Why Not Start Where You Are
by Tiffany Parson

It’s funny to me when people are hesitant to put a buy now button on their website because they are waiting to decide on a shopping cart. Okay, back up a sec…

Let’s say this person’s name is Sam and Sam has never sold anything online. Not one product, not one service. However, he’s been holding out for weeks on marketing his services until he decides on a pay button.

The problem, is we often are looking at where someone is right now and thinking, ‘Oh I cannot do that. I don’t have the money, time, resources, training, etc.’

Guess what? Neither did they.

Not when they were where you are right now.

Think of someone you admire or someone who is successful in your eyes at what they do. Maybe it’s someone who owns several stores and is selling their own product. Here’s an example: Carol’s Daughter.

This company sells skin and haircare products. A friend introduced me to this company about 7 years ago. Back then I think they had only one store in New York and since I don’t live in New York I would order things from their website.

However, since that time Carol’s Daughter has BLOWN UP!

You see she got started making products in her kitchen. However, if I allow myself to use her as a model, I mustn’t start with where she is right now, but I’ve got to know her story.

How did it get started?

What did she do to get to where she is right now?

Online we tend to think because things are done so quickly that we can get an idea today, put up a website tomorrow and BAM have tens of thousands of people coming to our website, following us on Facebook, Twitter and where ever else. Then we get discouraged when it doesn’t happen. The biggest thing missing is the effort, persistence and consistency needed to keep things going in our business.

I remember hearing my mentor say if you aren’t making any money in your business, you don’t have a business. You have an opportunity. Ah!

And yet, there are people who will read this right now and think they have a business because they have a website. I’m sorry to say that’s not the case. It takes hard work to get a business going online. Yes, there’s little over head, but where there’s lesser overhead you transfer that to effort, learning a skill, research. Finding out if people even want what you have.

My husband and I recently went to see the movie Guilt Trip. It started off slow but ended up being a pretty good movie. If you’ve got a mother, you must go see it. I’ve asked my mom to go see it and then let me know if she saw her self in Barbara Steisand’s character.

In the movie, the son is trying to sell an organic cleaning product. Yes, while people are into being green, organic, yada yah…he still had to put some energy into his product. It wasn’t until he did an outrageous presentation that he finally got someone’s attention. Yes, it was a fiction movie, but it makes sense. If I don’t want what you’re offering, what can you do?

Make me want it?

You must start where you are. If you don’t have a button and are allowing that to hold you up, please get signed up with PayPal NOW. There’s no rule that says you cannot change your shopping cart button later to something else. Get moving already!

I recently watched this video on Marie Forleo’s website. She takes you through her initial episodes of Marie.tv and brings it up to today. It’s easy to look at her online TV show in 2013 and think wow, I cannot do that. However, when you see she actually didn’t start from where we see her right now, it was completely different back in 2011.

Stop trying to copy someone’s now and begin right where you are.