Do you want to know the real reason your website is not as safe or as fast as it could be? It’s the real reason you need website maintenance. And it has nothing to do with technology, knowledge or content.
It’s the same reason my garden isn’t the best garden in my neighbourhood, although there’s no reason it couldn’t be.
It’s the same reason my time to run 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) is unlikely to get better than 26 minutes any time soon.
And it’s the same reason I’m completely helpless if my motorbike breaks down on top of some Swiss mountain.
Website maintenance is not what you do
It’s because I’m not a gardener. I’m not a pro runner. I’m not a mechanic.
And the crucial thing is: I don’t want to be those things and that’s okay!
I don’t want to be a gardener. It’s fun and I enjoy learning how to grow my own veggies. But I only want to spend as much time as it takes to get to the point of harvesting those vegetables.
I enjoying reaping the benefits of exercising and feeling fit and healthy. Being fit is good enough for me. But I’m no elite runner and don’t have any desire to be the fastest runner on my block.
I enjoy driving my motorbike through the Alps or the Jura on a sunny day. I enjoy swinging into the corners and feeling the G force when I pull out of that corner with a smile on my face. I can ride the bike pretty well and I’ve never had an accident. But if it breaks down, God help me! I used to be able to dismantle the engine on my 1995 Shadow and put it back together. But it’s all electronics nowadays! I know nothing about modern bike electronics and don’t have any real drive to learn about it.
And that’s all okay! I don’t have to be ANY of those things.
The professionals can help me
Because if I need gardening advice I’ll go to the garden centre. I’ll ask one of their well-trained staff what kind of soil is best for this vegetable or how much water this shrub needs.
If I need advice on fitness training I’ll consult one of the health bloggers I respect. He or she obsesses enough with this stuff to spend most of their time on it. They don’t get caught up in the latest fads; fundamentals are the things that matter to them and that’s why I trust them.
If my bike has problems I’ll call the guy who sold it to me. I trust him. He’s very professional and he’s completely obsessed with motorbikes. That’s why he owns and runs a very successful bike shop.
But if my website speed drops or if I suspect there’s a security gap somewhere?
I’m a wordpress maintenance guy
Then I’ll happily spend hours poking around the server myself. I’ll analyse every bit of data a page loads to see what’s going on. And I’ll happily spend another few hours doing whatever it takes to fix it. I’ll read as much as I have to; I’ll experiment as much as I have to and I’ll spend as much money as I have to to get to a point I’m happy with.
But I’m a trained computer scientist. I’ve worked in that domain for 25 years because I love it. I really want to learn all I can about it. I really want to keep up with the crazy pace of change. I really want to see how far I can push a website to shave another millisecond off its’ loading time!
I do that because I obsess about it. It’s what I enjoy, it’s what I know very well and it’s what I’ve chosen to do every single day. I lie awake at night thinking about how to get a client site loading just that little bit faster (just ask my family!)
Because that’s what I do.
For the other stuff – I hand that over to people who know and care about it well. Finances, graphic design and motorcycle mechanics are some of the things I can’t or just don’t want to deal with. I pay other people to deal with them.
Conclusion
So, what are you obsessed about and spending your time on? Building a business that will genuinely help people and leave you feeling satisfied at the end of every day?
Or are you obsessed about learning the technology so you know exactly how to make your website that little bit faster, that little bit more secure? If you aren’t obsessed about that, it’ll never be as fast and as safe as it can be.
And that’s okay. You should be obsessed with building and growing your great business. Leave the other stuff to other people.
What do you think? Do you delegate any of your tasks to others so that you can focus on what you do best? Let me know in the comments.
You're not a pro, but you want a super-fast WordPress website anyway?
No problem! This checklist will show how I get load times of 3 seconds or less. Even on cheap shared hosting!
Watch the video and get the gist in two and a half minutes.
How speed affects your website traffic
So, how can the speed of your website affect the number of people coming to see it?
There are two factors at work here.
One is that site speed is a ranking factor; this has been acknowledged by all the major search engines; Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Baidu (these 4 search engines collectively account for 98.5% of global searches). It's more important on some search engines (e.g. Baidu) than on others (Google), but it's still taken into account.
The second factor is more far-reaching. Visitors who have to wait more than a few seconds for your website to load are very unlikely to return to your site, even if you've given them exactly what they were searching for in the first place.
This is a vastly more important reason than the ranking factors as it's based on human reaction rather than secret algorithms. Very simply, a poor experience will stop people coming back to your site.
First impressions last
And since the first visit to a website is the slowest experience the visitor will ever have on your site (because there is nothing cached and all files must be downloaded), it makes it all the more crucial that this first impression is fast.
First impressions last. When it comes to your #website, make sure this #firstimpression is fast.
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Way back when Marissa Mayer was still beloved by all, she talked about the experiments Google ran to get more people searching more often.
People said they would like more than 10 search results per page. They said 30 would be good. So Google tested it and gave some users 30 results per page and others 10 results per page. The results were surprising.
Users who got 30 results per page searched a massive 20% LESS than those with 10 results per page. Google searched and searched through logs, analysed the data and ultimately concluded that the reason was the page took twice as long to load with more results. The difference in loading time? Around half a second!
It turns out people don't know what they want after all! Who knew?
"As Google gets faster, people search more, and as it gets slower, people search less." said Mayer. The same is true for your site; as it gets slower, people will use it less.
Some statistics, if you're interested in them:
A page loading time of more than 3 seconds means you will lose about 50% of your visitors
Google found that as little as a .5 second increase in load time can drop site traffic by 20%
How Speed affects your website Visitors
This one is simple to understand. Google also ranks pages by user interaction. If lots of people leave your site before a page has fully loaded, this indicates a poor user experience.
The faster your website, the happier your visitors will be.
Google will notice this.
As Shaun Anderson of Hoboweb says, "A fast site is a good user experience (UX), and a satisfying UX leads to higher conversions. ... Very slow sites are a bad user experience – and Google is all about good UX these days."
Some statistcis relevant to speed and visitors:
According to Akamai and Gomez.com, 47% of web users expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less
40% of visitors tend to abandon a site that isn’t loaded within 3 seconds
79% of web shoppers who have trouble with web site performance say they won’t return to the site
Sites that load in 5 seconds vs 19 seconds observed: 25% higher ad viewability (and) 70% longer average sessions (and) 35% lower bounce rates
57% of consumers will leave a retail site if it’s slow
67% of visitors cite slow loading times as the main reason they would abandon an online purchase
33% of online consumers abandon transactions if they have a poor experience
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How speed affects your online business
Obviously if your site is slow and your visitors are having a bad time while there, this will affect your business.
Rankings will suffer, conversion rates will suffer, customer satisfaction will suffer. These are all important parts of your business and so your business will suffer.
The fact that a 1-second delay in page load can lower conversions by 7% can have a huge impact on a small business. On an e-commerce site making just $1,000 per day, a 1-second delay could potentially cost you $25,000 in lost sales every year.
Here's a summary of a few famous case studies involving speed tests (see the full infographic below):
Amazon
Reducing page load time by 0.4 seconds increased traffic by 9%
A 1 second delay in page load time could cost Amazon $1.6 billion in a year
Bing
In their test, Bing noticed that a 2-second delay meant:
4.3% revenue loss per visitor
3.75% reduction in website clicks
1.8% drop in queries
Firefox
A page loading 2.2 seconds faster increased downloads of the famous browser by more than 60 million each year!
AutoAnything
This car and truck accessory site cut their page load in half and saw a
13% increase in sales
9% increase in conversion rate
(The full infographic is here. Please keep in mind that although the graphic is less than a year old, the data it's based on is quite (very!) out of date. The trends are still very relevant, however.)
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Mobile
For those of you who still don't know it, mobile is big. Although desktop searches still dominate, we can no longer look at desktop and mobile performance as two separate things. Most people use more than one device. It's highly likely one of them is mobile.
Here are a few reliable statistics from Hubspot to impress on you
There are 2.6 billion smartphone users globally. By 2020, there will be 6.1 billion
Mobile commerce is now 30% of all U.S. ecommerce
One-third of people use their smartphone as their primary device to access the internet
82% of smartphone users say they consult their phones on purchases they're about to make in a store
34% of online retail purchases now happen on mobile devices
35% of smartphone users check their phone more than 50 times per day
66% of Americans own at least two digital devices -- smartphone, desktop or laptop computer, or tablet -- and 36% own all three.
80% of millennials have their smartphone at their side, day and night (I find this one quite sad. I think everyone should use their off button from time to time)
Google have said "our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site"
Update
This is now fact - Google is now using mobile-first indexing. Read their post on this for more details.
Check your site against Google's most recent mobile benchmarks:
So, your site MUST be responsive and load fast. Period.
Here's a truth that can help you get ahead of the curve:
53% of visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than three seconds to load. And the average time it takes to fully load a mobile landing page? 22 seconds!
That's a big problem in 2017 but acting on it can reap big benefits for your business.
Word of mouth
Any and all of the above is guaranteed to increase your poor reputation by the most potent advertiser still in existence. Word of mouth still rules and people will not hesitate to tell others of their poor experience with your website. Millenials, in particular, will take to social media to share their distaste with your brand:
44% of them would tell a friend if they had a poor experience shopping online
51% of millennial smartphone users are likely to complain about poor online shopping experiences on social media
An Interesting Note
While researching for this article I noticed a surprising lack of research done on website page load speed in the past few years. Most references I found date way back to 2008-2009, an aeon in online terms. In fact, most articles on how speed affects your online business are still quoting those sources 7 and 8 years later! Proof positive that people are getting lazier when it comes to search and simply accepting what Google dishes up on page 1 of test results.
Maybe Google should take timeliness into account in relation to certain topics. Returning 9 year old results for anything related to technology speed is quite meaningless.
Maybe Google should take timeliness into account in relation to certain topics. Returning 9 year old results for anything related to technology speed is quite meaningless. #websitespeed #benchmarks
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Conclusion
If you've read this far and I still haven't impressed on you that your website needs to be fast then I've done a poor job.
We all know that 85% of statistics are made up but take this home with you:
Among all the statistics I've gathered above, there is not one that indicates a slow website is better than a fast one.
Thanks for reading and if you found this useful leave a comment or hit one of the share buttons. It would mean a lot to me and it helps others find the article.
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Not everyone around you will be supportive of your momentous decision to go it alone in business. Here's how to deal with the negative people.
I told everyone I met that I had quit my job. It had been coming for a while and most people knew about it, but when I actually did it some of their reactions surprised me.
The reactions varied from shock and expressions of worry to disappointment and even anger. They weren't being nasty. They just didn't think it was a good decision.
It's no big deal when people you don't know very well aren't very supportive of your big decision. Very often, though, the real problems come from those closest to you.
I was disappointed with the lack of encouragement from those closest to me; family, friends, work colleagues. So it took me a while to come to terms with people's lack of faith in me. I had opted for a life of insecurity, endless learning and sleepless nights. This would replace my regular, generous paycheck and good career prospects. It was enough to deal with without my nearest and dearest becoming the kind of negative people that can be lethal when you take a big step like starting your own business.
It's important to realise that most people are not deliberately vindictive. Of those closest to me, I can think of several reasons why they wouldn't be head over heels with my decision.
Genuine fear is the biggest reason for lack of support among those who love you. If you're the first in your circle to go it alone as an entrepreneur it can be very difficult for them to understand your decision, let alone rejoice in it.
A steady job with a steady income and gradual progression until reaping the deserved pension at the end of it all is good enough for most people. Surely that's good enough for you too?
There are endless stories of how starting a business can mess things up for everyone involved. Like this one, this one and this one. Your friends and family have heard these stories and they're scared. These stories scare them because they care about you.
That fear doesn't end for them on the day you get started in your new venture. They will frequently ask "how's it going?" You probably won't be able to answer "it's terrific" or "it's really easy. Everyone should do it!", so these fears for your future will resurface.
A Word Of Warning
In his excellent book "The Ultimate Sales Machine", Chet Holmes advises that you need to have PHD: Pig Headed Discipline to advance in business. This is true. But you have to temper that advice with plain old common sense. Some of your detractors genuinely worry about you. You should first of all LISTEN to their concerns and their advice. Then make a sensible decision. They might not simply be negative people; they may be right after all!
"Confidence in what you do is crucial, but that does not mean being delusional. You must always face the truth and then combat the obstacles as they appear."
Diane von Furstenberg
2. Jealousy
Simple jealousy is another one I've encountered.
Many people are not happy with their current life choices, not happy in their current job or not happy with life in general. Seeing you take the path less travelled makes this discontent very real. It reminds them that you aren't going to settle for what everyone else has. You are looking to forge a better path for yourself, a better future that you're in control of. They are reminded of their lack of courage to do this for themselves and that puts people on the defensive.
I'm not trying to sound more righteous with my life choices. I'm certainly not saying that everyone who opts for the safe path is wrong and cowardly. Of course I'm not; many people are content with that life. But if there's a niggle of discontent beneath it all then I believe you have a duty to explore that for yourself.
3. Expectations
We are in awe of larger than life personalities like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Richard Branson. It's inevitable that people will compare your journey to theirs.They see only the huge success of these people today.
It's easy to forget that they got where they are through huge sacrifices, total dedication and even obsession. They've taken massive risks and they've had lots of failures along the way.
It's also easy to forget that these people are the exception, the one in a million who achieve massive success. If news of your progress is less than stellar, your family's doubts in your ability to succeed can resurface. This is very real and can turn them into negative people bringing you down instead of the support you so desperately need at this time.
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How This Is Manifested
The ways people express the above reasons are many and varied but come down to a handful of common ones. You need to be careful to recognise them for what they are and to brace yourself to deal with them.
1. Expressions Of Doubt
The most common (and probably the most innocent) comments you'll hear are statements of doubt. "But what if it doesn't work?", "what happens when the money runs out?" and "how will you get back into the job market?"
If you're like most people, doubt - both yours and that of those around you - will be a huge and recurring obstacle on your journey.
2. Not Helping When They Could
Most people don't realise that they can help you, let alone how. If you find it difficult to ask for help, most people will not offer it. You never know who can help in unexpected ways, so ask for help from everyone you know!
3. Trying to block you/bring you down
Unfortunately, there are genuinely negative people. There are genuinely people who simply don't want to see you succeed, even if that desire is subconscious in them. These people are rare but they can really shake your faith in human nature.
Their inaction will surprise you. They won't pass on important information or refer people who could help.
Their malicious actions will also surprise you. They'll try to derail your plans by misdirection or planting seeds of doubt in you. Worse, they will bad mouth you to others.
Believe me, it happens.
4. I told you so
We love letting everyone know that we were right. And it's sometimes hard to resist reminding someone that you saw the obstacles coming.
Most people who say "I told you so" are not very mindful. Some are just negative people. A few are downright vindictive.
How It Can Affect You
If you haven't yet learned to be thick skinned about them, these reactions can make life pretty lonely. At any time in your journey, doubts can creep in. Motivation can slip away and it's easy to feel like you're just proving all these people right.
1. Doubt
I cared so much of what other people thought that every time I heard less than helpful remarks about my business I took it personally. I believedoubt is the biggest killer of dreams.
2. Fear
James Altucher says that "running a business is stressful, agonizing, and often leads to thoughts of suicide." James is probably more prone to those thoughts than most.
Don't let other people's fear cause you to falter.
3. Motivation
Everyone knows what it's like to lose motivation. Failed new year resolutions, failed diet plans, failed lifestyle changes; we all have them from time to time.
The hardest part is getting started again where you left off. In business - which is nothing short of you investing yourself in your entire future - it's crucial to recover quickly. It can be lethal if you don't. Alwayskeep your big reasons why in mind.
4. Anger
I've gotten angry more than once at a remark about my work that I took personally. It can cause you to get defensive towards your detractors and to sound less than convincing in an argument.
Mindfulness can help curb the anger.
5. Impatience
In my first year I heard so many doubts from others that it made me grit my teeth and get even more determined to succeed. So I wanted it to work now. I knuckled down and tried to make progress even faster.
This isn't such a bad thing. But when I rush into proving everyone wrong I just don't a great job. When I take my time, take step after deliberate step and learn carefully along the way things go more slowly but much more surely.
Patience is a virtue.
How To Deflect The Negativity from Negative people
I've found a few way to deal with detractors in the long run.
1. Listen & Explain
Tell them everything you're doing in your business. Without boring the pants off them. Explain what you're learning, what you've tried, what works and what doesn't. Most people will appreciate your honesty.
2. Make Them Care
If you get people on your side then they are more likely to be supportive. Maybe you can show them your value by helping them through your business. Maybe you can refer someone in your network to help them. Remember, people respond very positively when they know you care.
3. Sooth Their Worries
Just sit down with your loved ones and really explain to them why you are doing what you do. Often they just won't have realised how big a deal this is for you.
4. Share Your Wins
Don't be too modest to mention when things go well. Sharing your achievements - especially with people who will enjoy them - can have a powerful boosting effect on your motivation. Just remember to be somewhat humble. No-one likes a showoff.
That's not you
5. Share Your Plans
Being honest about your hopes and dreams plans can show people that you're serious about this journey. Earn their respect by being professional.
6. Become thick-skinned
This may be the most important tactic.
You can never be sure of the outcome of any of the above efforts. The only thing you can really control is yourself; your thoughts and your reactions.
All easier said than done, certainly, but they can all be practiced and developed. Mindfulness can work wonders with all of the above.
One of the mantra's I live by comes from Jim Rohn:
"Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom."
Jim Rohn
So important I have it on my office mug ...
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If You Can't Convince Them
Of course, the above won't always work and not everyone will jump to your support. What then?
1. Seek support elsewhere
Sadly, this is a very real and necessary step for a lot of people. There are acquaintances I met occasionally who never ask about my business. They clearly aren't very interested so I never bring it up in conversation.
You're better off going elsewhere for support. Surround yourself as much as you can with people who will support you. Start doing this in your current network; don't underestimate the support and help you can get from people you already know. Positive people are positive people, no matter where you find them and what field they're in.
2. FaceBook groups, LinkedIn groups
Social networks are full of groups of people doing what you're doing. It doesn't have to be in the same industry but you'll more than likely find people somewhere doing the same things you are. Get in there and give help. There are a lot of genuinely helpful people in there. You can surprise yourself with the relationships you can strike up.
3. Join A Paid Program
You've heard of the need to get a mentor. I can't add much to that. A good paid program can give you some of the best returns for your investment. Ever.
4. Don't Be Hard On Yourself
Give yourself a break and remember there will be not so good days and not so good people. It's vital to remind yourself that those days will pass.
5. Do It For You
Finally, don't waste time proving yourself to others, showing that it's all going well. Use your time and energy to build your business.
Conclusion
Whether this is the most epic undertaking of your life or it's just a little side hobby for you, it's important to stay upbeat.
No, they won't all understand. No, they won't all support you, encourage you every step of the way and go out of their way to help you. Some will and some won't.
Every day remind yourself of your big why and take some time to review the big picture. You will get there if you never stop.
"If you don't build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs."
Tony Gaskins
What do you think? Do any of these ring true for you? Want to share some obstacles you've overcome from those close to you? Be brave and share in the comments below!
Thanks for reading and if you found this useful hit one of the share buttons. It would mean a lot to me and it helps others find the article.
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In this 2nd part of the post I'll go through yet more business mistakes I've made since starting WPStrands and what I've learned from them.
Mistakes I Had To Make
In a previous post (see part 1 here) I outlined some of the mistakes I've made so far in setting up WPStrands. Here I'll carry on with that list.
Remember, you will make mistakes so make sure you use them as the learning opportunities they are. I'm neither morose nor pessimistic but I do think it's important to handle mistakes in this order: acknowledge them, learn from them and move on.
According to a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, digital advertising for Q1 2017 is up 23% on Q1 2016. Digital advertising has grown by double digits for the past seven years. Despite that, over 30% of marketers believe that paid advertising is a complete waste of time and resources! Where's the disconnect here?
This can only mean that many of those billions being spent on digital advertising are being spent by people who don't really know what they are doing and are hence throwing money down the tube.
I have to admit to getting sucked in by the whole advertising-to-advertise industry. Without really understanding the platform, I made a few half-hearted attempts at running Facebook ads to a free course on a landing page on my site. I got a few signups to my email list but nothing phenomenal so I stopped running the ads.
This was symptomatic of my impatience at the time and wasn't the only project I dipped into without any real commitment (remember my Kindle book, my Udemy course etc?)
Since then I've learned a lot about the topic. Results from digital advertising are definitely getting harder to come by but if you do it carefully and sensibly there's no reason to ignore it.
So many business owners approach their businesses like I did advertising. They take a wild stab at something and then quit when their hopes aren't realised.
Running a business can't be like that! It's a long-term game. You need to learn the fundamentals of everything you do and you need the patience to adapt and retry again and again. How often do you need to try? I keep in mind what Jim Rohn says about his amazing circle of business friends:
"How many books will they read to solve a problem? As many as it takes. If they need to consult - how much consulting will they do? As much as it takes. How early will they get up? As early as it takes."
Image: Jon Tyson via Unsplash
Of course advertising works for some. It did get me some new email addresses on my list but for now at least, I'm getting better results by building real relationships with real people.
Giving real value to people who know me is a long-term strategy that has only positive benefits. The advertising platforms can and do change at a moments notice and I don't want to build a dependency on them right now. But advertising is definitely something to come back to at some point.
So, lesson learned: Don't just give something a try; far better to commit to a definite course of action. More about this in a later post ...
Don't just give something a try; far better to commit to a definite course of action
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Mistake #7: Blogging Badly
The only exam I ever failed at school was English and since then I‘ve been convinced I’m not a writer. I sometimes wonder if teachers like Mr. K realise the life-long impact they've had on some people ... ?
Yet to make it online you need to write about things that interest and help your potential customers so they can get to know like and trust you, right?
Well, maybe not.
I knew I could teach lots of helpful stuff but so can lots of other people who are probably much better at it than I am. I spent a full three months earlier this year really trying to get into the rhythm of blogging and I Hated. Every. Minute. Of it.
Corbett Barr wrote that "... you have to like creating content". I didn’t enjoy it at all. I had a ton of ideas but when it came to writing about them it took a supreme effort of will to force myself to do it every day.
As I wrote last week, the problem was that I wasn't being myself. I was writing what I thought someone running a WordPress maintenance company should be writing about.
A few months back I reviewed the plan I'd made at the beginning of this year. To my surprise I discovered that I had set the goal of writing about my journey as it happened. The writing never happened because I didn’t really feel I had a lot of valuable experience to share. That was until I took a step back and asked myself why this wasn't working.
I find it hard to keep in mind that what's obvious to me might not obvious be to many other people. At all.
I realised that I would enjoy and learn from documenting this journey and that others could find it useful. From the relationships I’ve built with people in the same boat I now know this is valuable.
Since then I can’t wait to write about what’s going on and the whole writing thing has become an enjoyable means of getting the story out. It's still early days but so far so good and it feels right.
Remember, it’s your business. It’s your blog. Although you need to find some common denominator between you and your readers, to a huge extent, you can decide what you want to write about.
Mistake #8: Searching Perfection
So much has been said about the search for perfection being fruitless. But it didn't stop me trying.
I created an email course about looking after WordPress. I spent countless hours making sure it was complete and that the email automation worked. As an example, I once spent two hours looking for and cropping an image for one of the lessons ... !
I didn't think it was world class so I dropped it.
I then compiled that email course into a book on WordPress maintenance. Again I spent countless hours editing and formatting, rewriting parts, adding parts, deleting parts. I once spent almost three hours looking for a tool to convert emails to PDF; this was more time than it took to finally do it manually!
In the end Ihad a 65 page book as my giveaway. And I wasn't happy with it. I’m also quite sure that no-one has actually read it in its entirety.
I’ve since had much better success creating shorter more actionable guides and not worrying too much about whether they’re perfect or not. They aren’t. But they do get better every time I review them and ask for feedback.
Building a following is not about how perfect it can be right now , it's about the long haul. If things are getting better over time then its good enough. As Jim Rohn (again) said, "it's the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go".
It's the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go. -- Jim Rohn
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Mistake #9: Getting Distracted
I'm naturally curious. Whenever I come across something interesting or new I like to learn about it. In a little kid that's an endearing quality but it's a constant battle to keep it from happening these days and distracting me from what's important.
When I was trying to blog I was continuously researching how to be better at writing; I read books. I took courses. I made notes on what the experts told me in podcasts and webinars. I learned writing tips from Gaiman and Hemmingway. I learned a lot of writing theory. I didn't actually write.
When I was trying out Facebook advertising I got sidetracked into the copyrighting of Ogilvy and Halbert.
When I was trying to promote a blog post I’d spend hours reading about how to promote a blog post.
When I was creating my first landing page I spent days trying out LeadPages and Unbounce and InstaPage. I researched the most effective ways to do it to maximise conversions.
Of course the result was information overload.
I couldn't possible take enough action to keep up with the huge amount of information I was consuming. I became confused by the varied and fascinating directions I was being pulled in.
The truth is that any tactic and strategy will probably work for someone. It's like dieting; the one that works is often the one you stick with long enough. But also like dieting, there is no approach that works for everyone. Everything we do in our business is a hypothesis - we need to experiment, measure, learn, take what works, ditch what doesn't and repeat.
The strategy that works is often the one you stick with long enough to confirm or deny your hypotheses
The strategy that works is often the one you stick with long enough to confirm or deny your hypotheses
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Generally you have more willpower in the morning. So at 5am one Saturday I sat down at my computer. I unsubscribed from dozens of email lists, deleted a ton of free ebooks and course and videos I’d downloaded and kept just a handful that really resonated with me.
I then started taking action one step at a time. Whenever I read something that sounded good I tried it with enthusiasm. If it didn't work, I adjusted and retried or I moved on. The speed you can try new things in a smart way and then learn from them has a lot to do with the speed your business will grow.
Really putting your heart into a single tactic at a time is vastly superior to briefly trying lots of things that vie for your attention. It’s about doing one thing that will move the business forward now. As David Risley says “it isn't the tool which matters as much as what you're doing with it.”
Research and reading isn’t bad, of course; it's essential to your ongoing education and to reiterate principles you're already familiar yet.
I still find it hard to resist a compelling headline and I have to constantly remind myself each time that I haven’t yet exhausted the possibilities of whatever I'm currently working on.
Walk before you crawl. Remember the basics. If your main product isn’t ready, you don’t have a business. If you haven't sold any of that product you don't have a business.
You can have all the physical ability in the world, but you still have to know the fundamentals
Michael Jordan
Get these things done well enough first before you worry that your writing isn't as simple as Hemmingway's or that your landing page conversions aren't as good as Frank Kern's.
Mistake #10: Caring About The Small Things.
You can debate the truth of Peter Drucker's "you can't manage what you can't measure" (or something like that) all you want but there's no denying that it's important to track the important moving parts of your business.
Here's the thing - metrics can distract you. Most metrics simply aren't important when they're small.
I used to regularly check the popular pages of my site and tweak them to improve conversion rates and make them perfect (see Mistake #8 above). I used to check what tweets did well, what Facebook posts got most likes, most shares etc. etc.
This is all kind of pointless when your site has 20 visitors a day.
There are more important things. Like getting your basic offer to a good standard. Like looking after your current customers in every way you can.
Until you have hundreds of visitors a day, most of those metrics really don’t tell you much that's useful.
The Biggest Mistake Of All
While making this list I realised that all of the above mistakes actually combine to reveal my greatest mistake of all. It's one of the biggest mistakes any business can make:
Not focusing on sales!
Sounds silly doesn't it? You're not in business until you make sales. Yet with everything that needs to be done it's fairly easy to lose sight of that simple fact.
It's Not All Mistakes
I'm happy to say there are many common mistakes I didn’t make, some things I got right first time around, like:
Making it all about the product instead of the customer
Not setting goals
Not thinking about marketing
Spending money too freely
Not being flexible
Not having a clear vision
Giving up!
These were usually thanks to the advice of others who were several (or many) steps ahead of me.
Ryan Sullivan of WP Site Care advised me to get my processes in order. Sigrun taught me not to overextend myself beyond my area of expertise even for what seems like a great opportunity. Jen encouraged me to find my own voice and, while it’s taken me 2 years, this blog is the beginning of that.
Conclusion
There you have it. There are no earth-shattering revelations in there. No gigantic abysmal failures but they are many of the same mistakes that people make time and time again. I'm no longer amazed I will never have it all figured out and I'll keep learning. But NOT by making the same mistakes.
You can spend a lifetime reading about this stuff but the only way is to forge your own path and make your own mistakes. We have to do that anyway. The ones who come out of it better are the ones who never stop trying and adjusting.
What do you think? Do any of these ring true for you? Any mistakes you’ve made that you’d like to share in the comments below?
Image: Southbank Centre food market, London. Clem Onojeghuo via Unsplash
In this post I explain how I gained a whole new perspective on running my business by being honest with myself.
It's Not A Business Yet
So you have your idea for your business. You’ve got your product or service idea. You’ve bought the domain, set up a website (which you now realise you will never finish because it’s always a work in progress). Your business is on its way!
But wait! Now you realise you may as well set up stall in the middle of the Sahara. No one’s coming by, no one knows you’re there, no one has even heard of you! No traffic is coming to your site because no one knows your business exists.
That was my situation not so very long ago. To make matters worse, most people didn’t even know what my service was, never mind that it could be helpful to their business!
As Mark Ford, creator of Early to Rise, said “you don’t have a business until you get your first sale.” It seems obvious but you need to keep this fact in your awareness at all times when you're starting out.
So, what’s a strungout first-time business owner to do?
Well, did you know … There are people out there who are ready to help you in any number of ways?
They can confirm your business ideas (or not)
They will serve as a sounding board for where you can improve and for new ideas
They’ll help you set up smooth processes to make things easier for you
They’ll give you valuable feedback
and they’ll even help you figure out who your best customers are and where you can find them
As a bonus, if you treat these people like royalty they’ll serve as ambassadors for your brand. They will spread the word about your business and make your job much easier going forward.
So who are these magical people?
They’re your all important first users and they will do much more than getting your business off the ground.
In this post I’ll share with you the exact steps I took to get those crucial first users to try my services here at WPStrands.
Your Business Is A Set Of Experiments
I would love to be able to say that I did all of this very deliberately but the fact is it’s just what I discovered as I fumbled my way through the first few months. By putting it all together here I hope you can get a more coherent sense of how you can turn this into a process for yourself.
Luckily, there's a lot of information about customer acquisition (the fancy term for getting customers) online. There are many people who have gone down this road before you who can give you ideas for getting users and customers. You can try manual outreach or cold calls. You can try giveaways, free content or referral programs. You can try advertising, attending conferences and much, much more.
I did none of those. As mentioned in an earlier post, most of what I did do didn’t move the business forward at all:
I immediately shared what I was doing with friends and family, hoping for a referral. It didn’t happen!
I made a huge list of web development & hosting agencies here in Switzerland. Then I contacted them cold, one-by-one. I said something like “I see you provide WordPress design/development services. I provide WP support services. Maybe we can help each other?” After sending 200 individually-written emails I checked the results: two replies saying no.
I foolishly asked people - like WordPress influencers with whom I had no relationship - if they could use my service.
I even started writing. I hated writing. English was the only exam I ever failed in my entire educational career. That was at the hands of a teacher who just didn’t like me. His 39% score (40% was a pass) hit home and somehow convinced me that I just wasn’t cut out to write.
I wrote stuff I never sent. I wrote a few blog posts I hated and even published them. These were WP-related because I thought my ideal customers were interested in WP. Nothing I wrote was focused or had a clear purpose.
I gave too much free help in Facebook groups to people who were never going to buy! I joined lots of WordPress groups and gave help in there. I didn't realise that people building their own WordPress website were not actually my target audience!
I was unfocused in my efforts to get the word out - I tried creating a Udemy course, I began publishing my Complete Guide to WordPress Maintenance as a Kindle book and never finished, I half-heartedly took a look at different niches only to drop them soon after ... etc. etc.
One thing I did that has had big long-term benefits was to study marketing; this is still paying off today. I will always be learning marketing.
In general, though, studying didn’t get me any new customers as I wasn’t immediately applying what I was learning.
Do It Yourself
I can’t say that these tactics failed: I did the work needed and they simply didn’t give me the outcome I hoped for. But I still learned lots from attempting them.
And that’s the crux of learning how to run a business; everyone needs to do it for themselves. You don't need to BE alone but you do need to experience the business first hand.
Like Siddhartha in the novel, every person must go through the journey for himself. This is infinitely more useful than just learning what worked for someone else.
"It is a good thing to experience everything oneself..." -- Siddhartha
Herman Hesse
They tactics above have worked for someone in the past and they might even work for you. You need to find that out.
I couldn’t agree more with Steph Crowder of Courage and Clarity and Fizzle:
”Everything you do in your business is nothing more than a hypothesis. Treat it as a learning process.”
This isn’t said often enough.
”Everything you do in your business is nothing more than a hypothesis. Treat it as a learning process.” via @stephcrowder_
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Looking back, I can honestly say that I was struggling to find a voice I could use. Struggling to decide what WPStrands should look like, sound like, behave like.
I was struggling to be me.
And I had no idea.
I continued to have no idea until I finally sat down with pencil and paper and just thought about getting new customers for 15 minutes or so. I like braindumps/brainstorms. They’ve often helped me to make decisions and to get clear on what’s really happening when I'm too caught up in the maelstrom to notice (mindfulness also helps here).
So I scribbled everything down and this was the result.
(Somewhere along the way I got sidetracked with my PC’s BIOS settings and dribbled tea over the page.)
Sometimes brain dumps just don’t do it for me !!
Another few attempts though, gave better results. When I stopped thinking about “getting customers” and really thought instead about “why customers would want automated WordPress maintenance” ...
… the answer dawned on me …
They didn’t want help with WordPress!
They wanted to save time
They wanted to focus on their core business rather than on the technology used to support that business
If you're not familiar with Chet's Core Story exercise, this is what I did...
I imagined 73,500 potential customers together in a stadium. (Chet says you should imagine 50,000 but I was imagining Croke Park in Dublin which seats 73,500; a bonus 23,500 potential customers!)
My Stadium Pitch at Croke Park - What would you say?
And I asked myself “what would I say to them?”
Not what would WPStrands, the business, say to them but, if WPStrands didn’t exist, what would I, Seán, say to them as a person?
That was an altogether different question.
The only answer that came to mind was that I could simply help some of them with their websites.
(I know, I know, there are many important things you could say to if 73,500 listeners. For this exercise I was sticking to the topic of business.)
So I could just ask them “what’s your problem right now with WordPress?”
I knew I would be able to solve most - if not all - the problems they would have.
Coupled with my earlier insight of what they really needed, I felt like I had had an epiphany of sorts.
I had a new perspective on what my business was and a new understanding of how that business could help people. This was a much more objective perspective based not on what I wanted to give people but on what they really needed.
This is a perspective that allows me to see what my business is from above as a whole rather than from the inside. It's a view of the business from the customer side rather than from my side. It was literally a sudden shift in perspective that has had a profound impact on how I view my work every day.
A side effect of this perspective shift was that I went from being doubtful about what I’m doing to a realisation that it’s all going to be fine.
I find it very difficult to explain this mental shift to people who haven’t had it yet but I’m working on it.
Try. Learn. Apply.
Now how to go from there to getting customers? Well, viewing the world through my new lens I could immediately see how I could help people.
First of all, I had made a point of staying in touch with previous customers for whom I’d built websites. After two of them were hacked, I knew they could do with some help; they readily signed up for ongoing maintenance with me.
User count: 2
Another customer for whom I often did small fixes/changes for free also agreed to sign up for maintenance when I explained why it was important.
User Count: 3
That was my immediate network used up so now came the hard part ...
(This was also the time this blog was born - I quickly wrote a post about what I was doing and asked a few trusted people what they thought. They loved it and the blog was born!)
I was now ready to go back to Facebook and LinkedIn and try again. I got involved everywhere I saw someone having website problems.
This time it was different because I wasn’t trying to get a customer, I was trying to help. As me. In the next few weeks I added another five customers and seven sites.
When I tried to help people from the heart it worked.
User count: 8
Finally, I talked to people in an unrelated Facebook group I was in. I discovered some of them had WordPress sites and they too signed up for a trial.
User count: 10
Now, if this all seems remedial and obvious, it does to me looking back too. I thought I wasn’t grasping for customers but I was.
The thing is, although I'd read about it before, I had to go through it myself. At each false step along the way my mindset was shifting slightly to one that was more true to myself and so more true to the business.
I don't know if every solitary bootstrapper needs to make these shifts by themselves, but I had to.
One could argue that I wouldn’t have had to make these silly mistakes if I'd had the right mentorship. Or the right mastermind group or the right teammates.
That’s probably true. But would I have had the realisations that I had? I’m not so sure.
And… this is the stubborn bootstrapper’s journey after all.
Image: Thomas Quine via Flickr
Now when I look at my client list I see a list of people I know well, people who trust me and who I know I am helping day after day.
This change in perspeective also led to the development of my seemingly backward values for WPStrands:
Each client's personal well-being comes first
their business comes second
their business's website comes third
Some businesses and many SaaS can go all out and get hundreds of subscribers at one go. For a service like WPStrands this just wouldn’t work. People need a personal touch.
So now I think it makes sense to build the business one person at a time, one website at a time. This way I can really show clients the benefits of having an expert in their corner.
It’s a slow way of doing it but it works.
Conclusion
There are no real secrets to building a business; everything has pretty much been written already.
You can read a classic marketing book from 50 years ago and find the same advice you hear from honest sources today: Speak from the heart. Speak TO the person directly. Provide what they need.
Like everything else - the foundations are what matters. Trends come and go but these principles will always be true.
Authenticity is the big thing. Once I stopped trying to be a marketer and trying to be a business and returned to being me, it all fell into place.
Setting up your business , getting a website going and starting to add content are just the beginning. From there it's a matter of consistently applying the basics (which are well-outlined in Chet Holmes book).
How did you get your first customers? Was it through people you knew or by using a clever marketing tactic? Let me know in the comments.
In this post I'll go through a few of the many business mistakes I've made since starting WPStrands. And, of course, how I learned from them.
Learning Independence
Image: Laura Lefurgey Smith via Unsplash
I was 16 years old when, on a freezing February morning, I showed up for my kayaking leadership exam, blissfully and utterly unaware that I had already made a huge mistake that guaranteed I wouldn't pass.
At 16 one tends to trust older, more experienced adults; this was my awakening to the fact that these older, more experienced adults don’t always get it right. The mistake I’d made was relying on my club instructor to tell me everything I needed to know for the exam.
The instructor hadn’t got it right and I was about to fail.
The equipment inspection began before hitting the water. As soon as it began I realised my mistake with a sinking stomach. The examiner smiled, shook his head and made loud tut-tutting sounds as he strolled merrily round the boat, clipboard in hand and making ticks on his sheet, clearly delighted to be ruining my day; my life even!
I had no tow-ropes on the kayak. I had no local river maps. I had no rations for an emergency.
I clearly had no clue. These were the basic, common mistakes of the clueless beginner!
I had had no idea what to expect and so I relied on someone else to prepare for me. As it turned out, the instructor didn't really know what to expect either ...
I almost feel sorry for the boy I was when I think back to that day but it served as a hugely valuable lesson. I promised myself I would never make the mistake of leaving no stone unturned again.
What I should have done was to talk to the course organisers beforehand and found out for myself what was involved in the exam. Or to talk with others who had already done the course. There was no internet back then but there were still lots of ways I could have researched what I needed to avoid the common mistakes others had made before me.
I still remember standing dejected and shivering in the frost on that riverbank. Watching the slabs of river ice floating downstream, I had a sense that I was really not going to enjoy the next three hours of tests ...
If you think about it you'll see this is a terrific guarantee to have! If you can recognise your mistakes and take a good look at how they happened you will learn something.
Guaranteed learning ... ! Who doesn’t want that kind of certainty?
“Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.”
Alain de Botton
WPStrands hasn't been around for very long at all but I’ve already learned plenty! That means, of course, that I’ve already made plenty of mistakes.
As mentioned in last week's post about getting starting with WPStrands, I want to do this by myself so that I can maximise what I learn.
But there's a fine line between being independent and stubbornly resisting that all-important ask for help.
Learning exclusively through your own experience - while incredibly valuable - is a far from optimal way to do anything. It sounds pretty obvious now but I waited a long time before asking for help and thus spent a lot of that time reinventing the wheel and learning from scratch what someone could have taught me much more quickly.
For a reasonably smart guy it took me a surprisingly long time to get this!
Learning from your own mistakes inevitably means progress will be slowed down. A much better way is to learn from others' mistakes and experience.
A great way to benefit from their experience is probably the simplest:
Seek out lots of people who are ahead of you on this journey
Ask them lots of questions
That's it.
There is absolutely no reason NOT to do this and it has never been easier to do it: blogs and social media allow a two-way conversation between you and any other person using that channel. Use them.
Mistake #2: Giving Instead of Asking
This was one of the biggest time-wasting mistakes I made in my first few months when I needed some test customers to get things going.
Armed with a burning desire to help everyone and with the belief that I should be incredibly generous with my time and knowledge, I gave as much help as I could in WordPress-related Facebook groups for free. But I went overboard. At one point I had 30 customers, none of whom were paying me!
It accomplished what I wanted - some of those I helped agreed to sign up to WPStrands for free. I found and fixed a few early problems with the WPStrands service early on.
But this type of customer has a big shortcoming - most of them aren’t invested in your service because they’ve paid nothing; they perceive very little value in it.
I spent a lot of time on a lot of work for a lot of people who really didn’t care one way or the other.
This was detrimental in a few ways:
it was demoralising for me
it did very little to spread word about the business
it attracted my less-than-ideal customer
it distracted me from what I should have been doing - making sales and growing the business.
Being helpful to others is admirable; just always keep in mind that this is a business and your time is limited! Choose carefully where you pass that time and who you pass it with.
Mistake #3: Asking Instead of Giving
It seems paradoxical that I could have made this mistake as well as the first one above, but... I managed it!
When I realised I needed to reach out to others for advice and/or help I made the fatal mistake of asking complete strangers for something for nothing.
These were people I admired and followed online but who knew nothing about me. The stupid part was that I knew the rules - relationship before asking. Yet I still made the mistake. I’m not sure how I didn’t realise that's what I was doing at the time. I was giving nothing to them and so got nothing in return in most cases.
If you respect someone enough to follow their newsletter, blog, social media channels or in any other respect, you should respect them enough to build a meaningful relationship with them.
I've found two great ways to do this:
Offer them useful and relevant help whenever and wherever you can. You know this one!
Ask them "who do you think could help me with ... [something you'd like to know]". When they answer, tell them you'll let them know how it went with that person. This gets them involved to a small degree in your quest for answers and is a great way to start building a real relationship. (This excellent tip comes from Gary Bartlett at Prodsol and really works wonders!)
Mistake #4: Wrong Market Focus
I thought it would be smart to begin locally and make a name for myself here in Switzerland. Dominate the Swiss market, then gradually and steadily expand into world domination.
So I focused on building up a customer base here in Switzerland. Although I approached it methodically and diligently, this was a big mistake that cost a lot of my time.
I compiled a list of 200 people to contact - web development agencies, ISPs etc., anyone I thought would genuinely benefit from the WPStrand's service. I systematically went through the list and composed an individual email to each person or company saying something like "You provide WordPress services, so do I. Maybe we could do something together?" This was wrong on many levels.
Switzerland is famously conservative. The online industry in Switzerland is not-so-famously also extremely conservative. It is far behind other parts of the online world in many ways, not least because most small businesses don’t yet fully appreciate the value of their website and the efforts needed to make that site work for their business. This isn’t a complaint, it’s just how it is here. (Many, many other aspects of my adopted home are among the best in the world, of course!)
Also, and maybe even more crucial, was that by not beginning with a global view I was severely limiting my own vision for what I want WPStrands to become. I was simply aiming too small.
Image: Andrew Yardley via Unsplash
What are you aiming for?
The outcome was that I got very few responses to my inquiries and became demoralised. Time spent on learning this lesson about my market? From September to December last year - 3 months!
A positive outcome was that I learned a lot about my local market which should be useful later (markets as well as other things don't often change very quickly here!)
While I have done A LOT of research into the Swiss online market, I could certainly have reduced the time I spent on this step by paying a VA to do it for me.
Mistake #5: Feeling Entitled
I haven't seen this mistake come up in any lists I've read but since seeing it in myself I've noticed it's a lot more prevalent than I imagined...
I’m a nice guy, I work hard, I'm really brave to have quit my career to do this so I deserve a break! That was my thinking. Naive of me, maybe, but I honestly believed I was working hard enough, smart enough and that I deserved some returns for my efforts!
I’m a nice guy, I work hard, I'm really brave to have quit my career to start a business so I deserve a break!
What none of the books really taught me about, though, was the lag time. There's a time delay between the effort put in and the rewards being reaped. As a country boy who grew up on and around farms I should have known this; crops are sown and preparation is made so that the bountiful harvest can be reaped when that work pays off. I think it's called patience ...
Missing this meant I was frustrated at the lack of rewards from my efforts, became even more demoralised and lost motivation many times.
Also, while I was putting in so much effort, I lost track of something that was really beneficial to me - my early morning routine where I got up early for a run, felt grateful and planned my day. Instead of this I started going to the office (5 minutes walk from my home) really early and simply skipping the routine that had benefited me for years.
I don’t want this post to become yet another treatise on the benefits of a sound morning routine. Suffice to say I got grounded in reality again by getting back into good old simple daily habits. The lucky event that spurred this change was when I won Craig Ballantyne’s book "The Perfect Day Formula" in a competition of his. This coupled with getting back into meditation helped me to start my days well and get focused on more of the right things. This will always be a work in progress.
And There's More ...
But that's enough for now. I've spent enough time this week going over these so it's time to take a break and dwell on better things to come. There's no benefit from focusing continuously on your mistakes; learn and move on.
Here's yet another guarantee: someone has already made these mistakes before you came along.
Clearly many of my mistakes were things I'd read about already yet I went ahead and did them anyway! A lot of them could have been avoided by a little self-awareness and understanding myself a bit more. A little mindfulness goes a long way.
While trading entrepreneur stories over a coffee with a colleague earlier this week I realised that I've actually made way more mistakes along the way! So more mistakes coming next week ...
What do you think? Do any of these ring true for you? Want to share some mistakes you’ve made? Be brave and share in the comments below!
In this post I'll go through a few of the many business mistakes I've made since starting WPStrands. And, of course, how I learned from them.
Learning Independence
Image: Laura Lefurgey Smith via Unsplash
I was 16 years old when, on a freezing February morning, I showed up for my kayaking leadership exam, blissfully and utterly unaware that I had already made a huge mistake that guaranteed I wouldn't pass.
At 16 one tends to trust older, more experienced adults; this was my awakening to the fact that these older, more experienced adults don’t always get it right. The mistake I’d made was relying on my club instructor to tell me everything I needed to know for the exam.
The instructor hadn’t got it right and I was about to fail.
The equipment inspection began before hitting the water. As soon as it began I realised my mistake with a sinking stomach. The examiner smiled, shook his head and made loud tut-tutting sounds as he strolled merrily round the boat, clipboard in hand and making ticks on his sheet, clearly delighted to be ruining my day; my life even!
I had no tow-ropes on the kayak. I had no local river maps. I had no rations for an emergency.
I clearly had no clue. These were the basic, common mistakes of the clueless beginner!
I had had no idea what to expect and so I relied on someone else to prepare for me. As it turned out, the instructor didn't really know what to expect either ...
I almost feel sorry for the boy I was when I think back to that day but it served as a hugely valuable lesson. I promised myself I would never make the mistake of leaving no stone unturned again.
What I should have done was to talk to the course organisers beforehand and found out for myself what was involved in the exam. Or to talk with others who had already done the course. There was no internet back then but there were still lots of ways I could have researched what I needed to avoid the common mistakes others had made before me.
I still remember standing dejected and shivering in the frost on that riverbank. Watching the slabs of river ice floating downstream, I had a sense that I was really not going to enjoy the next three hours of tests ...
If you think about it you'll see this is a terrific guarantee to have! If you can recognise your mistakes and take a good look at how they happened you will learn something.
Guaranteed learning ... ! Who doesn’t want that kind of certainty?
“Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.”
Alain de Botton
WPStrands hasn't been around for very long at all but I’ve already learned plenty! That means, of course, that I’ve already made plenty of mistakes.
As mentioned in last week's post about getting starting with WPStrands, I want to do this by myself so that I can maximise what I learn.
But there's a fine line between being independent and stubbornly resisting that all-important ask for help.
Learning exclusively through your own experience - while incredibly valuable - is a far from optimal way to do anything. It sounds pretty obvious now but I waited a long time before asking for help and thus spent a lot of that time reinventing the wheel and learning from scratch what someone could have taught me much more quickly.
For a reasonably smart guy it took me a surprisingly long time to get this!
Learning from your own mistakes inevitably means progress will be slowed down. A much better way is to learn from others' mistakes and experience.
A great way to benefit from their experience is probably the simplest:
Seek out lots of people who are ahead of you on this journey
Ask them lots of questions
That's it.
There is absolutely no reason NOT to do this and it has never been easier to do it: blogs and social media allow a two-way conversation between you and any other person using that channel. Use them.
Mistake #2: Giving Instead of Asking
This was one of the biggest time-wasting mistakes I made in my first few months when I needed some test customers to get things going.
Armed with a burning desire to help everyone and with the belief that I should be incredibly generous with my time and knowledge, I gave as much help as I could in WordPress-related Facebook groups for free. But I went overboard. At one point I had 30 customers, none of whom were paying me!
It accomplished what I wanted - some of those I helped agreed to sign up to WPStrands for free. I found and fixed a few early problems with the WPStrands service early on.
But this type of customer has a big shortcoming - most of them aren’t invested in your service because they’ve paid nothing; they perceive very little value in it.
I spent a lot of time on a lot of work for a lot of people who really didn’t care one way or the other.
This was detrimental in a few ways:
it was demoralising for me
it did very little to spread word about the business
it attracted my less-than-ideal customer
it distracted me from what I should have been doing - making sales and growing the business.
Being helpful to others is admirable; just always keep in mind that this is a business and your time is limited! Choose carefully where you pass that time and who you pass it with.
Mistake #3: Asking Instead of Giving
It seems paradoxical that I could have made this mistake as well as the first one above, but... I managed it!
When I realised I needed to reach out to others for advice and/or help I made the fatal mistake of asking complete strangers for something for nothing.
These were people I admired and followed online but who knew nothing about me. The stupid part was that I knew the rules - relationship before asking. Yet I still made the mistake. I’m not sure how I didn’t realise that's what I was doing at the time. I was giving nothing to them and so got nothing in return in most cases.
If you respect someone enough to follow their newsletter, blog, social media channels or in any other respect, you should respect them enough to build a meaningful relationship with them.
I've found two great ways to do this:
Offer them useful and relevant help whenever and wherever you can. You know this one!
Ask them "who do you think could help me with ... [something you'd like to know]". When they answer, tell them you'll let them know how it went with that person. This gets them involved to a small degree in your quest for answers and is a great way to start building a real relationship. (This excellent tip comes from Gary Bartlett at Prodsol and really works wonders!)
Mistake #4: Wrong Market Focus
I thought it would be smart to begin locally and make a name for myself here in Switzerland. Dominate the Swiss market, then gradually and steadily expand into world domination.
So I focused on building up a customer base here in Switzerland. Although I approached it methodically and diligently, this was a big mistake that cost a lot of my time.
I compiled a list of 200 people to contact - web development agencies, ISPs etc., anyone I thought would genuinely benefit from the WPStrand's service. I systematically went through the list and composed an individual email to each person or company saying something like "You provide WordPress services, so do I. Maybe we could do something together?" This was wrong on many levels.
Switzerland is famously conservative. The online industry in Switzerland is not-so-famously also extremely conservative. It is far behind other parts of the online world in many ways, not least because most small businesses don’t yet fully appreciate the value of their website and the efforts needed to make that site work for their business. This isn’t a complaint, it’s just how it is here. (Many, many other aspects of my adopted home are among the best in the world, of course!)
Also, and maybe even more crucial, was that by not beginning with a global view I was severely limiting my own vision for what I want WPStrands to become. I was simply aiming too small.
Image: Andrew Yardley via Unsplash
What are you aiming for?
The outcome was that I got very few responses to my inquiries and became demoralised. Time spent on learning this lesson about my market? From September to December last year - 3 months!
A positive outcome was that I learned a lot about my local market which should be useful later (markets as well as other things don't often change very quickly here!)
While I have done A LOT of research into the Swiss online market, I could certainly have reduced the time I spent on this step by paying a VA to do it for me.
Mistake #5: Feeling Entitled
I haven't seen this mistake come up in any lists I've read but since seeing it in myself I've noticed it's a lot more prevalent than I imagined...
I’m a nice guy, I work hard, I'm really brave to have quit my career to do this so I deserve a break! That was my thinking. Naive of me, maybe, but I honestly believed I was working hard enough, smart enough and that I deserved some returns for my efforts!
I’m a nice guy, I work hard, I'm really brave to have quit my career to start a business so I deserve a break!
What none of the books really taught me about, though, was the lag time. There's a time delay between the effort put in and the rewards being reaped. As a country boy who grew up on and around farms I should have known this; crops are sown and preparation is made so that the bountiful harvest can be reaped when that work pays off. I think it's called patience ...
Missing this meant I was frustrated at the lack of rewards from my efforts, became even more demoralised and lost motivation many times.
Also, while I was putting in so much effort, I lost track of something that was really beneficial to me - my early morning routine where I got up early for a run, felt grateful and planned my day. Instead of this I started going to the office (5 minutes walk from my home) really early and simply skipping the routine that had benefited me for years.
I don’t want this post to become yet another treatise on the benefits of a sound morning routine. Suffice to say I got grounded in reality again by getting back into good old simple daily habits. The lucky event that spurred this change was when I won Craig Ballantyne’s book "The Perfect Day Formula" in a competition of his. This coupled with getting back into meditation helped me to start my days well and get focused on more of the right things. This will always be a work in progress.
And There's More ...
But that's enough for now. I've spent enough time this week going over these so it's time to take a break and dwell on better things to come. There's no benefit from focusing continuously on your mistakes; learn and move on.
Here's yet another guarantee: someone has already made these mistakes before you came along.
Clearly many of my mistakes were things I'd read about already yet I went ahead and did them anyway! A lot of them could have been avoided by a little self-awareness and understanding myself a bit more. A little mindfulness goes a long way.
While trading entrepreneur stories over a coffee with a colleague earlier this week I realised that I've actually made way more mistakes along the way! So more mistakes coming next week ...
What do you think? Do any of these ring true for you? Want to share some mistakes you’ve made? Be brave and share in the comments below!
Follow the WPStrands Journey to 100 Customers
I'll be sharing what I learn as the orange grows.
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100
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