Focus On Yourself

By Richard Peck

The biggest trick I've found for "success" is to focus on yourself.

As mentioned, this has many connotations, so I need to be clear - in order to be successful, forget everybody else and go down your own path; do your own things and only share the results that you accrue on your journey.

In other words - rather than following the "logical" step of trying to copy what everybody else is doing, do your own thing.

Ignore the masses (because they have absolutely no idea about what they want, or even how things work) - and instead focus on investing into your style & substance.

This tutorial is going to examine the reasons why this is important...

Let's say that you're interested in e-commerce. You love the idea of running a store, and want to be able to set up your store just how you like it.

The biggest mistake people will make at this point is going to look at *other stores* in order to "see how to do it". Whilst there's nothing wrong with looking at other stores for inspiration, looking at them to get an idea as to how you're "meant" to do things is only going to corrupt your own style.

The *right* way to go about it is to work logically through the various steps required to get a store running. For example, looking at the technical solutions you could use to get it operational; examining the best products to stock, and generally having a large amount of effective data / content to make the store as helpful as possible to anyone looking to make a purchase.

The point is that this can *only* be done effectively (and some would argue authentically) if you actually go out on a limb and do it your way. Without looking at other stores to "copy" - you're able to create a series of effective offerings that only you are able to provide. The beauty of this that once you begin to attract a following, they'll typically stick around because they actually like the way you've done things.

In terms of getting people to "buy" from you - the same logic applies.

Rather than going out any actively pitching for custom (which puts all your power into someone else's hands), you need to keep yourself entirely focused on "you". You need to make it appear that you are the one holding the cards - this is what makes people interested in what you're doing.

To this end, if you take the likes of an e-commerce setup again... people don't really care about you, or even your products. They want a result and are using your service to gain it. This means that if you're looking at increasing sales - opposed to actually buying ads for specific products - the best thing you can do is become involved with the community your store serves.

For example, say your store is designed to offer (never "sell" anything) luxury shirts made with the most luxurious fabric in the world - the way you'd offer those products is by attending (or creating) mini networking events which celebrate excellent tailoring.

Obviously, doing something like that takes a lot of courage and energy... but if you do it well - you'll generally find that you'll start to cultivate an audience of like-minded people who care about the products your store offers. This audience is not your customer base... they're the "evangelists" who'll go out and actively recruit others into the fold. This is probably the most flagrant sales mistake that people make; trying to sell to people who don't really want to buy.

Do you see how this works? You're focusing on yourself because you love to indulge in the products you're actually trying to get shipped.

You're not "selling" to people because you don't really care what they think. You want to explore the various offerings from different brands / artisans and created a mini "event" to facilitate it. If others wish to attend the event, they're obviously welcome to do so... but it's not a pre-requisite for your success.

This is the hallmark of any successful person; they're committed to their own success and will continue to indulge in it regardless of where they are or what they're doing. They don't really care about what other people are doing - they're committed to themselves and will actually be better positioned to take bigger and more effective risks in the process.