Today I share with you the Parable of The Lentil Soup. This is a story about the opportunity cost of holding onto a business (or ebook, person, lentil soup) that is not right for you. I share with you a very common problem many of my clients have, a solution and at the end of the video, I share a very expensive decision that took 5 years to make that changed by path in business.
To find out more, watch this quick video in this week’s episode of Wonderful Web TV. Your Monday dose of Motivation, Mindset and Marketing.
I’d love to hear your comments and any tips you’d like to share. Share your thoughts below. I’ll come back and join in the conversation.
Cheers
Janet
P.S. If you like this episode, I’d love you to leave a ranking and comment over on itunes.
Here’s the link (you can also subscribe here too)
Great little story and reminder to us all ‘surfingmama’! I’ve .let go of a house, a career in government service, a couple of businesses, a teaching career (plus the 5 years Uni ) and yes, even a marriage that wasn’t working anymore. I’d invested a lot of time, money and emotion into all of these – and yes, it’s very freeing, not to mention rather scary, deciding to let them go and move on. As our current prime minister says, ‘keep moving forward.’ Staying optimistic is the key – believe and achieve!.
“surfingmama” yep that’s an embarrassing story. Making these decisions does require a mix of realism, pragmatism and optimism plus a true belief in yourself that you have the capability to make something else succeed even if one (or more) things did not.
You need goats! They would have loved the soup…
I laughed and laughed and laughed over the tale of this really great ebook that you can just set up a sales page for and autoresponders that will tick over and have this really lovely base of passive income before you get on to the next “real” project. Why did I laugh you may wonder? Because, it’s so ruddy familiar! Created the ebook (nearly!!!). Well okay, I’ve created the draft. Bought the domain name. Had a designer create a design (didn’t like it). FInally decided it wasn’t my passion so let it go. Tried to sell the domain names – no bites. THEN in my next brainwave I thought, hey why not turn it into a PLR or MMR product and sell it as that, and on it goes. It’s VERY hard to let go of something you have put time and money into, especially when you know it’s so darn good and just “perfect” for people. When you love setting up new things you’re just itching to get it out there and I have a whole list of excuses…
- I can use it as a practice run before I build the “real” products
- I can use it to build a mailing list
- I can use it to see if I really like selling ebooks
- I can build it up and sell it
- I’ll feel better when I finish it
- I’ll get the monkey off my back
- It’s sooooo much better than anything else out there
- Okay so there are other ebooks out there that are just as good but most people in this niche buy multiple products from multiple vendors so they’ll want mine too!
- I can’t let some scummy domain squatter get my domain for nothing after all the hard work I put into it
- and on and on
In economics we call the lentil soup a “sunk cost” i.e. you have already spent the money or invested the time or sweat equity, It’s always very tempting to leverage this sunk cost rather that letting it go. So I follow that philosophy for a while but then one of the above excuses comes up, or someone says something and I think to myself, ‘You know what you really need is my super duper absoluately fantastic ebook. Let me just get the sales page up and send you the link.’ (Image of me rubbing my hands with glee as I get my first satisfied customer signed up).
The best part of this story? Being of a creative mind I have a whole flipping series of products designed around this ebook that part of me wants to walk away from and the other part of me wants to complete and put to bed.
In the past I’ve walked away from things and later come back and realised it wasn’t such a hot idea. Internet marketing is the classic. I was doing ebooks and online marketing back in the late 1990s. I had a mailing list, domains etc and flagged it. There were good reasons for doing that but it does make me think twice about walking away from things that may be an impulse or reaction rather than truly something that’s not right for me.
Oops, I guess I don’t have any helpful tips except do as I say (let it go) not as I do. Hmmmm
Thanks so much for sharing the lentil soup story.
LOVE your list of reasons / excuses. The litmus test is if you are allowing this unfinished thing to stop you taking action on something much more important, fulfilling and potentially profitable. If it fits in with your new plans, you can always change it slightly, cut it up into blog posts, form a JV with someone who DOES want to invest the time….or simply kiss it good bye and invest your time and energy where profit and passion is to be found.
Great suggestions there Janet. Love the litmus test. I will have a good look at all my UFOs (unfinished objects) and decide which ones are energy drains and which are consistent with my long term goals.
I’ve let most of my ideas go but there are still a couple living rent free in my mind….
Great analogy Janet!.
Just like the dog who laid down on a nail, and would move off it until it became too uncomfortable.
Have to admit, have been there too.
The more often you do this, and realise how much time is wasted, the quicker one moves the next time.
Now – what’s my nail? Oh yes, running out of money eventually if I do nothing!
Hi to the dog….
Yep I’d rather run out of money actually investing in something that has a great chance of working instead of running out of money while thinking about taking action. The day I did my first interview for Wonderful Web Women I literally spent our very last cent. It HAD to work. Mind you, I had done my research well on this one and was very confident it would work. If I hadn’t tried and failed a few times before that I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.
You are a very spooky woman (in a good way). Only 2 weeks ago I let go of the idea that I had to set up my business as a life coach. I had spent a lot of time and many thousands of $$$$$ in training and getting ICF accreditation. I fought against the idea of NOT doing straight life coaching because of that reason: all that time, all that effort, all that money!!!!!
I had thoughts coming into my head about I really wanted to do, but I tried to ignore them, kept pushing them away. Now that I have thrown out MY ‘lentil soup’, I have taken the plunge and I am signed up for Joey’s last Australian 3 day intensive on the Gold Coast in June – something I have put off for the past 3 years because I didn’t want to throw out the soup. With that under my belt and your help I’ll be able to get what I really want now.
Thank you
Hey Claire. Cue music from the Twighlight Zone…..” I can read your mind and your thoughts are the inspiration for my videos.”
The thing I’ve found is any learning, education, trial projects etc are never wasted as you bring that experience and skills to your final destination (if there is such a thing as a final destination).
With speaking and life coach background, you will have a good basis for choosing the niche you will specialise in and be able to get the word out there.
P.S. After writing my comment, I was checking out a new blog I came across and this quote:
“When you stop chasing the wrong things you give the right things a chance to catch you.”
Love that quote Claire
What? No tips on cooking lentils?
Oh yes, buy the tinned ones – they aren’t crunchy and hard. Catch you all next week
Hi Janet,
This is spooky for me too on many levels.
Plus I think Robyn and I have been living parallel lives, my “release” tally is also a career, a house and 2 big businesses that I put absolutely everything into, every dollar I ever earned and other people’s money too, plus my heart and soul.
Talia and I also have a lot in common. I wrote an e book to learn the model and it wasn’t really breaking even but had some potential, though i wasn’t passionate about the topic and didn’t want to pursue it any further. One day someone called me and bought it off me for $2,000! So spirit fixed that one for me.
I also spent a lot of time building an online store for my mum for her retirement only to realise that the conversion rates were so low that it would never be profitable and had to let that go too.
I have a plethora of projects I am truly passionate about on hold because for perhaps the first time in my life I’ve had to be practical and build up my third business (luckily very successful) so I can sell it – when you’ve lost nearly a million dollars, you can’t sniff at making that back, and unfortunately it does take time to get a business into good shape to be sold, and the process of doing so is very valuable in itself.
Next week it is going up for sale, I can taste the celebration day when it gets sold and I’ll be free to move forward using all that I’ve learned to serve others. CAN’T WAIT, but in many ways I did have to go through this – as much as I would have liked to be 2 years further down the track.
Thanks Janet, a great topic, and you’re right, very prickly for a lot of people.
Good luck with the sale of the business. That was very fortuitous selling your ebook for $2,000 so who knows maybe your business will also yield you a good return.
I am going to put more thought into the things I want to keep and the ones I want to let go, and who knows maybe I will find some magical solutions and someone who would love all the material that I no longer want to put energy into, and care for it and do wonderful things with it (and flick me a cheque!)
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Cate good luck with the sale of your business. Feel free to link to the sales info when it is ready. You can do that here, in the “promote yourself” section and also via our Facebook group.
How lovely of you, thanks Janet. I will be very interested in what the group thinks.
When starting do a sole proprietor it is quick and simple especially when you dont have a lot of assets to protect then when you get bigger move to llc to protect your assets.
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