There is no easy button for your business growth and profitability

Are you here looking for the Easy Button?

Yes, you are. (I’m still searching for one or two of those too!)

We’re looking for shortcuts, ease, the lure of…immediate income, windfall, no struggle…

Now, that’s not a bad thing really. But, the truth is satisfying income comes with work. It comes with serving your marketing well. No matter if you are a service business, an information business or sell tangible goods. The income is possible.

TRUTH == There are no miracles.

TRUTH == There are maps.

I sometimes wish that my business had a GPS, you know the thing attached to your windshield that tells you, “go left in 421 yards, traffic up ahead and turn around (idiot) you’re going the wrong way.” (mine has a snippy ‘tone’ not sure about yours).

Or maybe even a treasure map like Peter Pan, Captain Jack Sparrow or other famous pirates used to see their reward.

But – the maps we have are more like the bread crumbs that Hansel & Gretel dropped so that they could:

1. Find their way home again and

2. Allow others to see where they’d been.

In my business journey, I’ve followed lots of breadcrumb trails. I’ve read, studied, listened to and modeled after numerous folks. It doesn’t mean I’ve hired them always or even bought anything. But I’ve watched their bread crumb trail. In some cases (that I won’t mention here) I’ve watched folks and learned what NOT to do. That is another post for my PRIVATE journal 😉

Some of these names might be familiar to you, some not. I’ve studied some legends from afar as you likely have

• Zig Ziglar, Attitude & Motivation
• Mary Kay Ash, Being a Lady (a persistent one at that!)
• John C. Maxwell, Leadership
• Frank McKinney, Branding & Signature

All of whom I’ve been privileged to meet, aside for Mary Kay. And then there are some folks that seem ordinary when you first encounter them, but their crumbs (or footprints) alter your journey as well. (Remember what sets apart ordinary from extraordinary is just that little ‘extra.’ Below are a few bread-crumb sharers…admittedly, I’ve since learned from even more folks and gone through courses and materials. But these 3 influenced me before I had aspirations to play a bigger game, write a book, change my corner of the world. They didn’t help because I was ‘somebody’ important. I was (and am) just me. Wow.

• Scott Stratten aka UnMarketing: I learned about viral movie strategies from Scott and he even produced one for me (back in the day) for an inspirational woman’s ezine I did before I started doing business online. I learned a lot from working with Scott about drawing people to you rather than chasing them down.
• Sarah Robinson, Escaping Mediocrity: Her brand was much different then, but I had a virtual client business centered on JUST direct sellers in one industry and she was coaching the same. While I serviced their admin needs, she coached them to greatness and I watched her hold a phenomenal virtual event (the first I’d seen) called Hot Pink Success Summit. I learned a lot about the power of information, credibility and even affiliate marketing from seeing her bread crumbs from that one event. My first online virtual event was called Barefoot Online Success Summit. (Admittedly, my target was different by then, but let me publicly apologize for a lack of imagination on my part Sarah….I was trying to spell BOSS.)
• Ann Vertel: Hers was the first e-mail newsletter I ever got and we became friends because of shared interests. She taught me what an autoresponder was and how to shop for online payment systems. She also taught me the power of a list for your marketing. She is also the first example in my life of how an online friend can morph into someone very meaningful and REAL in your life.

Something I find interesting is that I didn’t seek any of these personalities out for ‘miracles’ or even for instant solutions. But by watching their journey, I learned so much and gathered lots of crumbs (and gold nuggets) along the way. What is really interesting as I write this post is that I now see that Scott, Sarah, Ann and I are all in different markets, evolved brands and serving in radically different ways than we were 4-6 years ago.

• I’m thankful that they shared their path with me, whether they intended to or not.
• I’m grateful they didn’t ‘wait’ until they were where they are today before they started.
• I’ve been negligent in that I don’t think I’ve publicly shouted ‘thanks’ to these folks for contributing to my journey. I apologize for that.

I could add Pastors, friends, neighbors and more here. I could add YOU because you are what motivates me to share MY path, MY bread crumbs and MY stuff that I’ve learned and implement. I haven’t waited to be perfect. I sometimes mess up. I leave evidence of that all over the place. Maybe you can learn from that too.

I count my years of bread-crumb collecting responsible for my results and I’d love to share those with you in my book, The Barefoot Executive.

Whether you read or listen or not…I am glad you are here. Would you let me know about some meaningful steps on your journey? Or are there some bread crumbs you’d care to share below?