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Hey, how's it going? It's Ollie here. Today I'm making a video about the topic of persistence - persistence in business - and why it's so unbelievably crucial that you are persistent and why it's so much more important than the luck you have, the skills you have as an Amazon seller, the resources you have, or any other factors you could possibly imagine when building your business.

 

So today I'm going to give you three case studies of people I've worked with as they built their Amazon businesses. I'm going to keep them anonymous because obviously it's not fair to name names, but I'm going to be referring to three real world case studies.

 

Now you're going to notice that these people had all different backgrounds or different levels of resources and just because of their level of persistence, they actually had very different results.

 

So if nothing else, from today's video, I just want you to think about your levels of persistence and hopefully this will encourage you not to give up too soon, encourage you to keep moving forward if things aren't going well, and to focus on the big picture and the light at the end of the tunnel rather than whatever barrier that you're dealing with right now.

 

Case Study #1: Shiny Object Syndrome

 

Let's talk about case study number one. So this guy, a fantastic client of mine, really, really, really took everything I said put it into action and got really great results, actually. Sold for about 18 months in his business. And during the time he was selling, managed to build the business to six figures.

 

So he built a six figure business, which is very commendable, right? That is what I would say, is a solid foundation for your business. Getting to six figures proves now that you have something that's working, able to provide at least some level of income, and it's a good starting point. And then what you want to do is grow from there and either establish a high six figure or seven figure business from that point.

 

So this is what happened. He brought it to six figures within a year or two, obviously following the stuff that I said, and he was the one who put all the work in of course, so I can't take the credit for it. But then he decided it wasn't profitable and decided to start another business and leave this one behind - not sell on Amazon anymore, do something else.

 

Now look, I don't know the ins and outs of the situation. Sometimes leaving a business and moving on can be the right decision to make. Sometimes it's just a good decision to do that. If the business has serious problems, if you can't figure out any future for the business and there's no way out, sometimes it's better just to close the business and start a new one.

 

However, many other people have been in the same situation where they have a business and it's running, they've got momentum, they've hit maybe six figures, maybe some people even get to seven figures with that business, but it's not perfect. Things are going very wrong with the business.

 

Maybe it's not profitable. Maybe it has cashflow issues. Maybe there's operational issues, the suppliers are annoying and take forever to ship you the goods, maybe you lose a supplier.. All businesses have problems. That's the whole point of being a business owner, you work to fix these problems.

 

But one thing I can guarantee is, it is a million times easier to fix a broken business than it is to start a new one. This is so, so true. And no matter what stage of the business you're at. So let's say you've been doing an Amazon business for three months, you've set up your account, you've got a little bit of stock, you've sent it into the warehouse, maybe made one or two sales. This progress that you've made to actually generate some money in that business has got you so much further than if you were to start a new business from scratch.

 

In other words, taking this product that you've shipped into the warehouse that's caught maybe one or two sales, and turning that into a steady stream of income, is a million times easier than trying to find a new way to make income somewhere out there and going along with that just because it seems like it's much easier.

 

So one thing that completely kills persistence in entrepreneurs - and it's not just newbies, there's very successful entrepreneurs as well - is shiny object syndrome. This affects so many entrepreneurs. You'll be shocked with the amount of cases of shiny object syndrome that have happened with business owners who have like eight, nine figure businesses who are ridiculously successful.

 

The thing that they have is working very, very, very well, but they see something in the distance, another opportunity that looks very, very, very profitable, and they lose focus of the current business to pursue this shiny object. What happens is the shiny object turns out not to be as easy as they thought it would be and they jeopardize the current business.

 

This happens so often. Now, I don't know if this happened in this case, with this guy. It could have been the perfect decision actually to stop selling Amazon, I don't know. But in a lot of cases, if you have a business that isn't profitable, figuring out how to make it profitable is the better decision because there's always a way, just a bit of innovation - lowering costs, finding a way to charge more, finding different ways to do things.

 

Steering a ship that's already moving forward and just changing the direction of the ship is so much easier. It requires so little energy compared to getting a ship from standing to moving. You see the metaphor? You see what I'm trying to say? It's so much easier. So don't let shiny object syndrome distract you. Focus on what you have and be in this for the long game. There'll be much more chances of being successful.

 

Case Study #2: Giving up too soon because of delays

Case study number two. So this person actually tested a price and here's what happened. Found a product, tested it, sent it into the warehouse, but as what can happen sometimes when you're new to this entire process - you just set up your Amazon account, you've never shipped anything over from China before, you've never shipped anything into the warehouse before, you've never got things to sell on Amazon before - everything just took a little bit too long. It just took a little bit too long.

 

There were delays. Now, there's always going to be some unexpected delays with suppliers, with Amazon the first time you do things, just because it's all new and you don't know the supplier yet. A year down the line, you'll have suppliers who you trust. Everything will become a lot smoother and these delays won't happen as often. There'll be more unlikely.

 

But in the beginning, you have no idea, and there's no way to prevent this stuff.

The supplier might say one thing and do another thing. The shipping method they use might not be as quick as you thought it would be. Amazon might take a while to make your stock go live. Delays are expected in the beginning and they're frustrating as hell, but it is part of the process.

 

Anyway, this person got freaked out right after he had sent his stuff into the warehouse. It wasn't selling as quickly as he thought it would. And then quit. Before the marketing had a chance to actually take effect, get his product to sell consistently and then making profit so he would be in a position to reorder maybe with a bigger order and then move forward to earning a thousand pounds per month profit or whatever the potential for that product could have been. Who knows? It could have been even more.

 

So the lesson here is if there's delays in the early stages of your business, that's to be expected. Don't get too freaked out if there are delays, that's probably what's going to happen. We don't want it to happen. A lot of people don't have delays, right? But if you do, the key thing is just to hang in there and not get freaked out. Because if things are taking too long, just keep persisting and sooner or later everything will click right and the product will be right, the supplier will be right, the marketing will be right. And it will begin to work.

 

Case Study #3: Being in it for the long term

 

Case study number three. This person had delays with their first product, right? Big delays. In fact, it took about four months to get the first product even ready to ship from China. And this was really frustrating for them because it took four months to figure out the product, the packaging, the design, how they were going to differentiate in the marketplace.

 

And then there was an issue with the supplier, and all the work that this person had done to get the product moving and almost ready to ship - they had to start from scratch. It's so painful because four months of work pretty much went down the drain, but they didn't let that derail them. In fact, they used it as momentum to go even faster.

 

So rather than letting this get to them, they went for a second product and rather than ordering a big amount and having to modify it and wait for all these delays, they simply went to Ali Express, ordered relatively small quantities of this product, and received it in a couple of days, sent it into the Amazon warehouse, and this product starts selling like crazy. It was going insane.

 

The amount of sales, the amount of profit in this niche was unbelievable, was an untapped area of the marketplace. Crazy. So they ordered more stock to top up, to keep the momentum going, and the momentum kept going, and it was like an upwards curve. It was really, really exciting and it was such a good thing to happen after this frustrating four-month delay.

 

But then something else happened and there was an issue with this product. Some legal issue which again, it's very difficult to predict this kind of thing, but it happened and the product got shut down. So again, very frustrating and annoying, but the person didn't give up. They just kept going and realize, you know, well, if I can get a product to sell this well, then I just need to find another product that I can get to sell this well and get several of them. Before you know it, I'll have a business.

 

A few months later they did this and the next product went live. It started to sell relatively consistently. It wasn't as hot as the product that got shut down, but it was consistent and it was steady. And this started the basis for the income coming in from the business.

 

So if you look at the first year of this person's journey, they didn't get as far as they wanted in that in that first year by any means. And rather than getting discouraged and thinking, oh, I've wasted so much time, they just looked onto the future and just kept on moving. Bear in mind, this is all happening while the person had a full time job. Okay? So only five, 10 hours a week while this person was building their business.

 

Fast forward to today, this person has a six figure business and now they've got several products selling extremely well, very consistently. And they've got a really solid income coming in from the job.

 

So what's the difference between case study one, case study two, case study three? Well, interestingly, case study, one and two - the two people that had issues, either built the business very well and then quit, or didn't really get the business off the ground and then quit.

 

Those two people had the most resources. They had the most cash. Some of them had the most time. In fact, both of them had more time. They didn't have jobs, they didn't need jobs at the time, and they just had more stuff on their side. In fact, they had more luck in some ways because they didn't persist for four months and then have to restart the whole process. They had more things go their way, especially in the first year. But they're not getting results today.

 

Person getting results today wasn't the one who had the most resources, the most luck, or the most things go right. It was the person who persisted the longest and just kept moving forward in spite of all the stuff that went wrong.

 

So if you have very limited resources right now, if you've had some bad luck, if you don't feel like you're maybe as bright as a lot of entrepreneurs out there, or if you feel like you have other disadvantages, just remember it's not really about having advantages or being better than other people.

 

In many cases, whoever is the most persistent and just keeps moving forward for longer, like almost as if you're just smashing your head through a ton of walls until the thing works, whoever's willing to do that the longest, generally wins. In fact, you'll find that intelligence can sometimes be a big, inhibiting factor for entrepreneurs.

 

Some entrepreneurs who are unbelievably intelligent have a big problem because they know that statistically, this stuff is improbable. They also know that what they're doing is kind of stupid. If you keep bashing your head through walls to get somewhere, then, I mean, it doesn't take much intelligence to realize that this is ridiculous.

 

In fact, sometimes there's people who are slightly less intelligent who don't seem to have the awareness that this entire process is ridiculous and keep persisting anyway. They're the ones who get the results.

 

So keep this in mind. It's not about your resources, it's not about your situation. It's about how long you can persist. And these case studies, and the case studies of everyone who I work with that gets unbelievable results, is testament to this. And I'm testament to this as well 'cause I had problems, I had issues, I had no resources, and yet, I kept pushing forward.

 

So hope this video has been helpful. Hope it has given you a little bit of insight about what really counts and what really matters with your business. And if you have encountered someone, maybe a friend who is having some issues with their business and things are taking longer than they wanted, maybe they just need a boost of inspiration, then show them this video. Because it's all about the long term we have to think about, not the short term.

 

Cool. I really hope you enjoyed this video. By the way, if you watched this video outside of my Facebook group, then please click the link above or below the video to join us and you can get your questions answered on daily videos. Just ask a question as you enter the group, you'll see a box that appears and I'll approve your request. I'll answer your your question on a video as well.

 

All right. Thanks so much for watching today's video and we'll speak soon.