Shiny Object Syndrome – The Hidden Threat To Online Success

Today, we are talking about shiny object syndrome – the hidden threat to online success. As an Internet marketer, I know that there are so many shiny objects that can potentially take us away from our initial goal. I appreciate that there are many things that are created to help us increase our work output. But we need to be on our guard, as often, these shiny objects are not quite as good as we like to think they are. You can see my previous blog post and a video here, I am talking about redefining education and should people do an online course or go to university etc.

Recently, I was reading a post from a platform that I belong to and one of the members was asking a question about upgrading to a higher level of membership. Another member answered his question in an excellent way. He was saying that it’s important that we focus on our primary goal and not be distracted by other offers that may seem good.

I must admit, in the early days, I had a terrible shiny object syndrome habit! I was always thinking that the next shiny object was going to be better than the last shiny object. However, this was really the case; it usually ended up with just another piece of software or course laying there dormant. You can see the embedded YouTube video below and a transcription of the video below.

 

 

YouTube Transcription

The title on my thumbnail is “Shiny Object Syndrome: The Hidden Threat to Online Success.” Now, we know that working online, it’s very easy to get distracted, but shiny object syndrome is where you get distracted by wanting to buy something new, thinking that it may help your business. But deep down, you know it probably won’t.

So, for example, perhaps you’ve been highly successful in something, and you’re doing it every day. You have got into a routine, and then let’s say you’re posting on Twitter every day and regularly getting results. Then, a new platform comes out, and you start using that. All of a sudden, you’ve taken your focus off the platform, Twitter, that was working for you, and you’re putting it into this brand new platform, and it doesn’t work. You’re putting your focus into something that doesn’t work and losing time on something that does work. That’s kind of what shiny object syndrome is. We can buy something, then think there’s probably something better.

The Question

Let me show you this post here. This is my profile on the Wealthy Affiliate platform. I’ve been here, entering my 10th year now. The platform does many things. I’m not going to go into details, as I have other videos about the platform. However, basically, it is about creating an online business, and it helps you with training videos, etc. You can also ask questions.

Now, Bob here, who’s been a member since 2015, although he has been off and on slightly, which he says, but for the last two years, he knows his direction and his niche. So he says that he’s here to stay, but he was thinking about going up to Premium Plus Membership. There’s free membership here, there’s a premium membership, and there’s a premium plus membership. Premium Plus has probably been out for two to three years now – time goes quickly, something like that. He doesn’t know whether to go for it or not, but he’s thinking about it. So he’s put the question out to the many members here, which is over 2 million now. They’re probably not all active, but a lot of people are, so you do get answers to your questions.

Bob does say that throwing money at a problem doesn’t necessarily help the issue. Supposing you’re supposed to be writing one blog post a day and you buy another shiny object or upgrade, it’s not actually going to make you write any more words. So we have to be careful where we spend our money because it can be very distracting.

Premium Lessons

Partha here, who answered the question. You can see Partha’s profile in the video. He’s written many blog posts, and he writes some excellent stuff. He’s a man with experience, a man I listen to. But without getting off track, let’s go back to Paa’s answer. Basically, he said it won’t help him make any more money. His suggestion is that you need to put 90% of your focus into one thing. So you can follow the training here at Wealthy Affiliate. There’s basic training here. When I say basic training, it’s training that works. You can see it here. And this is how Wealthy Affiliate originally was: that’s getting started, building your own traffic-producing website, making money, etc. It takes you through the whole process, and many people have become highly successful through going through the carefully laid out training.

Premium Classes

But there is another class, another level you can go up to, where you get more classes in greater detail; it just goes a bit more in-depth. I am a Premium Plus member of this platform, and I do listen to some of the classes but not all of them, for that reason, because I don’t want to be distracted.

So let’s come back to Partha’s answer to Bob. He suggests that Bob puts his heart into the standard membership and works on his websites for 100 days. Because in that way, it then becomes a habit. You get used to doing that without being distracted, and then also you would normally expect to see results if you’re going to be consistent. From what I’ve seen with successful internet marketers, they are all consistent. That’s one of the biggest things to being successful. Consistency is key, as I always say.

Premium Plus Classes

So, going back to the Premium Plus, let’s look at the Premium Plus classes. Now, all these classes are archived so that we can come back to watch them at any time. There’s no fear of needing to watch that class now because it’s going to disappear; it’s not. It’s still there. So, I’m not saying some videos may go out of date after a few years, but most of these videos are applicable for today.

For example, “Boosting Facebook Posts for Quality Paid Traffic” – I don’t need that right now. “Fixed versus Growth Mindset” – I don’t need that right now. “Discovering Profitable Niches” – maybe if I was new or thinking about creating another website, that could be useful. “Scheduling Facebook Posts for Long-Term Growth” is useful, but I don’t actually need that right now. I need to focus on growing my business. Then Eric, another successful member, created some classes on the psychology of influence and persuasion in affiliate marketing, which sounds good, but I don’t need that right now.

So you can see, I’m not going to go through everything because there are some great courses here. I’m just going through some classes right now at the moment, and they’re very beneficial. So, I don’t want to undermine the classes. My point is that you need to focus on one thing; otherwise, your focus can be sidetracked, and you think that spending more money and getting a more expensive membership are definitely going to be successful. But that’s not the case. Really, the best way is to keep it simple.

Premium Membership Classes

So, let’s have a look at the straightforward classes that you get with the Premium Membership. You get the “Getting Started” course, “Building Your Own Traffic Producing Website,” “Making Money,” “Mastering Social Engagement,” “Achieving Maximum Success Through Content Creation.” Then we’ve got “Training Headquarters” here, which gives all sorts of different classes. Then, if we go back to the training classrooms, there are all different sorts of classrooms that we can learn from. So there’s a lot there.

The great thing is that if we go back to “Getting Started” training, the new course – this is the very first course. And if you look at the bottom, they give you action points to go through, and then you go on to the next lesson. So if you follow the training, it means you are doing the course in a sensible way, and this is how many people have become successful. The classes here are not that they just come up as they make them; they’re more for experienced people. But I don’t want to put you off because there are some good courses there, but for many people, the Premium Membership is absolutely fine.

The Cost

Now, if we look at the cost, if we go yearly, the Premium Plus Membership is $697, Premium is $497, or you can start as a free member, which I always recommend people do to test the system. And then if you want to try it out for a bit longer, go monthly, which is $49.99 a month. Quite a big difference in yearly billing. However, right now, there is a Black Friday offer. And if you’re watching this and the Black Friday offer is still on, by all means, take it. So we’re getting the Premium Plus for $497 and the Premium for $299. And if we go monthly, we’re back to the same figures. So it’s a Black Friday offer, encouraging you to go to the annual billing, which is something I do.

But the main thing is, be careful what you purchase, whether it’s on this platform or anything else, because shiny objects don’t really work. You can only focus on so many things at once, really one thing. And it’s important to focus on that and get something going, rather than rushing onto the next thing, which will actually put you off your original goal.

So if you’ve got any questions on this, I’m here to help. Please feel free to leave a comment. I’ll leave some links in the blog post and in this video. Thank you very much for watching.