Picture the scene: you feel thrilled to buy yet another $19 e-book, which promises to make you a six-figure blogger. You can quit your day job, work at home, spend more time with your family, travel around the world and, best of all, do something you love for a living. Finally, all your dreams have come true!
You start the e-book with enthusiasm. You keep reading it and doing the exercises but, as the days go by, the enthusiasm fades away.
Then one day, after you have forgotten about the e-book, a very compelling offer lands in your email inbox. You purchase the product without any hesitation and you are full of excitement again!
You are now in a loop where all your money and time is wasted, but you see no tangible results.
Let’s start with you
Before you blame yet another info product as a failure or a rip-off, evaluate yourself!
Your own actions are most likely the cause of your failure to reach success. Ask yourself: do you know your goals well enough? Are you trying too many ideas at once? What about ‘shiny object syndrome’ – are you buying one training program after another without waiting to see if any of them actually work?
Any (or all) of these reasons can be putting roadblocks in the way of your success. But there could be another roadblock as well, and it could surprise you.
A $19 blueprint for 6-figure success!
Let’s say you need to learn to dance in time for your wedding, where possibly hundreds of people will be watching you. Do you order a wedding dance DVD from Amazon, or do you hire a professional dance teacher?
I don’t know about you, but personally I would hire someone to give me private lessons. In fact, this is what my wife and I did before we got married. This way, the teacher paid attention to just us and no one else.
So, if you want to reach six-figure success online, do you want to take a generalist approach or a private approach?
I’m guessing you want to take the private approach.
So why is it that people still buy $19 e-books and expect to be super-successful? Because they think they can actually reach that success by reading the e-book, following the instructions and taking the prescribed action. Unfortunately, this isn’t always true.
Now, I’m not saying info products don’t work. In fact, there are great products out there which do what they promise.
But there is still one potential issue that could put you off tracks, even with the clearest instructions or blueprint. E-books are a general approach, which is geared towards anyone buying the product.
When you get stuck with one product, you are stuck. Even if the sales letter comes with a forum where you can ask questions, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your particular questions will be answered.
In the worst-case scenario, the product author won’t check the forums, so your only support comes from other users of the same product.
Get serious with your success
Instead of pinning your hopes of success on a $19 e-book, save your money for something more life-changing: hire a coach.
Yes, a coach: a business coach, an online coach or a blogging coach – whatever you want to call them.
The reason is simple: whereas any info product can only offer you a generic solution for your problems, a coach can offer you a personal approach. This is faster way of reaching your goals compared to using the generic info product blueprint.
Coaching has many other benefits as well. Although your coach may not give you step-by-step instructions all the time, he/she will help you to move in the right direction. Also, a coach can spark your creativity by giving you new ideas for moving forward.
If you hire a coach with a proven track record for getting results, listen to his/her advice carefully. Success is inevitable at some point if you are willing to work your butt off. Most likely it’s only your actions that define how long it takes.
With more focus and built-in accountability, you get the right stuff done in a timely manner.
Stop wasting your money on the majority of info products that don’t do their job – save that money for a coach instead. You’ll be doing yourself a favour and you’ll thank yourself many times over.
Steps to take before you hire a coach
To put you in fast-forward mode to success, take these steps when hiring a coach:
1. Get a coaching mindset. First, you should be ready for coaching. When you start a coaching relationship, understand that you are the one who has to do the work – not your coach!
Also, remember that your coach may not always tell you exactly what to do next. At times you will have to figure it out by yourself.
2. Find someone you trust. Find a person you can trust. Before hiring my current coach, I worked with a blog coach who helped me launch the previous version of my blog.
The reason I chose my previous coach was that I trusted them (and I still do). I felt that they were good at what they were doing and, once the trust was there, it was an easy decision to hire them.
3. Find someone with a proven track record. This one’s quite obvious. If the person is just a talker, then what’s the point of hiring him/her in the first place? Let the results speak for themselves.
4. The chemistry must be there. Chemistry between you and your coach is essential, otherwise working with them every day will become impossible.
If you are afraid to bother your coach or you are not able to make your own opinions heard, then the relationship will be hard.
5. Your values must match. It is also worth noting the values that you both share. If your coach’s values are radically different to yours, the relationship won’t develop as it should.
6. Is he/she accessible? Finally, before you hire a coach, figure out how you will contact them. Is it by email? It is by phone or can you hook up for a Google+ Hangout? Find out if you can you meet him/her in person.
At the very least, having email and Skype addresses is important for when you get stuck.
Closing words on the need to hire a coach
My decision to hire a coach has been one of the best things I have done for building my online business. You should consider it too if you aren’t finding success using info products and blueprints.
The cost to hire a coach may be high, but it is still a small price to pay – you can reach success much faster with a coach than with $19 e-books.
Over to you: do you have a coach? If not, what is keeping you from hiring one? What benefits have you experienced after hiring a coach?