Are YOU experiencing discouraging delays, disappointments, or setbacks in life, and struggling to deal with them? If YES, this article can help you.
“Ona kan o gba oja” – a Yoruba saying – translates literally as: “several routes can be followed to the market”. It is often used in a figurative sense e.g. if an entrepreneur’s marketing strategy fails to work, it suggests exploring alternatives – instead of beating one’s head against the wall.
That mental attitude CAN help you turn things around and make the most of even the worst situations.
Incidentally, that is what has helped me succeed in virtually every area of endeavour I’ve ventured in life.
One example: A few years ago, while still based in Nigeria as an entrepreneur, certain “failures” made me begin toying with the idea of using Web Marketing to find 80% of my clients.
I was still doing offline marketing, to win projects with offline clients at the time (around 2010). But several unpleasant experiences had made me decide there had to be a better way to earn a living.
Apart from not getting paid as well as I wanted, I was periodically exposed to abuse and exploitation in various forms (some I’ve touched on in past articles e.g my article titled “One Major Reason Why People Avoid Entrepreneurship[True Story]“).
I wanted a way that would expose less frequently to the unpleasantness I was experiencing.
The idea occurred to me that I did not need to meet people face-to-face before they would buy from me – even in Nigeria/Africa.
By this time, many people had been reaching out to me via my articles marketing on Ezinearticles.com. A good number were from outside Nigeria and some as far as Europe, America and Asia.
However, the mindset I had at the time was one that kept me from believing I could get those foreigners to look beyond the issue of my being in Nigeria, and buy from me.
My past efforts, back in 2004 to 2006, had made me believe people were not willing to risk sending payment to Nigeria – due to the reputation given us by email scammers etc.
But my dissatisfaction with the results I got from working exclusively with offline clients DROVE me to try harder.
I eventually gained enough insights/experiences about how to do it – though it would take time.
So I began making more deliberate changes to my website content offers towards “wooing” potential clients from ANY part of the world with the QUALITY of useful content I offered.
The main purpose was to build my mailing list, which I then planned to “mine” for sales – with periodic offers.
Today, I can tell you that plan has worked WAY beyond what I imagined possible.
Indeed it continues to work. I now have a growing number of clients within and outside Nigeria/Africa who have NEVER met me in the flesh.
Yet, these people who have sent me payments for many of my products, and services, remain on good terms with me till today.
And more are in the process of joining them as I type this e.g. via my new 2-in-1 poultry farm business plans offer and others.
When I first began trying to use web marketing the way I do today, people told me nobody would buy from me without meeting me in person.
Some even subtly insinuated that I was a comedian for thinking anyone would send money to buy my so called “Excel software” for 5 to 6 figures.
Well, they ALL know now that they were wrong!
It’s all on record that total strangers – Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike send me as much as N75K to purchase my apps (e.g. the Monthly Poultry Farm Manager) – without meeting me.
But it takes diligence, and patience to use web marketing to attract these kinds of buyers from this part of the world i.e. Africa.
[NB: To build custom Excel apps from scratch, I’ve had clients pay from over N50k to as much as 5 times more – depending on the project scope etc.]
Being competent at what you do matters little with regard to how well you will be able to “market” it online. You will have to LEARN a new set of skills to do the latter effectively.
When I was doing it, I had no one. I had to believe alone that it was possible to use the web to sell my unconventional products and services.
And I had to do that, because I had lost money doing the direct marketing stuff. So I had more or less no viable options beyond that…
For instance, I once placed an advert in Guardian newspaper, for a seminar in Lagos, then produced lots of flyers and handouts, and went sharing them all over the place.
The venue I paid for was a plaza (La Monarch) at Opebi, in the Ikeja area of Lagos-Nigeria.
That day, NOT ONE SOUL turned up, despite several enquiries, and even people who showed interest in my flyers.
Would you believe that I still went ahead and created a VIDEO of myself talking about that disaster?
In fact I later regaled audiences I got paid to speak to (e.g. 16 management trainees at the Tantalizers Fast Food Restaurant chain’s Festac Headquarters), about how to use such a setback as a stepping stone!
Not only did it get people to laugh, they also saw that I refused to let ANYTHING get me down – instead used it to challenge myself to find another way to stop it from being a total failure.
Are YOU experiencing discouraging delays, disappointments, or setbacks and struggling to deal with them, as you pursue your goal(s)?
If yes, let me tell you that what you are experiencing is NO BIG DEAL.
And do you know what? You can still succeed, if you adopt the mindset implied in the Yoruba saying earlier mentioned.
There are many routes you can follow to achieve that goal(s) you set for yourself.
The problem is you may NOT be seeing the other possible ways to go about it right now, because you have not given it the required thought.
If you do the needed thinking diligently, you are likely to discover that you only need to make slight modifications and inclusions to your strategy. Once you do that, new possibilities will become even more apparent to you – and then you’d simply need to take ACTION!
Like Burt Dubin says – “You’ve got to roll with the punches that life throws at you”.
If one strategy does not work, the way you first tried it, and then re-try in a different way, for the same or a different audience.
Then PUT IT BACK out there in the marketing space (making sure it’s the RIGHT one) and PUSH it in your target audience members’ faces with DOUBLE determination!
Now that is the spirit that sets REAL entrepreneurs apart from the “wannabes”!
Never let yourself get too easily upset when things go wrong. It’s NOT a good way to be if you want to succeed as an entrepreneur.
Big or small – all entrepreneurs are people who never let setbacks keep them down.
In fact WE thrive on it!
The truth is that those delays, disappointments and setbacks are just a taste of what is still to come: There will be many more, in different forms. How you respond to them is what matters.
Ignore what ANYONE – be they close to you or total strangers – may say or do, during this period of your struggles!
If they laugh, laugh with them.
If that’s too hard for you to do, calmly take a walk to get some fresh air and THINK up new ideas you can use.
[Tip: Read my article titled “Do You Know How To Deal With People Who Mock And Ridicule You?”]
No matter how bad you think it all looks RIGHT NOW, if you adopt the right mindset, YOU can still come away with a major win!
But, it may not be the way YOU planned to win…which is why OUR Creator is so great :-))
You see, while we’re looking east, He may have plans of success coming at us from the West!
I hope you see my point.
We don’t need to worry about what he’s cooking up for us. Instead, we just need to KEEP doing our own bit with diligence and integrity.
Just continue to take firm steps forward towards the goals we passionately desire, with faith and determination.
That’s what we need to do to play our part in the relationship we have with him. Once we do that, he will do the rest.
What I just said above is based on more than 2 decades of my personal experiences achieving the goals I set my heart on, by applying “Absolute & Unquestioning Faith”.
Every human being is capable of doing that. And if you do it with persistence, you WILL connect successfully with your creator, and He will help you OVERCOME any visitations of adversity!
Need Help? Signup for my “Master of Adversity” (“MA”) Coaching Support Service!
I’ve come to the realization that some people will need will need help on a formal level, to deal successfully with adversity, to ENABLE them achieve their valued goals.
This is because not every one comes naturally gifted with the ability to be “relentless”.
…AND not all of us can “self-tutor” on how to do it either.
Some of us will need “coaching support” to develop the right Mental Attitude for dealing with delays, disappointments, and setbacks at different times in our evolution as individuals.
Without it, even those who do not like YOU will find it easy to upset you and make you fail!
But that does NOT mean you are weak, or incompetent. It only proves that you are HUMAN!
My confidential coaching support can help…fill/submit THIS form to request details.
Through it, I can give you more personalized and comprehensive support.
The decision is however yours to make.
Remember this: When things are not working as we want them, frustration can set in!
The reality is however that every human being feels frustration.
What is crucially important is that YOU NEVER let it get you down!
That is the key to succeeding at anything in life – no matter how hard or tough it gets.
I’ll end this by linking you to an article I wrote years back, about dealing successfully with frustration…
It’s titled “How to Make Yourself Immune to Frustration” (click now to read it)!
I wish you well.