Business opportunities are interesting, and exploring them is not nearly as easy as it sounds. Not all of them are created equal and business opportunities don’t produce the same results for everyone. Entrepreneurs get exposed to numerous opportunities through their own research, word-of-mouth, or any other method imaginable.
I recently got exposed to three opportunities which have greatly paid off for my business:
- Outsourcing
- Facebook Ads
- AdWords
I’ve heard about other opportunities for my business which I will explore eventually. Instagram, Periscope, and affiliate marketing are the next three opportunities I am going to devote more time towards in the near future.
There is a reason why I am waiting before I start exploring Instagram, Periscope, and affiliate marketing in-depth. This reason is related to what causes most people to lose out on opportunities.
The truth about opportunities is that there are so many of them around us. There are numerous ways to make money. It is possible to create training courses on Udemy, but it is just as possible to take online surveys and get the quick $1 after the survey if you get lucky.
For a long time, I did not know how to explore opportunities the right way. For some of the time I spent online, I did anything from clicking on advertisements to completing surveys just to make a few dollars. It was nothing impressive.
Just a few years later, I am an entrepreneur making more revenue in my sleep than I would have ever made taking annoying surveys. The change is a result of a series of factors that I don’t fully know yet. But one of them stands out the most.
I discovered how to properly approach opportunities.
Most people approach an opportunities by giving those opportunities all of the time in that one day. One day these people spend hours of their time on Twitter and on the next day, these people are trying to master Facebook ads. When immediate results don’t come, these people look for the next big thing.
That’s why, for a while, surveys were attractive to me. After completing a survey, I would immediately get my money. No waiting. Most of the greatest opportunities require patience and constant experimentation.
So far, outsourcing has transformed my business, but I’m not done experimenting with that. I often ask myself how many of my tasks I can possibly outsource. I want to make it as easy as possible for me to focus on the work that matters the most.
I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. The way to approach opportunities is to focus on ONE opportunity and do a little work each day. This one approach is the reason I have over 250,000 Twitter followers. I exclusively focused on Twitter. After I mastered Twitter, I started building my audience on other social networks. That’s why my Pinterest account and Facebook Page are behind but gradually catching up.
Choose the one opportunity that you believe will produce the most significant results. Then forget about all of the other potential opportunities for now. The quicker you get comfortable with one opportunity, the quicker you can move onto the next opportunity.
I started outsourcing parts of my business in August 2015. By the middle of the month, I was comfortable enough with outsourcing to begin Facebook advertising. I got comfortable with Facebook ads and began to pay attention to AdWords in September 2015. Now I am focusing on AdWords. Once I get comfortable there, I will continue utilizing it while exploring more opportunities.
Basically, I didn’t try to learn all of them at the same time. I learned them one at a time. I only looked at other opportunities once I became comfortable with the opportunity I strived to master.
Once you choose the ONE opportunity that you want to pursue, here’s how you pursue it.
#1: Do SOME Research
Conducting research is an art form (not a joke). How you conduct your research is important. The best way to conduct research about a new opportunity is to get as many small nuggets of information as possible.
I read a few short articles and watched a few short videos about AdWords before I created my first campaign. I took notes on what I believed was important. All of this research took me less than an hour. That’s all of the knowledge I needed to create my first successful campaign.
Some people conduct days of research towards AdWords before their create their first campaign. I only needed an hour. So does that make me super smart or super lazy?
The answer is neither. The people who conducted days of research probably know more than what I knew before I created my first campaign. However, there is a problem with conducting too much research. That problem is analysis paralysis.
The knowledge people obtain from extensive research tells them to do 10 different things that may produce better results. Which of the 10 different things should be done first? Which one produces the best results? Which one can be done in the most efficient manner? All of these questions result in more pondering and less action.
My research tells me the 1-3 different things that may produce better results. There are hundreds of ways to get better results from AdWords. Right now, I only know a small handful of tactics, and I am not embarrassed to say that. I am still learning but also taking action.
#2: Implement In Small Steps
When you have a decent amount of knowledge about an opportunity, it is time to take action. Analysis paralysis makes it more difficult to take action which is why too much research can actually be a bad thing.
But does that also mean too much knowledge about an opportunity is bad? What about “Knowledge is power”?
Here’s my take. Implemented knowledge is power. Knowledge that does not get implemented is worthless. Once you conduct enough research, you have to implement in small steps.
You are not trying to build Rome in a day. You are building one skyscraper at a time. That’s how you get your empire.
When I started outsourcing, I didn’t hire all of my freelancers in one day. I hired a freelancer every other day until I felt I had a strong team behind me. For any type of online advertising, I always start off with a $2/day budget. Even if I got zero results, losing $2 per day wouldn’t threaten my way of life. Keeping the budget low lets me see what works. Once I know what works, I slowly begin raising the budget and experimenting with other options.
#3: Analyze The Results
When you start implementing something new, expect mishaps. This admittedly pessimistic view makes all of the great results feel even better. It also prepares you for the challenges. When I first started hiring freelancers, almost all of my new freelancers and I were not on the same page until a few days after I hired them.
These freelancers were not bad freelancers. In fact, they all still work for me. It was a new skill I had to learn by doing, so my expectations were not 100% clear. I also didn’t spend as much time communicating to the freelancers before I hired them as I do now.
Mistakes are a part of the process. The only way you can catch your mistakes is by analyzing the results. I knew certain freelancers and I weren’t on the same page when I didn’t like the results I was seeing. I learned the hard way why it’s a bad idea to create a Facebook ad in the middle of the night (if you create an ad at 11:30 pm, Facebook will do everything in its power to go through your budget within the next 30 minutes. This typically results in a lot of impressions but little to no likes to show for it. If you decide to create a Facebook ad, create it in the morning).
Luckily, I set the budget to $2 per day so I didn’t lose much on that first day.
Don’t give up on an opportunity if the results look bad on the first day. That’s part of the learning process. You aren’t supposed to feel comfortable in the beginning because utilizing a game-changing opportunity isn’t supposed to be easy.
#4: Adjust Based On The Results
Once you start getting results—good or bad—it’s time to make adjustments. Making adjustments to your strategy will allow you to learn more about an opportunity and see which actions yield the best results. You could be getting good results now, but you may just be one small change away from massive results.
At this point, you should be comfortable with the opportunity and ready to explore new ones. However, no matter how much exploration you do, it is always important to experiment with the opportunities you currently utilize.
In Conclusion
We have many opportunities in front of us. The results we get isn’t a matter of how many opportunities we explore. It’s a matter of how we explore the opportunities that we explore. When entrepreneurs explore opportunities the right way, big results are bound to occur.
How do you explore opportunities? Which opportunities have you explored recently? What opportunity do you believe more entrepreneurs should focus on? Sound off in the comments section below.
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