Why is Your Online Business Like a Marathon?

Run your online business like a marathon and become a winner.

To run your online business like a marathon, you have probably heard a couple of times. But what does it mean, and what do you need to do?

As a marathon runner and someone managing my own online business, I know how true it is to view your online business like a marathon.

This article will not convince you to be a marathon runner. However, knowing how to run 42.2K (26.2 miles) without falling apart will help create your online business.

In one of my earlier articles, the word leverage was the glue between marathon training and entrepreneurship.

You’ll find thousands of articles about the same topic while searching around on the Internet. All analyses are valid. The truth is that the list can be almost endless if you would like to compare the similarities.

After reading a lot on the web and comparing it with my own experience, this article will boil it down to my “Magic Formula” for running your online business like a marathon. It’s all from mindset to practical work, and using the formula will substantially increase your probability of success.

As with all formulas, it has its own name, B L A C K J A C K, to make it easier to remember.

Run Your Online Business Like a Marathon with Black Jack

It’s true what Larry Alton writes in his article: Business isn’t for sprinters. All that he mentions is correct, but let’s streamline the Blackjack formula and turn it into practical guidance for success.

Bulletproof Decision

Before 2009, I had never run a marathon. I had done several 10ks and even some half marathons but never a full marathon. Now, after 12 years, I’m ready for my marathon race number 25 as soon as this horrible pandemic loses its grip on society.

Why should you care about me and what I’m doing? Well, you shouldn’t, but with this introduction, I would like to share with you what made me decide. It’s not a random New Year’s Resolution between joy and champagne but a bulletproof decision.

When watching a race in December 2008 with my youngest son, he suddenly asked me:

“Dad, are you in to run this race next year?”

First, you feel honored to be challenged by your son, 33 years younger than me, to run a marathon race. Then you get scared, or at least “shaky.” After investigating what it takes regarding time and personal effort, it took me a week or two to answer.

When the decision came, it was a bulletproof decision. It was a decision where all aspects of the challenge had gone through an incredibly detailed analysis.

When starting my online business 4 years later, the decision was the same bulletproof decision. I now had learned from the decision to run my first marathon.

It’s not wrong not to enter, but it is a mistake without a serious and well-thought-through decision.

Based on bulletproof decisions, I’m a passionate marathon runner and online marketer today.

Running your online business like a marathon is all about making the right decision.

Lock in your Commitment

It’s much easier to take the next step with a correct decision: to lock in your commitment. You must be committed to many things: your available time, family, and job.

Be honest with yourself and avoid creating false expectations. Training for a marathon race and running your online business take time….a lot of time.

Your commitment should turn into something you feel is fun to do. Imagine being committed to something you don’t like. Life is too short to commit to something you don’t feel passionate about.

Once you commit, write it down like a pledge. When you need to motivate yourself, read your pledge, pump yourself up, and just do it!

Adapt Your Goal Setting

Now, we are into the more practical stuff, which will later be converted into a plan. When setting a goal, you must always do it from the end and backward.

When setting my first marathon goal, I dived into a training program with different finishing times and figured out what training was necessary to achieve the goal.

My first marathon goal was to run the 42.2k (26.2 miles) in 4 hours and 20 minutes. Thanks to realistic goal setting, I did it in 4 hours, 19 minutes, and 36 seconds.

The same pattern is valid for your online business. My goal was to start out part-time and quit my corporate job within 2 years. I was able to fulfill the established goal almost on time.

Professional goal setting isn’t about randomly calculating a figure and seeing if you can make it. It’s detailed work based on all the variables you play with. As you can understand, bulletproof decision-making and serious commitment are fundamental for realistic goal setting.

Check your Planning

The good thing about a serious goal is that planning to reach it will be much easier. Start with the goal and work backward. The training program I used and still use makes it easy to specify all the training sessions based on your goal.

When qualifying for the Boston Marathon back in 2012, my age category’s qualifying time to be invited to apply for a starting position was 3:54:00. The training plan was created accordingly. I finished the race at 3:49:47 and got my bib number for the Boston Marathon 2013.

Your online business works the same way. Your goal decides what kind of planning you need to do. To make it easier to reach your goal, find a business coach, or as I did, join a system that gives you all the tools you need.

Keep on with Hard work.

You will face many ups and downs when training for a marathon or creating your online business. That’s the way life works. Further, you will like some types of training more than others.

My preference is interval training with a lot of speed involved, followed by the weekly long runs. My nightmare is hill training.

However, all these disciplines are necessary; you have to do them. You can always mix them during the week, but they must all be done. We all have different methods for optimizing motivation to execute the various parts of the training.

“The only non-existing alternative is to skip the training.”

The same applies to your online business. Personally, I don’t like keeping track of my website traffic very much. However, you know it’s essential for your business, and you just have to do it.

Coming back to your passion for your online business or your marathon training, can you imagine not feeling passionate about it? How should you mobilize to do the “boring” stuff if the passion isn’t there?

To continue hard work, you must be interested in what you’re doing. Otherwise, you will become an expert at finding reasons not to do it.

Jump for Joy on Race Day

I will never forget the first marathon race. You had prepared for a year, and now race day was here. You scheduled everything as if you were going to take a flight to the moon. Nothing was missing.

The start shot, and here we go. What an emotion! Absorbing all advice from runners with more experience, you focus on one single thing: keep the pace!

The “wall” is coming at kilometer 28 (mile 17.5). You know what to expect, but this is worse. All the hard work and disciplined training give you the courage not to throw in the towel. Having fun on race day is your pre-award for all your hard work to get where you are.

After training and building my sites, the first ad campaign on Facebook was a similarly thrilling event. The leads started to come in, the first sale, and here we go. It’s time to “hit the wall!” Your Facebook account was suspended for violating Facebook’s rules.

Your training and obtained experience tell you what to do next. After a few days of interruption, the Facebook leads started to come in again. Practice, hard work, and confidence always give you the tools to make the necessary corrections. To give up is the only non-existing option.

The joy of running your online business as a passionate entrepreneur and your other passion for running and training for marathons allows you to live a lifestyle that you earlier thought was earmarked for the so-called gurus.

Acknowledge Your Reward

The first time I crossed the finish line and got the medal for 42.2 kilometers was a moment of reflection. To enjoy the reward is an essential part of the journey.

In the same way, I can still remember my first lead and my first sale. These experiences confirm that the business you’re creating actually works.

Always assign sufficient time to reward yourself. It doesn’t have to be big things. Even small daily achievements should be subject to a reward. You deserve it!

Care for Rest

It sounds weird, but resting from training and the work you love could be one of the most challenging things to do.

Fortunately, I’m using a very professional training program for my running, where one or two days are assigned to rest. After a while, you learn that your body needs to recover from hard training to grow your muscle optimization. Sometimes, you hear about people having low performance due to overtraining.

The same goes for your business. Even if you love what you do, you need to get distance from your work. Dedicate time to your family, rest from your work, and do something else. You will notice that your level of performance will rise when starting up again.

If you’re running your online business, as I do, you can be very flexible. You can combine your work and traveling. You just need to bring your laptop and connect to the Internet, and you’re in business no matter where you decide to be. It’s priceless to travel the world together with my wife without losing the grip of my business.

As a passionate marathon runner, the combination with your online business allows you to live a lifestyle that was impossible just a few decades ago.

The 24 marathon races made so far have been in 5 different countries, and 5 of the 6 majors are already done. With Boston, New York, Chicago, London, and Berlin, it’s only Tokyo Marathon left to tick off.

Running my online business like a marathon made all this possible.

Keep up and Repeat

Everything changes over time. Your decision and commitment today will not be 100% valid one year later. Therefore, it’s important not to see them as static.

As the classic saying goes:

Rinse and repeat.

Circumstances of any sort can change how you modify your decision and commitment. The worst thing you can do is continue on the same path if you have difficulties committing yourself to the mission.

If you want to build your online business like I do, click the banner below. If you would like to get help with your training program for running a marathon, drop me a line in the contact form on this page, and it will be a pleasure to assist you.

This is the Moment for You to Start and Run Your Online Business Like a Marathon

Hopefully, my marathon and online business story will inspire people like you. Your background and circumstances may be different from mine. However, the path is always the same.

In the same way you can’t line up for a marathon without previous training and proper preparation, an online business requires the same mindset, commitment, and training.

Without even questioning it, I knew that I needed a professional marathon training program to make my first race possible. If you are thinking about starting your own online business, do not invest a single dime before you get hold of the professional program, system, and platform that aligns with your personal goal.

I was lucky to find a system that perfectly fits my needs. Click the banner below to learn more. It might be perfect for you as well. Don’t take my word for it; check it out yourself.

Whatever your decision, I wish you all the best. I hope to see you on the other side, perhaps in the starting blocks for a marathon somewhere in the world.