Are you giving up on marketing tactics too soon... or not soon enough?

When I chat with clients, potential clients, and fellow solopreneurs for long enough, eventually I stumble on a pattern in the issues they have with marketing.

Here's one I've been hearing about: "Shiny Object Syndrome." 

Shiny objects--I'll admit! They're distracting. 

I think this means that the person has trouble executing one new idea from start to finish because they get distracted by another great idea. This happens all the time in marketing--

• "Should I install a pop-up on my site?" 

• "Or should I re-do my site homepage first?" 

• "Or maybe I need to re-do my lead magnet so I can collect more email addresses." 

• "But I should also probably be reaching out to those new email subscribers with an amazing autoresponder where they get to know me???"

• "And meanwhile, ugghh, I haven't posted to my Facebook page in weeks!" 

And on and on. Sidebar: It reminds me of how I'll take "5 minutes" to unload the laundry from the dryer and half an hour later I'm late for wherever I was going or exhausted because on my way to laundry room I noticed that the dishwasher also needed unloading, and while I was unloading that I noticed how grimy the backsplash looked behind the sink, and then I noticed that actually the sink could use a deep-clean...

STOP. 

You may have all kinds of reasons for having shiny object syndrome. Maybe you LIKE juggling lots of tasks in your business. Maybe you just don't want to miss out. But here's the issue with SOS: 

“Unless you are tracking results of each new marketing tactic, you don’t know whether it’s working. ”

And if you implement a dozen tactics at once without coming up with a way to measure each one, I guarantee you, you will be wasting time.

I know you--you love trying and testing new things! That's why you run your own business and don't work for someone else. That's why I do it. You get to try whatever you want! But I bet as a business person, you also like making sales. And prioritizing your time to do the things that will make you the most money. Anyway, I'm not telling you to ignore the next shiny object or great idea. 

I'm telling you to include a way to measure results in with trying the next big strategy.

So, how do you decide what to measure? Well, each new tactic should be tied to one of these things: 

• Getting new leads

• Deepening your relationship with your leads

• Getting more sales

Before you decide to try a new shiny object, figure out what the shiny object is supposed to help you do, and then measure that.

Take Instagram. It's my new favorite topic. :) Let's say you find out about a new strategy for choosing your Instagram post hashtags. (This is actually a true story that happened to me when I talked to the great Talia Koren of @workweeklunch on Instagram.)  

What does having a good Instagram hashtag strategy help you do? It helps you get found by people to whom your content (and therefore your content and products) are relevant. So if you apply this new, more time-consuming hashtag strategy, you need to start seeing results. Results can be: 

• More real people (not bot) followers that you're starting conversations with on Instagram by commenting on their photos or DMing. 

• More people clicking the link in your Instagram profile (you can track this through Google Analytics.) If you're really far along, that link takes people to your lead magnet so that you can capture their email addresses as well. 

This is different from just posting on Instagram so that people (whoever, you don't know) randomly know that you exist. You can't measure whether random people know you exist AND you can't turn random people into contacts who then become customers or referrers down the line.

What do you think? Are you falling victim to shiny object syndrome too often? Do you think having a plan to measure the impact of tactics can help you? Do you have questions about how to do it? Let me know in the comments. 

The Big Time-Management De-Railer (It's Not Procrastination)

Here's how I approach time-management on a bad day: 

1. Write out a detailed schedule for a few days

2. Stick religiously to the schedule for a few days

3. Have a day where I don't stick to the schedule 

4. Beat myself up at the end of the day for not sticking to it. 

5. Feel overwhelmed. Give up on all schedules forever. Procrastinate.

Does this sound familiar?

It started to get really familiar to me when I started my business. And I realized that it wasn't the first time I'd played out this self-defeating sequence--I've done it before with dieting. 

I'm a woman, which means I've been on a diet. I've been on several. 

But I haven't been on one in years--I can't remember when. I didn't diet for my wedding, and I didn't diet after I had my son. But I lost weight for both. How much? I don't know. Because I stopped participating in diet culture, so I stopped weighing myself.

One day, after years of struggling with the tangle of food, my looks, and my self-worth, I realized something: dieting is about "being good." Every diet is a regimen, that means, there are things you can eat and things you're not allowed to eat. If you do calorie restriction, you can eat, but only up to a certain number of calories. Exceed that number, and you've "broken" the diet. Same with Weight Watchers and their points. Same with Atkins, and Whole 30, both "elimination" diets. Certain types of foods are off-limits. 

It's like playing "Operation." If you eat those restricted foods, you lose. You're bad. If you have self-esteem, then approaching food this way really becomes a problem. How can you feel good about yourself when you know you are repeatedly doing something bad?

What I realized was I just didn't have the brain space to keep up with how many ways I was good or bad vis-a-vis food. So, I stopped. And nothing happened. Did I gain or lose weight? Not sure, because I stopped weighing myself, too. 

But you know what I also stopped doing? Feeling bad based on an external rule that had nothing to do with my self-worth. 

Which brings me back to... time-management! Since I've started to work for myself, scheduling has become a mindset. I still schedule my days. In fact, I schedule a whole week. I block off all my work time, but I do things like creating time blocks for doing nothing, or TBA time blocks that I can use how I wish when I get to them. 

I make sure everything I want or need to work on that week gets accounted for, but this schedule serves me now. It reminds me of the major goals I had for a particular day or week. I don't serve the schedule anymore. I don't approach it by saying, "I have to stick to this and if I don't stick to it I did a bad job and I should feel bad." 

This is also something I wrote on Instagram recently: on days where I feel like I really ran off the rails and didn't accomplish anything, or I'm not sure what I accomplished, I end the day with an "I-DID" list (instead of "TO-DO" list). You can read about it in my post: 

Who needs a little? ?????????? Listen, July can be a slow month for all kinds of reasons. And a slow month can make you feel tired, especially when you own your own business and you're only accountable to you. ?????????? One thing that has really helped me boost energy is to create a I DID list (not a TO-DO list) and write down and cross off all the things I have actually accomplished. Fed my child ✅ Delivered him to school ✅ Reached out to that person I've been meaning to email forever ✅ Wrote a blog post ✅ ?????????? Don't underestimate the motivating power of a list of things you've done! If you try it, let me know what you think!

A post shared by Maggie Frank-Hsu (@blogstoriches) on Jul 20, 2017 at 2:02pm PDT

I'm starting realize time-management works best for me when I don't approach it as all or nothing, good or bad. Some days, you take 1 step forward when you meant to take 3. But you still take a step. 

What Is the Difference Between Freelancing and Owning Your Own Business? Here's What It Was for Me.

This question came up recently when I was chatting with a group of virtual co-workers. 

Yes, I joined a great group of people who are all starting their own businesses and are at a similar point in their businesses as me. 

Which is to say, some of them aren't sure whether to call their work "freelancing," "consulting," or "a business." 

When I quit my job in October 2015, I thought I would be "freelancing." Or "consulting." But now I know I run my own business.

But it's not because I have employees. I don't, (although I do sub-contract some work).

And it's not because my business has a name or a separate bank account.

Here's why I think I am running a business, rather than freelancing:  

1. I create. Sure, I do work for my clients. But I have also created a program from scratch, that is designed to solve a particular problem for my ideal client. (Increase revenue for bloggers.)

And I realized that that is creative! I have created something unique in the marketplace. Which brings me to no. 2... 

2. I responded to a need in the market. When I first "went out on my own," I did it because I wanted things for myself--a flexible schedule, the ability to choose whom I worked for. But after about a year, I realized that I needed to offer something that was missing in the market for my ideal client. What is she not able to do that she wants to be able to do, but she doesn't know how and no one is offering help? 

... The need I responded to, that my ideal clients ask about: "How do I create a consistent, steady stream of leads to her online products?" So that, whether or not she's doing a launch, has a new product, has a certain article or promotional piece that goes viral, she has her steady baseline of leads that convert at about the same rate, month after month, so that she's got a base of revenue she can count on.

Sure, A LOT of people have systems and ways for making money, but no one makes quite the same offer to quite this exact client. 

Once I could see my service as a product, something that served a need, I knew I wasn't freelancing anymore. 

And that's when I started telling people I run a business. 

So what do you think? Am I way off base? Do you agree? Let me know. 

What Is the Worst Thing Entrepreneurs Have in Common?

... I'll give you a hint. 

A post shared by Katie (@bankygirlcreations) on Jun 22, 2017 at 5:55pm PDT

Are you working day and night? Do you want this to change? ...

OK, first, I want to say--sometimes you just work a lot, and this can be a season in your life and in your business. A former client of mine, Stephanie O'Dea, who runs the Year of Slow Cooking newsletter, told me that in her first year of blogging, she worked in the middle of the night so she could get stuff done. It wasn't easy, but she also emphasized it didn't last forever. 

And one of my clients, Becky of Cleanmama.net, started her blog while working full time. She worked day and night until 2013, when she quit to focus on the blog. Now she just works all day. :) 

They both inspire me because they've both built successful businesses by focusing and working hard. 

But what if you're working hard and you don't really see and end in sight? And you're not OK with that? I have a couple of ideas.  

1. Stop saying "I can relax when..."

I do this a lot. I think to myself, "When X happens, then I'll know that I've made it and I can give myself a break." Then I achieve X, and I a few weeks later, the confidence that comes with reaching that milestone has evaporated. I'm a mess--as unsure of myself as ever. 

I've heard from a lot of entrepreneurs who've been at it longer and have reached higher heights than I: this feeling never really goes away. Another old client, Beth Anne of Brilliant Business Moms, just talked about this on her podcast. 

A post shared by Beth Anne - Etsy + Blogging (@brilliantbizmom) on Jun 29, 2017 at 8:12am PDT

And I happened to see a post from Jon Loomer, on vacation, admitting he felt guilty for not working. Jon Loomer! Successful online entrepreneur!

Don't wait for some future state to give yourself a break. Because future you will still have moments of self-doubt. 

2. Have you thought about setting business hours? 

I know this is sacrilege for some online entrepreneurs. What about the whole flexible, I-work-when-I-want thing. 

I think it's garbage. If you worked when you wanted, you'd work all the time. Do you remember moments in college when you constantly felt schoolwork hanging over your head? I always had reading or writing that I "should" have been doing but wasn't. I hate this feeling. That's why I work 10 to 5, Mon-Fri, with very few exceptions. And then I stop. It will be there tomorrow.

They don't have to "conventional" business hours. Stephanie picked hours she stuck with. They were in the middle of the night, but they were consistent. Then, during the day, she was free to do the other things she wanted and needed to do without feeling guilty that she "should" be working. 

2a. The case for "putting your face on."

I put my contacts in, put makeup, and wear comfortable clothes during my business hours, but I don't wear yoga pants or my PJs when I'm working. Especially when I'm working from home. I know a lot of people relish not having to spend time on a getting-ready routine, and I admit some days I set it aside if I don't have time. But "putting my face on" helps me set a border around my work life that I wouldn't have otherwise, since I mostly work from my house. Which, if you're keeping track, is the same place I sleep. I don't know about you, but it helps to think of as many strategies as possible to keep those two things separate. 

Do you think you work too much? Does it worry you--or do you like it? 

A Simple Tip for Tracking Your Sales

Are you selling anything online? If you are, did you know you can hook up "E-Commerce" in Google Analytics with just a few clicks? 

It is so easy that I'm surprised by how few people do it. Maybe it doesn't seem all that necessary. After all, you can tell how many sales you made just by looking at the data within your website or Shopify store, or whatever else you're using to sell. 

You can tell how many people bought from you via your Instagram profile link, for example.

:0

You can also tell which pins resulted in sales. 

How do you enable it? Toggle the OFF switch to ON. Really. Here's how to get to the OFF/ON switch. 

Facebook Ad Tip: Using Website Clicks (Instead of Just Counting Them)

I said Facebook ad tip. Not Photoshop. 

Online tactics-wise, I think the most important thing I've learned this year is that website visits do not constitute the accomplishment of any business goal.

Website visits do NOT constitute the accomplishment of any business goal.  

I wrote it twice because it seems to be quite difficult for some of business owners and nonprofit leaders to accept.

Not saying that website visits don't count for anything, or don't mean anything. But they are not a self-contained business goal. An unspecified number of people visiting your site for an unknown amount of time, reading an unknown portion of its content and taking either no action or an unknown action. That's what website visits are. 

But they can be useful. 

Here's one way: you can drive "cold traffic" to your website and make it into "warm" traffic.

Cold traffic is website visitors composed of people people who've never heard of you before but demographically or interest-wise appear to be the type of people who are your biggest fans.

Before I describe how to do this: you need to install the Facebook Pixel on your website in order for what I'm about to tell you to work. The Facebook Pixel keeps track of website visits. It does a lot of other things, but that's really all you need to know for the purpose of this tip. 

So, let's say you are KidVentures. (I don't work for them but they just popped into my head.) You know a lot about your clients: they are

• parents

• who have kids between 0-4

• disposable income to take their kids to an indoor playground

• time to take them during business hours

• need to take them -- maybe they have more than one kid

Step 1: Share a post that links back to your website

If you have a blog post that you know is particularly popular, share that. Anything informational that appeals to this target audience will do.

(You can select interests and target by demographics using http://facebook.com/ads/manager. Don't use the "Boost Post" feature to do this. It doesn't have the targeting features.)

With this ad, make sure not to ask your audience to do anything more than click to read the blog post. Don't ask them to buy anything. Don't ask them to sign up for anything. Just click: that's all you need them to do. And make sure the article or post is on your website. Don't link to a news article about your company that's on someone else's website. 

In the case of Kidventures, I'd advise them to write a quick article where they interview a parent who loves their Parent's Cafe, or ask the parent to guest-write it. They should share something that would appeal to their target market (see the bullets above). A post about the relaxing benefits of having a cafe on-site (with Wi-Fi!)  might do the trick. 

Step 2: Create an Audience in Facebook

Once you've published the ad, it's time to collect the clickers. In order to do that, you need to create a custom audience within Facebook ads. To do this: 

Visit the Audience section of Facebook ads manager.

Just create audience. Then click "Website Traffic." 

Choose "People who visit specific web pages." 

Now, paste the URL for the blog post you used in your ad. (Make sure you OMIT  http://, www, and the slash (/) at the end of the web address.) That's it! 

This audience will automatically update with a new member every time a new person clicks on that ad. 

So, now, you don't have these individuals' names or contact info. But you do have them in a list.

You can use this list to do a lot of the same things you'd do if they had signed up for your email list. How about offering them a coupon, huh? Kidventures? You can share the coupon in an ad that you create, targeting only the people on that list. 

Or you can run an ad with an offer and a link to sign up for your e-mail list in order to get it. A lot of people explain this kind of ad very well. Here's one I like. 

You can create ads that target as few as 200 people on Facebook. I would try to get your audience size to about 1,000 (depending on the type and price of the product you offer); then run this second ad, where you re-target the people who showed initial interest. 

What you're really doing is re-targeting an audience that has already initially shown interest. I don't make this stuff up! Read more about this tactic from the Master. 

Like this tip? Tell your friends to sign up for my marketing tip newsletter.

Feeling Paralyzed By All the Things

TFW when Netflix asks you "Are you STILL watching???"

It's been 20 days since November 9 and the world we woke up to after the U.S. presidential election. 

In the days after the election, I mourned. I grieved. I cried. I looked inward. I spent much of my free time on Facebook, reading, reading, reading, other people's agony and opinions and aggression. 

Then, I was ready to do something. ... But what? Everything? Nothing? 

I told my husband, "We need to do something! Big! We need to invite a refugee family to live with us. No, we need to sell our house and move to a rural red area where we can make a difference. I can teach!" 

My husband looked at me. He looked a little scared.

I said something like, "I know there's a large space between doing nothing and flipping my life upside down to try to solve every problem. But I don't know how to find the things in the middle ground." 

We had lunch and talked about what to do. What if I just made a list of actions and then did one? Not one a week or one a day. But just started with one action. 

After lunch, I got online. It turned out a lot of people had already made great lists. (There's this one, this one, and this one if you're interested.) All I had to do was do one thing.

I picked an issue, called the appropriate representative's office, and registered my concern with a real person. It's not the greatest thing. But it was the FIRST thing I did, and it didn't turn out to be the last.

Part of the reason I was able to un-paralyze myself and take that first action was the talk I had with my husband. And part of the reason was I remembered this great post I read on Julia Hook's site, "What to Do When You Feel Like Doing Nothing." 

“The work that once inspired you becomes a burden.

You feel guilty and afraid.

You’re not sure what to do, so you do nothing at all.

And things come to an ugly, grinding halt.”

— https://strategicjuju.com

She talks about how to get momentum back. You don't do it by creating a grand, overwhelming plan that will have you quivering in your knickers and reaching for the next distraction.

AND you don't do it by questioning whether the action (which you have not yet taken) will make a one bit of damn difference anyway (You cannot know.) 

You get momentum back by... moving. 

“MOVE.

In any direction related to your business.

Just make a move.

Literally ANY move will do.”

— http://strategicjuju.com

Maybe you feel this paralysis in your business. Maybe you, like me, are feeling this paralysis invade all corners of your life thanks to an anonymous joker's definition of history ("One damned thing after another.") 

I'm with you. I think Julia's advice is so important because it's about being good to yourself and being gentle with yourself.

You don't have to solve it all. You don't have to do it all. You just need to let yourself move. 

A Very Real Reason Your Facebook Ads Don't Work

Over the past few months, a lot of people have come to me with questions about whether they should hit Boost Post on their Facebook posts. 

The answer is always no, as I shared earlier this year. You really should never do this.

But I understand why a lot of people ask about this. They've vaguely heard that Facebook won't surface business-related posts unless your paying; they see Facebook's prompt that tells them they can start with a budget of $5, and they know they need to get in front of potential customers' faces. This seems like a low-cost way to do it.

But like a lot of low-cost/no-cost solutions, it doesn't make you any money. And in this case, it's because it doesn't fit into a larger strategy.

But when I tell this to clients, it feels daunting. Where do you start when you're trying to do come up with this strategy? 

Taki Moore lays this out very clearly.  He's written this guide for coaches, but a lot of the advice applies to anyone who sells anything directly. 

“Before you ever run your Facebook ad, you need to determine how many steps you need to make the sale. Then you can use your ad to get your prospects to take that next step with you.”

— Taki Moore

If you try to "sell in one step," the very first time someone interfaces with you or your business in any way, you're "forced to sell too hard in your ad, which results in almost no clicks or sales." 

To prove just how many businesses need to hear this advice, I'll tell you a story: I just had this conversation with a woman yesterday. She runs a environmental non-profit. We were talking about #GivingTuesday, an initiative the 92Y came up with to encourage the public to make charitable donations the day after "Cyber Monday." 

I told this woman that one of the big reasons that most non-profits fail to drum up a hefty amount of donations on #GivingTuesday is because they are trying to sell in one step. They haven't set up a strategy to warm up their recurring or past donors.

They are essentially standing up in a crowded room, shouting, "I need money for my very good cause!"

How effective do you think that's gonna be? How much more effective might it be to first:

1. Identify a group of people who are moved by that cause.

2. Get those people together in a room.

3. Stand up in front of them and tell them the story of your organization and how it helps alleviate this very serious problem that is very, very important to every member of the audience.

4. Tell them how their money can help in very specific terms.

5. Ask them to donate.

That's a strategy. That's a plan. And that is something, through the miracle of the internet, you can actually do! If you replace the worked "room" with, say, e-mail list segment or Facebook ad custom audience, and replace "stand up in front of them" with "email them" or "buy an ad targeted at them," you can do this very effectively. 

What do you think? Any of my readers making #GivingTuesday plans? 

Why Are You So Busy?

This one's an easy question to answer, right? You're so busy because you have SO MUCH TO DO. 

I hear you loud and clear. I have so much to do, too. I am reading Million Dollar Consulting a little at a time. (I recommend it to just about anyone who wants to start any kind of business.) 

The author, Alan Weiss, posits an underlying reason you may have so much to do that you feel overwhelmed.

But before he shares that reason, he lays out his "unified field theory for consulting success." (By the way, he is so confident that his book will hook you that he reveals the whole shebang on p. 26 of a 267-page book!) 

The theory is six steps long.

Simple, he says, right? "So why don't people abide by the simplicity of excellent consulting and accelerate their careers?" 

Because: 

Dug the Dog. 

We get distracted. We set a plan for the day, for the week, for the year, and then we find something that seems easy to tick off the list, and we prioritize that instead.

Where does that impulse come from? 

For me, it comes from fear. I'm afraid to set a course and follow through. What if it doesn't work? Who wants to play the long game and lose?

But I've started to learn my lesson about setting aside long-term plans to build my business week after week in favor of quick fixes and just taking any and all new projects that come my way because of the fear that I might not get more business if I say "no" to anything. I hope I'm phasing out the squirrel-chasing part of my business.

Reading Alan's description made me realize I'm far from alone in allowing myself to get distracted by pursuing projects that just don't fit their business models. 

I just wonder, how many other entrepreneurs and consultants have felt like they're chasing squirrels while they're building their businesses? 

Here's Alan again: "The 'squirrel' you see is seldom relevant to your day, is almost impossible to catch, and in the long run actually tastes awful."

Getting Comfortable With Failure

I just got back from a Meetup of budding entrepreneurs. A couple of them volunteered for the "hot seat" at our meeting: they spent 3-5 minutes talking about their business idea, and asking for any and all advice from the rest of us on how to move forward. 

Each of these businesspeople had an idea, a great and powerful idea. But they expressed fear about making a commitment to bring that idea to life. They were afraid they weren't ready. They were afraid to try something and find that it didn't work. They were afraid that trying something and finding that it doesn't work reflects back on them and means that they are a failure. 

They didn't say it exactly like that, but I recognized those fears because I have them, too, every single day.

The War of Art, which I've been listening to as an audiobook, has been helping me recognize those fears so that I can face them. It's been especially good at teaching me that trying something and having it completely and utterly fail does not mean that I am a failure. It just means that I need to try a lot of things before I find the thing that doesn't fail. 

So what does this have to do with Bob Dylan?

Well, I've noticed over years of being his fan that Bob Dylan's music is not just loved and enjoyed. Bob Dylan himself is revered as an unassailable genius. Inspired. 

"This is an artist whose working process has been as private as his personal life," said a New York Times article this past Sunday. Maybe for this reason, I find that lovers of Dylan's music always talk about Dylan like he's someone who doesn't have to work to produce the great music he's created over the decades. It just comes out. 

Internalizing that notion has been dangerous to my survival. Because over the years it's made me feel like if I don't "get it right" right away, I shouldn't bother at all. This despite the fact that another writer a lot of people admire, Ernest Hemingway, once said,

“Don’t get discouraged because there’s a lot of mechanical work to writing. There is, and you can’t get out of it. I rewrote the first part of A Farewell to Arms at least fifty times. You’ve got to work it over. The first draft of anything is shit. ”

— http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/09/20/draft/

The Times article provides evidence that the Hemingway quote is as true for Bob Dylan as it is for any of us.

“Dozens of rewrites track the evolution of even minor songs like “Dignity,” which went through more than 40 pages of changes but was still cut from the 1989 album ‘Oh Mercy.’”

I had to read that line twice.

Bob Dylan worked through more than 40 pages of changes to a single song. And then he cut the song from the album. 

Rewrites and failures happen with the trying. Trying and failing go together. Not trying and not failing just mean that you never get to succeed, either. That is what I'm realizing. Some days when I feel like I've really messed up or I'm never going to figure anything out, that realization provides no comfort. Trying just feels too hard and the potential for success doesn't feel worth it. 

But today, as I watched other budding entrepreneurs with potentially life-changing ideas peer wide-eyed over the edge, look back up at the group around the table, and say, "Do you really expect me to jump off this thing??" it gives me a lot of comfort.

Jumping feels scary and of course it does! If you jump off a cliff, you will probably land on your face. Until the time that you jump and you don't land on your face. I'm still waiting for that time, let me tell you. But! 

The difference between Bob Dylan and many other potentially great songwriters and performers is that Dylan doesn't stop at "potential," and he never has. That may even be the secret reason people are so fascinated with him, although the mysteriousness probably also doesn't hurt. But he doesn't let the second-guessing stop him before he can get started. That makes him different. 

Although may I just point out: Dylan has landed on his face MANY times, sometimes privately, sometimes in front of everyone. There was the example of the song above. There was Self Portrait.

And I myself witnessed an instance of Bob Dylan face-flatness. It was the time my friends and I saw him perform three summers ago at Jones Beach. He sounded so bad that we left early. On the way out my friend Daniel made the comment you see below on this Instagram photo. 

LOLz

Revered genius Bob Dylan fails on a consistent basis. I guess I can, too.