What Marketer's Should Do Because Of The Facebook's FTC Lawsuit Over Instagram and WhatsApp?

If you've seen the news this week, the FTC has filed for Facebook to be broken up and assets like Instagram and WhatsApp sold off.

If you haven’t seen some of the official news articles, here’s one: www.theverge.com/2020/12/9/22158483/facebook-antitrust-lawsuit-anti-competition-behavior-attorneys-general

They feel it’s a monopoly with too much power over the internet. I completely understand this position. They are a massive company with a lot of power.

Now, full disclosure, I love their platform as a marketer - their advertising tools are second to none, and I hope that more competition DOES join the marketplace with better tools to reach customers than just Facebook! I’m optimistic about this.

This may have you wondering what's next for social media. 

You may even wonder if Facebook and Instagram are worth being on anymore. The answer may surprise you.

No matter what happens, business will go on.

Facebook will not stop running ads; neither will Instagram; the algorithm won't suddenly stop working. 

This allows for better innovation and competition in the marketplace. 

Now for the cold hard truth: you have to build assets for yourself in business. An Email List is one of the number one assets you need to be building TODAY!

When we put all our eggs in one basket or one platform, we get ruined when things change.

A successful business uses multi-channel marketing. Visual, written, audio, social media, products, services, events, email marketing, private chat channels, websites, podcast, YouTube, etc

Being on just one platform and riding a gimmick to make some profit is extremely short term.

It’s time to think the bigger picture like a real business owner. 

Your future is not defined by one platform - even if it’s how you have built your business.

Creating long term assets like a community that trusted you and is deeply, intimately connected with you is so important.

This happens through gathering people in places like an email list and even doing events over zoom. Connecting via whatever platform people are on is the key to constantly find new buyers.

As a business owner, if you limit yourself to one platform, you'll go broke. When that platform stops working, you'll have to get a job again.

Instead, think long term. Create relationships, not money. Your goal is always connecting with people who will be your buyers.

Connect with people, and develop your ability to sell. This can't be taken away from you no matter what happens to any platform.

Final words: Don't fear the unknown and allow it to cripple you.

Step up to the plate and create your life, regardless of anything going on outside of you.  

If you need help setting your business up for success with online marketing, schedule a free 15 minute call with me here and let’s talk about your business: jeremiahkrakowski.com/freecall

Dealing With Rude, Mean People On the Internet

If you've been on the internet for any length of time, you know that there are rude, mean people online.

We can try to get away from it, but it's nearly impossible to avoid them.

You could be doing everything correctly in your business, and you will get the meanest, rudest people accusing you of things that you never did.

Unfortunately, this threat is something that keeps a lot of people from building their businesses. They focus so hard on "hater management" that they are being controlled by the opinions of people who don't even know them.

I see fantastic business owners all the time with incredible products and services who don't put themselves out there because of haters online.

I used to be afraid of this myself. I also used to get into many "arguments" with haters online because I let them get in my head.

So I get it. I've ever had people schedule calls with me to be rude and mean! It's incredible the lengths people go to be nasty.

We can't allow the fear of these people to keep us from shining brightly in our businesses.

Ultimately - we have to become more confident in who we are, and really, I feel sorry for people who are rude like that online. It shows a level of insecurity in someone else to have to tear another person down who's going after their dreams.

Don't let the critical tone of haters get in your head, and don't let it keep you from launching your business.

The best way to break free from the fear and worry of these haters is to put yourself out there!

Will you be judged? Will people be mean? Yeah! It happens! But the more you do it, the more confident you will get to show up every day in your business and market it online.

I believe that if you're reading this right now, you may have let the fear of people being rude to keep you from building your business. Maybe even for years.

I want to say I understand. I know it can be challenging. I know there are challenges when it comes to putting yourself out there.

But when you show up, you don't let fear keep you held back, and you put yourself out there to market and sell your business online. The results will pay you dividends.

You can't control what other people will do, but you can set a boundary of what you will tolerate in your space.

Block the rude, mean people. Don't engage with them. You don't owe them anything. You owe yourself the self-acceptance and self-respect to show up powerfully and put your business out there so that you can reach your goals!

Is it easy? No. Is it worth it? Always!

If you would like me to mentor you on building your business online and getting more customers and sales, schedule a free 15-minute call with me at jeremiahkrakowski.com/freecall

Don't Let Other People Stop You From Going After Your Dreams

The people you listen to and allow to speak into your life matters.

If all you hear from is negative people, friends, and family telling you to give up on your dream, it's no wonder you that might be spinning in circles, not sure which way is up or down.

Over the last few years, I've learned one truth:

Other people will give their blood, sweat, and tears to convince you to give up on your dreams. They will fight to the death to tell you that you should give up.

Why is this? Because our dreams challenge the unfulfilled parts of them. They also don't want you to hurt yourself and be let down.

While this is sweet and somewhat caring, it's not what helps people.

The flipside is: encouraging delusions of grandeur never helped anyone. 

Some ideas are just bad, and that's ok!

But I don't think anyone should be discouraged by - or try to deter someone else from their dreams.

I don't care how much experience someone doesn't have. EVERYONE can learn new skills to achieve their dreams.

That said: there are a few things you need to do to make sure your dreams come to life.

1.) Take action behind them.

2.) Get relentless at learning what you don't know.

3.) Do NOT field negative opinions from people who haven't done what you set out to do (no matter who they knew or what experience they have in a similar space).

4.) Build a tribe of people around you who can grab onto your dream

Ultimately, yes: some ideas are bad. That's ok! I like it when I realize an idea is bad. There are also 1000 unrealized ideas because people don't put them into action and don't learn new skills or grow.

And that's where #4 comes from.

If you've ever heard the term: Teamwork makes the dream work, it's incredibly accurate when it comes to making dreams come to fruition.

Getting a team around you of people who can grab onto the vision with you changes everything!

That team could be one close friend. A team for your vision is you and one other person! Ultimately you want to have a minimum of 3 people to have a good team but starting; two is all you need!

Not sure how to find that person? Well, you have to be a friendly person.

Loneliness is one of the most significant factors I think that people get caught upon. That's a topic for another post, but readers digest is: when we have a healthy self-image and show ourselves friendly to other people, it attracts people in our lives who make friends and can join your team.

We have to create a boundary where we do not listen to people who tell us to give up on our dreams.

Ultimately, you have to work on your self-belief and believe in yourself. Many times, starting, people will try to invalidate you - and get you to give up. It's your choice to let them or not.

We also can be our own worst enemy and critic. If you are not encouraging yourself and being your best cheerleader every single day, figure out why that is! In business, you have to be your number one encouragement. You need to keep telling yourself what a great job you're doing and believing in yourself. This will attract others to buy into what you are selling as well.

A mentor or coach is a great person to help encourage you in your dream because they are both invested in encouraging AND will shoot straight with you about if it's a good idea or not and what to adjust.

If you need someone to help mentor you in online marketing and sales, I've been assisting companies in growing from 0, startup, beginning, no sales to make 6, 7, and 8 figures! You can schedule a free call with me here: jeremiahkrakowski.com/freecall

Waiting To Take Action Is Not Wisdom. Here Is What Is.

I'm a firm believer in taking things slow and embracing the process to reach our goals. That might surprise you by reading the title of this article.

Taking things slow means having patience for something to play out over the long term instead of striving to force outcomes. I strongly believe in this.

I get sad when I see people justify allowing fear to run their lives under the disguise of "wisdom and prudence."

Wisdom does not mean waiting around, doing absolutely anything, and hoping your situation changes.

It does not mean waiting until you "feel good about things" and "have all the pieces together" to start taking action.

Unfortunately, people often conflate these excuses and reasons to justify their inaction as "wisdom" - ie. waiting for the process.

There's no such thing as waiting for the process to happen...

The process is an active thing.

It happens with movement and motion, forward energy - not sitting around, hoping something changes or happens.

How do I know this? Because I used to be this person...

I used to be someone who was waiting for other people to change around me in order to take action.

I was waiting until I "reached a certain level of success" to take action on my goals.

I was waiting for me to "have all the pieces together" before taking action.

All of these are excuses.

They will destroy your future. They will keep you stuck in your comfort zone.

Taking things slow and "the process" requires you to be swift and quick with your decision-making and action-taking.

Fear disguised as wisdom thinks that "waiting around" is how we take things slow.

Fear of the unknown tries to justify "perfectionism" and "calculated action" as wisdom.

Fear might even tell you that it's just your "analytical personality."

Fear of the unknown will convince you that you are "wise" when you are sitting around waiting for everything to go perfect while overthinking and overanalyzing every step of the way.

Fear might even justify itself as "a spirit of excellence" and "I want to do this really well, so I'm taking longer" when in fact, it's just fear of what is outside of our knowledge and control!

Fear and wisdom can not co-exist with each other.

Being afraid of what is outside of your control or knowledge and using this fear to justify staying stuck is not wisdom! It's not patience.

You have to take action even in the face of uncertainty. You have to step forward even when things are outside of your control.

You may even justify your fear as "planning for success" - while that planning stage is taking you 3-6 months.

Figure out what you don't know swiftly and quickly. Take imperfect, fluidly planned action (which has room to bend the plan) as soon as possible. Bend your plans if new information comes up! (Btw, changing your plans mid-process doesn't make you a failure or unwise). Figure out the rest as you go.

When you can start to master the skill of taking action and figuring things out as you go, you will become more successful.

When we tell ourselves that our waiting around doing nothing is "wisdom," we allow fear to run out lives.

Creativity and abundance also do not co-exist with fear. When we believe there's a finite amount of success available to us and tell ourselves that we must be so cautious and careful about taking action that we stay stuck - we let fear win and rule our lives.

It's time to give up the grip of fear on your decision making. It's time to start to take swift action of your choices. It's time to quickly learn and get the help and advice you need to take your business to the next level.

Sitting around waiting for things to work out for you while doing absolutely nothing and allowing perfectionism to justify why you aren't moving forward can no longer be an option for you.

You have to choose to build your business like a professional!

You have to choose to not let your feelings keep you stuck.

Keep the forward momentum going—this isn't about burning yourself out either.

Consistent, daily forward motion and divorcing fear from your thought process will accelerate your results on a regular basis.

You have to start to be swift at the action taking in the small things in your life. Every day, take swift forward action towards your goals.

When you make this a full time forever habit for yourself, things will start to fall in place for you.

How To Handle Getting Nervous While Selling

Nerves are a natural part of doing something new and learning new things.

If you've never sold many products or services before, dealing with nerves is a very normal part of that process.

Many times, you can overthink how it will go. You might consider all the ways it could go wrong. You might even be afraid of not selling anything at all.

The fastest way around these nerves is to do it scared and keep doing it!

You might say, "Easier said than done." As long as you believe it's easier said than done, your nerves will get the best of you.

You have to be willing to do things that make you nervous and scared in your business for you to make money.

The only way you will go to the next level is to do things that terrify you.

Fear doesn't control you unless you allow it to.

You will have to put yourself out there and probably look stupid the first few times you sell something! That's entirely, ok!

The more you do it, the better it'll get! But you have to take those steps forward.

If taking those steps forward, reaching out to people (even cold selling to get your feet wet) is too difficult to do, figure out why that is!

What belief do you have that telling you that doing so will hurt or destroy you? What pain are you avoiding feeling? Describe it. Give the feeling a name.

You'll most likely find that these beliefs will go back to some time or experience in your past where you decided never to do that thing that you are scared of doing! It might even be a painful experience.

Does cold reaching out to prospects on Facebook terrify you? Why is that? I'm not saying you have to, but think about that!

Maybe it's because you wouldn't feel comfortable if someone did the same to you. Why is that?

You have to look inside yourself to answer these questions.

None of us wants to be a pushy salesperson. And because of that, we often swing to the other direction of the spectrum.

It's ok to sell if people expect you to sell.

When you deal with nerves while selling, you have to keep selling to get past them.

Someone rejecting you in a sales interaction is not the end of the world. They just weren't a good fit. Let them go!

Keep doing it. Embrace getting rejected as "part of the process" - an essential and necessary part!

The more you do this, the more money you will make. Put it to the test and try it out.

Having Confidence Without A Track Record Or Results

There's a myth that's going around in business - that confidence comes from what you've done and the results you create.

This is only partially true and in just a few instances. Yes, it's true; when you create results, it increases your confidence.

But it's a myth because confidence is a catalyst that leads to courage! And this is where the conversation gets mixed up.

It's almost like a "chicken or the egg" conversation. What came first, the courage or the confidence?

I firmly believe confidence comes before courage because you have the confidence that you will be alright even if you take courageous action and it fails.

Ultimately, it takes a level of confidence that courageous action no matter what happens - and faith IN bold action itself leads to results, but the root here is still confidence!

Confidence comes from identity - self-love, and self-acceptance. It starts by knowing who you are and what value you bring to the world around you.

To have this level of confidence, it takes letting go of the need to judge yourself based on your results (and how we judge others for their results).

It takes total acceptance of whatever happens that it's ok and good - and part of the process of learning and growing.

It takes acceptance that being a learner and being "in the process" - is ok. That "not knowing everything perfectly" is also ok and safe!

This is the confidence that leads to courageous action because it's connected to total honesty.

I've heard some people say that having confidence without results is dishonest and fraudulent, but I firmly believe that it's the other way around! When we have the confidence, to be honest with ourselves and everyone we meet about where we are in the process, we activate ourselves to grow and move forward in life. This is about making ourselves vulnerable to criticism and judgment from others without fearing how others perceive us!

The level of confidence I'm talking about is completely giving up the need to "appear professional" all the time and just giving it your best shot.

It's ok that your best shot might not produce the results you hoped, but that you are in the process!

This confidence level that comes from total self-acceptance and self-love for who we are allows us to do impossible things, even in the beginning. It activates us to take massive action, even when we've never done something before.

To take this to the next level, when our confidence comes from connecting with our higher power, with God, we take steps of faith in everything we do!

Our confidence comes from trusting the process and not needing to control everything that happens in and around us in our life.

What will it take for you to develop that level of self-acceptance and faith?

What's preventing you from stepping out with that kind of "reckless confidence" in everything you do?

Once you start doing that, things in your business will begin to fall in place for you.

Business is about bringing value to people, delivering value with excellence. It's not about perfection.

When you believe in yourself, others will start to believe in you as well! That's what this confidence is all about.

Haven't produced any results? Great! No problem! Let's get some wins under your belt and then build on those!

Every single expert or person who changed the world started right where you are now, without results or without the results that they wanted. They got honest with themselves and then stepped out with confidence and faith.

You have to start to step out in faith and do things that might have previously terrified you. When you do this, things will begin to come together for you, but until you do, you will probably be spinning around in circles wondering why things haven't "worked out yet."

I'd love to help you grow in confidence and borrow my experience in your business. I've helped businesses for the last 17 years create 7 and 8 figures from scratch, and I've love to coach you on how to do so as well. Schedule a free 15-minute call with me, and let's figure out a strategy to help you take your business to the next level: jeremiahkrakowski.com/freecall