A Beginner’s Advantage- What Dean Holland Would Do If He Could Be a Beginner Again

Good morning!

In October, I began to tell you what Dean had said he would do if he lost his business entirely and had to start with no reputation and no great budget. If he only had his knowledge, how would he begin again?

I wrote two posts: Your Time Is Now and Why Would Anyone Listen to Me? as part of a series of posts.

I had an atrocious migraine for a month and a half and never finished telling you. My apologies! I’m going to remedy that today.

I’m just going to jump right in!

Fail Forward Fast

One thing you must know about Dean to understand his strategy is that he believes in the value of failing.

What? You may ask.

We’ve been conditioned to think our mistakes and frustrations happen because we are failures. It’s easy to get stuck with this way of thinking.

In contrast, Dean embraces “the failures” along the way. Doing something new, we’re inevitably going to fail sometimes. The key is to learn from our mistakes and begin again as soon as possible.

Dean tells me, “Stop being afraid of a mistake… The faster you fail, the faster you’ll succeed.”

The image of falling forward fast and picking oneself up again, only to fail and pick oneself up over again, puts the image of a skipping stone in my mind.

There’s no failure in the stone hitting the water. The fall, or hitting the water, is actually needed for the stone to move further ahead.

We’ve got to learn how to do what we’re doing by making mistakes as we learn how to succeed.

It’s essential to embrace the idea of “Fail Forward Fast” or, if you prefer, the image of the skipping stone.

You can skip ahead quickly.

The goal is not to stop rather than never face a hiccup.

Action Plus Documentation Plus Attention

So, how would Dean succeed again? There are three general steps: Action, Documentation, and Attention.

Action

You’ll need to do the work to follow your plan of action. This means you must be consistent, minimize distractions, and focus relentlessly in pursuit of doing what has to be done.

You have to believe in your plan and then achieve it. Belief comes first and then go for it daily.

Dean admits there will be luck along the way. For example, I was in the right place at the right time to use Dean’s new software, The Affiliate System, during the beta launch (more on that later).

But as to luck, and I like this, he said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

Please don’t dismiss that as a trite statement; think about it. You need to do something to find the wins. 

Documentation

As you act on your strategy, document everything as you progress.

This is where the beginner’s advantage comes into play. You can document your strategy as you learn how to work it. As you learn how to use various tools and how to operate the technology needed, report it, etc.,

Through the process, the traffic/audience you’re working hard to gain will begin to know, like, and trust you.

They’ll key into your journey because they’re interested in the journey itself and become fans as they root for you.

You’ll become a trusted guide because you’re doing what your audience wants to do themselves.

As a beginner just a few steps ahead, falling/failing forward fast, your audience can relate to you easily and feel a relationship with you more quickly than with someone making millions.

Attention

How do you get people’s attention?

People will come back if you’re documenting in a personable way, genuinely and honestly sharing your experiences.

The goal is to get them to consume your content. This is how you get them to know, like, and trust you. You wind up with a captive audience.

So what do you have to do to keep their attention?
Share new content.

This is the tricky part.

It’s natural to come to a point where you think, I’m done. I’ve done what I need to do in documenting. But, no.

Documenting is something that will always continue.

Why? You’ve got an audience that knows, likes, and trusts you. Meanwhile, you’re adding to that audience with your traffic strategy, so new people are always joining.

All of these people are interested in what you have to say. Don’t let them down by pausing in your content.

The big question: How does that make you money? When you make an offer, your group of fans will take a look. And trusting you, they’ll consider purchasing.

So, What Is the Plan For Action?

I’ll outline it here; there will be more on this in future posts.

• Establish Your Owned Asset. Dean recommends a blog. You need something you own that you have control over. Social media platforms tend to disappear over time, so you don’t want the basis of your business to be something somebody else owns. This is where you’ll do your documentation.
• Choose the primary platform that you’ll use for a traffic strategy. For example, I’ve been using Quora. I’m considering switching my main focus to YouTube. You could use a Facebook group, TikTok, etc. You’ll direct traffic to your owned asset. You’ll also be able to publish the content from your blog here.
• Once established, you can choose secondary supportive platforms. For example, think of other social media platforms. You’ll be able to direct more traffic to your blog. You’ll also be able to publish snippets from your blog on these and widen your audience.

What Would Dean Do If He Started All Over?

He would publish a blog. His blog strategy would be to document his journey. He would pick a primary traffic strategy to direct traffic to his blog and be a secondary place to post his content. And lastly, he would choose platforms that complement his strategy to further direct traffic to his blog and post his content.

Can You Guess What I’m Doing? 

Yup, you guessed it! I’ve got a blog established. I’m in the process of changing my primary traffic strategy. Update: I’ve been focused on setting up the groundwork of the Affiliate System (a new software Dean has created to help people with the above process- I’ll share more on that later). I haven’t had time to work on my traffic strategy.

I get homework from Dean each week to set up the Affiliate System. Last week was a doozy! There was so much to do; I’m still working on it. I’m setting up my opt-in so you can become one of my accountability partners. I hope to have that up and running this week.

Then, I’ll run my primary traffic strategy to direct traffic to my blog and continue to publish content.

And, of course, I’ll follow Dean’s advice and set up some secondary supportive platforms to also direct traffic to my blog and publish excerpts from my blog.

Conclusion

What do you think of this strategy? Do you think it will work? Does it sound like too much work?

When I first looked into affiliate marketing, I didn’t come across such a detailed plan to follow.

I stumbled on the internet trying to understand affiliate marketing and how to go about it.

I’m grateful to have found a mentor in the trenches with me, showing me a plan to follow, and I’ll continue to share it with you.

The strategy listed above is a way to implement what Dean calls The Four Core Areas: getting traffic, capturing emails, following up with subscribers, and making offers. These are the four steps needed to make money in any business.

I’m going to give it a shot.