Falling into fear and doubt while building your business is normal, but there are many things you can do to recover before you fall into what I call the Pit of Despair. The Pit of Despair is that cold, dark, spinning place filled with fear and doubt like:

“Can I really do this?”

“If this is really going to work?”

“I’m putting in a lot of effort and it seems like I’m not getting anything in return.”

“I feel uncomfortable talking about my business because I am not where others think I should be and I feel like a failure.”

First, cheer up. We’ve all been there, and back again. And while there are many things you can do to get yourself out of or avoid falling into the pit of despair, one of the most effective is simply managing your own expectations about your success rate. I’m defining success in this case as ‘steady cash flow’, so here’s a proven (10+ year) timeline for cash flow for your online business.

Knowing this timeline will allow you to manage your expectations, alleviating the fear and doubt that you are doing the wrong thing or that you are not doing enough. It also allows you to plan ahead so you can move faster through each of the phases OR adjust the pace that best suits your lifestyle. The timeline also tells you what to focus on now or what to focus on next.

If you are implementing the relationship model to build your business, it is important to be prepared for the time it takes to build your business (this is not a get-rich-quick model, but a potentially highly profitable one with sustainability) and Set realistic expectations of when you will start to see a profit from your offers.

-Phase 1: Market and Message

You will move to Phase 1 usually within the first 3 months of building your business. This is when you focus on the problems you solve for your market. This includes discovering and defining the biggest challenges facing your market, and researching and/or creating the solutions.

-Phase 2: Building Your List

Once you’re clear about who your market is and what solutions you offer them, you’ll move on to Phase 2, which is all about building your list. We are currently striving to attract 500-1500 people to our email list by offering them a free sample of what we do. We started this process right after Phase 1 and focused on building the list as part of our ongoing marketing efforts.

-Phase 3. Making Offers

This is when you start to focus on how to generate income with your multiple streams. This is normally done from month 7 onwards.

This timeline will give you an idea of ​​how long it may take to achieve steady (or even no) cash flow in your business, as well as prevent any frustration and overwhelm you may feel as you get your online business off the ground or continue to build it. Remember, it takes twice as much fuel to get a jet off the ground as it takes to navigate at altitude. It’s the same in your business. You are putting more effort in the beginning, but you will be navigating later.

Of course, this is just a typical timeline. You can always move faster or slower, depending on your time and effort. I go into this timeline in much more detail with my private clients, as well as our LEAP programs, so if you want to learn more, go here.

Where are you on the timeline and what is your next step?