Why 90% of people fail

I talk to 5-10 founders and entrepreneurs every week, and almost every single one is worried about the same thing: getting more clients/customers.

Which is totally understandable, since that’s what pays the bills!

But what doesn’t make sense to me is that most of them don’t actually DO THE THINGS THAT WOULD GET THEM MORE CLIENTS.

Let’s say I’m talking to a hypothetical freelance product designer. We’ll call him Doug. Doug does great work, but he’s stressed because his pipeline is dry and he has no idea how to fix it.

We chat, and it goes something like this:

• Him: “All my business comes from referrals, but my usual contacts haven’t sent any in a while and it’s getting a little scary!”

• Me: “I would make a list of 100 people you want to work with, and reach out to 1-2 of them every day. It only takes 10-15 minutes a day, and it’s only a matter of time before one of them turns into a new project, right?”

• Him: “Yeah, that makes sense! Then I’m not sitting around and hoping for a referral to come in.”

• Also him, immediately after the call: Doesn’t do it (or anything else to get new business).

And now we know why Doug is always stressed!

To be clear, this isn’t specifically about outreach as a tactic (although it’s almost always a good one).

The larger point is that your business won’t grow unless YOU DO THE THINGS THAT MAKE IT GROW.

You can’t just sit around waiting for opportunities to fall into your lap… you have to get off your ass and create them.

To be clear, that doesn’t have to mean traditional email/DM outreach. It could be going to IRL events, handing out flyers at a farmer’s market, or any number of other things.

But it always means MAKING CONTACT WITH OTHER HUMANS.

NOT reading more books, writing more “strategy” docs, setting up another Notion workspace, etc etc. Anything but, you know, trying to make money! (My friend Elliot Aronow calls this “sales avoidance”).

But the good news is that it’s not complicated:

You just need to put in the work. As they say in 12 step programs, “it works if you work it.”

It’s just like getting in shape: you just need to follow the program. Eat better, work out, stay consistent, and you’ll get in shape.

And if you want to grow your business, you also need to follow the program.

Find a system for doing these two things:

1. Talking with the people you already know (past clients, vendors, old co-workers, etc)

2. Adding new people to your network (a podcast, Christmas cards, monthly events… anything is potentially viable)

Then do it every single day, week, month and year. Stay consistent and it WILL work!

Just don’t sit around waiting for opportunity to happen… MAKE it happen.

PS - I may have some room for a new client starting in June. If you’re interested, reply to this… or just reply if you want to say hi. I read all of them and I always like hearing from you!