Only Read If You Are Struggling
A friend of mine in the fitness industry is struggling…he was ready to give up on his dream. I begged him not to. So he asked me what to do next.
Here’s what I wrote him…and I hope it might be helpful for you too. It gives you a bit of insight into my 7-year overnight success story.
***Craig Ballantyne’s 7-Year Itch and Overnight Success Story***
Dear XXXXX,
Thanks for the email. I was just thinking about you and all that you’ve accomplished. You are a great inspiration to me knowing how you’ve turned around your business around and into something special. Bedros Keuilian and I talk about you all the time.
Here’s what you will need in any industry in order to be successful:
1) Converting Copy
This is a science, and anyone can become a scientist in any field of science if they master the fundamentals. It doesn’t matter what online niche market you go into, you will need to have converting copy. You need to be able to sell.
2) A Strong Network
You’ve put a lot of effort into the network you’ve built right now. It’s so important for you to continue to attend events, break bread with others in your industry, reach out and help people, become known as a GO-GIVER, and to help as many people as you can doing what you love. That’s what life – and TRUE success – is all about. So stay connected!
3) Persistence
Here’s a DARK personal secret that no one knows about me. When I was your age, around 27, I wanted to get out of the fitness industry too.
I thought about going to law school or medical school, or anything that I thought would be more lucrative and prestigious than being a fitness expert.
But I also knew that I was capable of achieving so much if I could just break through with my online business.
I was right.
I knew I would succeed if I just stayed PERSISTENT as possible.
But, just as you are experiencing now, there were tough times, dips in the road, and dark days.
NO ONE was there to see what I went through between 1999-2004 as I struggled to make my business work.
It wasn’t until 2004 that I made $50K online, and then in 2005 I hit 6-figures, and it was only in 2006, seven years after I started, that I finally had my first product launch!.
That’s a 7-year overnight success story.
Likewise, NO ONE was there to tuck our friend Bedros into bed when he was homeless and living in the back of his pick-up truck in Carlsbad, California. No one was there to sing him to sleep or see what he was going through when he was flat broke and being kicked around by life.
The only thing that the fitness industry sees is us NOW. They think it’s always been easy.
It wasn’t.
It would have been easy for Bedros and I to quit on our dreams.
But we knew there was something out there.
We knew that somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight,
Someone’s thinking of me, and wanting to mastermind with me tonight,
Somewhere out there, someone’s saying a prayer,
That we’ll find one another in that big fitness industry out there
(Ha!)
And we did. We finally ‘got our lucky break’ and found great people and we had breakthroughs and eventually we met and it was like when all the Power Rangers come together and unite in some crazy wicked awesome force.
That’s how we became the bosses, as you described us.
Through Persistence. Through Networking. Through Selling.
We achieved success through the Mastery of High Value Competencies (such as face-to-face sales, speaking from the stage, copywriting, and brokering deals) and the ability to take so much pain we make an MMA fighter look like a momma’s boy.
No one will ever be able to go back in time and see me #grinding at work until 10pm every Friday night from 2001-2008. No one will ever see me putting myself into the hospital with anxiety from pursuing this path.
No one will see the stress marks on B’s heart and soul because of what he’s gone through in the last few years turning FBBC into a diamond.
No one will ever see those struggles.
But it doesn’t matter.
We were the pioneers and took the arrows in the backs and the hatchets in the head and everything that world threw at us SO THAT it would be so much easier for our friends like you to succeed faster.
And it will be.
So what’s next?
The Online Business Industry is only going to get BIGGER and better.
The models for success are too numerous to list, but here’s just a sample of my friends and coaching clients that have had incredible success online – proving that you can, too:
Joel Marion, Simon Black, Jon Benson, Mike Geary, Vince Del Monte, Isabel De Los Rios, Jason Ferruggia, Mike Linares, Michael Dunlop, and so on and so on and so on.
Most important, if two goofballs (Me and Bedros!) with an endless list of flaws can do it, so can YOU.
So yes, I know what I will do in the future, what I did do in the past, and what I would do if I had to do it all over again.
I’d follow the same road.
I’d make the same sacrifices.
I’d pay the cost to be the boss.
Because it has been worth every penny,
Craig Ballantyne
PS – Stay strong and get stronger.
Never give up on what is IMPORTANT to YOU.
PPS – As Mario Puzo wrote in The Godfather…
…”Italians have a little joke, that the world is so hard a man must have two fathers to look after him, and that’s why they have godfathers.”
The Internet can be a tricky business an sometimes fall flat, so that’s why you have The Godfather on your side doing the dirty work to guarantee your success. Consider yourself a made man (or woman!) with me on your side.
PPS – This is a GREAT quote to inspire you everyday…
“The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.” – John C. Maxwell
Stay Freakin’ STRONG!