Everybody knows that the difference between those who succeed and those who keep plodding along hoping often boils down to being in the right place at the right time. Right?

Well, maybe.

The other day, Yaro Starak shared his take on good timing:

Good Timing Is Just A Limiting Belief

If you [think] that you need good timing or put another way - good luck - in order to succeed, then you're immediately taking away your power and handing it over to chance.

Yaro says that rather than rely on chance, you can "manufacture perfect timing", and shares four keys. I'm going to give them out of order:

3. Become Prolific

A while ago John Reese coined the phrase to "own more of the internet". This means you have more pages out there, more of which can be pulled up in search results.

In other words, it's easier to be in the right place at the right time if you're in more places at once. But some people take this to the extreme, which brings us to...

1. Offer Value

Before you consider how to have good timing, you need the most important ingredient - something people actually want.

You could be everywhere and still never be in the right place at the right time if you've got nothing to offer. People who use tools that generate 10,000 page websites in 10 seconds, filled with stolen or worthless content are an example.

The internet marketing market is full of people selling "Easy Buttons". What buyers usually get is either a button that's easy to push but doesn't generate real value, or a button that's not as easy to push as they were told.

2. Bring Something New

...That might be your story, or your style, or your experience, or your personality, or your technology, or your situation, or what you are doing "“ whatever it is, it needs to be unique.

Reader Comment:
Michael said:
I believe that proper timing plays a major role in being successful in business. Most of the time, hastening your project will not work as the market may not be ready for that type of service yet. Better know the right timing like market demands an...
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...

4. Speed Of Implementation

Good timing is still about time. Although I've revealed other variables that help you manufacture good timing, sometimes good timing simply is about doing something at the right time quick enough to be noticed.

How important uniqueness and speed are depends on how saturated your market is. If you're selling to an under-served market, generating value and being where the customer is may be enough. If you're having to beat out competitors, then uniqueness and speed make a big difference.

The "Easy Button" for Delivering Value Prolifically

Sorry, there's no magic Easy Button. But there are "Easier Buttons".

Easier Button #1 is to do something you enjoy.

You don't always need to be an expert, but a certain level of skill certainly helps. Most people have enough skill at things they enjoy to be able to deliver value.

When people try to make money using somebody else's Easy Button, all too often, the system they're working has little to do with their interests, so they're not any good at it.

This is why you see a lot of internet marketers blindly regurgitating bad internet marketing advice. They're trying to emulate successful internet marketers the "Easy" way instead of going the "Easier" route.

What they need to do is learn marketing principles and how to use them on the internet. Then they need to apply those principles to sell things that draw on their own interests and skills.

Easier Button #2 is to use tools that automate grunt work.

In information industries, most of the value comes from applied intelligence, not grunt work. In the rare cases where someone manages to automate real value creation, they're usually better off keeping the tools to themselves, so you won't often find them for sale.

But there are plenty of tools that automate grunt work, freeing you up to focus on the part of value creation that requires intelligence.

What is a word processor? It's a tool that automates all the grunt work of creating documents (switching to a new line when you've typed a line full of text, indenting the first line of each paragraph, applying the same font styling to all of your subheads...).

What is blogging software like WordPress? It's a word processor that automatically creates links between the pages you create, inserts a header, sidebar, footer, and comment form into each page, etc., so that all you have to do is create the content.

What is an RSS feed reader? It's a program that automatically checks all the places you look for content and shows you just the new parts in one central location.

The more complete your tool set, the less grunt work you'll have to do to generate value and get it to market.

Sometimes You're Lucky

Of course, there are cases where somebody hits the big time because of luck (or as I prefer to call it, random chance).

But even then, it's not all chance. The more places you're in at once, the more likely chance is to find you. And you've got to be ready with value in hand or opportunities will come and go, and you may not even notice.

You can't control chance, but if you want to succeed, you'd better do the things that are in your control that prepare you to take advantage of it.