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Tuesday, 6 December 2016

3 Deep Lessons Learned From Joining a Business Course

On November 19, 2013, I became a member of the entrepreneurial training site, Fizzle.

I wish I could remember the specific moment when I chose to join or what it was exactly that inspired me to take the leap, but the truth is I was on a learning feeding frenzy at that point. I was taking courses, listening to podcasts, reading books, and joining websites at a furious pace.

I had just discovered the world of entrepreneurs and it was all new and exciting to me. The potential for transforming my life seemed limitless, and Fizzle was just one more resource among many that I was hoping would get me a few steps closer to the promised land of running my own independent business.

Sadly, few of the resources I so ravenously consumed during that learning phase had the impact on my life I'd hoped they would, and an even smaller selection remain relevant to me today.

But Fizzle is different.

Three years after joining Fizzle, I'm still a member. I'm still watching courses, interacting in the forums, and updating my progress log. On that special day in November 2013, Fizzle became an important part of my business growth, and it remains just as important to this day.

What I've learned from Fizzle could fill… well, fill a membership site, but what follows are the top three lessons I’ve learned from three years as a proud Fizzler.

1. It’s important to learn the basics

Learning how to set-up a podcast feed, design a website, process a payment, create an email list, or host a video online isn't sexy stuff, but it's utterly essential to creating an online business.

The ins and outs of these foundational elements can be overwhelming, intimidating, and frustrating — particularly if you don’t consider yourself technically savvy to begin with. I've seen far too many hopeful entrepreneurs get sucked into a maelstrom of confusing technical details that have prevented them from making any real progress.

Thankfully, Fizzle's courses get you through these foundational elements of business building in a manner that prevents overwhelm, reduces headaches, and actually makes a lot of the boring technical stuff kinda fun. (Yes, it’s possible!)

With the technical side of things covered via Fizzle courses, I was able to move much faster into the more important actions like developing products, supporting customers, and making sales (cha-ching!). It might not seem that deep on the surface, but simple guidance through the technical stuff was a big deal for me.

2. Things take longer than you think, but persistence pays off

Yes, Fizzle helped me get through the boring technical stuff quickly, and I’m glad it did, because the stuff that comes afterwords, the stuff you really have to do to make money and grow a business, is a heck of a lot harder and takes a lot longer.

Today, my business consistently brings in a few thousand dollars in revenue every month, but it took me three years to get there! That’s three long years of trying, experimenting, learning, adapting, failing, adjusting, and just plain working my butt off.

Much of the advice I first heard from Fizzle three years ago is only sinking in now that I’ve had the opportunity to try things, make mistakes, and learn from my failures (and successes) along the way.

Concepts like using consistent delivery of high-value content to build trust over the long-term, instead of high pressure short-term sales tactics, are resonating with me now more than ever.

It’s the same with the need to get specific on what I want to do and how I want to do it. I’ve tried to sell a bunch of different products and services over last few years, and the more specific I’ve gotten about what I have to offer my clients, the more success I’ve found. But, again, it took me a long time to get there, and, unfortunately, I saw a lot of entrepreneurs give-up along the way when they didn’t find immediate success with the first or second ideas they attempted.

Fizzle teaches independent business builders how to do the right things, but success isn’t just about doing all the right things. It’s about doing the right things consistently for a long period of time.

“Fizzle teaches independent business builders how to do the right things consistently. ”
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3. Community is essential

I’ve spent ten years working at my day job and during that time I’ve made very few friends. The type of people who work where I work just aren’t my people.

At Fizzle, on the other hand, I found an entire community of individuals I identified with, resonated with, and actually wanted to be around. These were people who, like me, had dreams, ambitions, and the confidence to chase the possibility of a life others consider outside of the box, if not completely impossible to achieve.

When I felt down, Fizzlers gave me support. When I had questions, Fizzlers had answers. I joined masterminds with other Fizzlers, developed important friendships with Fizzlers, and ended up working with several Fizzlers in various different capacities over the years.

Fizzle also opened the doorway to developing relationships with people like John Corcoran, Chris Johnson, Tom Morkes, and Jason Billows. These are brilliant business people whom I’ve had the pleasure of learned a lot from, and it was the common element of Fizzle that brought them into my life and allowed me to interact with them in a way I never would have had the confidence or opportunity to do otherwise.

Nobody gets anywhere in life alone, and the importance of the Fizzle community in my business growth cannot be understated.

Where might YOU be three years from now?

I said I was going to share my top three lessons learned with you, but here’s a bonus tip I’ve picked up along the way:

It’s all about you.

The Fizzle Roadmap will tell you what you need to do to build a business, and the Fizzle courses will show you how do it, but YOU need to be the one to execute. No one is going to do it for you.

It’s you who must make the difficult decisions, takes risks, creates a plan, and take the necessary steps, each and every day, towards achieving the goals you want to achieve.

If you need help, Fizzle has it. They’ve got the courses. They’ve got the community. They have the information you need to be successful. But it’s up to you (and me) to put that information into action.

Things aren’t going to change for you overnight, but if you keep at it for the long haul, just like I have, where might you be in three years?

There’s only one way to find out. It’s time to get to work.