While visiting Park City, Utah with my family earlier this year my wife Laura took our daughter Eden out for ice cream, and suddenly I got a phone call from her…📞
“We’ve got a flat tire” I could hear my 3.5 year old yelling in the background…😱
And sure enough, they did.
But when your wife and toddler are stranded on the side of the road with a flat, you prioritize…🤷
So I went down right away and met them.
The tire was really, really flat.
Like on the rim…
And it sucked – the truck is brand new and has like 5k miles on it…
So no idea what happened.
Either way, though, I had to make a decision…
Do I call some towing service or change the flat myself?
Look – you’re probably thinking (just change the flat tire, dummy), and you’re right…
But the truth is, I’d never changed a tire before.
Still, I thought about it for a minute…
Then decided, “screw it, let’s go.”
And searched for “how to change a flat tire.”
Actually, I’m lying…
The first thing I searched was “how to access spare time Dodge Ram 1500”…
And that video was great: I figured out where the jack and other tools were in the truck…
Along with how to access the tire (it’s under the bed, you basically stick a pole through the rear bumper of the truck, latch onto something, then twist as the tire slowly lowers down).
Once I had the spare tire procured, then I searched for how to change a spare…
And that one was a little bit more difficult – because at first, I had no idea where to position the jack.
Eventually, thanks to the Owner’s Manual, I figured it out…
And eventually, I had the truck up in the air…
The blown tire off…
And the spare tire back on.
Total, it took me about 50 minutes…
And here’s the thing:
I felt DAMN good once I was done.
To be honest, I always carried a secret shame around because I didn’t know how to change a tire…
But in 50 minutes, that shame was replaced by manly confidence.
Yep, I said “manly.”
I felt like a man.
Well, anyways, I was thinking about all of this after the fact…
And it’s so damn analogous to what we do in copywriting and direct response.
The first time is nearly always the hardest.
The first time you write a sales letter…
The first time you put yourself out there and attend a live event…
The first time you launch an offer…
The first time you have to go get affiliates or buy media…
It’s daunting.
But what happens?
After a while, it becomes second nature.
I don’t know if changing a tire is second nature yet…
But I could probably do another one in like 20 minutes now…
Because all of the “mystery” is gone.
It’s the same thing with all the marketing and copy-related things I just mentioned…
The more funnels you launch, the easier it becomes…
There’s no substitute for experience.
All of which is to say – don’t let your “newness” hold you back.
The first health supplement company I had – we did $1MM in Year 1, and I lost $200k.
I knew that whole year that I should work with affiliates, but I was too scared. It was too much of an “unknown.”
Finally, due to desperation, I took the plunge…
And guess what happened?
We did $23MM, and it also turned out that working with affiliates wasn’t at all complex.
Sure I made mistakes…
But it wasn’t nearly as rough as I thought.
Just an example that comes to mind, and I wanted to share all of this with you 🙂
– SPG
P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link