Top 10 Success Principles to Learn From John Chow

John Chow’s name is often synonym to the dot-com mogul. He is an author, a successful blogger and also an internet entrepreneur. John is famous for his personal blog, JohnChow.com, where he talks about making money on the internet and sharing his views, thoughts, and tactics.

John’s success and story have been covered in many mainstream media such as the Entrepreneur Magazine, Ming Pao in Canada, The Vancouver Sun, and more. His blog, JohnChow.com is considered one the top 50 Canadian internet marketing blogs and is ranked 16 on the AdAge Power 150 list. Besides running a successful blog, John is also founder and CEO of TTZ Media Inc.

Although he was born in a small farming village in mainland China, his family immigrated to Canada when he was just 7 years old. And today, we are going to discuss the top 10 success principles that anyone can learn from John Chow, the dot-com mogul.

Principle # 1. Practice the Habit of Consistency

One of the most important success principles one can learn from John Chow is his habit of consistency. It is easy to set a blog these days, in fact, millions of blogs are being created every month, but most of them will suffer and are not going to be successful because most bloggers lack the consistency.

JohnChow.com did not start out as a successful blog. John is not a celebrity that immediately commands a huge following on his blog. He built his own way through hard work and persistence. And one thing that makes him different from many other bloggers is that he is very consistent at the very beginning of his blogging career.

John says that he posts almost every single day when he first started out. And even up to now, you can see that he constantly updates his blog for fresh content for his audience. And if you want to be a successful blogger, you must adopt this attitude from him. Not just as a blogger, but to achieve every of your goal, you need to be consistent.

The problem with most people is that they are not consistent in what they do. They will take massive action whenever they are motivated, and when they have no motivation, they procrastinate and do nothing. Eventually, when they don’t see the result they want, they quit and give up or jump into another business venture. Never allow this to happen to you, be consistent.

Principle # 2. Be Proactive

Besides being consistent in what you do, you must be proactive too. And this is what John Chow did to build his blog to fame. He is a very proactive guy where he will be the first one to take action rather than waiting for things to come to him. John will do his own research and come up with interesting content ideas to publish on his blog.

Highly successful people are proactive people. They take action and work on their plans rather than waiting for people to tell them what to do. So ask yourself right now, do you wait for things to happen or wait for someone to tell you what to do? Or are you someone proactive who will take the initiative and start things?

A lot of bloggers are suffering because they lack the initiative to do things. They publish a blog post and then they wait for people to come to them. This is not going to happen. Imagine that there are millions of blog posts being created each day, and if you are not doing anything to promote and market your blog content, the chances of people stumbling upon your blog will be as good as zero.

So be proactive with what you do in life. When you build a blog, promote and reach out to others after you have published a new post. Be the first one to network with other successful bloggers in your industry and make a connection with the influencers. To make it simple, be active and stay active at all times.

Principle # 3. Network with the Right People

John Chow is known as someone who is actively seeking to network with other successful internet marketers. He actively attends seminars and conferences whenever he has the chance. Besides wanted to stay updated on the current events of the internet marketing world, he wanted to meet new people and network with other successful people who can support each other.

Networking with other successful and like-minded people is perhaps one of the most powerful success principles anyone must develop. Napoleon Hill, the author of Think and Grow Rich coined the word, “mastermind”, and he said that this powerful meet up can change your life because you will be influenced by the people who you mix with most of the time.

If you are serious about becoming a successful internet marketer like John Chow, this is what you must do too. Always network with other successful internet marketer and learn from them. Associate with them and join them in their groups and seminars.

The key is that people will influence your thinking and your attitude will change. And since you are going to be joining people anyway, choose to join and make friends with people who can support you to reach your dreams and make you a better person.

Principle # 4. Keep Up with the Latest Trend

One of the keys to success as a blogger, especially in the internet marketing niche, is that you must keep up with the latest trend. Think about it, years ago, Friendster is what everyone talks about, today, it is Facebook. Yahoo was once the leader of the search engine, but now it is Google. Things can change very fast in the digital marketing arena. Therefore, you must keep yourself updated at all times, like what John Chow did.

This is also one of the reasons John always attends seminars and conferences. He wanted to keep himself updated so that he will know the ins and outs of the market. In this technology-driven world, if you are not updating yourself quick enough, you will become obsolete and your competitor will put you out of the game. Think about Nokia and Motorola. These two companies were once dominating in the cell phone industry, but because they were late to adopt the changes, their competitors totally put them out of the game.

Thus, keep yourself updated. Read other successful people’s blog. Follow the market and consistently keep an eye on your market. It is easy to stay updated these days with social media, but never get swayed and distracted by the unrelated news.

Principle # 5. Always Have Fun

Another important success principle shared by John Chow is to always have fun. If you read John’s blogs and his books, you will notice that he is always funny and he includes humor in his articles.

There is no point to be successful without having fun, right? Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin Airlines says it well, “Fun is one of the most important – and underrated – ingredients in any successful venture. If you’re not having fun, then it’s probably time to call it quits and try something else.”

When you are not having fun, you will never do things with creativity and you will never do it with your heart. Imagine if you are working on something that you hate, do you think you will do better? Not at all and this is why having fun is important in your venture.

One key reason that contributes to having fun is passion. You must have the passion and love what you do. If you want to be like John Chow, to become a successful blogger, you must first understand if you have the passion to share and create content consistently for years. Will you continue to write and update your blog even after 10 years?

If your answer is a yes, congratulations, you can continue and start your blog. If your answer is a no, perhaps you should rethink your business or go into another industry.

Principle # 6. Blog with a Personal Touch

John Chow always blogs with a personal touch. You will see that he talks about his dinner, the car he drives and he even shares that he bought a Tesla in his blog posts. He wants his readers to know that he is down-to-earth and a real person. This is where most bloggers get it wrong. A lot of bloggers try to hide behind their computer by sharing less of their personal stories, which makes their blogs less communicative.

In order to build a successful blog, you must combine it with both the specialized knowledge that your market desire and a personal touch to let your audience knows that you are a real person and it is alright to communicate with you. People prefer to listen to a friend than a stranger. And when you include a personal touch in your blog posts, you will build a better trust with your audience.

This is exactly what John Chow did. He is never afraid to share his own views and opinions about something. He often makes it fun and engaging so that readers can connect with him better.

In the blogging world, one of the best ways to make a noise and claim your presence is to blog with your own personal ideas. You have to be yourself and talk from your own personal point of view. If you are trying to be like others and copy what others are saying, you will be less authentic and this can make you lose your readership. Hence, blog with a personal touch and never be afraid to share your own ideas and from time to time, you may want to share your personal life with your audience.

Principle # 7. Stop Making Excuses

One of the success principles John often reminds his follower is to never make excuses. He says that he always receives emails from his readers saying that his blog is great. While this is a good thing and John says that most people admire his results, but they will make excuses such as “I don’t have the time to maintain a blog”, “I don’t have the money to buy a domain for my blog”, or “I don’t know how to write like you.”

According to John, these are excuses often given by most people. And if you want to be successful in what you do, you must stop making excuses and start solving problems. If you have no idea how to write a blog, learn to do it. If you think that you are not a good writer, develop your skill and learn to be one.

Highly successful people will never make excuses because they know that excuses are there to stop them from growing and moving forward. Instead, they choose to handle their excuses and learn to overcome whatever that is stopping them. Thus, stop making excuses and start taking action.

Principle # 8. See Things as Opportunities

Apart from stop making excuses, you should also learn to see things as opportunities. Whenever there are problems, there will be opportunities. Successful people like John Chow, see problems, setbacks, difficulties, and challenges as opportunities that they can leverage to grow higher.

For example, most of the good domain names have been registered, especially the single word domain name. If you are trying to register your online business name, it is difficult to find a good one as most of them have been taken by competitors. For most people, this is a problem, but John sees this as an opportunity and he believes that there will be more domain name being registered each day. So what he does is that he makes sure his daughter’s domain name is available before naming her.

When most people are finding it hard to enjoy their songs with a walkman, Steve Jobs combined the idea of a walkman with a hard drive, which created an iPod that went on to revolutionize the entire music industry. Jobs also created a new industry, the apps industry where people are making billions from it.

So learn to see the opportunities in disguise. Usually, when you find a problem or if you find something or a service is not performing at your desired level, you have discovered an opportunity. Once you have developed this ability, everything can be a golden opportunity for you.

Principle # 9. Don’t Quit

Another success factor shared by John Chow is his spirit of never giving up. While this is a common prerequisite that most people understand, but few demonstrate it. A lot of bloggers give up after some time down the road when they do not see any result from their blogs, but not John Chow.

When it comes to building a successful business, regardless of whether it is on the web or a brick-and-mortar business, persistence is the key. You need to continue to work on it for years before you can build its presence and see significant results from your hard work. Unless you are a famous celebrity, your blog needs time to grow.

This is why it is extremely important to continue and persist even though things may seem hard and are not going your way. You must be able to go through the tough time and be consistent with your work. If you study the success stories of most bloggers including John Chow, you will discover that all of them spend time and effort into growing their websites before they become famous.

So this is what you must do too. Have the patience to persist through the hard times. Continue to work on your goals and your dreams even when things seem to fall apart. Never lose faith and keep on working on what you desire. Your hard work will eventually pay off handsomely.

Principle # 10. Be Nice to People

Although John Chow often refers himself as an evil person or an evil marketer, he is doing it for the fun and not so in reality. From time to time, he will share and post something to inspire others and also blog for charity. John also says that donates a portion of his earnings to his church and other non-profit organizations.

What goes around always seem to come around. Therefore, treat others how you like to be treated. When you are being nice to people, they will treat you nicely and return your favor too. This is why Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, two of the richest men in the world, decided to start their charity organization called “The Giving Pledge” to encourage other rich and successful people to donate for charity.

You have to be nice to people if you want to succeed in every area of your life. If you cheat and treat people badly, eventually, you will suffer the fruit from your own devilish act. Success is not a destination, but a journey. Here is a great quote that reflects this principle perfectly, “Be nice to people on your way up because you will meet them on your way down.”