Mark’s Why

Mark starts his day early getting ready for work while his wife, Jennifer, gets the kids ready for school. He has some brief time to sit with his four-year-old son, Tyler, and his two-year-old daughter, Madison before he needs to rush off to work.

Mark and his family live in the suburbs, and his drive into the city takes him 1.5 hours in and 1.25 hours home. Once Mark gets to work, he checks and answers the 100 emails that all urgently need his attention.

Then, he’s busy in meetings all day, works through lunch and heads home. Even though he has plenty of work to justify staying late, he is excited to get home to his family, so he leaves as soon as he can to rush home and eat dinner with his family.

I’ve chosen not to let that stop me.” Mark loves hearing the stories about how Madison made cute bubbles while laughing, which made Tyler laugh two. He hears stories about the kids going between fighting and bonding throughout the day.

Soon after dinner, Mark helps with the nighttime routine, and the day is over, and tomorrow will be the same routine. These wonderful but short times with his family make Mark wish he could be home more often.

He’d love to start an online business, and he has plenty of ideas for it, but never has the time to work on it. Mark shared with us about how he was overly stressed at work, had impossible deadlines to meet, was carrying the workload of three positions, didn’t feel appreciated or valued, and didn’t feel like he had a purpose.

He felt like he was just going through the motions to bring home a paycheck. Most importantly, Mark felt like he was missing out on seeing his kids grow up. The helplessness and defeat in his voice fueled the passion for my husband and me.

We told each other we would not be in the same situation as Mark. Making the transition to becoming an entrepreneur is scary when you have a family, but if you know deep down inside that there is something else you want to do and share with the world, this is the best time to start.

It isn’t going to be easy, and initially, it may take up more time away from your family to set it up, but it is an investment to get you to where you want to be.

Our Why

When my husband and I got married in 2007 in Orange County, CA, we both had two to three-hour commutes round trip in opposite directions to go to our corporate jobs. A couple of years into our marriage, we made the decision that we were going to be entrepreneurs.

We wanted to have flexible schedules and, most importantly, spend quality time with our future children. This was our why. If you ask us why we are entrepreneurs, it is because of our son, Aidan.

If we stayed at our previous jobs, we would only see him for an hour in the morning and an hour before he went to bed. This gave us the courage and determination to be entrepreneurs. Since 2010, I went from working part time to being a full-time entrepreneur.

What Is Your Why?

If you’ve forgotten what your purpose is, take some time to journal it. If you feel you just don’t have the time for your business, remind yourself why you are doing what you are doing.

If you are feeling like you are not making progress, remind yourself why you even started. You need to remind yourself your why on a daily basis constantly.

When your kids get sick, and you have a rough week of sleepless nights, you need to remind yourself that you started this journey so that you had the freedom of being there for your kids when they need you.

When you feel like other people are making significant progress, and you feel so far behind, you need to remind yourself that we each have our own paths, and each is unique and custom to our own lives.

Remind yourself of your why every day, and follow this system to create and build your own business using Funnels.

Ten Practical Steps of Building a Business Through Funnels

1. Create a plan and set goals. I highly recommend the Law of Attraction planner.

2. Create a routine. If you have issues with time, then wake up earlier before the busyness of the day begins. Dedicate time every day for the business. Initial sacrifices may need to be made to get the business going.

3. Delegate tasks. Look to see if there is something that takes up a lot of your time that can be delegated to someone else. There are virtual assistants you can work with.

4. Set up an accountability system. Whether it is a colleague through Skype or your next door neighbor, set tangible monthly goals and reward yourself when you achieve them. Choose someone that can encourage you when you are in a slump, and be happy for you when you hit milestones.

5. Be a part of a community. Join a community in your industry to learn new things and share ideas with, i.e. Funnel Magazine. More importantly, be a part of a community that will inspire you and encourage you to keep going, and ask them for feedback. Separate yourself from the naysayers.

6. Create partnerships. You are more powerful as a team. Identify your strengths, and look to find strategic partnerships for the other areas of your business. For example, if you love sales and sharing about your business but don’t feel confident about learning and building the funnel, find a resource or person with that skill who you might be able to partner up with.

7. Always be teachable. Although we may be an expert in our field, there is still so much for us to learn if we posture ourselves as being teachable.

8. Always be learning. There are books, audio books, podcasts, and more easily at your disposal. There is no excuse not to be consistently learning.

9. Save up and give yourself an ample traffic budget to really test the market. Set aside a marketing budget and plan wisely on how to use that budget to give your funnel sufficient time to ramp up.

10. Don’t forget to constantly tweak and make changes to your funnels and your business. Remember to pivot
appropriately and not just follow the puck but to pivot
to where the puck will be.