Business Is A Tough Gig
Every Day. Do Something That Scares You.
I remember the first time I was told by a business leader to do something that scares me. Every day.
It was 2001. The internet had just come to our rural village in the Central Tablelands of NSW. Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, our nearest regional town, helped create a website for us. So we were ready to be online the minute we were connected. By dialup!
Knowing nothing about the internet. Or how it worked. I discovered there were many free teleseminars I could connect to in America. If I was prepared to be awake at 1AM, 2AM, 3AM, 4AM, 5AM. To learn.
Of course I was.
I learned so much from those teleseminars, that I went from being on page 45 of Google for my best search term for my signature product The Fitz Like A Glove™ Ironing Board Cover, to page number 1. Without paying for anything. And it’s where I still am today.
I became friends with one of the gurus by email. And he told me that I wouldn’t get anywhere in business if I didn’t do something every day that scared me.
Gosh! I was so scared already, I didn’t know where to begin by adding more fear into my day.
I’ve since learned that there isn’t a successful business man or woman who doesn’t feel fear at least once a day. About something that they’re doing. Or not doing.
So I decided to embrace my fears. And one by one I’ve confronted them. And knocked them over.
I look back at what I feared in 2001 and am shocked at how easily I overcame those fears.
Things I do today as a matter of course in my business are things that at one time I thought I could never do.
Cold calling. Introducing myself cold to a business or organisation who I think can benefit from one of my 7 products.
How much business have I picked up from that exercise?
Upselling. There was a time when I never asked a telephone customer if they wanted to add a Superior Felt Underlay or Best Boy Pressing Cloth to their order.
Now I never lose an opportunity to upsell. For years now, 85% of my orders are packages. Not single items.
And I make sure that those packages are a prominent part of my website shopping carts.
So ‘Be Brave! Do Something Every Day That Scares You!’
You will be amazed at where confronting that fear takes you.
~Carol Jones, Ironing Diva❤
Life Behind The Scenes With The Ironing Diva are my stories about how my partner, Victor Pleshev, and I created a new life out of the ashes of Australia’s ‘recession we had to have’. How did we design 8 products? And get them to market? How did we build a worldwide business from broke? How did we carve out a rural lifestyle that is the envy of our friends? And our customers? How did we create a beautiful hectare of garden out of a barren paddock sitting atop an infertile rock shelf? It wasn’t easy. But this is the business and the lifestyle that we built from scratch. The Fitz Like A Glove™ Ironing Board Cover And Other Goodies.
