I’ve been listening to Brian Tracy’s “The Psychology of Selling” for the past several weeks as I’ve been driving about. I’ve listened to the complete set at least ten times now and will continue to listen to them until I can either quote them in my sleep or the tapes fall apart (in which case I’ll send them back for replacements; Nightingale Conant offers a lifetime replacement warranty!).
One of the reasons for listening to these tapes so many times is that I often miss stuff the first time around. As you listen, you hear something that you want to think about for a while. Of course, while you’re doing this, you ignore what’s currently playing, so replaying the tapes can be quite valuable. You also need help with different things at different times in your life and career, so even if you think that you’ve obtained maximum benefit from something, dusting it off after a year or so can result in even more benefit from a tape set. In my case, it can take me many times before I realize something anyway, which is why I really want to practically memorize these tapes.
Another reason I’m obsessed with this tape set is that, as Brian says on the tapes, nothing happens until a sale takes place. That’s one reason why I don’t particularly care for the “Internet Marketing” term. It’s about business. It’s about sales. Marketing plays a role, but nothing happens until a sale takes place. So why do we put so much emphasis on marketing?
Internet Selling, anybody? Would that make me an Internet Selling-er? 
People also have to like you and trust you before they’ll buy from you. So we need to communicate. They also usually don’t buy until after the fifth contact. Email is important, as is a blog. And so forth and so on. There’s just so much in this set that can help people like us as we work on our websites and business.
And these tapes are over 20 years old! Wonder if they have an updated version?
But moving on to the main point of this post, Brian also said on those tapes that people procrastinate in sales for one reason: fear of rejection. Instead of getting out in front of prospects, they’ll do anything and everything to avoid making contact because most people will reject their offer. They engage in non-selling “busy work” — checking email, checking messages, whatever — to avoid getting in front of a live human being who is qualified to make a purchase decision.
That’s the first thing that I want to point out. The reason for rejection is not what you might think it is. When people reject your offer, they are not rejecting you personally! Your offer is just “too” — too expensive, too complex, too unnecessary… In other words, your offer is not right for them.
But fear of rejection is the flip side of procrastination. Sales people procrastinate because they do not want to face the possibility of rejection, all the time ignoring the fact that the end result is the same: no sales. And if they did face rejection, somebody might actually say “yes”…
Of course, this also ties to those of us working to build an online business. In my opinion, we procrastinate because of fear of failure — but the difference between sales rejection and Internet business rejection is subtle yet distinct.
In our case (for those of us working to build an online business), our fear is not so much one of rejection; instead, it’s a fear that what we’ve been taught won’t work. Why write those articles? Why build that website? Why create that product? Why attend those live events? Why join that membership site? Why do anything, we say? It won’t work!
This “thinking” is, in many cases, completely unfounded. How do we know it won’t work? On what do we base our opinions? Have we personally tried it? Do we have first-hand knowledge of somebody who tried it and failed? If we do, what factors led to their failure? Or does it simply seem to be so unbelieveable that we write it off as improbable?
(NOTE: Following a proven plan will work. Keep reading for a place to get some “proven plans” that have worked for others.)
At any rate, the end result is the same. Instead of doing the things that will put money in our pockets, we do stuff like hang out at forums, do “research”, and flit from one idea and system to the next, never completing a single thing and never giving ourselves the opportunity to learn that something will work. We are always seeking but never learning what truly works.
In other words, my theory (not very eloquently stated!) is that we procrastinate because we truly fear that what we are doing won’t work. Like the sales person who fears rejection, we fear working on ideas that we think won’t make us any money. As a result, we have guaranteed failure before we’ve even tried anything.
Is there a solution? Yes! As I mentioned above, simply follow a proven plan and your odds of success are grealy enhanced (but nobody can guarantee it).
I recently joined Dennis Becker’s Earn 1K A Day membership site. Now in my opinion, Dennis isn’t one of these flashy “Gee, look at me rake in the big bucks” kind of goo-roos. If anything, Dennis would qualify as a “do-ru”, but a flashy goo-roo?
Nope.
But the membership site is solid. Great ideas, lots of extras to help you build your business — and all at one affordable monthly price. It also includes a copy of Dennis’ Five Bucks A Day report. The goal of that is to get you think of ways that you can earn five dollars a day, then focus on one of those ideas each and every week. While the report itself is awesome, joining the Earn 1K A Day membership site will drop you smack dab in the middle of an incredibly supportive community that will make the job easier.
But the biggest part of the whole thing is focus, and by joining the membership site, you’ll be able to bounce ideas off of people who have journeyed down the road to success before you. Remember, these are people who, like Dennis, are too busy working and being successful to act like a flashy goo-roo — but isn’t that what you want? Wouldn’t you rather bounce your money making idea off of a bunch of people who, from experience, will have a good idea of whether your idea will work? While it won’t guarantee success, it can certainly help you avoid an obvious failure (if you are teachable and willing to listen), and if you know that something has a chance of winning, won’t you be more inclined to work on it instead of procrastinating?
So is Earn 1K A Day the cure for procrastination? I won’t go so far as to say that, but if you dump the other stuff you have and work on that, it most certainly can help — if you let it.
So I’m glad to add Earn 1K A Day membership site to the list of business building membership sites that I can recommend. And I’d love to see you on the inside, with Dennis and me (and a lot of other people).
Buy some “failure insurance”, so to speak, and take a positive step towards healing yourself of your fatal case of “procrastinationitis” today.
OK, I’m starting to sound like a copywriter, I’ll stop!
Thanks for listening,
Tom
P.S. — I don’t see anything about a guarantee on the sales page, but since you’ll be signing up for your subscription with ClickBank, YOU are in control and can cancel it at any time. At most, you risk one month’s worth of membership fees — and the forum is full of valuable downloads that are worth far more than that. So why not give it a try?
Here’s that link again: Click here to join Dennis Becker’s Earn 1K A Day membership site
NOTE: My eyes are doing weird things as I finish this post, making proofreading difficult… I reserve the right to later edit this post. Thanks for understanding!