Facebook Gifts Shutting Down - Failure Or Focus

[ad_1]

Facebook Gifts Shutting Down - Failure Or Focus

Facebook announced that they will shut down their Facebook Gifts app on August 1. If you are not familiar with Facebook Gifts, it is an application that enables you to buy 'credits' with real money and then use the credits to give your friends digital gifts like electronic flowers, birthday cakes, etc.

While there are certainly critics of the shutdown there are others who really don't care. It was a hard sell for me personally to think about spending real money on virtual gifts when there are so many Facebook applications that allow me to gift to my heart's content for free. I practically overdosed on sending flowers, hearts, chocolates and even Jamaican goodies like Ting soda and meat patties, before that fever ended for me. It was new, fun and FREE, three of my favorite things. But I seriously never thought about buying gifts to give online because the value was not high enough for me.

The most interesting part of the announcement to me was the motivation behind the decision. In the announcement, a product manager stated that they made the decision 'after careful thought about where (they) need to focus (their) product development efforts'. Good for them! While I understand some folks are disappointed, how could anyone attack a decision that comes from carefully considering the proper focus for the business? Do the critics (I resisted the urge to call them, haters) sound familiar to you?

Perhaps you have been working on a business goal at one time or another and had to sacrifice some things to reach it. Maybe you needed to invest in your business so you couldn't go out to lunch or dinner/drinks every night with friends who invited you. Maybe you couldn't get hooked on a new prime time drama or reality tv show and spend hours discussing it with others because you needed the hours after your day j-o-b to work on getting your business off the ground. Maybe you stopped spending hours on the phone with business colleagues who did not have the same goals or commitment to excellence so that they would not put out your fire or distract you from your purpose. Does any of that ring a bell?

It definitely rang a bell for me after I attended a conference call with the oh-so-fiery, super successful network marketer,  Cedrick Harris, earlier this week.  He had recently returned from a business-building conference in Vegas and he was on-fire! He was talking about what he believes is the major barrier to success for entrepreneurs. And that is lack of focus. The timing of his call and the Facebook announcement created one of those ah-ha moments for me.

The top 4 things I took from Cedrick's call were:

1. There are a LOT of things you can learn about and apply when it comes to marketing, but you have to focus on one at a time, to get good at any of them.


2. You have to focus on the business right in front of you that you are already involved with, not the hundreds of new business ideas somebody will bring to your attention every day!


3. You do not create lasting income by winging it or flying by the seat of your pants, you must focus on developing the skills required for long-term success.


4. You must focus on becoming a great marketer, not finding a great product, service, compensation plan, etc. The greatest product or service in the world will not sell itself, you must become a smart marketer.

Focus, focus and more focus. There you have it. One of the elite online and network marketers suggests you work on focus. Facebook (one of the most popular websites in the WORLD) says they are working on focus.  Don't you want to be like the best and not the rest? I do. So I am taking this opportunity to examine my current business practices and see where I can improve them by focusing on the important, long-lasting, results-driven activities that will help me achieve my goals.

I hope you are planning a POWERFUL day!

I'd love to hear your thoughts and feel free to share this using the links below.

[ad_2]

Source by Allegra Sinclair