5 Mistakes That Kept Me From Becoming a Millionaire

I don’t usually regret things I did or I didn’t do, but there are some mistakes I did and I could have avoided really easy.

Procrastination is part of our lives and we all face it daily, because we are either busy or lazy and it affects us badly. Unfortunately we won’t be able to make it history, but we can deal with it and do our job at the right time.

I have had a lot of opportunities that I misses, because I have been very lazy or I preferred  to take care of less important things instead and this has affected me in many ways. I could have earned much more right now if I had done the right research and split tests at the right time. Also I started thinking more about returning visitors after more than a year after I have launched my most important blog and I really feel bad about it.

Here are some things I should have done at the right time and I got affected by because I didn’t.

Building a mailing list

Like I told you in a previous post of mine, I’ve had over 23 million visits on a blog in just 18 months and I’ve only built my mailing list for a while and after a lot of time. After that, I left it that way because I didn’t know how to do it. Yesterday I wanted to do a little test and I placed an Aweber Lightbox on the website, which got me over 500 subscribers yesterday, in just 12 hours. Today in the first 12 hours I also got 500 subscribers, so I might reach 1,000 by the end of the day. What does this mean ? That I’ve lost a few hundred thousands subscribers because I’ve been too lazy to try it and I’m really sorry about this. I won’t do the same mistake again and I will try everything.

Engaging readers

One of the most important aspects of blogging is that your readers can interact with you and you need to take full profit of this. Unfortunately I didn’t do it and the number of comments on my blog is pretty low, compared with the traffic. Though lately I’ve asked all the bloggers who write on that blog to ask the readers to comment and reply to their comments. This has started to increase my readers engagement and I started receiving more emails from people who either thank me for my posts, request help or just want to send me some tips.

And believe me, I feel great when my readers are responding to the content I or my bloggers are writing, because I feel helpful and it’s a great feeling.

Getting a office

I wanted to get an office for a long time, but I was too lazy to do it. About a year ago I finally decided and started doing all the paper work needed, but I did procrastinate a lot and it took me almost 3 months. Finally, after 3 months my office was ready and I started getting full-time employees. And this has been a big advantage for me, because I could keep an eye on them and train them much better. Though I didn’t spend very much time in my office, because I really love working from home, so my partner goes to the 9-to-5 job. On the other side, it’s better, because he knows how to deal with them better when they don’t work enough.

Now I feel the same like I was a year ago, because I want to open a new office in another town, but this time I have one bigger problem. I don’t have any partner in that town and I really don’t want a 9-to-5 job, so this principle of mine kinda keeps me from expanding my business faster.  Though it’s not that big of a hurry because I can still hire more employees at my current office and expand for the moment. But I will probably reach a time when I won’t be able to do that here, being a really small town.

Saving more money

I’ve been spending money like crazy my entire life. I’ve barely manage to save some lately and this is only because I earn a lot and I can buy the things I bought a few years ago and even more and I will still be able to bank enough. I’ve been earning more than an average wage in my country since I was 16 and I’ve never saved a cent for a few years. I had bought virtually anything I saw, from smartphones to computers, laptops and cars. I’ve always had the latest high-end smartphone, desktop computer, monitors and laptops. I’ve even bought myself a car when I turned 18 and it hasn’t been cheap at all.

I’m sorry I didn’t save anything back then, but I’m glad I’m able to do it now and this way I can afford to buy more important things, like a house, though at the moment I still prefer to pay rent and I will tell you why in a future post.

Focusing more on SEO

I’ve started my online journey with some crappy PTC and PTR websites, but I realized it was a waste of time, so I started focusing on SEO, which has proved excellent for me. Unfortunately, after a while, I discovered the benefits of social media and I started focusing entirely on Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon and some other social media services like these ones. By doing this and not focusing on SEO, I was getting a very low traffic from search engines and my conversion and click though rates were crappy. So I was very happy when checking the analytics stats, but my income streams weren’t as they should have been, because SEO is a real cash cow.

Conclusion

I felt really good remembering some of the mistakes I’ve done in my business life and this should act as a motivational post both for you and me. I really hope you will learn from my mistakes and don’t do it yourself, because you will later regret.

Don’t postpone important things, because you could face serious consequences and it might affect your business badly.

I currently value my assets at 7 figures, but it would have been higher if I hadn’t made these mistakes.

Please let me know what you think and share your business mistakes with me. I am eager to learn from your mistakes too !

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Tags: Business Mistakes, Procrastination