Randy – I’ve read about The Peter Principle before, it’s amusing but very true. It never occurred to me that a version of this phenomenon could occur with someone who is self-employed, but it makes sense.

A lot of self-employed people do something they’re could at, but struggle when they try and do the marketing, or the accounting, etc for themselves.

Brings us back to outsourcing again.

Duncan – I love the Four Hour Work Week. Life altering. I’ve not heard of “The Dip”, but I’ll definitely be checking it out. Thanks for the recommendation.

Wade – following on from what you were saying about trying to beat the dip by working harder; you reminded me of a lesson I learned from Chris Cardell. If you need profits in a hurry, think back to what you did during the first few months of your business when you needed new clients quickly to get off the ground.

Chances are, whatever you did then would still work, but you probably stopped doing it a while ago.

NEVER, EVER GIVE UP!!

All the very best, Allen

Even in the beginning there is so much infomation out there to get a hold of it starts to become daunting. I’ve even considered getting a speed reading course to help with all the information I keep getting. It’s like wadding through a vault with A4 size sheets of info up to your knees and not knowing wich one to pick up and read and wich to leave on the floor. I’m a sucker for wanting to digest it all but it can serioulsy bog you down.

Referals already seem to be the major part of the business as I know we are no longer in the infomation age but referal age. With too much infromation out there it is easier to go on a referal from somebody you think you can trust.

This is already starting to come into play even in my infant stage of learning. It was a distingueshed Doctor from New York (retired) that thought quite highly of you David, that enabled me to find out about the Nettle.

Anyway, as I have established myself as not having much experience in Internet Marketing I can relate my own expereinence to when I started to play golf as a teenager.

Without any lessons I had started out poorly as expected, no natural to put it mildy. Thoughout the summer I had improved quite a lot and was getting happy with myself. Each game improved slightly and then I hit somthing and my games just didn’t get any better. With tennage angst, fustration soon built up over the weeks and my game started to take a nose dive.

It was this leveling out in my game (the plateau) where I should have gone and sought out lessons with a pro in order to avoid the valley.

I think what everybody here is trying to say is when productivity or sales start to drop off it is time to revaluate what your doing. The unfortuante thing is that a lot us will come up with same conclusion, and that is to work harder. This in the end will invarably blind you further to what really could actually be the problem. It is this stepping back and looking at the situation from a different angle or from a different set of eyes that can be the key. Don’t be afraid to outsource or even bring in a coach or mentor.

Rember were all being told to work smarter in this busines not harder!

Best Regards,

Wade McCleary

The Dip – Seth Godin. This covers this exact topic of people giving up at the point before being successful

4 Hour Work Week – Timothy Ferris. This goes into detail of how to overcome the “ahh, too much to do all by myself” syndrome.

As for your valley and then the relationship to outsourcing – I’m reminded of a term called -
“The Peter Principle”

Where each person is always promoted to their own level of Incompetence!

Therefore – when working for ourselves… if we reach that level – we are surely in your valley…
And that would probably be a good time to outsource just to find competent people to get what we need done happening!

A prime example occurs in my own business where I just couldn’t get my head around scripts….
I registered a domain and had the idea and outline of my mebership site a year before I actually had it built…

I was wading around in the valley for 8 or 9 months trying to acheive something I was totally incompetent at… and it wasn’t until I bit the bullet and outsourced the script install and other techie parts – that the site was finally built and now has many active members enjoying the benefits I had visualised the year prior!

So however you want to call it – outsourcing is a great thing….. but can it be successfully acheived without first having those initial successes, and then sliding down into the valley???

Regards
Randy
http://www.RandolfSmith.com

I have no problem with anyone posting their own links in their comments, as long as they post something worthwhile as well (and you’ve done that in spades).

I guess plateaus are common, but I’ve definitely had at least one valley in the last few years. Too many ideas in too short a space of time led to over-complicating things and trying to develop too much at once.

It meant, over-spending on development, without enough additional funds coming in as a result, leading to a drop in income.

Went back to basics and climbed out of it, but I’d guess I’m not the first or the last to fall into that trap.

Does the uncanny valley really exist? It probably does appear to exist…very Matrix like (I refer to the film and not Rich Schefren’s Matrix).

There is a phenomenon called the lesson three setback. The idea is that as we learn something we keep improving our skill but only up to a point. There’s a setback or at least a plateau (not quite a valley I guess).

I have noticed that we are at our worst when looking at ourselves. Gosh can we really observe ourselves looking at ourselves?

It’s far easier to look at someone else and see with absolute clarity what needs to be done and where to focus attention to get the best outcome.

My business consulting arm is called thedetailworks which you can find by sticking a .com after it (a bit cheeky I know). It is based on the premise that small details can have a massive effect but …. the problem is that we are pretty rubbish at identifying and seeing our own woods and trees.

I suspect that’s why we need mastermind groups, people who have been there before and who can provide the right degree of clarity and insight.

So, yes, I think the Uncanny Valley does exist and one possible way to climb out is to create mastermind groups or talk to someone really clever who has been there and done it.

Coaching programme anyone:-)

Cheers

Steve

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