How To Become an Overnight Success

Overnight Success in Retail

There’s no question that overnight success is the dream of many business owners.

You may be looking around at other retailers who have seen huge growth in their online sales. You think, maybe they just got lucky or they had other outside advantages. However, it’s not quite that simple. The reality is that there is no such thing as “overnight success” in retail. What may seem like that on the outside was in fact a build-up of steps that eventually lead to their accomplishments.

So what are the steps needed to take in order to gain traction and reach those big goals you have for your online store?

In this blog post, we will outline three areas to focus on that will help point you down the right path.

Step One: Define what Success Means

The first step is to define your goal. What does success look like to you? Oftentimes, people want to become an overnight success because it brings more revenue quickly. But if we just chase more revenue and don’t have an end goal in mind, it makes it nearly impossible to have a stable foundation to build upon to reach this achievement.

Good questions to ask yourself are:

  1. What is your primary goal for the next year? – For example, maybe your goal is to gain a certain number of loyal customers within the first year of business. 
  2. What do you want your business to look like 5 or 10 years down the road? – An example of this could be you want to be featured in a major publication or win an award for your business. 
  3. What do you want to be able to do in your personal life? – Knowing what your personal life looks like as well as your professional life is important to keep a healthy relationship with work and life balance. For example, you could make it a goal to visit the beach at least once a year with your family and not have to worry about work. 

It’s important to remember there are other forms of success that can be just as rewarding. Whatever your definition of success is, make sure it’s specific and measurable so you can track your progress.

Step Two: Pursue Your Goal with Patience 

After you have established your goal it’s important to remember to have patience with the time it will take to achieve that goal. It’s easy to try something one or two times and when they don’t work as expected, to give up and assume it doesn’t work. 

Some different ways to help stay patience throughout the process is to set shorter milestones for the year. Break down a roadmap into quarterly or montly “sub-goals” of what it would take to accomplish your big goal. By doing this, it breaks down the goal into easier achievable steps to help reduce overwhelm. It will also help you stay focused and see if there are areas that need changed along the way. 

In addition to creating shorter milestones, it’s important to reward yourself as you accomplish your goals. Rewarding yourself as you complete your tasks keeps you motivated to keep going to eventually achieve your overarching goal.

In order to have an overnight success story, it takes time, dedication, and often a bit of fluidity to adapt to new changes. Pursuing your goal with patience will give you a better chance of becoming successful because you’re not as likely to give up when something doesn’t go right the first couple of tries.

Step Three: Disconnect From the Results

This last step is probably the most important one on this list. Success stories tend to be a result of months (or even years) of hard work that includes forward steps and backward steps. So many people give up because they don’t see results quickly enough and they get discouraged.

The key to growing online is to disconnect yourself from the details. Focus on putting in the work and let go of the need for immediate gratification. When it comes to pursuing long-term goals it can be easy to get caught up in a single product, a single launch, or other elements that would be considered to be on the micro level. 

We need to remember to take a step back and focus on the macro level. This means disconnecting from the success or failure of our short-term results and knowing that it’s still moving your business in the right direction.

If you can keep your eyes on your roadmap, you’ll will see results and reach that level of success you’ve been dreaming of.

Keep Growing Your Success

By following these three steps, you’re well on your way to moving in the direction of becoming what people see as an “overnight success” in your retail business! Just remember to define what success means to you, pursue your goal with patience, and disconnect from the short-term highs and lows in your business. These steps will help to create a stable foundation that you can build your business upon and achieve long-term success.

If you want more helpful tips, subscribe to our founder and CEO, Josh Orr’s podcast, Retail Initiative. This podcast is for independent retailers looking to gain insight and tactical advice on growing their business online. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify

Free resources to jumpstart your eCommerce success

eBook: The Ultimate Retailer’s Guide to SEO

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Guidebook: Powerhouse Tools and Apps for Shopify Retailers

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