Email is one of those polarizing things that people seem to either love or hate. Most people seem to hate email, but personally, I think it’s still a viable tool.
In no particular order, here are some things I don’t understand about email — specifically, some folks’ attitude about email.
Momentum counts for a lot — more than we realize. Ask the sports team that goes on a winning streak going into the playoffs, or the business that is always able to attract top talent. Momentum is a like a snowball rolling downhill, gaining speed and mass with each passing second.
But momentum can work both directions. And whether momentum is positive or negative, it tends to keep going in the same direction unless acted upon by an more powerful force.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that all energy eventually dissipates. Energy needs to be replenished in all systems, including our businesses. No business can run perpetually without continually replenishing revenue, talent, brand awareness and customers. Even at the highest levels, nothing runs at 100% efficiency. To stay in motion, everything needs a steady source of energy.
Everything in the Universe is subject to the effects of entropy.. Your business is no different. It lose steam or run out of fuel if you don’t constantly push, and replenish your main sources of energy.
Businesses need revenue and profit to survive. Revenue makes up the lifeblood that makes a business thrive. Revenue comes as a result of qualities like problem-solving, innovation and reliability. These are qualities your customers need to know you possess.
All successful businesses exist by filling some sort of need. They solve some sort of problem, each doing it in its unique fashion. These differences are what make one brand or service different from another. Do your customers know what makes your business unique?
Momentum is built when your business gets all the possible work it can handle. If you are building momentum, you are constantly building awareness of what your business does, and why you do it better than your competitors. But awareness of your business eventually dissipates from your audience, and you need to give it a boost.
When times are good, it is easy to slack off on your marketing efforts. One day becomes a week, a week becomes a month, and soon a year has gone by with no marketing effort.
When business is abundant, you may stop looking for new customers. In your peak season, you may stop publishing on your website, social media, and other channels. Soon, the momentum you once had is lost. Everything loses energy eventually without a boost. You can run out of fuel if you don’t constantly push. Your competitors are pushing — are you?
Many wise people have told me that when you’re busy, that’s exactly when you need to be looking for more business. When you get slow, it is easy to panic. If you have predictable seasons when you are slow, perhaps you figure you will do all your marketing then. But people are not looking for your services in the slow season. While it is good to build awareness of your business in slow times, that cannot be the only time you put effort into marketing.
Every industry has predictable cycles of feast and famine. It takes discipline to step on the gas when you are still busy, and it feels like your days are already too long. But if you do not concentrate on marketing at these points in time, your future potential customers will not think of you when they need your services.
From my own experiences, blogging is not an “extra” or a “nice to have”. It is one of the main ways people discover my services. Some people don’t like to write for their website. But every business needs to do something — whether it’s social media marketing, question-and-answer videos, a podcast, or live local events.
Becoming an expert is both simple and hard: Consistently publish answers to customer questions.
We’re living in an age where everyone is bombarded with a constant stream of information. Those who constantly work to get their name in front of their customer base will rise above the din and ruckus.
Business isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon.
Advertising is expensive, marketing can be expensive, but publishing only costs you time. A website by itself isn’t going to bring business results, though it is part of the puzzle. You need to bring people to your website. This is momentum.
I’ve seen lots of businesses fall off this year. The commonalities with all of these businesses were they didn’t publish regularly, they made almost no effort to market themselves, and they were completely heads down in their work.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Don’t wait to lose all your momentum. Don’t wait for your energy to dissipate before you worry about finding new customers. Find people where they are, even if they don’t need your services today. To become “top of mind” for your target customers, you have to be there before they actually need you.
Start building up your brand equity today. Step on the gas even if you’re already in the lead.
Through my teens and early twenties, I wanted to be musician. That was really how I defined myself. I knew where I was at, I would never be able to be a professional musician. I never truly craved to sign a record deal or anything like that, though I knew people in my small hometown that pursued it.
But just because inwardly I didn’t want to chase the fame didn’t mean that I wasn’t dead serious about what I was doing. I think I spent every waking moment for years learning about music, studying different forms of music, getting inside it. I would try different scales, modes and chords, and see which ones sounded happy, and which ones sounded sad. I would experiment with different chord structures to convey different emotions. I spent all my spare money on equipment, writing and recording at least a song a month. Sometimes I would play with bands, but sometimes, I would put everything together myself with a four track recorder and an eight channel mixer, laying out each track and building sonic walls on top of each other.
I released a few “albums” — ultra-limited release cassettes that I gave away to all the people I knew. I realized I wasn’t going to “make it big” or anything like that. I just wanted to share what I had created with the people around me. It was enough for me.
But eventually, I stopped. I did enough with music to be happy and say I achieved my goals. I played in front of a few crowds, kicked some ass and moved some people with my songs. But I didn’t do it for accolades or anything like that. I did it because it was something that I really wanted to do, even if it was for a few hundred people at most. Really, the whole time, it was for me.
When I first started working, I did a lot of restaurant work. At first, just washing dishes, then prep cooking, then line cooking and then managing the kitchen at a small pizzeria and Italian food joint. I learned a ton of stuff there, mostly through reading the recipes that were passed down from previous employees, but a lot on my own, too. Pretty soon, we were introducing new types of dough, baking our own bread and cookies, and making a different type of soup from scratch every day of the week.
Eventually, I left that job to work in a supermarket bakery, in the days before everything came pre-made in a box. I learned even more there. At first, I was the apprentice baker that the older guys didn’t want to teach. After a while, I learned everything they had to show me. I became the assistant bakery manager, and then moved to manage my own bakery in the next county. After a year there, I moved to a larger city, and rehabbed bakery departments that needed to get back on the correct programs.
Every location that I went to made more money and produced higher quality product than it did before I arrived. This is not brag, this is just fact. I knew how to do every task in the bakery, and often had to, when people would call out or go on vacation, or worse, we would not be given enough hours to do the work. There was one month near the end of my run where I literally had 2 days off in a five week period.
I ended up leaving that job, in large part because I was constantly putting work before family, out of a fear of scarcity, and consequentially, my life was unraveling. I ended up working in an European-style bakery for a little while, and learned even more things that I didn’t know before. But there was not a lot of money in it, and eventually I realized I would only have a few more years in that industry at all. The industry itself was never going to be as good as it was for the workers ever again. More importantly, I had really done all I wanted to do there, and it was way more than enough for me.
So, here we are. It’s been four years since I pushed my first website live, and I’ve been making my full time living as a web developer for a couple of years now. This industry is going through changes as well, but that’s okay by me.
It’s very strange sometimes. The vast majority of people I encounter in the world of web development have never done anything else. That’s neither good nor bad, its’ just an observation. Occasionally, I’ll find other people who came to the web from other paths. Their quality of work almost always is indistinguishable from people who have always been developers, and I think that’s awesome.
95% of the people I meet are glad to welcome people into our industry. They are a big part of the reason this line of work makes people happy most of the time. I love these people. They make me realize that I made the right decision.
What stages has your life gone through thus far? Which ones were you able to predict ahead of time, and which ones did you fall in love with unintentionally? Hit me up and let me know.
Twitter: @Lockedown_ — Email: john[at]lockedowndesign.com
It’s never too late to change your mind, or try something new. In fact, you probably should be feeling the pull to do new things every so often. It’s okay to quit things you’re no longer interested in. Your answer to everything should be “Hell yes!” or “Not at all”.
Trials and tribulations make you stronger. They prepare you for the next great things you will be doing in life. The one thing I’m most thankful for is all the situations I’ve had to deal with throughout my life. They have made me mentally tough and emotionally mature. I believe people who have had to fight for what they have achieved have multiple advantages over those who have had a clear path towards their goals.
There will always be 5% of people that drop passive-aggressive comments or are rude — they do it to anyone who is different from them, not just you. Like the bullies you may have encountered in high school, they are cowardly, and have never meant shit, then or now. Just keep showing up, smile in their face, and there’s really nothing they can do. Just like the bullies in high school, they always back down when called out by someone who knows who they are.
Be true to yourself. Don’t fake being who you are for anyone or anything. Be honest in all your communication and you’ll never have to worry about how people feel about what you tell them.
You’re here for a reason. Don’t doubt you can do something great or impactful. Don’t overthink things. Just keep trying until you run out of days. You’ll get there.
Many people run away from their fear. But fear might be the best indicator ever of what you should do. Try running towards it whenever you feel the compulsion to run away.