My email last Sunday was about a friend of mine who's just launched an online training product, and the work he had to put in to get it going.

Whenever you're launching something big and new you often have to make sacrifices in terms of time and money to make a breakthrough.

That might mean accepting a lower income as you do less client work to focus on the new thing. Or it might mean you work weekends or late into the night for a while.

There's a lovely saying I heard a few years ago that “Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't”.

There's a large grain of truth in that.

I often speak to people who want more clients, but won't give up their paid work and won't work extra hours to get them.

Or who want to have passive income but don't want the pain of creating products that goes with it.

Does. Not. Compute.

Sure, there are shortcuts. Ways of doing things efficiently.

But lets not kid ourselves. If you want significantly different results you've got to do something significantly different.

If you're not prepared to do that, that's fine. It doesn't make you a bad person. But be honest with yourself. Accept it and get on with your life rather than constantly looking for miracles.

But if you are prepared to do that hard work, now we're talking.

I believe there's more opportunity for small firms and individuals today than there's ever been.

Clients can find the right people to work with in ways that weren't possible even a few years ago – IF you put the work into being found and finding them.