In early August, I received an email with revenue-shrinking news. I didn’t know exactly how bad it was going to be, but I figured it might be a hit of up to a quarter of my monthly target. “What else can I do to make up for the shortfall?” I wondered.
After considering a few options, I decided to launch a Black Friday–style promotion for our Four Minute Books Lifetime Membership. Based on other sponsorships and already dialed-in events, there was only one weekend I could use, so what should have been a calm week suddenly turned into a rather busy schedule.
I wrote one long, hopefully compelling sales email for Friday, which took about six hours. After the results were in, I was only 25% of the way to my goal, so I decided to extend the sale through the weekend. I reminded people in the usual Saturday newsletter, and I wrote yet another six-hour sales email on Monday. I really poured my heart and soul into it. I’m not the best at writing sales copy, but I do believe in the power of a good story, and my sales-geared stories come out best when they are fresh. I scheduled a last-minute reminder email and went to bed.
The end result? The morning after the launch ended, I rubbed my eyes while staring at my analytics. I was exactly $29 over my target for the month.
It’s astonishing what you can accomplish once you firmly set your mind to it and hit the ground running. Set a goal, start working, and let your brain figure out the rest. You might not always overshoot your target, but even if you get within 80% of what you aimed for, you’ll feel proud and amazed.
Your mind is a dream-making machine, and there’s no reason to not dream as big as you can.