The Original Butterfly Effect

You have probably heard of the “butterfly effect.” The standard example is of a butterfly flapping its wings in Asia effecting the weather the America. The geeky term used in Chaos math for this is “a sensitive dependence on initial conditions.” This butterfly effect was first discovered by scientists who were running computer models, hoping to be able to better predict future weather.

One night, somebody made a small mistake. You see, loads and loads of data were entered into the weather models and they ran overnight and listed out probable weather outcomes. One night somebody entered the data wrong. The made a small mistake, like entering .61 instead of .16 for a seemingly innocuous piece of data. Well, the computer models ran overnight and what was previously a beautiful sunny day in the model, turned into a typhoon or something. The outcomes were sensitively dependent on the initial conditions entered. A small change in the data produced a gigantic change in the weather outcome.

As a student, I found this concept fascinating but in recent years, as a business owner, I have discovered a new Butterfly Effect. It has nothing to do with initial conditions and everything to do with your business mindset. Let me explain.

The “Other Butterfly Effect”

My wife and I are partners in an Online Marketing Company. We specialize in SEO but also do some AdWords Campaign Management and help small brick and mortar businesses turn their website traffic into paying customers. As you can imagine, this means we approach small businesses and pitch them on our services. We were both in advertising sales in a previous life so the concept and execution is familiar to us.

Last month we were lucky enough to take a trip to “the beach.” When you live in Charlotte, North Carolina that means you head to somewhere on the S.C. coast. For us, it is usually Murrell’s Inlet, just south of Myrtle Beach. It is a great place to relax, get some beach time, re-charge, strategize and get ready to approach more small businesses in Charlotte.

This time, however, we decided to totally unplug from the business. We didn’t want to check e-mails, hold conference calls, write proposals or do anything business related while we were there. Oftentimes, we will dedicate some time to the business, even if we are way on vacation. And most of the time, it is no big deal. A quick phone call here and an e-mail there don’t necessarily ruin your time. As a matter of fact, it helps us focus on how we want to permanently run our business one day.

But for this small vacation we really wanted to leave it all behind for a few days and just spend some time as a family. No calls, no e-mails, no work. In order to make this happen it required that we put in some extra work before we leave so that all of our clients were well taken care of and all projects were complete before we left. Of course, we still had some prospective clients that we had made presentations to or sent a proposal. And we needed some of this business to come in. We had been talking with one prospective clients for over 4 months. It was getting to point where we thought no one was going to sign with us. Times like this can be extremely stressful but we were determined to “leave it all behind” for a few days. We put in all of our due diligence, followed up where we had to and figured we would touch base with our prospects when we returned.

This is where the other butterfly effect comes in. Have you ever tried to catch a butterfly? As a kid, I would waste away afternoons with a net or a jar and try to chase down butterflies in my back yard. Catching butterflies is now a favorite past-time of my son, Jake. He can run around for hours with his butterfly net, trying to capture them so he can get a closer look. But the harder he tries, the harder it gets. He will jump off his swingset, leap over the stream, creep under the deck – all to no avail. He can’t seem to catch one single butterfly.

This is how we felt when we left home and headed for the beach. We are always looking to work with new clients and most of time we gain our clients through referrals and recommendations. But we were working hard to land these new clients, these butterflies, and some hadn’t returned a phone call or e-mail in over a week. Stressed out and ready for relaxation, we headed to the beach.

Here is the thing that Jake hasn’t learned yet but could be the key to success in your business. Sometimes, you have to let go. Releasing the firm grip you have on your business can be very hard. When we are constantly attempting to achieve to level of success, it feels like we are in control of our destiny. But sometimes, the complete opposite is true. Sometimes you need to let go a little bit in order to really gain control. Power and control are difficult concepts to fully master and we often need to take a step back in order to see their illusory nature. Banging your head harder against the brick wall doesn’t mean you have gained anymore control over it. You are better off just walking away.

Relax Your Way to What You Want

So here is how the “other” butterfly effect works. Jake will chase these fluttering creatures all over the yard for an entire afternoon. We will tire himself out running around in circles with no real chance of catching anything. You can’t catch a butterfly by brute force. If he could just step back a bit and see that he is not in control, that he should just relax for a minute he would have a better chance. If he sat on the deck with a cold glass of lemonade, a butterfly just might land on his relaxed shoulder as opposed to flying into his hustling net.

When we unplugged at the beach last month, it was a much needed re-charging of our batteries. We took a step back to enjoy the truly important things in life. Clients and prospects would still be there when we returned. We decided to sit down and enjoy that glass of lemonade.

On the drive home, my wife started to ease herself back into work mode and checked her voicemail and e-mail. EVERY prospective client we had been chasing, contacted her. One message was for a contract. The butterfly landed on her shoulder! Now we are back in the race trying to remember that you can’t force it and that pushing too hard isn’t the best option.

It looks like Jake is starting to catch on too….

Image Credits:

Butterfly – Tara Swiciki – Gardener Extrodinaire

Jake with Butterfly – Trish Saemann – SEO Specialist and Rock Star Mom

I am not a stylish guy. My clothes aren’t fancy or expensive and I often go pretty long stretches without getting a haircut. When I finally do buckle down and get it cut, I go to the nearest, easiest, cheesiest, chain haircut place I can find. Luckily I live in the ‘burbs and I’m never really that far way from one. I usually end up at a Great Clips about a mile from my house.

So last week I finally went in and got a haircut. I was there in the mid-afternoon on a Monday so it wasn’t really crowded. If you have ever been to a place like this you know the first question they are going to ask you….what’s your phone number? It is always the same, you get a greeting – “Hello, welcome to Great Clips” and then “Can I have your phone number please?”

You see, these places collect your personal information and then use it to sort you from the rest of their customers – man, they are missing the boat here! It had to be 10 or 12 weeks since the last time I had gotten a haircut. I was sitting in the chair watching all my hair collect on the apron and floor and realized Great Clips was missing a golden opportunity.

A simple e-mail reminder, weeks earlier, probably would have gotten me in for a haircut. I might even appreciate their being helpful. They could easily move me from a 5 haircut a year guy to an 8 or 10 haircut a year guy. That’s double the business by sending a few simple e-mails!

I don’t understand why you would go through the process of collecting all my vital info – name, address, phone number, etc and NOT get my e-mail! Maybe they even have my e-mail, I don’t even remember. If that is the case they are really screwing up.

A simple helpful reminder. That is all it would take. Forget it if they actually used the wealth of info they have on me to offer other suggestions. A sample e-mail could go like this:

Hey Brian,

It’s been 6 weeks since you last stopped by to get a haircut. You might be getting a little shaggy right about now. The last time you were in Stephanie cut your hair with a number 4 razor, blended it and trimmed the top. Stephanie is working this Monday, would you like to make an appointment? Just click here or call and we will get you all set up.

Thanks for being such a great customer Brian, we appreciate it.

See You Soon,

Great Clips

p.s. – don’t forget to pick up some of our over-priced light hold styling gel while you are in

Would you book the appointment if you got this e-mail (minus the sarcastic p.s.)? I know I would…I am too lazy not to. They would have removed all barriers between me and a purchase. Nice and easy..that’s how I shop.

And an added bonus for them, there would be next to no chance of me going to a competitor. Even if I didn’t book the appointment from that e-mail I would feel compelled to go there when I was ready.

Sometimes we just need to open our eyes and see the things around us. GC has all this info and they are doing nothing with it. Shit like this makes the marketer in me get all fired up. If you are doing this with your business, please stop.

Take stock of the info you have on your customers and use it to help them make a purchase from you. If they were a customer once, it should be easier to get them to be a customer again. We need to wake up….Make it easy for THEM. Remove the barriers. Make their day.

If you are new to the online marketing scene you are probably considering how to create your first information product. You are doing your research, you’ re reading the right sites and you see e-books for sale all over the internet, (probably even bought a few). You are trying to figure out the next hot topic so you can position yourself to reap the windfall. But that is the problem!

Stop Searching…Start Doing

Forget the research, chances are you already have the information in your head. You just need to overcome the curse of knowledge so that you can teach your skill to others.

The Curse of Knowledge

I first came across the idea of the curse of knowledge in the book, Made to Stick. The authors, Chip and Dan Heath, were trying to point out that when you know something, it is difficult to see things through a beginner’s eyes. Your knowledge becomes second nature and your brain begins to assume that everyone knows what you know. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Chip and Dan use the example of tapping out a song with your fingers on a table. Have you ever tapped out Happy Birthday or the Star Spangled Banner? You hear the song in your head. It is unmistakable. But your wife sitting across from you asks you to stop. What are you doing, she asks. And no matter how hard you try you can’t get her to recognize the song. You hear the notes in your head but she only hears the monotone tapping and can’t recognize the tune. Try it, it is pretty crazy actually.

You are “cursed” with the knowledge of the song you are tapping  and you can’t get other people to recognize it. At least you can’t get them to hear it until you realize that they can’t and you break it down for them even further. Maybe you start to hum it. Now it doesn’t take too long for them to recognize it. You have broken through the barrier by breaking down the material to a new, more fundamental level. This is how you will create your first information product online.

Analysis Paralysis

Everyone has something that they more about than most of the “regular” population. It doesn’t matter who you are, you know something that other people want to know. They may even pay you for that information. So stop the researching! Don’t try to be someone or something that you aren’t in order to cash in on a hot topic or a fad. That doesn’t work and you don’t need to do it. You already have the knowledge inside your head. YOU are an expert at something that other people are beginners at. You can help them, you just have to stop thinking about what topic you want to write about and start thinking about how to write about a topic you already know.

YOU Know Stuff

I love working with people and helping them find their online niche. So often people search for something they think is an undiscovered goldmine. This is so the wrong approach. Yes, you have to make sure that people are looking for and will be willing to pay for your knowledge. Beyond that, don’t worry about traffic numbers, levels of competition or how great you think your future competitors might be. Just write the damn thing!

After 3-4 months of researching niches and trying to figure out an angle for my my first info product, I was getting frustrated. I constantly found reasons not to pursue certain ideas. “I don’t know enough about it” “There is too much competition” “Nobody wants to know what I have to say about that” Finally I just decided on something that was easy to me and I knew other people wanted to know how to be good at it. It wasn’t a giant niche. I wasn’t going to sell the next $997 superstar e-course. But if I did it right, maybe I could make a few bucks.

And I did! That book went on sale in January of 2008 and it has been making a few hundred dollars a month, every month, since then. It is an old school, long form sales letter site. It is VERY outdated. But I can’t bring myself to update it or sell it. That site was my first one, it was my baby. WordPress wasn’t out back then (or I just didn’t know about it yet) so I had to teach myself HTML to get it up. It was a bear. But the hardest part was recognizing the knowledge I already had in my head.

Know Thyself

Here is a question you need to ask yourself to discover the knowledge you have and write your first info-product:

What have I done and succeeded at that others wish they could be successful at?

Once you have that answer you need to realize that the stuff you know is NOT second nature to the rest of the world, it is second nature only to you. Now you need some follow up questions so you can break through the barrier of the curse of knowledge:

1.     What mistakes did I make along the way?
2.     If I were to do it again today, what would I do differently?
3.     What specific actions were the key to my success?
4.     What misconceptions hinder people’s success?
5.     What things do people do that  impedes their success, even though
they may think these things are helping?
6.     What activities would seem risky to a newbie but you know
are essential to success?
7.     If you were to hold someone’s hand through this process,
what steps would you give them?
8.     What barriers seem impossible to break through as a beginner,
how did you break through them?

When you examine your knowledge through the lens of these questions, it is truly amazing what you already know! Are you pretty good at training your pets? Have a knack for growing a vegetable garden? Are you a good parent? Good student? Do you have some type of certification other people may be interested  in?

Trust me….you have knowledge that other people want to know. All you need to do is break through the curse of knowledge that is preventing you from seeing this. Once you realize just how awesome you are, all you need to do is break down your knowledge to a fundamental level. There are people out there who need to know what you know.

Now get tapping…..

This is the third part of my 5 Reasons Online Businesses Beat the Terd Out of a Job series of posts so today you get my third reason for loving online passive income streams.

Wait for it…..

It is actually less risky than going the traditional route of having a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke for the uninitiated)!

How is that possible you ask? Right now I go to work, put in my time and get a set paycheck every two weeks. That’s great for right now but what happens when the company you work for decides to make some changes? What happens when they do a little restructuring? What happens when the shit hits the fan like it did in September 2008? You put your head down and pray for the best is what happens and that is no way to live!

When you work for someone else you put at least a little bit of your destiny, your fate and your freedom into their hands. What happens when their hands are tied and they just can’t hold you up any longer?

You are S.O.L is what happens.

Now they will tell you they didn’t want to do it. That it hurts them too. That this is no reflection on your job performance or your personality. It’s just business and it’s what they HAVE to do. Do you really want to put your fate, your families fate in a position where someone HAS to completely derail you? Even if you never get laid off you entire career (lucky you) will you have put yourself in a position to be comfortable when you retire.

Maybe you will never quit your day job. Maybe your online businesses will be a supplemental retirement plan. Maybe they will be a vacation fund or a college fund or a safety net. Either way you will be creating something for yourself that no one will ever HAVE to take away.

Sharing is Caring

Please let me share with you some of my personal experience here. In September 08 I was employed as a Sales Rep for a TV station in Charlotte. My wife was employed as a Sales Rep for a radio station here. You may not know this but when they economy nose dives like it did back then the first thing businesses cut are their advertising budgets. They go into survival mode. They hope to curl up like a potato bug and just make it to the other side of the recession. For the months of August 08-December 08. I was scared out of my mind. I had no idea what each day would bring. Which client would call and try cancel their order. It was literally gut wrenching. And then it happened….my wife was laid off.

It was January of 2009. We had lived in Charlotte for 15 months. We were in our new house less than a year. And now it seemed like everything was going to be taken away. And my wife was pregnant with our second son!

This is when we really found our stride on the internet. I had been “playing around” online since late 07 and was generating a few hundred bucks a month in passive income. Now it was time to really put the pedal to the medal. We devised a plan. We researched resources that could help us get there. We invested in ourselves. And we worked our asses off.

That work has become the foundation of our online businesses and has saved our asses on more than one occasion. YOU can do this. It is not rocket science. When I got started all I did on the internet was check e-mail and surf the net.

Now I can build a website it about an hour and can get #1 rankings in Google in a few weeks. It really is all about believing in yourself and implementation. So many people research this stuff but never actually do anything with the information they find (or pay for).

This is why I say that starting an online business is the biggest risk you will never take. Fact is…its not that risky. You can get started with some simple web hosting and a nice WordPress Theme. Hell, I’ll even do all of that for you. But most people, never actually do it. They get caught up in questions like:

What if it doesn’t work?

What if it does work?

Where can I find the time? (my biggest pet peeve…MAKE the time already)

I am too old for this….or too young

Name the excuse, people will use it. I am not preaching here, I have gone through all of this mental masturbation. It is hard when you try to go it alone without the perceived safety net of a company backing you up. But here is the truth: That company isn’t looking out for you. Only you care about your financial and mental health. No one else is going to care for you.

So just do it already and get started. You don’t have to quit your job tomorrow. But it will be nice knowing that you have set the wheel in motion so that you you can quit (if you want) in a year or so. Try that hat on for size and see if you feel a little bit better about yourself after you get started….I guarantee you will!

So here is step one. Declare publicly that you will begin this journey. Leave a comment about why or how or when you are going to take this first very BIG step. We all started somewhere, you should start in the comments below….

In the first post we explored my favorite reason for preferring multiple online income streams to a regular job. That reason was that online businesses separate your time from your income. Even if you are a high paid doctor, or lawyer, nurse, or accountant, your income is still tied to the hours you log at the office. When you create online businesses you separate your time from your salary. You also separate your income from WHERE you spend you time, creating a sense of freedom of place that you probably haven’t felt since you were kid. So the number 2 reason is that an online business will separate your income from your place which allows you to build your business and your ideal lifestyle.

Now when I say ideal lifestyle you may get images of living on the beach, sipping margaritas, hitting the send button on your e-mail auto-responder and making heaps of money. That is not what I’m talking about. Those images are perpetrated by the get-rich-quick “Gurus” that want to sell you a push-button system that over promises and under delivers. Well my motto is under promise and over deliver. This is real work and your ideal lifestyle may be living on a farm in the mountains of West Virginia, hey..who knows? But the point is that by building your online business you have more control over your day to day life.

The Office – It’s a Drag

We have all dragged our ass to the office some days. Doesn’t matter what profession you are in. Most jobs make you go there, put in your 8-10 hours and then head home. Add in commute time and the time spent “at the job” can easily reach 60+ hours a week. Why has the world decided that everything must get done between the hours of 8:30 and 5:30? I know that I am more productive in the evenings and at night. It is just my bio clock – I am a night person. (it’s 1:30 am right now) Wouldn’t it be nice if you could schedule work when and where you wanted to?

Quiet Time

Kids home from school today? Take the computer to a coffee shop or the library. I recently spent 4 hours in my local library working. It had been so long since I had 4 uninterrupted hours of peace and quiet (I have a 4 year old and 10 month old) that it didn’t even feel like work. I was able to hear my own thoughts and bang out some tasks that would have taken 3 or 4 nights to do because of interruptions and distractions.

Time to Travel

Want to go on vacation? I have a few sites that are up and running at the moment. Only my e-commerce store really needs daily attention. And that is mostly because I am getting orders. But I can process these orders from anywhere. Recently, we went away for a long weekend in Murrells Inlet, SC. Did I close up shop? Of course not. I didn’t even have to fall behind or delay processing my orders. All I needed was about a 1/2 hour of internet access a day and my store ran just as smoothly as if I was home. I could have been operating my store from my kitchen table, a beach 3 1/2 hours from my house or from the other side of the world – it really doesn’t matter.

Now I like to travel but I’m not a total vagabonder. Most of my meandering and aimless travel has already been done (way before we had any kids). But I do still love to travel and a measly 10 days vacation time a year is just not going to cut it. I am not planning on operating my business from a house boat in the Mediterranean any time soon but at least its a real possibility I could work towards if I wanted to.

Start Building Your Business AND Your Lifestyle

Are you sick of your commute? Does walking into the office make you feel nauseous sometimes? Then get busy building an online business. By this time next year you could be generating enough to say good-bye to that commute forever! Make anywhere your office. If you know how to check e-mail and surf the net I can show you how. Subscribe to my 10 Lesson “Online Business Building 101″ E-course in the top left corner of this page. It could be the most important course you ever take and it totally free!

When I started this post I planned on putting the top five reasons right here. But  my mind just doesn’t let a point go until I have really flushed it out. After reading everything I wrote for reason 1, I realized all 5 would be longer than the Dead Sea Scrolls. So now this will be a 5 post series, think of it like a long enjoyable meal, in bite sized chunks. I hope you enjoy.

I created my first passive online income stream in January 2008. Actually I created the product and website in the prior 5 weeks but it went live in January. And I made a sale on my second day in business. Looking back now, it might be a miracle that I made that sale but I am so glad I did. Who knows if I would have had the heart to keep going if I didn’t make a quick sale?

Sales trickled in every week and I was stoked. It was amazing to me that I could go to bed, wake up in the morning and find an e-mail letting me know that I made a sale overnight. The info product I created cost only $27 but each sale was like finding money in a forgotten jacket pocket.

I’ve been studying online income generation for a few years now and I still love it. There is no better way to make a buck, and we all have to make some bucks. Below are my top 5 reasons for loving online passive income. These are the reasons that keep me going in this incredible game. I hope they are reason enough to get you started.

#1 Reason Internet Businesses Don’t Suck – They Separate Time from Income Generation

Let’s take a look at the situations of 2 people and decide who is “richer.” First we have Ed. Ed is a real estate lawyer at a medium sized firm in the big city. He works, on average 60 hours a week (not counting work he takes home.) Ed gets up at 5:30 every morning, eats breakfast and drags his butt to the office. He likes his work enough but it doesn’t really light his fire. He got into real estate because he knew the money was good and he found real estate interesting enough.

He works his 60 hours a week hoping to land a big case or a big client so the partners at the firm take notice. He knows once he has a breakthrough he will be considered for partnership in the firm. He tries to wear the right clothes, drive the right car, eat at the right restaurants so that he can make the right impression on the partners. Ed figures it take another 12-15 years of working hard to finally hit the big time and become a partner. Then he will be able to relax, play some golf, do a little traveling and get back to his favorite hobby – woodworking or specifically building furniture. Ed makes $120,000 a year.

Next we have Joe. Joe also loves woodworking, so much so that he started a woodworking blog. Every night he blogged about his latest woodworking project because he loved sharing his passion. At first Joe was putting in 40 hours a week at his job as an electrician and did his woodworking on the weekends and blogging at night. Joe stopped watching TV because suddenly he found it boring and decided to find some real re-creation is his hobby and blog.

After a few months Joe noticed he had quite a bit of traffic to his blog and decided to try and monetize that traffic. He tried adsense, then offered affiliate products and eventually created a product of his own. An ebook on how to build a rocking chair. Now, through these income streams on his blog, Joe is making $65,000 dollars a year. He spends about 25 hours a week on promoting and maintaining his website. The rest of his time he devotes to woodworking projects. He no longer needs his job as an electrician.

Who is richer?

Let’s do a little simple math. It won’t hurt, I promise. Ed obviously makes more money than Joe. But if that was the whole answer, I wouldn’t have written this and you certainly wouldn’t be reading it.

Let’s assume Ed and Joe both take 2 weeks off a year. So then Ed works 50 (weeks) * 60 (hrs per week) or 3000 hours a year. At a $120,000 salary, Ed is making $40 and hour.

Now Joe works 25 hours a week. At 50 weeks a year, that is 1250 hours a year. Making $65,000 a year, Joe makes $52 an hour – $12 more an hour than Ed. And he loves what he does! Even if he didn’t love it he would still have an extra 35 hours a week or 1750 hours a year (compared to Ed) to do whatever he liked. Take trips, hang with the kids, play a sport, start another internet business…whatever! And because most of Joe’s work has the heavy lifting in the early stages of his blog, he can now take loads of time off and still make money. He can look into outsourcing some of the mundane tasks of website promotion and cut his hours to 15 a week. He can use that time to start another website and make even more money. And his site works for him 24/7, 365. It never calls in sick or needs a day off.

So while Ed’s absolute income is greater than Joe’s it should be obvious now that Joe is richer. And he is happier. And right now, he is actually making only a little more than half of what Ed is making! But Joe is one smart cookie…I wouldn’t expect his income to stay that low for long.