We Need to be Very Specific in Who We Work With in our Marketing Materials

This is one of those things that I’ve always known, and yet refused to ever actually do despite all the evidence.

I feel like many things like this are becoming clearer over time. Of course I need to do this.

My concern in the past was always that I was afraid of excluding anyone.

But the thing is… Particularly on my website, I’ve gotten relatively few clients from it despite high traffic. A huge part of that is likely that nobody has felt as if I was speaking to them.

When someone is looking for an agency to work with, it’s extremely effective if they hear their industry mentioned, or at the very least a description of their size of business or something else that will make them feel like we’ve worked with businesses like theirs and can absolutely succeed.

I think I need to start out by saying things along the lines of, “we work with Twin Cities small businesses with between 5-20 employees.”

That’s a great start.

Sure, some bigger companies might decide we’re not big enough for them, but that’s fine. It may even be true!

But for the most part, people who don’t fit that description are just going to gloss over it. A business with just the one owner as an employee will probably still reach out, since they aren’t that far from the description. And they may even feel grateful when I tell them we’ll still work with them.

But most importantly: since I haven’t gotten tons of business from my website, it can really only go up from here.

I think it’s also a good idea to list some specific industries or types of business we work with, like:

  • Home builders
  • Remodelers
  • Business Service Providers (accounting, payroll, marketing, HR, legal, finance, etc.)
  • Niche product makers (e-commerce)
  • Residential services (cleaners, lawn care, plumbing, electrical, security systems)
  • Membership organizations

That’s probably a good start.

So now I just need to revamp some of my main service pages and home page and include these descriptions throughout. Especially near the start of each page.

Hopefully this will help increase conversion.

 

 

I Need to Think of Myself Like a Plant

This post is basically just a rehash of my post from a week or two ago, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot more and it really feels extremely relevant.

Basically, I need to think of myself like a plant.

What does that mean?

Plants don’t think or feel. They simply do their thing. Some are far more successful than others, and it’s all a combination of the right conditions that allow them to thrive.

And I’m realizing more and more that we are more or less the same.

We think we’re so smart and can will our way through anything, but at the end of the day our output is almost exactly correlated with our inputs.

None of my most productive days have ever come after a terrible night’s sleep, when I’m hungover, or when I’m sick. And more than likely nearly all of my best days have followed a period of sobriety, great sleep, and low stress.

It may feel in the moment like bursts of energy and creativity are totally spontaneous, but they aren’t at all. They come when all of your inputs are optimized and you’re feeling good as a result.

I honestly feel really silly for never realizing this before.

I once wrote that it’s arrogance to be too idealistic or optimistic about yourself or your abilities; especially regarding your willpower. While calling it “arrogant” feels like a bit of a judgement, the fact remains that thinking you can still be at your best even when you’re feeling terrible is simply false.

I feel like now that I have this understanding, I need to strive to maximize my inputs as much as possible. I need to get everything in place and do just about everything right on a consistent basis to maximize my output.

Throughout this blog I’ve spoken about weight training, and one thing that I like about it is that it provides objective feedback about how I’m doing. Whereas tracking a subjective measure of how I’m feeling may not always yield valuable results, the objective nature of weight training can’t be biased and is often far more useful.

I’ve started really focusing on giving myself the correct inputs to improve at weight training, and it has started to pay off. I’m rapidly approaching the strongest I’ve ever been. I can almost immediately tell that my efforts have paid off.

These results directly prove my idea. If I eat well (and enough), provide adequate rest and recovery, and don’t drink too much or otherwise sabotage myself, I can put in a great effort in each session and the next time I’ll be able to lift more.

It doesn’t really matter how much effort I’ve put in during the workout. At least not the “conscious” kind of effort requiring me to push myself uncomfortably hard.

If all the conditions are met, I will push myself the correct amount and I will immediately be rewarded with tangible results.

This may not be as obvious in other areas of life simply because I don’t have an obvious, objective measure. But I feel like there’s no question that it’s there. The impact is likely far greater in my life more broadly than it is just for weight training. After all: while there is a limit to how much I could conceivably lift (and I’m already a good chunk of the way there), there’s no limit to how “successful” I can be.

So this may be a nearly identical re-hash of the other blog post, but I’ve just continued thinking about it and felt I needed to expand upon it a bit more.

Armed with this understanding, I may have to change many things in my life.

 

It’s Time to Start Paying for Advertising

It’s finally time I get serious about advertising. I need to pay to promote myself online and test a variety of different places to see if I can generate any business that way.

Back when my average client wasn’t very profitable, it was tough to justify spending very much on Adwords, for instance. But I have since revamped my product offering and am now pushing my Total WordPress Maintenance package which bundles a bunch of our WordPress services together, resulting in considerably higher total profit. This means I can justify spending a ton more on advertising for each client acquisition.

While I’ve tried this a little bit in the past, I never took it very seriously. I suspect my total ad spend throughout the entire time I’ve been in business is less than $1000, which means I really haven’t done it at all.

But it, along with my organic SEO, is likely the future of growth for me.

If I can lock something down that is repeatable and scalable, I just need to push that heavily and I’ll finally start seeing the consistent growth I’ve been hoping for.

To start, I’m going to focus on Google Adwords. I don’t know yet whether it should all just be ads shown directly in Google, or if perhaps I should focus on local ads in maps.

There’s a lot I don’t know, actually. And so one of the first things I’d like to do is more research on advertising with Google and what works and what doesn’t. Hopefully that will guide me a bit.

I’m hoping to spend maybe a month or two optimizing that and seeing if I can get some results.

If that doesn’t get me what I’m looking for, I might start looking into other advertising avenues. Perhaps smaller directory sites like Yelp or Thumbtack. I’ve tried LinkedIn before and gotten nowhere, so I’m not sure if I’d want to go back to that or not.

Regardless, it’s important that I move forward with these and do what I can to grow. I’d rather not go back to in-person networking to grow my business, and I don’t want to stagnate, either.

I may finally ask for some help with SEO, too, since it feels like I should be getting way more business from my site and organic rankings than I am. That may be the next step after advertising.

I’d love to start adding a client or two per week from new leads. If I could do that, I’d be golden.

There is a HUGE Difference Between Constructive Criticism and Criticism Intended to Hurt

I’m sort of frustrated that it took me until 36 years old to really appreciate this, but there is absolutely a huge difference between constructive criticism and criticism intended to cause pain and lower self-esteem.

I think so much of being a young man and spending time around other men is giving each other a hard time. When everyone is doing it in good faith, this can be fun, and also can be a low-stakes way to bring up genuine criticism without actually cutting the other person down.

And of course, more straightforward criticism can also be very helpful, without hurting the other person.

I think my problem is that I spent a lot of time around people whose criticism was intended to cause harm that I couldn’t really differentiate between them.

There aren’t many people left in my life that do the latter, and as a result it is much easier to identify when it’s more problematic. In general, I have cut out of my life the people who intend to hurt me.

The difference is not always incredibly obvious, though I’ve found it tends to feel a similar way, and there are usually a handful of associated aspects of how its done or the person doing it that make it clear this is what’s happening.

Genuine, constructive criticism is almost always given tactfully and with sensitivity to feelings. An emotionally intelligent individual will also typically present the criticism with some restraint, as if they are unsure that the criticism is valid.

In this way, it comes across as a mere idea, which you are free to consider and accept or dismiss. This is generally much easier for the receiving party to deal with.

Even when people are being more direct with each other and giving one another a hard time, it can still be done without the intent to cause harm or truly cutting down the recipient.

One notable characteristic of this is that the one giving the criticism is usually giving the criticism cheerfully. They may be laughing, they are probably being playful. All of this takes the edge off the criticism, allowing the recipient, once again, to accept it or dismiss it as a joke if they are more comfortable with that.

It is never done with a negative, annoyed, cutting tone.

And that brings me to the number one characteristic of criticism intended to cut you down and harm self-esteem: it is done with a negative, annoyed, cutting tone.

It’s sort of hard to describe, but there’s something incredibly specific about it. Because it’s not true exasperation. It isn’t like they are just disappointed in something you did and are just trying to help at this point.

It’s an attack.

They sense weakness, and they pounce. Their tone and words convey not that you need to fix anything, but that you should feel bad about yourself.

Here are some other things that tend to be associated with it:

  • The thing they are attacking is often a more general failing as opposed to something you can actually fix
  • They often will happy and positive and then flip a switch with startling speed, increasing the impact of their attack
  • If they do criticize something that could actually be fixed, its often something quite broad as opposed to one specific thing that you could fix right away
  • Generally the type of criticism given makes you seem foolish, stupid, reckless, or careless and makes them seem intelligent, controlled, or cool by comparison
  • The criticism is chosen carefully; it’s never about something that you clearly are more competent in
  • The criticisms may or may not be rooted in some truth, but most of the time they are in response to something that isn’t truly representative (e.g. a momentary lapse of judgement or skill, or brain fart of some kind)

At the end of the day, I believe that the cause of this type of criticism is always insecurity on the part of the attacker. They feel insecure and have found that attacking others and trying to bring them down makes them feel better about themselves.

Thinking about my past, I’ve realized that some of my friendships were characterized by tons of this type of behavior. So much so, that I actually started to internalize some of the criticism and think that it was legitimate.

But it wasn’t.

Some of the worst perpetrators even seem to go out of their way to build you up in private and give you lots of complements, but then bide their time and wait for the perfect moment to attack you to inflict the most damage. Often, this is when you’re in a larger group setting and most vulnerable, or perhaps before an important event where you could easily be thrown off.

I really got to thinking about this because I spent more time than usual with a friend lately, and while things were good at first, eventually some of this behavior came out. He started to randomly attack me.

It made me realize that I hadn’t really experienced that in a while. And I hated it.

I’ve come to realize that, even when you aren’t totally aware that it’s happening, it still makes you feel a certain way. You sort of feel confused, and self-conscious. You might feel immediately angry at the person who’s attacking you.

But it’s hard to retaliate, because – after all – it was you who made the mistake, right?

Right?

I feel like it’s easy to simply be defensive in these situations. It’s generally reasonable to point out that it was just a brief lapse.

But they’ll just double down and attack you even more if you try to defend yourself. Because it was never about logic, it was always about ego and power.

And that might leave you feeling even more confused, because deep down you know it wasn’t that big of a deal yet you are being attacked for it anyway.

I’m not totally sure what the appropriate response is. Not being friends with that person anymore might honestly be justified.

I don’t think I’m going to be able to help myself but to call it out directly the next time it happens. I don’t know how that will go. And it certainly won’t solve the original cause: the attacker being insecure. In fact, it will likely accomplish the opposite.

I suppose I could try more or less ignoring it, and then talking to them about it privately.

Since I’ve never really tried either, I don’t know how they will go.

More recently I’ve turned it back around on the attacker and pointed out how they are being whiny about stupid things that, in general, have to do with favors I’m doing them. It makes them seem petulant and unreasonable. Which, again, doesn’t solve the root cause. But at least it gets them off my back for a bit.

Either way, I won’t tolerate this behavior from people around me anymore. And fortunately, most of the people that are still in my life don’t do it.

So I don’t have to worry about it too much.

I just wish I had realized all of this like… All the way back in high school. It would have gotten me away from the wrong people far sooner, and also would have prevented much of the damage that they did.

 

Giving Anything Up Makes me Vulnerable to Slipping Elsewhere

This is one of those posts that feels a little bit like… Duh. But it’s still worth discussing.

Recently, I uninstalled the YouTube app from my phone, because I wasting way too much time using it. The goal was, of course, to not waste time on YouTube.

And I found that the first day after that, I was very anxious and had a hard time concentrating. As a result, I slipped in other areas.

It took me a long time to get going with work, and other tasks that I as trying to complete just didn’t get done.

Granted, I now know that I was also coming down with covid at the time, so it’s not entirely fair.

But even so, I think the point stands: when trying to quit something, you use up a lot of your willpower and energy and it makes other things harder.

I just need to be careful with that. I can’t let everything fall apart when I’m trying to accomplish just one thing.

I’ve also realized that I still have a social media problem. Because now I’m just using the YouTube website a lot, now that I don’t have the app. It’s not better.

I’ve tried to get my social media use down to near zero and I’ve struggled to do it. I think the addiction is actually way more powerful than anyone thought.

That’s it for now. I think I’ll try to really get rid of YouTube (and all social media) going forward.

I’m Going to Rewrite all of my Top Blog Posts to Make Them More Relevant

This is not a very exciting blog post to read again in the future, but it’s important for me to think through this because it could have a huge impact on my success.

I’ve been working on improving my website from a technical SEO perspective and also just more broadly trying to improve its rankings. It has a lot going for it, yet I still have not been converting many visitors into clients. For a few years now, I’ve slowly been losing traffic but at least I’ve gotten to a point now where that is no longer the case.

So that brings me to today’s task.

I’ve made the realization that all my top-ranking pages are essentially irrelevant to building or maintaining websites. Most are random tutorials involving Photoshop or other misc. programs. I couldn’t tell you why these happen to rank so well when my far-more-relevant content does not.

Either way, I have learned that this could actually be quite counter-productive. I used to think that all traffic was good traffic. But if my top-ranking pages are irrelevant, Google won’t know what I actually do and will never rank my for what I want to be ranked for.

So first, I’m going to try to make those pages more relevant.

I started today with a Photoshop-related tutorial. I added a handful of references to website design and building websites, and generally framed the whole thing as a website designer’s guide to this particular problem.

I’m hoping that this – along with adding some links to other website-related pages – will indicate to Google that the real topic is websites.

So now I want to go through all of my top-ranking pages (perhaps the top 20 or more) and re-write them so that they are more relevant to websites. It’s possible this will have a huge impact.

There’s also the chance that it won’t.

If months go by and it hasn’t made a difference, I may need to consider trying something else. I maybe even want to consider removing the posts and redirecting their URLs to somewhere else on my site.

It would be a shame to lose that traffic, but if those rankings are actively preventing me from ranking my other pages, and none of those visitors are ever converting, why would I keep them? It doesn’t make sense.

I hope it doesn’t come to that. But it might. We will see!

If I Have the Right Conditions, I Thrive – What Feels like Self-Discipline Often Isn’t

I’m currently dealing with my second bout with covid. Even so, today I got up early, I got my studying in quickly, I got all my work done and was productive there, and I even added in a weight training session and a sunset walk around the neighborhood.

Many of these things – especially the physical activities – weren’t really planned. I kind of just did them.

And it made me realize that a huge percentage of my behavior is really just based upon having the right conditions. I like to believe that I’m a free-willed being that strategically uses discipline and willpower to do exactly what’s needed at any given moment.

But in reality, I’m starting to think I have more in common – day-to-day – with a hamster that just needs to have enough food, water, clean bedding, and a wheel.

I think back to times when I’ve been super productive and even gone above and beyond on extra projects, and I’m realizing that it wasn’t any extraordinary effort or careful planning or anything like that. I just… Did it. I finished all my normal tasks, and still felt like accomplishing things, so I did.

And then I think about times when I wasn’t nearly as productive. And often it’s just the case that I got to the end of the day and just had nothing left in the tank. No desire to get anything done.

Now that I’m stating all of this, it seems so incredibly obvious. And yet I feel like I’ve almost never expressed in this blog before how critical it is that I get these conditions right.

Maybe it’s because I’ve so infrequently done it, so I never really knew.

Either way, I now believe that there is almost nothing more important than setting up the right conditions for myself to thrive. These are things like:

  • Getting adequate, quality sleep (treating sleep apnea is obviously key here)
  • Not drinking much or at all
  • Keeping up with exercise (both weight training and cardio)
  • Eating well
  • Staying hydrated
  • Staying on top of work
  • Keeping my home well-maintained
  • Keeping personal relationships in order and an active social life
  • Keeping up with hobbies

Of these, the first two are probably by far the most important both short and long-term. As long as those are good, I should generally have the energy to handle all of the rest.

Now clearly, self-discipline still has its place. And energy should still be used strategically, especially for things like building effective habits. But those are all multipliers.

I feel like establishing these conditions is really the base of my productivity and well-being, from which all success – in all areas – springs. Habits, willpower, and just about everything else – including productivity “hacks” – are really just going to be multipliers beyond that.

But 0 times 1000 is still 0. So if you don’t have the base established, you’re still going nowhere.

And either way, it is far easier to establish a new habit or stay on track if all of these conditions are met. When I’m well-rested and everything else is in place, it feels like I can do anything easily. There’s far less need for discipline or “willpower”.

While improvements from treating my sleep apnea haven’t come quite as quickly as I had hoped, I’m realizing now that many of them have absolutely have come.

Before treatment, it felt like I was exhausting all my willpower every day just to do the bare minimum. I didn’t have these conditions met, and so every day was kind of a struggle.

It wasn’t immediately obvious because I wasn’t “dropping the ball” on anything critical just to keep going, but long-term I think it manifested in lack of growth and other long-term initiatives stagnating.

But now… Even while recovering from covid, things are easier than they were. I can finish everything and still have energy left for more projects.

Obviously it’s better when I’m not sick, but the point remains that I didn’t have this before. It’s very subtle in that I don’t actively “feel” super different, but my behavior is totally different. I can get so much more done, my thinking is way more clear, and really it’s just all better.

Going forward, I need to prioritize getting these conditions right nearly all of the time. That may even entail near or total teetotaling. I’ve intentionally not really placed any limitations on myself in that area since ending my year-long break, just to compare. But the results seem to be clear: the benefits do not outweigh the cost.

I haven’t made any firm decisions yet, but either way: I will be much more conscientious going forward about making sure all my conditions are met to maximize my success – in all areas.