spokesman put it, a marketing masterpiece in its own right:

“You can pay me now…or you can pay me later!”

Happily, in each and every instance thus far I have been able to save both, the businesses from going under with a solid inbound marketing strategy and the kids with a comprehensive tutoring program; and, both experiences have been pretty amazing!

But in every instance the difficulties were totally unnecessary, had the decision makers been proactive.

Ultimately, being proactive in your affairs is necessary for long term success. Interestingly, procrastination, inertia, pride/ego, and sales resistance are the major impediments in both situations.

I often hear:

“We have always done it this way before, why should I consider doing anything different now?”

A closed mind is a recipe for disaster and is the reason why most businesses fail and why so many children fall through the cracks.

For an interesting book dealing with my people do some of the things they do, read Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior.

Sway is a must read! What an eye-opener when it comes to understanding human behavior.

If you are marketing to the affluent?

A must read is The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Rich.

Both of these books will open your eyes and add a new and often surprising perspective.

For those of you in business, those of you considering your overall marketing strategy?

Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin is a must read.

For those of you who have children who are struggling?

A must is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It is an excellent read for anyone with children!

Please feel free to comment or contact me any time.

John

Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526 (home office)
440-821-7018 (cell)
Skype: johnzajaros1
excellencepaidforward@gmail.com

Internet Marketing is NOT for the Faint of Heart or Thin Skinned Individuals!

Internet marketing has been an education by fire! Learning the nuances of an online business takes time and effort….and more than a little bit of money!

Anyone who is not willing to put in their own blood, sweat, and tears will find that they are on the losing end of a very costly endeavor…it is not for the faint of heart or those individuals with thin skin.

The fact is, Internet marketing is just like any other form of business, it is difficult, it is expensive, and it will take up most of your life…and that’s if you do it right!

Michael Gerber, in The E Myth Revisited, notes that 1 million new businesses emerge every year and that after 5 years 80% are gone. Interestingly, in the next 5 years fully 80% of the remaining 20% will be gone as well! That leaves 40,000 businesses standing of the 1 million started…and that is each and every year! 960,000 out of 1,000,000 gone in 10 years!

Still want to start your won business, any business? Then you better learn fast and you better model after the best…or you will most certainly join the silenced majority!

Online business has been sold as the be-all-to-end-all, the path to the promise land, a land of abundance, full of riches beyond measure and 4 hour workweeks for the taking!

The reality of online business is quite different. Internet business, whether pursuing a specific niche by developing your own product or by selling someone else’s, is a business and must be run like a business.

The days of throwing up a website and stepping back while the coffers fill are long gone, competition and regulation have put a stop to the gold rush of the early years.

Now?

An individual business owner must have his or her business (read: act) in order and must know his of her “stuff” if they are to succeed. And I have news for you, a $17 ebook and a stock 5 page website will get you nowhere!

Still want to start an Internet business, whether in E-Commerce or selling info products? Perhaps trying your hand at affiliate marketing or developing and marketing your own product?

Great!

Starting and running your own business is an amazing experience, liberating and rewarding if done properly and with the right  help and guidance…and the correct vision!

The help and guidance includes “standing on the shoulders of giants.” In other words, use the successful business model of an individual who has blazed the trail, an individual who has and is succeeding by doing and is now willing to teach the lessons he or she has learned, often the hard way, so you don’t have to make the same mistakes.

This is so important!

Why in the world would anyone NOT listen to someone else who is willing to share their experiences, someone who has the stripes, and perhaps the war wounds, to show for it?

Guidance is altogether different from help.

Help, as explained above, consists of an individual offering to share lessons learned, a road map of sorts that when applied will provide a template to follow, a road map to assist you on your journey.

Guidance entails actively seeking out, and then listening to (and then listening to!!!) someone who is willing to offer you their help, take you by the hand to make sure you actually get the message they are trying to convey.

The latter may be referred to as a mentor, a coach, a mastermind group, etc.

This ingredient is vital to your success!

Without help and guidance, without a clear and concise business plan, a model, and without systems to apply, you have little chance of success. And, without a mentor who is emotionally, and perhaps financially, invested in your success, your chances of success are slim at best!

Most businesses go through 3 phases and it is the transition from stage one to stage two I find the most telling because it is at this point when most businesses close their doors…it is the transition from infancy to adolescence. This transition is often defined by an entrepreneur’s willingness to seek help, to seek guidance, to cry “uncle” if need be. The online business owner, any business owner, willing to put up their hands and say “I need help!” has a shot! The others will either close their doors and continue to flounder until they finally drown.

Not a pretty picture, is it?

Then why is it that most business people find it so hard to ask for help?

Pride…Ego…Whatever!

The number one killer of small businesses, online or offline, is pride (read: ego).

I call it the “I Can Do It Syndrome!“

Have you ever watched a small child confronted by something they don’t know how to do? Have you ever watched them try to figure it out? Have you ever tried to help them?

What happens?

Yup!

They reject your help, don’t they! Even after struggling on and on, they will reject your help, claiming “I can do it!”

You watch, knowing what they are doing wrong and knowing just how to explain it to them. You want to help them so they will succeed and not continue to struggle, but they reject your help and guidance.

They “can do it!”

This is a necessary part of growing up…some things must be figured out for yourself if you are to fully learn and understand them.

What is a necessary part of growing up, a universal characteristic in childhood, is a destructive characteristic in an adult, particularly in an entrepreneur, online or offline. Yet I witness it time and time again!

“I can do it myself!” Argh!

Is there a solution? I am not sure!

If you are reading this, still reading this, chances are you know someone who fits the description.

How do you even begin to address this?

I would love to provide you with answer but I am afraid the reality is as stark as the statistic above…most simply will reject your insight into their behavior rather than focus their efforts on improving themselves and their mindset, their fatal flaw.

Ultimately, it is probably a matter for each entrepreneur, individually, and you simply need to guard against it yourself. Attempting to convert the masses is futile.

Chances are, if someone is that set in their ways, that juvenile in their approach to business, there is little hope of “saving” them, and it is only a matter of time for them.

Or?

They may be one of the lucky ones, they may be one of the “children” who, just short of quitting, gets it…figures it out and moves on. Mothers around the world are known for one phrase:

“He has to learn everything the hard way!”

Frank Sinatra had a mega hit with the lyrics “I did it my way!”

There are some incapable to asking for or receiving help, at any point in their lives, personal or business. Who knows, perhaps that is a model in and of itself!

In any case, it is crucial to recognize that, unless you have an unlimited amount of money and time, and I don’t know too many with either, help and guidance are critical, crucial to your success.

The defining combination of asking for help and accepting guidance separates those who make it from those who fail. It is entirely up to you.

Do you want to be one of the 20% of the 20% or do you want to be part of the very unsuccessful and silenced majority.

As The Internet Marketing Quest Revealed approaches its second year, and other online business endeavors have already had their first year anniversary, I can tell you this…I checked my pride at the door a long time ago, and never looked back.

I have never been sorry I asked for help and I have always welcomed the help and guidance of others.

To seek assistance is an indication of strength, not weakness.

Ask and yea shall receive!

John

Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526
216-539-7412
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@thequestrevealed.com