(Me breaking down the one small mindset shift that is responsible for most of my income growth month after month).
Question: What has affected my income the most?
Over the years, I’ve often heard, “income producing activities,” or “profit producing activities“.
But what does that mean, and more importantly, how do you put that into practice?
I used to think, and was taught, that certain activities naturally generated sales, but it’s not that simple, because I was doing those activities, but I wasn’t making much money.
For example:
- Write a blog post a day, (or 2-3 each week) and promote.
- Create video content.
- Make a podcast.
- Network on social media and make connections.
- Post daily on social media.
All of those activities, and more, are great and are necessary to brand yourself and your business. The problem comes when those activities become the goal.
I started judging my daily success on whether those tasks were done or not, and when I wasn’t getting the sales I desired, I figured I was doing something wrong.
Most strategies for success are based around becoming popular. You know what I mean. It’s “be an influencer,” “be a leader,” “reach the masses,” etc.
But popularity doesn’t equal profitability.
A great example of that is Twitter. Founded in 2006, they’ve only ever been profitable for 2 years, (2018 and 2019).
In my quest to figure out what’s wrong, one of the people I look to said something in a training session, oddly enough, about another topic.
He said, “the amount of money you make is directly related to the number of people you ask to buy“.
And he wasn’t talking about slapping a call to action on every blog you write and email you send either.
Selling requires more than a call to action. You have to serve your audience and offer them value, but assuming you do, how many people are you asking to buy every day?
That was my eureka moment, and immediately after understanding it, my goals and priorities changed from getting stuff done, to getting sales.
I started with one a month, then it went to two a month, then one a week, and now I’m working on one a day.
That simple shift changed everything that followed.
- The people I connect with changed.
- The content I write changed.
- How I engage with changed.
- How I market changed.
- Where I market changed.
I still do all of the same things, but the goal went from doing them because that’s what successful people do, to doing them with a specific purpose in mind.
Since then, I’ve watched my income steadily grow month after month.
And now that I’m scaling my business, the question I’m asking isn’t, “how do I do more?” or “how do I automate?”
Because a common misconception is that doing more and automating makes you more money, but like popularity, automation doesn’t mean profit either.
I’m asking a very different question now – what systems do I need to have in place in order to ask more people to buy on a daily basis? If you’re a person who is doing all of the things, but not making the money you want, things should have just clicked or you.