3 Steps to Turn Mistakes into Millions

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Today's Topic: 3 Steps to Turn Losses into Wins (and Millions in Profit)

As a 23-year in my 2nd year in business I lobbied my partner to spend $75,000 on a pay-per-click campaign. I wanted to grow and make millions... why wait? So we took a bank loan and dumped 100% of it into a marketing campaign. I knew spending debt on a speculative marketing strategy was really dumb, but I persisted anyway.

My master plan failed miserably...it got us no customers AND a mountain of debt. I felt like quitting (and crying), BUT this ended up being a blessing in disguise — it forced me to develop a 3-step process to turn mistakes into HUGE successes (and profit) on-demand. Anybody can use this strategy to change their fortunes:

Step 1: Avoid Compounding

Sometimes it's easier for your ego to continue cruising with a plan despite overwhelming evidence it's not working. If you aren't willing to objectively analyze your decisions then you aren't ready to make them. I was 100% wrong about using bank debt to finance a marketing campaign. It was driven by impatience and inexperience and my company almost went out of business because of it. DO NOT make things worse to protect your ego.

Step 2: Identify & Learn Skills

A bad situation stems from lacking — either skills, knowledge or both.

"What skills would've prevented this from happening?"

Learning the skills you need is critical because it prevents that specific mistake from ever being made again. A hallmark of successful folks is never making the same mistake twice. I decided to learn SEO to avoid being victim to paid search and it has since made us millions in profits. I also used my new skills to start Brightline, my SEO company and that has been life changing and something I love doing.

Step 3: Disassociate From Identity:

Don't let one bad decision define how you view yourself. Use this simple reframe to make mistakes less personal:

It's not something I do, it's something I did.  

Realize your mistake was one action not your entire personality. It's a subtle, but profound difference that will allow you to get comfortable with risk again to keep growing.

Quick Summary:

Don't let a single mistake define the future of your business. Instead use bad decisions to learn new skills and turn those skills into profits! With my formula you either win or grow.

SEO Tip of the week:

SEO is a high leverage activity because search engines can work 24/7 for your business and bring ideal customers inbound. The best part? When organic searchers find you, they are 10x more likely to close and become customers.

Use a CTA in your Meta Descriptions to increase CTR:

The meta description is an HTML tag that quickly summarizes a web page for a searcher. It's supposed to be ~160 characters and entice the searcher to click on your listing. MDs don't influence rankings directly but help increase the click-through-rate to your site.

Use a call-to-action at the end to tell the searcher what to do or what they'll get by clicking -- it makes a huge difference!

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