Giving Yourself Permission to Be Rich

There are so many different articles on the web about building and running membership websites, with practical advice and tutorials covering areas such as content and marketing. However, there aren’t so many articles delving into the mental attitude you need to adopt to be successful. My partner and I have built and sold a number of membership websites. Our most recent sale was for several million dollars, and having that kind of money in bank forced a reassessment for us about just what it takes to be successful.

In order to be rich, you need to think rich, which means that if you have been brought up to ‘think poor’ you need to learn how to think differently. No matter how little resource we had available to us when facing an obstacle with the our business, the resource we did have was enough. From that small amount of resource, whether it be time, energy, ideas, computers, phones, an office in your lounge room – once you are convinced you have enough, then you have enough to get going. And thus, out of little we created value and then built a business from there. To think rich, you need to think that you already have enough streetsmarts, ability, intelligence, energy, passion, commitment and implementation ability to make your business happen. When you believe this you will find the energy, your mind will work better at finding useful solutions for you, and obstacles will not seem so daunting to you when they turn up.
 
We are not saying that you must start your online business without money, even though we started with a small sum and are aware of other founders who started with nothing but their jobs and a home office and still made millions from their venture.  Some capital or a bit of investment into your business can be very useful, but it will be wasted if you don’t know how you will use that money in combination with your current resources to create more value.

Investment into your business should never be about just keeping things going, but should be about creating exponentially more value so that the person who put the money in, gets a good return out of doing so. With an onlionet business you do not need a lot of capital, but you do need to have some smarts and at least an ability to acquire the resources and knowledge you need as you need it.

By looking at the most cost-effective, even if unconventional, ways of doing things, you will be making sure that every dollar of capital and every ounce of effort you put in to your business is getting you the maximum return. Make sure that all your processes are streamlined. If you require an office don’t get into long commercial leases. Try something from home to start and only move when it’s really necessary for growth. Get the best deals you can on all the services you require and don’t be overly generous with your staff – if they bring great value to your business, then that is the time to reassess what you pay and what added benefits could be meaningful to them. Outsource everything it makes sense to outsource, and this could be all of your administration and customer service and accounting, if you believe that the quality of delivery will not be compromised. Once you have produced a lean, mean, beautifully-profitable and performing online business, move on to ‘rich thinking’.

When you give yourself permission to be rich you are giving yourself permission to be the best you can be, and to make your online millions. Running a business, like life, is a journey – there are some explicit steps on the way, and there are some red herrings that will capture your attention and take you down a rabbit hole for a bit – but ultimately it is your journey, and at the end you want to not only be rich, but also satisfied.

Our chosen reward after selling our latest business was to take our family to the luxurious Hayman Island Resort on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.  Our time at the resort was mainly spent swimming, lazing around, eating fine food and drinking fine wine, and shopping in the resort’s elite stores. But one day we thought we better be a bit less indulgent, so we went for a walk across the island. At the peak of one of the mountains that form the backdrop of the resort, we looked across the ocean to see a number of surrounding islands and then a chain of several off into the hazy distance. The water was pure aqua, the island vegetation was greener than green and the sun shimmered a special glow all around us. All was right with our world and we had achieved exactly what we had set out to do.

We encourage you to do the same, give yourself permission right now to be a great success with your online business, set your reward before you get started so you can summon it when things get tough, do your research, assemble the resources you need, and then…..get started.

David Eedle and his partner Fiona Boyd have built, grown and exited a number of online businesses. From 2000 to 2006 they owned the artshub.com network, a global membership website and subscription content business targeting the arts and entertainment industry, with 25,000 members, and websites in Australia, the USA and UK. The business was sold to a group of private investors in late 2006. David and Fiona have now published their new book ‘Niche Content Millionaire’, telling their story and sharing some of their secrets and ideas of building and running a successful membership website. For more details: www.NicheContentMillionaire.com