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Imitating Success to be Successful!
from: Brian Schaeffer
Advice on how to imitate the successful to be successful through focused educational business reading.
How does the old maxim go?
Oh yeah, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."
Do we imitate others? Most of us will honestly answer, yes. We copy how successful people dress, look, speak and do things.
Now, why would we do that? Because we want to be successful too, and we know that if we copy already established examples and role models, we have a much better chance of achieving our goal.
Role modeling and imitation are elemental principles of education. That's why you see teachers giving examples and showing students how to do an activity by doing it themselves in front of the class.
I'd like to take poetic license and change that old maxim just a little bit. How about, "Imitation of the successful will lead to success"? I think that, for a home based business, the newer version of the saying is definitely best.
As a home based business owner (of any type) I will want to study successful online entrepreneurs for the ideas and reasons of their success, and then copy and implement those ideas in my own business. It stands to reason that if someone is drawing numerous visitors to their web site and concluding massive amounts of purchases with their visitors, especially with repeated or back-end sales (continued sales to repeat customers), then they are being very successful and are worthy of our time spent in studying their methods.
One of the best ways to learn about successful online entrepreneurs and enterprises is to make them the topic of your focused reading. Focused reading is the business related reading you should do everyday for 15-30 minutes. I would like to suggest that part of the reading you do is reading information about successful online businesses! It is certainly part of the reading I do.
I know that we are all busy. We are on the go from dawn to dusk and sometimes to burning the wee morning hours' oil! We not only have our online businesses at which we work, but many of you also have other jobs. I know that some of you readers might even work three or more full time and part time jobs together! So there's no doubt that our schedules are full to overflowing! However, reading to further our learning curve and to continue our business education is a necessity and we should commit ourselves to it. The problem is not really should we do it but when do we do it?!
I have some suggestions for you about when you can do some extra reading and what to read.
First of all, don't feel that you have to invest hours and hours into this strategy, it's not necessary, but you should commit at least 15-30 minutes a day at a minimum to educational business reading. Those minutes don't have to be all at once. You can break it up into sections if you need to. Don't pressure yourself into doing more unless you have the time to do it. The last thing you need is another pressure point on top of everything else!
Second, look for natural times when you can read for a little while. Here's a list of some of the places and times I read: (I hope nobody takes offense to this first one!) Read in the bathroom while sitting upon your throne. No kidding! You can get a good amount of uninterrupted time there. I keep a pile of articles and a pen to take notes on top of the toilet tank so that my reading is handy and I don't have to go look for it. Read while you are waiting in the car. Do you wait for everyone to pile in before you go somewhere? Do you commute and often get stuck in traffic that's at a standstill? Do you take a family member to shops and stores, sports practice, piano and dance lessons, etc.? No doubt you can think of some more times when you're stuck in the car with nothing to do. That's the very reason I have another pile of articles in a folder in my vehicle. I get quite a bit of reading done at those times! Do you wait in the kitchen for water to boil or for some other reason? I do when I make a cup of coffee. I have another article magnetically clipped to my fridge for just such an occasion! Do you have 10-15 minutes at bedtime? Many times reading will help you wind down after a long day. (A WARNING!! Reading at bedtime can often lead to more energy because of the resulting creation of ideas!!) This last suggestion is for those of you who have spouses that are always late when getting ready for something. You normally just sit in the living room waiting patiently (or impatiently as the case may be) for your spouse to make their appearance, don't you? Why not take the time to read? It's much more productive than fuming and having the babysitter and kids complain about the smoke coming from your ears! OK, OK. No doubt you're convinced you can find the time for reading, but, you say, "What in the world does this have to do with imitating success to be successful?" I'm glad you asked that, my friend. Many of you can already guess where I'm going with this!
There are many sites on the internet that offer success stories. You can also walk into any bookstore and find tens, if not hundreds, of books about successful people and enterprises. So, where do you start?
Start by focusing on online entrepreneurial success stories. If you want to build a home based internet business, then that's where you want to spend your reading time. If you are going to get good, sound business ideas and practices to imitate then you need a surefire source that focuses on that alone.
I'd like to suggest a web site called Secrets to their Success. Each month, they highlight two very successful online (usually home based) entrepreneurial internet sites and a Pick-of-the Month site from among their readers.
The highlighted sites contain in-depth interviews of the owners, examining all of their practices and even some of their failures because that's a learning experience too. There are links to the actual sights so that you can go in and look around at the elements discussed in the interview. The interviewer also steers the discussion into areas that pertain to online business tools, business and customer philosophies and actual successful business practices. They thoroughly examine what works and what doesn't!
The Pick-of-the-Month is really neat! The professional staff at Secrets to their Success picks a member's site out of the hat and does a complete business analysis of the site, it's contents, text, graphics, purchasing tools, navigational tools, etc. (all for free). They then make suggestions for improving those areas and have their webmasters redesign the site for the member. You get to go in and look around the original site and compare it with the redesigned site. It's a great teaching tool, not just for that chosen member, but for everyone who takes the time to do the comparison!
Secrets to their Success is subscriber based, but worth every penny of the membership fee. It is particularly useful for three kinds of online persons. The first is someone who is just beginning. They need ideas and don't have the time or money to practice the "guess, test & try" method of finding out what works. The second is already established online entrepreneurs who are not experiencing the success they would like or who have falling sales or memberships. They need the professional advice of the STTS staff that is in these interviews to renew their business efforts. Yep, you guessed it! The third kind of online person is like me, a writer and editor. I use the service to gather and harvest little tidbits of online marketing and web building gold. I then build articles like the ones in this eZine around those special nuggets.
Since it's difficult to take the computer to the kitchen or bathroom (much less the car), I'll go into the site every month and print off hard copies of the interviews and the web sites. Often, these copies run 10 to 20+ pages, so I get a number of tremendously in-depth educational articles for my focused reading. My real problem is that I run out of STTS material before I run out of month! I always read the STTS material first, and then I move on to other articles I've found. I find shorter articles like this one in other fine eZines and Newsletters (to which I subscribe) or while researching a topic to make up my Reading List.
You need to be careful while gathering articles to read though. Concentrate on your focus, leaving other kinds of articles for another time. If you don't, you will soon be overwhelmed! That's one of the reasons why I use Secrets to their Success. By using their service, I don't have to waste time hunting for my kind of reading. They focus on my target reading, conduct in-depth informative interviews, and give professionally useful advice.
I also keep an "Articles" folder on my computer's desktop. When I am online and run across an article in my target area, I'll quickly cut & paste it to a Word document and save it to my folder for later printing and reading. I'll especially do this when I'm short on time but really want the article because it's about a topic that pertains to something I'm doing! I can tell you, by doing this and using the STTS articles described above, I rarely run out of reading material!
If you are interested in subscribing to Secrets to their Success, or just want more information about their service, go to http://www.secretstotheirsuccess.com.
If you'd like some suggestions for other fine eZines and Newsletters for more articles about home based and online business building topics, here's my recommended short list:
Life and Success Magazine, email to subscribe@lifeandsuccessmag.com to subscribe. PUBLISHER PLACE YOUR SUBSCRIBE LINK HERE OR DELETE THIS LINE. Motivate Me! Newsletter, go to http://www.livingyourbest.com to subscribe. Grow 'N Prosper Newsletter, go to http://www.writing-etc.com/subscribe.htm to subscribe. The Home Business Alliance Newsletter, email to subscribe_newsletter@homebusinessalliance.com to subscribe. And my all time favorite, the How To Work From Home eZine, email to subscribe_eZine@howtoworkfromhome.info to subscribe.
For more articles and eBooks about the same topics, you can go to the How To Work From Home navigation bar's Resource link, http://www.howtoworkfromhome.info/contents.html, or PUBLISHER PLACE YOUR WEBSITE URL HERE IF APPLICABLE OTHERWISE DELETE THIS PUBLISHER'S LINK AREA.
Always remember that imitation of the successful - in any field - will often lead to your own success! I hope this helps start you on your way to learning more about home based online business, and focuses your reading to further your goals!
Happy Reading!
About the Author
Brian Schaeffer is the Editor of the How To Work From Home eZine and the Home Business Alliance Newsletter. He has been involved with the internet, online home based business building and netpreneurism since 1995. He writes mainly about home based online and offline businesses. You may reach him at editor@howtoworkfromhome.info or visit his web site at http://www.HowToWorkFromHome.info.
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