Matthew Lepre is pretty sure you’ll fail at ecom. How sure? Ninety-nine percent sure. There are a few reasons why. One, you might try to reinvent the wheel. To start a brand new business or come up with a new idea that’s never been done before. This is very risky. Especially if money is tight to begin with. Chances are, it won’t work. Instead, you should model successful businesses. Study their marketing, their sales, their customer service, their marketing funnel, their products, listings, everything. Then do what they do, only better.
According to Matthew, the second reason people fail at entrepreneurship is because they don’t hire support. They don’t hire a coach or a mentor that they can go and bounce ideas off of. Every business will have hurdles, obstacles, plateaus, problems. But when you can send an email or hop on a call once a week with someone who’s already bulldozed their way through these barriers, it’s invaluable.
The third reason aspiring ecom entrepreneurs don’t succeed is because they don’t focus on sales. Matthew suggests, in the early stages, instead of trying to do everything, you need to spend the majority of your time figuring out how to convert prospects into customers. Get some money coming in. Leverage that money to outsource some of the other tasks.
Speaking of which, reason four is not delegating low priority activities. Running your own ecommerce store will bring about hundreds of monotonous little chores. Almost none of them are high impact. But they still need done. You can’t be the one doing them. Whether you hire employees, independent contractors, or overseas virtual assistants, someone else needs to handle those things. That way you can work on growing and scaling.
Another reason for the high failure rate is lack of self-belief. People, deep down, don’t truly believe they can do it. It’s more subconscious than conscious. Problem is, you’re dead in the water until you get that fixed. There are two ways to train your subconscious mind. First is goal setting and affirmations. Write them down, read them aloud. “I am an Ecom Warrior. I make six figures. I have freedom. Life is amazing. I’m so grateful for all that I’ve achieved.” Second, is visualization. Close your eyes, picture yourself living the life you want. Do these things daily.
The final reason for ecom failure is you’re trying to work on the business while you’re distracted. Picking up your phone, checking social media, all while you attempt to work on critical tasks. These micro interruptions keep you from performing at your best. Not only that, but studies show it can take up to fifteen minutes to get back into your flow state. If true, how many hours are you throwing away simply by looking at every text message that comes through?
Time blocking can help with all the above. Say you’re going to work on Facebook ads. Great, schedule ninety minutes to focus solely on that. Put your phone on silent and leave it in the other room. Sign out of everything but Facebook ad manager. Close down all other tabs. Use noise canceling headphones. Give everything you’ve got to Facebook ads, and Facebook ads alone, for those ninety minutes. From there, it comes down to consistency. Work on your business daily, be aware of these common failure points, and you can join Matthew Lepre in that exclusive one percent club.
