What to do when you feel like giving up.

When I started my Social Media business, I had big ideas of where I saw my business going. I buried myself in blogs, social media groups and tried to learn as much as I could about my chosen field. I ate, drank and slept Social Media!

I was lucky enough to have a very close friend in the marketing world, Michael Adams, who tried his very best to guide me and I’ll tell you that was a challenge, for I felt sure that I knew what I wanted to do and many times felt pained to follow his direction to slow down, pivot and change the way I looked at the industry. As time went on and as I learned more about the ins and outs of Social Media my frustration actually grew. First with the way it was done in Trinidad (where I am currently based) and secondly with what I felt was the smoke an mirrors tactics being used by many in the industry.  Let me explain.

Like I said previously, I was passionate about the field and I felt that in order to do this well, I needed to learn from the best. So I signed up for every webninar or Google hangout I could find. I  downloaded every e-books and social media reports I could get my hands on and I signed up for countless newsletters from some of the top influencers in the field. I  however began to  notice one common trend. The people that I looked up too, were for the most part not relatable. They were not connecting with me, where I was at, in other words they were not speaking to me as as a small business owner, who was virtually starting from zero!

For example, I’d go to a webinar about building landing pages for my site, only to realize that they were really trying to sell a product that being a small business owner with virtually zero budget, I could not afford! Or the training courses were priced so high they were way out of my price range; or much of the stuff they were ‘selling’ was purely a regurgitation of things I had heard numerous times before! Many truly lacked originality.

Now please understand that I have no problem with a persons pricing a product where they believe it’s worth. I take nothing away from a individual’s hard work and effort and they are well within their right to price their products as they see fit. I also believe that as a business person in order to make money you have to spend money, but in many cases the prices were certainly out of my reach even though they were advertised for "people like me."

I found find myself frustrated when I attended a webinar that promised to teach me how to grow my list, only to realize that the person hosting was starting from a list of thousands when I had a list of 10. I just couldn’t relate and my frustration grew. I wanted to speak so someone who had done it from scratch, who could tell me how to start from a list of zero and still succeed! There were moments when I literally wanted to scream from the proverbial rooftop!…lol

However I’ve persevered, making mistakes along the way and learning as best as I could and ultimately reaping the rewards. I’ve realized that although my journey is still in the early stages, I have learned some pretty useful stuff and I have been fortunate to work with a number of great people. I have been able to accomplish my task of getting paid to do what I enjoy and this is why I’m taking a moment to share some of what’s I’ve learned with you, in the hope that it helps you and keeps you motivated!

Don’t compare yourself to others:

This may sound so cliche but it’s true, when I started my business I looked at the number of LIKES pages similar to mine had and I drooled over the huge number of followers others had on Twitter. I quickly learned that in many cases I was comparing apples to oranges. I remember one conversation with Michael where he told me that my business was a hobby. I almost threw a tantrum with that one, but he was correct.

Here I was working 8 hours at a full time job and working on my business  part time, yet  I was comparing myself to people who had been doing this for much longer and doing it full time! Comparing yourself to others is a No, No,  accept your business for what it is and leave the comparisons alone! Your only competition is you! Your only goal should be your desire to be doing better today, than you were doing yesterday.

Connect with like minded people online:

Social Media allows you to meet so many people, use it. If you find a blogger you like, reach out. In many cases these people will respond to you and if they do not, find another. Be helpful and be useful and you'll soon find that you can and will build lasting relationships with the people you admire.

Find a Influencer who understands your budget:

One of the reason I love Kim Garst and the reason that I will virtually retweet everything she tweets and I buy, yes spend money on her books and training is because she got the fact that initially, I did not have a huge budget. 

Now of course I’m sure that she has training products that are on the higher end of the scale, but in the early days  I got training products for $9.99 and for someone who was just starting out, this made me feel that she did care about us small business people and tried to reach us where we were and oh yes, she responds to my tweets..lol #IFeelSpecial.

Find an Influencer who started where you did:

Jeff Walker is an excellent example of someone who started out on social media from zero. Launch, by Jeff Walker is an excellent book that can gets you off and running and yes I purchased this one too! Social Media has allowed me to connect and grow my business and no matter what field you’re in being online helps you to connect with the influencers in the field. I have been able to meet people from all over the globe and form some lasting friendships too.

That’s the beauty of getting online, that’s the reason your business needs to be online! I still fell like I have a long way to go, but I just wanted to take a moment to encourage you, don’t give up! If you are just starting out, keep pressing on, you’ll get to the top of that mountain, if you just- keep- moving. That’s what I plan to do.

See you at the top!

If you'd like to chat hit me up here, or if you've found this article helpful in any way please leave me a comment . For as much as I love talking to myself on my drive to work, I love responding to comments even more :-) Please share with your network if you think they can benefit too.  Chat soon!
Katyan