Is all the time and energy worth it?
Matt Henderson (00:01):
Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to the Business Mind podcast with Matt. Today, we’re going to talk about whether this is all worth it or not.
Matt Henderson (01:37):
All right. Over the past few years, well, since I started this podcast, you guys have been with me to talk about what I’ve been doing over the past 12 months. And also, what I’ve been doing over the past couple years. And I’m sure a lot of you guys wonder, I mean, if something’s taken you a couple years, is it worth the hard work you put in? Is it worth the time and the effort, the energy, the learning, everything that’s involved.
…And I guess initially I would’ve said two years ago when I was just sitting around and not sitting around. Let me go back one step further. This all started three years ago. I’m outside cutting my lawn. Now, for those of you who listened to podcast four, I don’t love cutting my lawn. I just don’t love it. Not that it’s the hardest thing in the world. It’s just, it seems tedious and almost, I’m pretty confident I can definitely, at the time, I thought I could be making more money if I was inside or if I was somewhere doing something. As opposed to outside, pushing a lawnmower around that I could probably find a landscaper or a lawn company that would do it for $25 a week or something.
At that point I was getting so frustrated with where things were and how I was making money, or better yet not making enough money, that I started thinking into like, “Well, if I want to stop cutting my lawn, because I feel that it’s a poor use of my time, then I need to justify what I’ll be doing and how much that will make in order to say I shouldn’t be cutting the lawn.” If that makes sense to everyone.
Essentially, if I can make more money not cutting the lawn. And in today’s example, building somebody a website or doing somebody’s SEO for them, building a sales funnel, then they’re would be no reason to cut the lawn because I would be losing money by doing that. Okay. Back then, that’s where I was at with it.
And I went on a learning spree, like you guys all know. Just I kept learning and learning and learning. And trying out different things and trying to figure out what my best avenue was. And back then I thought, “All right. Great. I picked a path, I went with it and I started doing it. And I learned all about that.” And it wound up being the Amazon FBA business that I started up. I was going out to retail stores and buying stuff and then, essentially shipping it into Amazon and letting them fulfill the products.
And at the time I was spending a lot of hours doing that. And a lot of hours out buying, a lot of hours shipping. And then, a lot of time doing the backend work of making sure that my numbers were all tight on the Amazon side of things. And was I making money while doing it? I spent a good amount of time doing that. I spent over a year doing that and got my experience from it.
And initially, when I decided to close that business, I thought, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know if this was all worth it. I don’t know if it was all worth it. I spent a lot of time learning about Amazon and how it works and how to rank on Amazon and how the numbers work. And can I find a product that’s worth selling on Amazon. All this time, all this time at stores and scanning products. And was it all worth it?
Now my initial thought was, it probably wasn’t because I broke even on the whole thing, which to me, means that I didn’t even get paid for my time. That hurt. And so therefore, I started to feel this was not worth it. Now, fast forward from that moment six months. At my other business, we hired another person and my role at the business changed. And we needed more avenues to sell on. Guess where the first one that I picked was? Amazon. I mean, who’s not buying stuff on Amazon today? Right.
It was my first choice. I decided to pick Amazon and I started firing away and listing. And now that has become a new stream of income for my other e-commerce business. Initially, was it worth it for me? I didn’t think so, but my education led me to a whole nother avenue, to bring money in through and to benefit another business.
And then likewise, it opened up other businesses to me because of what I knew. Meaning, I went out to meet with a company for my e-commerce business about doing some private labeling stuff for us. And when I was out there, they asked us about if we were selling on Amazon and we told them we were. And a long story short, they wound up saying, “Geez could you sell our stuff on Amazon for us?” And the conversation was opened.
Now, had I not done all the time leading up to that, I would’ve said, “No, I can’t help you sell your stuff on Amazon because I don’t even know enough about it myself.” But because I was in the position I was and I had spent so much time with it and educating myself. I left there with them knowing that I am their answer to help them and that my business can help them succeed. That’s just one example.
If you’re asking, is it worth all the learning? Is it worth the time I put in? The answer is yes. As long as you use your time wisely and you apply it to the right things. Now, I feel that if you’re just somebody who likes to go out and just trial and error do things, the answer might not always be yes. And I say this because when you go to learn things, if your plan of attack is that, “I’m just going to keep trying some stuff out and see how it goes,” but you’re never going to really educate yourself on what you’re doing. Then in my opinion, what I would see happening for you is your trial and error may cost you more than you’re ever going to make.
Now, I felt that it was beneficial for me because like I said, I broke even on the business. I knew that if I was able to apply it to something that had more volume to it, meaning I would sell more, then I would actually be able to make this Amazon thing worthwhile. However, if I had just gone out, bought a couple things at a store, came back, tried to sell them. Bought a couple things, tried and sold them, I think it would’ve taken me twice as long to figure out the Amazon stuff, which means I would’ve been negative for over one year in revenue and stuff. And that, to me, would not have been sustainable.
I wouldn’t have wanted to take that long to learn about it. And I don’t think I would’ve learned anymore about it. I applied that same learning aspect to everything else I’m doing. Once I stopped with the Amazon thing, it was like, “Okay, well what’s actually going to make it better for me?” And that became a website, building SEO, marketing, advertising, and sales funnels. That’s what it turned into because it just made more sense for me and what I actually enjoyed doing. And as a skill set, what was going to fit me the most.
Now, fast forward again. And after doing all my learning and my education and working with different companies and stuff, now I can say that that is all coming to fruition as well. And my search engine optimization stuff and my website building, my sales funnel building, it’s all taking that same path. And now I’m starting to see the exact same things that happen with the Amazon stuff, happen with my web stuff. And honestly, it’s even building at a faster rate.
Here’s my answer. Yes, it’s all worth it, but you have to take the right steps. You’ve got to take the right steps. You need the education, which you need to educate yourself and do it on your own. If you are not interested, it’s not going to be worth it for you because you’re not going to follow through. But if it’s something you’re really interested in, then you need to do a deep dive. You have to go in as far as you can and live in that world.
I live in the digital marketing space. I don’t do anything else. I read about it constantly. I learn about it constantly and I’m using it constantly. And that has really catapulted my growth just because I’m doing those things. And I’m learning through trial and error as well as just by just being involved with it all the time. In my opinion, yep, it’s all worth it, but you have to stick with it. You have to immerse yourself in every aspect of it and not be afraid to see yourself as maybe not successful initially.
All right, everyone, if you like what you’re hearing here today, please visit the Business Mind podcast, let your friends know about it. Take a screenshot of this, share it on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, wherever you’re at these days. And let them know how much you’re loving the podcast. And if you get a moment and you’re listening on iTunes, if you could go in and leave me a review there, I would greatly appreciate it because I want to know what you guys are enjoying and what I can provide more of. All right, everyone again, Matt from the Business Mind podcast. And I hope you have an awesome, awesome day.