So, I made a mistake…
A big mistake.
A $100,000 mistake.
And the most surprising part?
I could have prevented it with one conversation with someone who was a little more experienced than me.
Here’s what happened…
My Big $100,000 Mistake
A few years ago, I wanted to roll out a new paid traffic initiative at Social Triggers, and I had… I thought… a simple problem.
I wanted to track whether or not my ads were actually turning a profit.
I talked to several software vendors, but none of them could accomplish would I needed them to accomplish.
So, I did the only logical thing…
I put together a team of people to create something in-house. I hired CRM experts. I hired developers. I hired analytics experts. I threw money at the problem.
When it was all said and done, I had built custom tracking software. I had Google Analytics set up perfectly. I had everything I needed.
Except there was on problem.
NONE OF IT WORKED.
What happened?
Well…
I didn’t fully understand the problem.
I thought I did.
The experts thought they did.
But no one actually did.
So, after I wasted all that money, I talked to a friend. And he said…
“Yea. It is hard. That’s why we just create duplicate products on the back end… If you have Product A… make it Product A Facebook Traffic… Product A Evergreen Emails…”
Now this may not make sense. Especially if you’re not familiar with the inner workings of CRM. But long story short? His advice was dead on. And it solved my problem. Completely.
The best part?
It would take almost NOTHING to implement.
So, I tried it.
And it worked.
Like magic.
It wasn’t perfect.
But IT WORKED!
And one conversation with someone who’s “been through it” could have saved me so much headache… and money.
I’m sure you can think about a time in your life where someone who was a little more experienced than you saved you a boat load of time.
Maybe you bought a course.
Maybe you bounced a question off a friend.
But the point?
These types of “one-off” pieces of advice seem so simple… and yet they are so valuable.
And that’s one of the reasons why it’s so important to have a group of people who you can talk to that are going through the same things you go through is so important.
How can you build this group of people?
There are a handful of ways, of course.
You can just build your network naturally.
The problem?
We often surround ourselves with people who do the same things we do and they have the same problems we have.
Their advice is important, of course. But they may not be in the position to offer this sort of landmark insight.
So what else can you do?
Well…
You could also join a mastermind.
I know this might seem self-serving because I’m launching a high-end mastermind.
(You can see the application right here, if you’re interested. It’s designed for people who want to scale their business to $1m or more. And the people involved are mainly around the $400,000 to $1.5M per year level)
But the point is still the same.
You need to build your network of people who have done the things you want to do. You need to provide value to these people and they can provide value to you.
Now here’s my question to you…
Have you ever had a revolutionary insight about your business? Even if it’s something small, leave a comment and let me know. I’m curious to see what you learned.