Test and you shall receive (success)

Like many entrepreneurs, I’ve never been short of ideas.

My ADHD brain is both a blessing and a curse in that respect (and a few others).

You’d think having many ideas would be great, right?

And it is, of course, except there’s a gap between coming up with an idea and actually making it work.

I’m writing this email to remind myself that my most successful ventures never happened overnight. There was always a process of trial and error. Constant adaptations until I landed the perfect recipe.

The Goal: A Recipe I Can Scale

Scaling by creating a system has always been my goal.

If I find something that works and turns a profit—awesome! Now, how do we scale this?

I need to figure out scaling because I want to make more money.

If I find a way to invest $100 and make $150, then I will make $50, which is always nice but not good enough.

If I can figure out a way to delegate and systemize my new method and have my team repeat the process a thousand times a month, then I’ll make $150,000—much better.

But first, I Need To Find That Recipe

To create a system that will allow me to delegate routine tasks, I have to find something that works. A recipe that I can then replicate by the process to others.

A food blogger I met on the Mediavine Premiere Retreat once told me that she makes every recipe at least twenty times before publishing it on her blog.

Every time she cooks it, she makes a small adjustment to try and make it taste better. She keeps the successful recipe changes, constantly improving the dish.

It’s the same with what we do.

I go through every process myself —more than once. Usually, dozens of times, or even more.

I need to do everything myself until I feel I have a solid recipe that I can delegate to our team members.

The point I’m trying to make here is that you have to go through a rigorous testing phase before you have a method you can scale.

Case In Point

I’m working on info products these days.

As shared in previous emails, I already got the first info product to work. At least to some extent. We had almost $2000 in revenue from sales.

It’s profitable but not enough to justify scaling.

Now comes the hard part. I have to optimize the sales funnel.

The only way to optimize is to test. Again and again. And again.

Each time, you change one or more aspects and run a/b tests to see what works best.

I’ve asked experienced marketers, who all said it could take months to fine-tune and optimize your funnel.

Yikes. I can’t say I’m crazy about this part.

But the point is, it has to be done. Whatever grand ideas you have, to really succeed, you have to go through those phases of optimizing and developing until you hit the right recipe.

It took me three years to make a profit from my first website back in 2000.

When I got back in the game in 2018, it took me more than a year to turn a profit from content sites.

I have no reason to think perfecting an info product system will be faster.

What If You Use Someone Else’s Recipe?

Like many other bloggers in our industry, ​I often recommend courses​. A good course is like a cookbook: It offers a recipe that works well for the course creator.

That’s great, except it doesn’t always work. ​I used a different metaphor in this post​ to explain why.

It’s not the course author’s fault. It’s just a fact of life in our dynamic industry that what worked for them may not work for you.

Maybe your niche is different, or your tools are different, or your content is different.

A course can provide you with that initial recipe and save you a lot of time, but it can’t replace testing to fine-tune your own system. I know this is probably not what you want to hear, but it’s what I believe.

Test, and you shall succeed

My experience has shown me that with enough experimentation, the right recipe is almost always within reach.

Testing is not always fun. It takes up a lot of your time and attention span.

I find that I don’t have the mental bandwidth to test too many things at once. I actually delegate some of the testing these days, but it’s still a challenge.

But you shouldn’t give up. Being prepared to methodically test for a long time is the key to success.

If I know someone else made it work, I’m pretty sure I can make it work, too.

Eventually.

I just need to persevere and continue to test and improve.

That’s all I wanted to share today. No earth-shattering news, I know, but I needed this reminder, and hopefully, it can help others as well.

Don’t give up too soon – keep testing and improving. It’s worth it in the long run!