There’s being stupid and then there’s being stupid twice. Sadly, I’ve been doing too much of the latter recently.
If I’m making the same mistakes over and over, I’m obviously not learning. So I’m writing down my repeat errors in hopes that I’ll stop committing them.
TL;DR: If I could go back 10 years, what would I have done differently?
- I wish I’d had more balls
- I wish I’d believed in myself more
- I wish I’d not listened to “rich and successful” business people
I have respect for successful business people but following their advice isn’t always the best thing to do. My best decisions are always gut decisions.
1. Listening to “gurus”
The gurus say “don’t build your business on other peoples’ platforms, build on your own site where you can control everything”. This advice suggests I shouldn’t have been selling on Udemy and Amazon where I’ve made six figures in the last two years. I also took this advice to heart when I chose to sell courses from my site rather than using platforms such as Teachable. This decision led me to getting badly hacked (which was all my fault, I hasten to add).
The plethora of online business blogs creates an echo chamber of bad advice. Advice from “rich and successful entrepreneurs” is glibly copied and repeated. I could read something originally said by Gary Vaynerchuk in three different blogs today if I’m not careful.
But things are better when I go out on a limb. As an entrepreneur, you do great stuff when you go against the grain.
It’s not that “rich and successful entrepreneurs” are always wrong. But they’re giving advice that is pertinent to them and their businesses which are bigger than mine. When I look back, I’ve received the best advice from friends who aren’t famous and have smaller businesses. The worst advice I’d followed was from expensive gurus.
If you get a business idea that you like and everyone else thinks is crazy, go for it!
Lesson to learn: follow my passions!
2. Focusing on the end result
Sometimes I need to stop and ask myself, “Why are you doing this?”
Are you in business to make money, or are you in business to enjoy it? For me, life is better when you enjoy yourself. Business is best when you enjoy providing value.
When I started blogging I had a weird, geeky desire to help people with their Photoshop, PDF and technical design problems. I used to love sharing a quick tip on my blog. People appreciated my articles, and linked, and shared. My blog became successful because I was enjoying providing value.
And value came back to me.
Now, my business has evolved and pivoted in many different directions, and I find myself doing all sorts of different tasks. I’m emailing suppliers in China, hiring VAs and freelancers, navigating through complicated CRM and e-commerce platforms, spending and investing larger and larger amounts of money.
But the question stays the same: “Why am I doing this?”
Is it to make money, or is because I’m enjoying providing value. If it’s just about making money, then STOP!
I was reminded of this valuable lesson when I met Ryan Biddulph and his wife Kelli Cooper for lunch here in Chiang Mai this week. Ryan’s a former New Jersey security guard who now runs a blogging business from paradise. He’s written over 100 books, guest posted on over 200 blogs, as well as being a voracious and successful blogger.
We both receive emails everyday from newbie bloggers who ask how they can make thousands of dollars straight off the bat. We realised we both loved providing value irrespective of income. And that’s the secret. You have to enjoy providing value.
Lesson to learn: focus on enjoying the work now rather than the end result.
However some tasks are a means to an end and just have to be done. Even when I was blogging back in 2006, I still had to learn about web hosting and WordPress, and that wasn’t always enjoyable.
3. Being lazy and not protecting essential parts of my business
Unfortunately, running a business is not all about enjoying yourself. There are important areas of your business that are vulnerable. We need to identify these vulnerabilities and secure them as best we can.
Examples of this are registering your brands and trademarks, making sure you pay all your taxes, and, you guessed it, securing and backing up your website.
If you’re lazy like me, these tasks fall into the “essential but not urgent” category of boring stuff that you never get round to. So they never get done.
I’m going to be creating more content on WordPress and website security. It’s something you can spend a few hours on which could save a ton of time in the future.
Watch the video above and hopefully you’ll identify a few tasks you can do right now that’ll secure your website so that you don’t have to go through the pain of a hack, like I did.
Lesson to learn: do non-urgent but essential tasks now!
4. Being stubborn with my decisions
Just because I spent a lot of money and took a lot of time doing something doesn’t mean that I have to keep doing it that way.
In 2014, I’d just built a membership site using WishList Member. I had dozens of courses and hundreds of videos. It was a huge undertaking and looked a mess. Meanwhile all my instructor friends were building their schools on an external platform called UseFedora which later became Teachable.
Most of them were happy with the platform. In those days you could import your course from Udemy to your site with one click (Udemy has since disallowed this feature). I could have ditched my ugly membership site and had my school up and running on this secure platform.
To make the decision easier, Ankur Nagpal, Teachable’s CEO, had even emailed me in 2014 to see if I was interested. No Ankur, I said, I would rather persevere with my stupid decision to sell courses with WordPress. Since then, Teachable has helped over 5,000 users launch over 12,000 courses to teach over 700,000 students and make over $3.5 million. They have just received $4 million in funding and have emerged as the only worthy competitor to Udemy.
Three years, three plugins, multiple headaches later, my membership site was hacked. There was only one thing to do: I set up my courses with Teachable at courses.robcubbon.com, moved over the users, and nuked the hacked site.
Do you know what really bugs me about this? How easy it was to transition from the bad solution to the good solution. I’d resisted using Teachable because I didn’t want the hassle of setting up my courses again. But Teachable is the superior solution so it was therefore easy to move from the inferior solution to the superior one.
I could have done this in 2014, 2015, or 2016, and I would never have had to go through the hack.
Lesson to learn: In future if I’ve made a bad decision, I should bite the bullet as soon as possible to reverse it. Admitting your mistake is one thing. Putting right the problem you’ve created with the mistake is another. Do both.
5. Trying to impress other entrepreneurs
There’s no good reason for an entrepreneur to impress another entrepreneur. Sometimes I want people to love my Big Idea and then get upset if somebody picks holes in it. I’ve got the thinnest skin and I hate criticism.
But, it’s my customers and clients I need to be worried about.
If you impress someone, it’s lose-lose. You’ll either succeed in impressing them and they’ll get jealous and hate you. Or you’ll fail in impressing them and they’ll consider you a phoney.
The tenets of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie are as true today as when the book was written: “Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.” Listen and learn. Open your mouth, and you learn nothing.
Lesson to learn: There is little reason to impress people and no reason to feel unworthy when you hear of someone else doing well. So I’ll continue to force myself to meetups, masterminds, and conferences, and go there to listen and learn.
6. Seeking approval
Seeking approval is a meaningless waste of time. I do it everyday. Why try to impress with my knowledge of email funnels, or teams, or processes?
It’s great when entrepreneurs help each other and that happens every minute of every day. But if you don’t get the approval you desire, you’ll get into arguments. Then names of successful entrepreneurs will be quoted for validation.
But we are all individuals and what works for one may not work for another.
People will actually rather save face and win an argument by saying some particular online tool or technique worked for them when it didn’t. This adds further misinformation into the online business echo chamber.
Lesson to learn: meditate more and be happy with me.
7. Trying to think of a Big Idea
I sometimes think I need a Big Idea. I feel like I’ve got to dream up the next Facebook or something. I try to think of a product no one else has thought of. It’s actually impossible to think of something no one else has thought of.
In reality, I just need to ship.
Most successful entrepreneurs sell products or services that are already out there on the marketplace. Although maybe they’ve got a different angle on an existing product.
I got started by delivering web and graphic design services for clients. I then went on to sell video courses about WordPress and web design. Not exactly original.
Lesson to learn: I don’t need a Big Idea that no one else has thought of.
8. Worrying about failure
The fear of failure is the worst entrepreneurial disease there is because it kills new pursuits before they start.
“Success is such a terrible teacher” – Bill Gates.
I’ll do anything to avoid failure. I’ll even pretend it hasn’t happened when it has. I cut short projects when they don’t start well. I’ll continuously start new ventures because I know there’ll be no failure at the beginning.
Lesson to learn: I really need to embrace failure. Failure is a marvellous teacher. If I spend a whole year failing at Amazon FBA it will help me more than if I spend a year in analysis paralysis as I have done.
What can I learn from all these dumbass stupid things I keep doing?
The main lesson is to be myself. I should not live my life as though someone was watching me. I’m always worried whether I’m doing the right / intelligent / un-douchebaggy thing.
And why is that? No one’s watching me after all. Everyone’s far too busy worrying about themselves.
Over to you
Are you regularly making the same business mistakes? Any reason why? Do you have any idea why I keep making them? I’d love to know. Bare your soul in the comments.
Excellent post Rob. I agree and have had the same failings over and over.
Thanks, Andrew, good to hear from you.
Superbe, merci beaucoup Rob 🙂
De rien, Olivier
Looking forward to going to Chiang Mai again. Was there in 1978 🙂
One thing I am not going to do again is go somewhere without having them run SpeedTest on their internet! A certain minimum speed is the difference between super frustration and a smoothly running nomadic operation. If I know I will be somewhere for week with crappy speed, I can plan for it. When I arrive and it’s slow… grrrr… And also, is there a cap on bandwidth. Went somewhere here they said 10 up and down. Hooray! Then, I can only use 1 gig a day! I use one gig when I sneeze!
Thanks for sharing, Ron!
Wow, I suspect Chiang Mai has changed a bit since 1978. However, don’t worry about internet speed. I’ve had no problem in CM. If I’m in a cafe and everyone is using the wifi, I use the 4G on my phone which is excellent and cheap. Let me know when you are going, Scott.
Hi Rob,
Thanks for the shout out!
Ditto on every lesson. Every single one. Really. Especially #4. I recall a young reader of mine telling me my old blog looked like sh*t. I took it personal, got angry and cursed him out. Of course, I angered and cursed him because I believed what he said was true. Stubbornly I resisted until the kid went and did a whole redesign for me – for free – gifted me the theme, and I still have 1 or 2 elements from my old blog and his gracious design on BFP.
Amazing how long it took me to cave in, aka, see the truth. I was stubborn as hell. No more though. Now I am genuinely open to ideas that flow to me. Only because it’s only by investigating and filtering feedback that you truly learn what you believe, how clear you are and in the end, you render the best service with the most love when you quit being stubborn and start being open to suggestions, to get clearer on your direction.
Epic post dude. These are all gems for any entrepreneur, from newbie to veteran.
Ryan
I know, right, I can be so funny with criticism sometimes. The worse thing is when there’s an element of truth in the criticism. But at least we can put it right. Eventually. 🙂
Thank you for the kind words, Ryan. You’re a legend!
Thanks for being so honest! There’s tons of great advice here but the one I like best is ‘just ship it’. I know everyone is looking for the next big idea and the most clever, original solution, but as far as I can tell success comes from just showing up every day, doing the work and delivering what really helps people. It’s not glamorous but it works.
Trust me, Helen, I really think that’s the best advice of the whole article: “Just ship”. I so wish I’d taken this advice to heart this time last year!
Great points, Rob! I also feel like a lot of the advice out there that comes from those who are already ‘successful’ (meaning 6-figure income people) is not relatable. I like your down-to-earth-ness 🙂
Thanks!
Thank you, Esther, and I like your word, down-to-earth-ness 🙂
Awesome as always Rob, appreciate you sharing your stumbling blocks. Always tough to find the line between #4 and #8 though! When to cut short, when to plod on.
Yes, there’s definitely a line there, of “when to cut short, when to plod on” as you say. Glad you liked the article, Louise.
What a great reflection Rob! And I love your #1 point!
In particular, I’m in the same boat where I’ve built my business using other tools (YouTube, Udemy, Teachable, Amazon, etc). Yes, we risk some because we aren’t in total control. But it’s much easier to build and find an audience.
Plus, like Seth Goden said (hmmm… not supposed to listen to gurus – but I like this idea) at Udemy Live last year – It doesn’t matter where you build your audience.
We just have to build a business that people absolutely love!
And you’ve done that with your blog. So using other tools to actually make your business work is perfectly fine in my book!
Hey Phil, you’re fast becoming my yardstick of how to sell video courses online the right way! I can’t tell you how many people I’ve told, “look at Phil Ebiner, do things in the same way he does!” I’ve signed up to your free courses just to see how good they are and what you’re doing and saying to subscribers. So it’s great you like this post.
Yes, we have to build businesses that people love. 🙂
Haha, Seth Goden obviously talks a lot of sense. I’m probably generalizing a bit too much about “gurus”.
Many thanks for the wakeup call Rob. I undertook a few checks on my website and found a couple of ‘issues’ to resolve. Extremely disheartening upon discovery, but now viewing as a necessary ‘learning opportunity’. Onwards and upwards!
Hey Andy. No one’s perfect. Great that we can put these mistakes right and fight the good fight! 🙂
Rob Great a vice the problems i have had with so call experts telling me you need to do
it this way how do they no the way i doing it mite be right for me i am still learning but i do like more than one money stream system. i have just started to feel good in my self with health found out i had a health problem that has been with me for 25 years unreal
thank you Rob for been straight up in what you do that a quality A LOT of other Entrepreneurs do not have ,,,Cheers Kevin
Thank you, Kevin, so glad to hear you’re feeling better. I appreciate the kind words and I look forward to hearing more good news from you.
Thanks for this post, Rob!
I had an awakening when I read, ” I’ll continuously start new ventures because I know there’ll be no failure at the beginning.” I have been quite proud of being a jack-of-all-trades, of being able to intelligently converse with others about almost anything. After reading your post, however, I understand that I have an unhealthy, unrewarding fear of failure.
I have been seriously considering a re-start of my freelance writing career, taking it to a higher level than it was before by finding better clients. I have been hesitant because – well, what if it doesn’t work? What if I can’t snag a better-paying, appreciative client? What if I DO snag one – will my performance be good enough to get a referral, or will it be one-and-done? I worry about these things, even though I have received very good feedback and repeat work from lower-level clients.
So, my fear of failure has been running my life, and ruining my chances of creating a successful freelance writing career. In reality, I just need to write (and do some marketing).
How silly.
Thanks, Rob!
Hello Cheryl, thank you for your comment. I think fear ruins everybody’s life to a certain extent. It’s good that we can recognise it and live our lives with great freedom accordingly. Go for it!
Some great advice in there Rob. Worrying about what others are doing and what all the pros say can be very detrimental for sure. You have to take everything with a grain of salt and honestly check what works for you.
I do however disagree with the “build on other platforms” and use teachable. Again, you are talking about what has worked for you. Udemy did not work for me and is now even worse than before. So it depends on your goals and what sort of control (or lack thereof) you are willing to accept.
And Teachable charges a huge amount of money for course hosting and fees. It is great for those who don’t want the hassle of hosting or running a site for sure. But be prepared to pay for it. On top of that is paypal fees, paypal exchange rate fees. So I am losing enough already without paying them more. But again you have to decide for yourself what is most important. I can run my own site. I switched back from Teachable.
Evaluating what you are doing is crucial and thinking about what your goals are in terms of where you want to be. Location independence, freedom, time freedom, money? It’s different for us all. But one thing I have noticed, as have you it seems, is that if we are not careful we end up creating a life we never intended.
Great to see you have found your joy!
ashley
Hello Ashley, great to hear from you. Yes, I think that a great many people chase a life that the think they want and then don’t like it when they get it.
Interesting to hear your thoughts on everything. Yes, Teachable is expensive. I’ve put the prices of my courses up as a result but it works for me. I won’t be right for some people.
Rob, thanks for your honesty and for revealing so much. I think I suffer from some of the same things you’ve described. And I’m sure others do as well. But it’s reassuring to know there is a way to overcome these problems.
Thank you, Michael, as you say, we can grow from overcoming problems.
Hi Rob
Lots of useful stuff there, especially the video on securing your website with your “cut to the chase” unix file access numbers.
I guess the one point that I would disagree on is point 1 about the gurus.
Yes there are a lot of snakes out there however I don’t think they all say “Don’t use other peoples platforms”, rather use youtube facebook etc but drive people to your list, you list being your main asset.
I think it’s more like – don’t have your business dependant on other peoples platforms, and drive traffic from those platforms to your list opt-in, for example Brian Clark of copyblogger has always laughed at people who advertise with “Find us on Facebook” (and find all our competiton as well).
I guess in a way you do agree with the gurus on this point because you have used Udemy and Amazon to drive traffic to you list 😉
Dan Kennedy talks about “pain of disconnect”, so a platform like teachable can create a real pain of disconnect for their users whose business is setup on it.
I guess you gotta make sure you have all your course assets backed up on your hard drive so you can move easily if you change provider!
Rich Schefren also teaches have a business where you actually enjoy the work, because life and your business is a journey and not a destination ;-).
I find teachable to be a little expensive (relatively large monthly fee and sizable cut of your sales revenue for people just starting out) , It’ seems like just another bill to pay to get in the way of making a profit before your business is at scale where their cost then becomes irrelevant.
Do you find that the teachable platform generates customers for you like Udemy, or is it just a full integrated course hosting solution?
All the best
Sean
Hi Sean, yes fair point about the gurus not saying “don’t build on platforms”, I was generalizing a little too much to make my point there. Yes, I’ve used Udemy and Amazon to drive traffic to my list but I also have other businesses that are more dependent on Amazon.
Teachable is better for the customers than the solution I had previously, signing up is no problem. And, as far as the users are concerned, the Teachable site is my site – it has the same domain 🙂
I love Rich Scheferen’s point about life and your business being a journey and not a destination.
No Teachable will not do any marketing for you. It’s not like Udemy at all. Just a platform for selling your courses on. I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.
You are probably describing every single entrepreneur at some point in their life. I can relate to sooooo many of these, Rob. Thank you for being open, honest and REAL about your struggles. Trust me, most of us can relate to many of these and I found myself nodding as reading. LOL
I find myself nodding when I’m reading and watching your stuff, Lisa. Thank you so much for your kind words and for leaving a comment. 🙂
Awesome article, honest, straight to the point & hits to the core why many of us do not move forward or just take that first step to fulfilling our dreams.
Thank you for the reality check.
Thank you for the comment, Charlene
Thanks for the effort put into this Rob. Inspiring to read – and valuable. Best wishes, – Dan Grijzenhout
Thank you, Dan
Great post, it is worth reading it multiple times. I am currently in the process of building a course so this post comes at a very good time for me. I am glad I came across it.
Hi Rob,
I can definitely relate to #4, #6, #7 and maybe more if I’m honest with myself. 🙂
I’ve had my share of stupid mistakes, after all who hasn’t. I started a new blog about 5 months ago and am starting from scratch because of my past mistakes.
#4 really spoke to me because I am actually getting ready to start creating a product of my own. I was thinking about using Digital Access Pass for my WordPress blog. It’s a membership site, I’ve had one before.
However, I’ve seen so many people create their courses on Teachable and it seems like that’s the route you ended up going. I may have to reconsider using the membership site for my blog.
What do you recommend using if you just plan on selling an ebook?
Thanks for sharing your mistakes with us Rob. We’ve all made them, however, there are only a few of us that are willing to admit them. The great thing is that you’ve learned a lesson from all of them, so you won’t make them again.
Have a great day 🙂
Susan
Hello Susan, I would definitely NOT recommend Digital Access Pass for selling courses. It’s had known vulnerabilities for years and is targetted by hackers. You can read all about my DAP site getting hacked here. I would recommend you use Teachable or Thinkific. If you just wanna sell a PDF I would try Sendowl or Gumroad.
Thanks for the wonderful article.
thank you
Failure is my paralysis. I’m having a really tough time calling potential clients. Fear of rejection is another one.
Maybe cold-calling isn’t for you, Kelly? Try another avenue for getting clients like blogging and content creation?
Rob, thanks for the advice on selling online courses. I took the plunge after my company closed down recently and started my own business on Udemy. I published my first course, on java beginning programming on 5th May 2017. After 4 weeks I have 60 students from my own free coupon promotions and 1 sale of $5. I gather personal promotion is key in growing this business. Can you give some tips and advice? Thanks
Hi Marius, I have a lot of advice about selling your courses. Please have a look at the following articles:
Sell Courses Online With Udemy
How To Make Money On Udemy
How I Make $5000+ A Month From Udemy And SkillShare
Rob, Thank you for the directing me to those articles. Enjoy your Asian stay
Thank you sooo much for your advices Rob !!!
Really helpful and soooo true !!!
Thank you, Christophe
Thanks for your honesty. Now pieces of advice are everywhere online and which can be in free or paid form. We should follow the voices of our own heart. If you make money by fortune, then you can’t enjoy it!
Thank you, John. 🙂 I agree. Follow your heart.