Is Your Optimism Sabotaging Your Online Success?

Many business owners are optimistic and that is usually a good thing. There is a lot of evidence showing that optimists tend to be healthier, happier, and have better relationships than pessimists. But not all are good news! There are also some things that optimists don’t do as well as pessimists and may be preventing you from achieving your goals. This applies in many areas of life, but it is very common with Internet marketing, which generally requires more time and effort than most people expect.

Here are five common mistakes optimistic business owners make with their internet marketing strategy and how to overcome them.

Error n. # 1: setting expectations too high

There is nothing wrong with dreaming big and setting “sweeping” goals, but if your expectations aren’t realistic, it’s easy to be quickly disappointed.

For example, you can start publishing a blog or email newsletter and expect it to bring you a lot of inbound traffic and a lot profitable incoming traffic too. Unfortunately this rarely happens, you are very lucky. Building followers online takes time and perseverance. If you wait too too soon, you will be disappointed and there is also the risk of giving up too soon.

So don’t expect too much too soon. When you start, focus on the process, not the result; and measure your success by the quality of your material and the consistency of your publication.

Error n. # 2: hope it’s too easy

This is related to the previous point, but it refers to the process rather than the result. Overly optimistic people underestimate the amount of time, effort, focus, and money involved in completing tasks. In other words, they expect things to be easier than they really are, which can lead to disappointment, frustration, and stress when rubber hits the road.

For example, you “know” that creating videos is easy, because millions of fans upload videos to YouTube every day. But when it comes to shooting your own videos, you might be surprised how long it takes to get it right.

With many online tasks, the only real way to know what a task entails is to actually do it. So to overcome this problem, start asapand then use that experience when making future estimates. In other words, don’t estimate how long it will take to record 20 videos. Registry one instead, and then estimate how long it will take to do the other 19.

Mistake # 3: Missing Potential Problems Down the Road

Overly optimistic people also don’t think about problems and obstacles along the journey, so they have no contingency plans, alternatives, or backup strategies.

For example, you could delegate the management of your social media to a smart and experienced Gen Y staff member in your organization, but what if she leaves one day and leaves you in the lurch? If you don’t have a backup plan, this can stop your entire online strategy.

The solution to this problem is simple: create contingency plans. You don’t have to cover all the possible things that could go wrong, but at least consider the most obvious possibilities. You’ll usually find that it doesn’t take much to be able to recover from minor bumps along the way, as long as you’ve considered them in advance.

Mistake # 4: not learning from failure

Most people who take a gambling trip to Las Vegas will lose money. But optimists who return to Las Vegas are likely to lose more money than pessimists. That’s because optimists ignore first trip losses (eg, “Oh well, at least I didn’t lose what a lot “) instead of learning from your mistakes.

This also happens with online marketing. I’ve seen many people try something online, find that it doesn’t work, and then give up with a shrug, happy it didn’t cost a lot of time and money. That may be true, but they often never realize it. why it didn’t work, and they’ll probably make the same mistake with whatever they try next. This is especially true with many online marketing techniques, because really whose it costs a lot to start, so it is It’s easy to ignore them if they don’t work, rather than spending time and effort making them work.

Mistake # 5: Not putting a safety net in place

Overly optimistic people dive head first into a new venture, severing all ties to the past and assuming they will never have to step back. Now, there is certainly something to be said for creating this kind of forced commitment, but it is not always appropriate and, at times, it is very risky.

For example, when Facebook first launched its “Pages” service, which allowed organizations to create their own Facebook presence, some business owners (foolishly) decided to shut down their website and email newsletter, and ran all your attention to your Facebook Page. But that wasn’t a smart choice, because they no longer owned their properties online and were subject to the whims of Facebook.

Be a realistic optimist!

Have you made any of these five mistakes? If so, at least realize that you are not alone!

This does not mean that you should not be optimistic, far from it. The secret is not to be too optimistic. Be optimistic, but be a realistic optimistic.