Listening to mentors.
Sandalwood brought up a couple of points, the first one is listening to mentors.
We sowpubbers are a tad bit older than Warriors. But, your experience could also be a detriment.
Sandalwood had a mentor making 50k a month, and he followed the mentor's direction.
Today, we have too much experience and I'll tell of recent experiences.
There are several different kinds of Biz-Ops in the selling of advertising.
The 9x12 postcard, the coffee news franchise, coupon books, school folders, pizza boxes, flyers, inserts, and on and on and on.
Many gurus. Many mentors.
Even ME. I quit. I quit mentoring in step by step, tested and proven marketing strategy to sell ads on certain products...and do it quickly. I quit because, no one listened. See, the guys I dealt with all wanted to modify the steps.
Some wanted to stay home and send email. NO, doesn't work, but go ahead and try if you want.
Some wanted to make phone calls. NO doesn't work, but give it a go.
Some didn't want to use maps. NO won't work, but do as you want.
The result, NO success, and rather than take responsibility for not following the step by step, word for word, tested and proven method, which they begged for, and wanted to modify...
but got no results from, was somehow MY fault.
And then I had enough. Changed things up and will no longer work with people in any form or a mentor capacity.
I have a friend, in his 50's, who is just starting a new job selling, and my advice to him is
Forget what you know and follow directions and don't try to modify a program with a 7 year track record and 65 successful sales people.
IF he is able to, he will have found a good future. But he is going to be his own worst enemy because he KNOWS too much.
Recently, I've worked with 3 people who, for some reason, want to work with Wordpress, against my advice for what they wanted to do.
All 3 of them had problems with WP, all 3 were delayed, spent time when time was important. I now simply say, go ahead and do what you want.
My mentoring takes a different turn.
Now selling HOW to information, especially about making money has always had this problem built into it. The buyer pays for the information, but wants to modify it or do it his own way, and they find failure.
And it is one reason why young people can get to IM profitability faster than we old farts can, they don't KNOW what they don't know.
So take a look in the mirror, do you by any chance see a self saboteur?
I know I have on several occasions.
GordonJ
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