The most important thing for me to do for my business also happens to drain my energy tank to zero.
Marketing.
In my case, marketing is the act of informing and attracting others to Tetheros.
I’m wired to feel more energized after accomplishing something. But marketing doesn’t have many instant returns. It’s a long game, especially since I mainly invest in organic traffic and cold outreach.
Writing code provides instant satisfaction. “Look, there’s the latest update!” is uplifting.
“Wow, another page view” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
I’ve taught myself some mental tricks to make it more fun though. Ideas that may run counter to common advice in marketing but help me stay motivated. Motivation drives consistency, which improves my odds of success.
Focus on silly vanity metrics
A vanity metric is a number that’s easy to measure but doesn’t directly indicate the impact of work.
It’s widely accepted that “likes” and “cold emails sent” are vanity metrics because they’re surface level. On their own, they don’t guarantee any level of marketing return.
I focus on them because they’re quick and dirty ways to see consistency. They’re also immediately seen: post something on social media, and within 24 hours you’ll have a set of responses (or not, in some cases).
I like vanity metrics because they’re fast and indicate consistency.
Vanity metrics are a viewport into activity, and I can use these to see that I’m showing up each day. I’m not looking at them to gauge my overall business success – I use them to motivate myself to stick with it.
Judge small improvements
I have an obsession with perfection at times.
Unfortunately, such a tall bar means falling short is easy and demoralizing. Perfection is natural to strive for but totally unnecessary if you’re not involved in surgery or rocket science.
Learning a new skill means starting at zero. Far from perfection, and you’re typically surrounded by examples of work that are leagues above your current capabilities.
When I started the Armatage Candle Company YouTube channel, I knew nothing about video creation. I didn’t have tools, experience, or a team to bring that along. The first few videos I made took ten times as long as they should have to edit, and the quality was elementary at best. If I focused on perfection, I would have quit before publishing the first one.
I decided to judge my improvement from the last attempt instead of the quality of my videos as a whole. Comparing myself to who I was yesterday instead of looking at someone else’s definition of success and worrying about getting there.
Judging progress over perfection helps me recognize my own growth instead of my shortcomings in a public battlefield that doesn’t care about me anyways.
Growth is a powerful motivator. Improving yourself by 1% daily puts you 37 times ahead of where you started after a year.
Celebrate rejection
Going through life without hearing “no” means one of two things: you’re the most convincing person to walk the planet or you haven’t taken any risks.
I’ve learned to polish rejection with positivity because it means I’m moving. Movement matters because you can’t win games if you don’t take shots. Not every email gets a positive reply (or any). Many blog posts won’t be read by more than a few (if any), and not every sales pitch will result in a yes.
The game is about getting up to bat as much as possible and improving your batting average. Failure sucks, but it means you’re moving.
And movement gets you out of the mud.
In long games, success is almost guaranteed if you stick around long enough to get lucky – and I’m not planning on going anywhere, “likes” and “replies” be damned.