I am fortunate that I get to spend a lot of time with some really smart people. Spending time with smart people energizes me and pushes me to continue developing myself. In many cases, these smart people are doctors, lawyers, and mid-career professionals that love what they do but want to start to generate passive income streams. Many of them will start to research moving more of their business on-line, but then stop within a few weeks because they think that it is just not possible or that people that say they are earning money on-line are cheats, liars, and downright scummy people.

For many years, I was one of those “smart people” who thought that putting my business on-line was a load of crap. I thought that the only way to make a living was through building a brick and mortar company brick by painful brick. It turns out that I was wrong.

The problem I have learned, is that smart people have a number of hang ups about starting an on-line based business.

Here are the five that I though of:

5. Too Much Emphasis on Credentials

Many smart people are highly educated. With a high level of education comes a respect for people that have credentials, certifications, and citations of merit. When smart people start to put their business on-line, they think they need more credentials to demonstrate they know what they are talking about. What they don’t realize is that if you provide a valuable product or service, it doesn’t matter what your credentials are if people are enhanced by what you provide.

4. That Will Never Work

There is a lot of information, both free and paid, on strategies to be successful on-line Many of these strategies or blueprints give step by step instructions on how to set up a website, create products, and promote products. Following these blueprints works for many people and they are successfully moving more of their income on-line

The problem is that smart people don’t like to follow other people’s systems or blueprints. If those people don’t have the same credentials or higher, then they can’t know what they are talking about because they don’t have the years of experience and research to back up their ideas.

They are right; many of the people providing strategies and blueprints don’t have credentials or years of experience. What they do have is trial by fire on-line and the guts to try different strategies until they have worked. Knowing that they work, they then monetize their findings further by packaging their strategy up and selling it. Too many smart people discount the strategy before ever trying to execute it because they think that the person is not credentialed enough.

3. I Need More Data

If a smart person thinks something won’t work, they will hold out for more data, for the facts to become clear, or information that they requested but haven’t gotten yet. Guess what? If someone doesn’t want something to work, then all the additional data in the world won’t change that.

Smart people have been conditioned to believe that the path to earning a living is fraught with hard education, hard work, and a hardwood casket to bury you in when you collapse at your desk of exhaustion. Due to this conditioning, smart people can suffer from a cogitative dissonance effect and find reasons that creating an on-line business won’t work.

2. I Know More Than This Idiot

Have you ever looked at a product that might help you get started and thought to yourself, “I am smarter than this goof-ball…I am not going to spend money on this piece of junk.”

Many smart people have issues of getting information from someone they see as below them on the intellectual totem pole. I know, because I was one of those people. If someone didn’t have at least a college degree, I thought that their product was not going to help me. I have learned that there is a lot out there that a degree doesn’t teach you and many people create products that are easy to understand and put into action.

1. My Work Speaks For Itself

The number one reason why smart people fail at creating on-line businesses is that they think they don’t need to promote their work. They think that because of how smart they are, people will read their blog, follow them on twitter, or add them as a contact on linkedin. Smart people don’t realize that in order to build your business, you have to market your knowledge in such a way that people will be compelled to purchase your knowledge.

The point of these points is that in many cases smart people are just too smart for their own good when it comes to creating an on-line business. At some point you have to let go of needing credentials, more information, or a feeling that someone is an idiot and trust that if you create value that you can succeed on-line.

Let me know if you have any other ways smart people sabotage themselves by leaving a comment on ways you think smart people sabotage themselves.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Are You Trying to Trade A Monotonous Job for a Monotonous Business?
2. You Will Fail if You Are Not Passionate About Your Business
3. How Not to Do Free Content
4. How to make your speaking, e-mail marketing, and blogging more effective.
5. What if I Told You that Everything You Have Been Told About Finding a Niche is Wrong?