Tag Archives: Entrepreneurship

Distinguishing an Opportunity from a Distraction in Disguise

Yesterday, I received an excellent comment to one of my posts. The question is relevant to all of us but mostly to the first time entrepreneurs.

“Could you elaborate more on how following the opportunities that appear and following each of them is in line with not getting distracted?”

“As an example in the last 2 months there were many different opportunities I could have taken, but doing so would have lead to loss of focus and in the end most likely would have lead to not getting anywhere.”

by Kevin Raetz

This is a topic that I have addressed in the past, but it’s so important that I have to elaborate again, using the ideas that I published recently.

Before I dive into the topic, let me recap my last two posts so that you have a context for this post.

From an Idea to Reality

My previous post is based on two observations that I made over years.

  • We are more capable than we believe we are.
  • The universe is more abundant than we believe it is.

If we let go of our distractions and limiting beliefs, and focus on our goals by visualizing them, then we will become more sensitive to ideas and opportunities that will help us realize our vision.

Effortless Success

The post Effortless Success is a summary of the book The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer. Singer was a college student who practiced mindfulness and yoga to quiet the chatter in his mind.

He merely followed the opportunities that appeared on his way and ended up as the founder and CEO of a billion-dollar software company.

Effortless Success is even more impressive than From an Idea to Reality because it shows that even our goals reflect our limiting beliefs.

Even our goals are a part of our limiting belief system.

If Singer had to come up with a set of goals when he was a college student, I’m sure he wouldn’t come up with the goal of becoming the CEO of a billion-dollar company.

We all have our worries and desires, and they limit us. We’re better off letting them go as explained in this post.

Mental Clarity

In both posts, I mention higher sensitivity to opportunities. When you have a clear mind, you recognize opportunities easier. They almost appear in front of you.

But how do you know an opportunity serves your goals, and it isn’t a distraction in disguise?

There are several answers to that question on different levels. Let me start with the intellectual level.

Resource Allocation

We, humans, are capable beings and the universe is abundant, but that doesn’t mean we have infinite resources.

Resource allocation is a critical part of your execution as an entrepreneur, even as a person. The scarcest resource is our time. Therefore, time management is crucial to all of us.

When you come across an opportunity, you have to ask yourself a question.

How does this opportunity fit into my big picture? How does it serve my vision, my long-term goals?

If it doesn’t, it’s obviously not an opportunity but a distraction in disguise.

If your vision is to become an entrepreneur, and you receive a better job offer, is that offer an opportunity or a distraction?

Sure, some jobs might lead to a business opportunity, but most don’t. This is something you have to evaluate and decide.

Low-Hanging Fruits vs. Lifetime Value

You might come across an opportunity that would provide you with quick cash. Does this opportunity serve your long-term vision? If not, it’s most probably a distraction. The only exception to that rule is that you actually need that cash to pay your basic needs.

Two months ago, I documented my usage of Steemit. I started to use it to evaluate it as an investment, but I quickly became addicted to it. After a month, I decided that it wasn’t worth investing my time or money, even though I started to make some quick cash using it.

Quitting Steemit was an easy decision. It didn’t serve my long-term writing goals. My lifetime vision was more valuable to me than the quick cash I’d make from Steemit.

The Challenge of Infinite Opportunities

As I have mentioned in a previous post, endless opportunities are indeed a challenge nowadays, especially for entrepreneurs.

The solution is similar to the low-hanging fruits. You need to have a crystal clear vision and evaluate whether an opportunity serves your vision or not.

If you look carefully, you’ll realize that most opportunities don’t serve your vision at all.

Experience

In some cases, it isn’t clear whether an opportunity serves your life goals or not. In those cases, you have to experiment.

At the beginning of my blogging journey, people would ask me whether I’d write a post for their publication or not. Back in the day, I’d accept those offers because the extra exposure seemed to be an opportunity to me.

After a few trials, I realized that those posts don’t bring any additional exposure at all. I’m better off investing that time in my regular posts in the Startup Publication.

In the last six months, I’ve written on a wide range of topics, writing, blogging, marketing, entrepreneurship, investing, cryptocurrencies, personal development, and life lessons.

My experience taught me to focus on personal development and life lessons. I wouldn’t be able to come to that conclusion if I didn’t experiment with all of those topics.

The 6 Months Rule

When you commit to an endeavor, stick to it for at least six months.

This is a rule I learned from the audio program The Ultimate Anti-Career Guide by Rick Jarrow.

I’d add another rule to the mix.

Don’t commit to more than two projects at a time.

Most of us have our day jobs. That’s already one big project. That means don’t commit to more than one side-project at a time. If you do, you’ll decrease your chances of success significantly on all of your commitments.

Pivoting

Quick and frequent pivoting is popular among startups. That’s obviously a violation of the 6 months rule. Do so only if you have a strong signal that your pivot will be a massive success.

I’d make another exception to the 6 months rule. If you’re just starting out, start 12 projects in 12 months. Try to complete each project within a month.

That would give you an enormous experience. And who knows one of those projects might end up becoming a home run.

After those 12 months, stick to the 6 months rule. Otherwise, you’ll risk ending up with an array of unfinished, failed projects.

Intuition

As you gain experience and let go of your internal and external distractions, you develop your intuition. When your intuition is at a high level, you don’t need to analyze on an intellectual level.

You instantly see what’s an opportunity and what’s a distraction. In other words, you reach the fourth level of learning, where you’re competent on an unconscious level.

That’s why cleaning up your mind as explained in the posts about effortless success and letting go is critical.

Conclusion

Even though some of us complain about lack of opportunities, an abundance of opportunities is a challenge for others.

Following every opportunity and trying to be everything to everyone produce mediocre results at best. To avoid that pitfall, we need to determine our vision first, and then evaluate each opportunity according to its contribution to our vision.

That requires some intellectual analysis and experience. Over time, we develop our intuition which helps us quickly evaluate opportunities.

Letting go of distractions, unnecessary thoughts, emotions, and habits also improve our intuition.

At a certain moment, we reach a point where we recognize opportunities instantly and reject distractions without thinking. That’s the state of the Zen mind where we operate in flow and succeed effortlessly.

The Zen of Entrepreneurship

David Hawkins, the author of Power vs. Force, mentions 17 levels in his map of consciousness.

  • Enlightenment
  • Peace
  • Joy
  • Love
  • Reason
  • Acceptance
  • Willingness
  • Neutrality
  • Courage
  • Pride
  • Anger
  • Desire
  • Fear
  • Grief (Sadness)
  • Apathy
  • Guilt
  • Shame

Map of Consciousness, a Useful Tool for High Performance

I find this map useful to regulate my emotional state for high performance.

I find emotions of shame, guilt, sadness, fear, desire, anger, joy, love, and peace useful for different purposes.

  • Peace and sadness are suitable to reflect on my life and make plans.
  • Joy is useful for long distance running.
  • Anger is useful for working out with weights in the gym.
  • Shame, guilt, fear, desire, and love are powerful motivators to execute my plans.

Peace vs. Apathy

Even though I read the book Power vs. Force years ago, there were still some open questions in my mind. I always wondered what the difference between peace and apathy was.

Apathy is the lack of intense emotions. So is peace. Then, what is the difference between them?

I think I’ve found the answer.

The GDPR Will Destroy Email Lists

Yesterday, I had a challenge. The new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect starting from May 25, 2018.

This regulation affects my email newsletter as well. I have to collect explicit consent from my newsletter subscribers before that date. After that date, I have to delete the subscribers who didn’t provide explicit permission.

If you ever operated an email newsletter, you know what that means. I expect only 10% of my subscribers to complete that procedure. That means I’m going to lose 90% of my email newsletter subscribers in two weeks.

The GDPR Makes the Subscription Process Harder

It doesn’t end there. The new law requires me to have a checkbox in my subscription form. If a visitor doesn’t explicitly check that box, they won’t be able to subscribe to my email newsletter. I expect at least 50% of the visitors to overlook that box.

I know that you’ll suggest some hacks for that, such as loading the form with that box checked or making it a required field. Both practices are forbidden in the new regulation.

On May 25, 2018, I’ll lose 90% of my existing subscribers and 50% of my future subscribers.

The Most Productive Level of Consciousness

On which level of consciousness would you be if you were in my shoes? Anger? Fear? Grief? Apathy?

Surprisingly, I felt acceptance yesterday. There is nothing I can do against this law. Neither anger, nor fear, nor grief, nor apathy is a productive emotion at this moment.

The most productive emotional state at this moment is to accept what is, comply with it, and carry on.

My livelihood doesn’t depend on this list. But there are people whose livelihood depend on email lists. They are going to lose at least 90% of their income in two weeks.

The New Law Won’t Accomplish Anything Useful

You might defend the new law because there are so many spammers out there. I know that a lot of people add all the emails they could find to their lists. As a result, we all receive a bunch of irrelevant emails every day.

  • Will the new law prevent spammers from populating their lists with every email they come across?
  • Will it prevent auto-followers on social media?
  • Will it prevent bots from spamming the comment sections and contact forms of blogs?

It’s not going to happen.

The New Law Will Only Hurt Legitimate Businesses

This law will only reduce the revenues of honest people and businesses who comply with the law. That reduction in revenue won’t serve anything.

The revenue will be reduced because a prospect will overlook a checkbox in a sign-up form, not because they didn’t want to sign up to the email newsletter in the first place.

I always had a double opt-in mechanism in my email lists. I never added someone manually. I never sold people’s emails. I never sent irrelevant emails to my subscribers. Yet, I’m punished by this law.

Take It on the Chin and Carry On

Acceptance means to take it on the chin and to carry on. That’s exactly what I’m going to do in this case. Quitting is not an option at this moment. Neither is breaking the law. If my content is worth the attention of people, it’s going to find its way to their screens.

Now, I get the difference between peace and apathy. When you’re on the level of apathy, you don’t feel any intense emotions, and you give up. When you’re on the level of peace, you don’t feel any strong emotions, but you keep on going.

High Involvement, Low Attachment

The lower levels such as anger, fear, guilt, and shame are strong motivators to take action. But at a certain moment, you need to accept the reality and let go of your attachments to the results. There’s no way around this.

In a previous post, I called this attitude high involvement, low attachment. You take massive action and do your best without being attached to the results.

While taking action, anger, fear, and similar emotions are strong motivators. But once the work is over and you’re waiting for the results, you better get to the level of acceptance and peace, and don’t get attached to those results.

A Nontaxable Asset

At the end of the day, there is one asset that governments can’t forbid or tax. That is your knowledge and the lessons you learn. I owe that lesson to Warrant Buffet.

Sometimes a lesson learned is more valuable than 90% of your email list. Understanding the difference between apathy and peace was such a lesson for me yesterday.

A Healthier Attitude toward Business Stats

There was a scene in the movie Social Network. Mark Zuckerberg and his team moved into their first office. They placed a big screen in the lobby showing the number of registered Facebook users. That number was going up continuously and motivating everybody in the team.

Business Dashboards

A similar practice is popular among executives nowadays. Instead of big screens in lobbies, executives have their key numbers on their computer screens. Those numbers are visualized in a few charts that fit a computer screen. This collection of charts are called dashboards.

An executive can see all the key numbers of their business with a single look on their dashboard. Think about the dashboard in your car. It’s a crucial part of driving. You need to know how fast you drive, how much fuel you’ve left, and whether your engine is overheating or not.

The Benefits of Dashboards

Business dashboards serve various purposes.

  • Motivation
  • Decision making
  • Determining the direction of the company
  • Detecting problems
  • Coming up with points of improvement
  • And so on…

The Numbers I Track

I track two numbers about my blog. The growth ratio of my Medium followers and my email newsletter subscribers. My target for both figures is 10% weekly growth. I explained this goal in a previous post called How I Use Growth Metrics to Optimize the Stats of My Blog and Email Newsletter.

Numbers are critical. Money is nothing but a collection of numbers in databases around the world. You need those numbers to pay the bills. If you want to improve your business, you need to keep track of your numbers. What gets measured gets improved.

However, numbers aren’t everything. When you’re driving, you don’t look at your dashboard all the time. You look at it at critical moments. During the rest of the time, you look at the road.

When running a business, it’s not so evident that you have to take your eyes off the dashboard once in a while. If you don’t pay attention, you can easily get lost in numbers and data. As a result, you might miss some critical aspects that can’t be measured by numbers.

Obsessing about Numbers

I was in that situation for a few weeks. The numbers of my blog are easy to track and extremely volatile. I hit my goals one week, miss them the next. This type of volatility can motivate you to the point of obsession. I wonder whether that kind of motivation is healthy.

Being obsessed with numbers can lead you to make mistakes. Think about a sales rep who makes unrealistic promises to their prospects to meet their targets. Think about a software developer checking in buggy code to complete their tasks before the deadline.

Stressing about Numbers

If you can’t reach your targets for an extended amount of time, you might be tempted to quit. Many people can’t handle the stress of not meeting their goals. As a result, they either give up, or they decrease their targets.

In our imagination, we expect linear growth. In practice, we experience long plateaus of mediocre results punctuated with growth spikes. You can check Malcolm Gladwell’s book Tipping Point for more about this.

My Unhealthy Relationship with Numbers

I had an unhealthy relationship with the numbers of my blog in the last few weeks. I obsessed about them. I didn’t think about hacking my way to reach my goals. Such a practice backfires in the long term, but I was demotivated when I couldn’t reach my targets in a given week.

A Healthy Attitude toward Numbers

I decided to change my relationship with the numbers of my blog.

  • I’ll keep tracking them, but I’ll quit obsessing about them.
  • I’ll use them as guides, not as punitive masters.
  • I’ll do my best to achieve my goals, but I won’t be attached to the results.

This approach is called high involvement, low attachment. I first read about this approach in the book Supercoach by Michael Neill. The idea is to do your best and let the chips fall where they may.

My New Practice

  • Check my numbers once a week. This is what I used to do anyway.
  • Brainstorm about action items to meet my targets of the next week.
  • Decide on action items to execute in the next week.
  • Execute those action items during the week.
  • Repeat all the steps every week.

The idea here is to work hard with a positive attitude. There is an optimal mental state for maximum performance. It isn’t being desperate, pessimistic, worried, or anxious. It’s being optimistic, having faith, being motivated, and accepting the results entirely.

Conclusion

Numbers are a critical part of a business. Without the numbers, you don’t have a business. Yet, obsessing about numbers can lead you to make mistakes. Worse, it can lead you to quit altogether.

The solution is to keep tracking the numbers with a healthy attitude, doing your best to achieve your goals, and letting the chips fall where they may.

Three Reasons to Take Medium Seriously

Medium Can Be the Pillar of Your Content Marketing Strategy

I expect two groups to read this post.

  1. People who are interested in Medium and the art of writing
  2. People who are interested in marketing

I’m writing this post for the people who are at the intersection of both groups.

Some people in the second group won’t be interested in creating content in written format. As I explained in a previous post, some people are better at creating content in audio and video, and others in written form.

There’s good news for both segments. Medium isn’t a text-only platform anymore. It also serves audio. More about that later.

Do You Hate Marketing?

I’m not afraid of the people in the second group. It’s the first group that I’m scared of. Some people associate marketing with evil and hate everything about it.

In the past, marketing has been abused to get the most out of people’s pockets without providing something significant in return. However, times are changing.

The New Wave of Marketing

There’s a new wave of marketing. The new wave of marketing is enabling great work to sustain itself and reach its target audience who are willing to consume it.

When I’m writing about marketing, I’m writing about the new wave of marketing, not about getting the most out of people’s pockets.

I’m interested in building a business that provides as much value as possible to its customers and receives a fraction of that value in return. Marketing is a part of this business model.

Keep Marketing out of Medium?

There’s a notion that all marketing is terrible and it must be kept out of everything that’s good, including Medium. I don’t agree with that notion.

Not all marketing is evil and decent marketing can enable great content on Medium. That’s the topic of another post that I’m going to publish tomorrow.

In this post, I want to focus on the value of Medium for content marketers. Among others, there are three reasons Medium is valuable for content marketers.

Medium Is a Content Platform

There are two types of social media platforms, content platforms and promotion platforms. Medium is a content platform.

A Medium post is 95% content and 5% promotion. Go over 5% promotion, and you have no chance on Medium.

That is good for consumers, and that’s good for content producers as well. People can immediately see whether a content producer is worth their time or not.

A content producer doesn’t need to bother with promotion, which is a secondary activity anyway. That’s why I focus on Medium as the single source of traffic for my blog.

Facebook Is a Promotion Platform

It’s almost impossible to get your content consumed on Facebook.

On Facebook, you have to create convincing promotional posts, pay Facebook to boost those posts, and hope that some people click through to your actual content. In contrast, your Medium post is your actual content.

The average Facebook user will ignore anything longer than a few sentences or a few seconds. In my experience, 6-7 minutes long Medium posts perform the best.

Audio

Medium is taking the content delivery to the next level with audio.

I consume content in two formats. When I have time, I read content in written form. Reading is an efficient way of consuming content. But I can’t read a post when I’m working out in the gym. Then, I listen to a podcast or an audiobook.

Medium combines both formats, and this is an opportunity for you. I don’t use this opportunity at the moment, but I don’t underestimate it.

If you can provide your content in two formats, in written and spoken, on the same platform, you’ll have a massive advantage over your competition.

Suppose that I follow you. I get stuck in a traffic jam. Instead of sitting there doing nothing, I can listen to your latest post, instead of waiting to arrive at home to read it.

Do you see how many other writers you’ll beat by providing the audio version of your posts?

If you record the audio versions of your posts, you can eventually broadcast them in a podcast or on YouTube as well.

Medium’s Algorithm Change

In his last post, Ev Williams, the CEO of Medium, explained the changes they made to Medium’s algorithm.

The new algorithm favors evergreen content over fresh content. This change seems to be disadvantageous in the short-term, but it’s great news in the long run.

There are enough news sites that report about the recent events. There are enough books that provide evergreen content on timeless topics such as personal development.

I also want to have something quick to read like a blog post on those timeless topics. Medium is meeting that need now. There aren’t many major platforms that do that. Medium is distinguishing itself this way.

What Are the Implications for Content Providers?

The new algorithm is good news and bad news for content providers.

It’s bad news, because your next post has to compete with the complete back catalog of Medium.

It’s good news, because if your next post succeeds at this competition, it’s going to pay dividends for the rest of your life.

I prefer long-term value over short-term benefits. Medium’s new algorithm favors this approach.

You better invest more time and effort in your next post so that you can reap its rewards for the rest of your life. If you don’t, it won’t produce any short-term benefits either.

80% of My Post Views Come from Older Posts

Last week, my Medium posts received 2701 views. 2134 of those views came from the posts that were older than a week.

You’ll need to invest a lot of time and effort in your posts upfront and won’t be able to see any rewards in the short-term. Your efforts will pay dividends in the long run.

Medium’s new algorithm will eliminate a lot of competition and make good work pay off. Our posts won’t be archived after a few weeks and then forgotten.

Conclusion

Medium is an excellent platform for content marketers who are willing to provide more value than they ask for.

If you post on Medium, you don’t have to promote your content. There is an audience willing to read excellent blog posts. If you’re good at blogging, your content finds its way to this audience.

You can include the audio versions of your posts on Medium and at least double your audience.

The new version of Medium’s algorithm will eliminate a lot of competition, but there’s a catch. You have to be willing to put in the time and effort, and be patient enough to wait for the long-term rewards.

Coming Soon…

Today’s post was about the positive sides of Medium. In tomorrow’s post, I’ll discuss the downside of Medium’s business model and Ev William’s vision.

Don’t forget to check my post tomorrow. Better yet, sign up to the email newsletter to receive a weekly roundup of my most recent posts.

Your Turn

  • Do you use Medium as a part of your content marketing strategy? If yes, how?
  • What’s your take on the audio feature and the new algorithm of Medium?

1000 True Fans Is Enough to Make a Living as a Creative

What Does It Take to Create 1000 True Fans?

When I reported the analysis of my Medium stats, some of my readers suggested to analyze the number of claps as well. I didn’t follow that advice back then. Unlike views, reads, and fans, claps cannot be downloaded.

I received a comment a few days ago, that made me reconsider analyzing claps. My reader wrote that one of her posts received a low fans to reads ratio, but a high claps to fans ratio.

A Small, Engaged Audience vs. Wider Popularity

She asked me whether she should cultivate a small audience that liked her style or go for a wider popularity. My gut reaction to that question was to stick to that small audience.

Before explaining my point, let me mention that I’m writing from my intuition. I didn’t make a comprehensive statistical analysis on this.

The Goal of Copywriters, Bloggers, and Marketers

Copywriters, bloggers, and marketers try to get their readers to take certain actions. In my case this is to follow me on Medium and to sign up to my email newsletter.

Here’s a sample funnel of a Medium writer:

  • View the post
  • Read the post
  • Clap for the post as much as possible
  • Respond to the post
  • Follow the writer’s Medium account
  • Sign up to their email newsletter
  • Purchase their products and services

The number of people on each level is lower than the number of people on a higher level. That’s why we call this sequence a funnel.

The More People at the Top, the More People at the Bottom?

We might expect that the more people there are at the top of the funnel, the more people would be at the bottom of the funnel. This might not be the case.

A blogger could be wildly popular on the level of post views, but they might have a difficult time getting their books sold.

Another blogger might have modest post views, but they could be successful at converting those views to premium program purchases.

Who would you rather be? The popular blogger with modest book sales? Or a modest blogger with high premium program sales? Honestly, I’d like to be the second blogger.

How to Have Higher Conversion Rates

In order to be the second blogger, we might need to sacrifice popularity. Instead of trying to appeal to a broad public, we need to be ourselves and double down on what makes us unique. If that is an odd sense of humor, we need to cultivate it.

The idea is to polarize the public. That way, a portion of the public wouldn’t want to consume our content at all, but the rest would love it.

This discussion reminds of “1000 true fans” who are ready to purchase whatever product a creative puts out. I don’t think that we can create 1000 true fans by trying to please everybody.

What Do the Numbers Say?

In order to back my ideas with stats, I made an analysis of my last 111 Medium posts. I calculated the clap to view ratio of these posts. Then, I calculated the correlation between the views and the clap to view ratio. This correlation was -40%.

This doesn’t mean that we have an inverse correlation, but it doesn’t show a positive correlation either. What my reader suggests might be true.

The most engaging posts aren’t necessarily the most popular ones.

I can see this relationship clearly in my most engaging and least engaging ten posts. By most engaging, I mean the posts with the highest claps per views ratios. The least engaging posts are the ones that have the least number of claps per view.

Table. 1. My most engaging posts

My most engaging posts aren’t the wildly popular ones. On the other hand, most of my least engaging posts have above average views.

Table. 2. My least engaging posts

When I look at my least engaging posts, I see that some of them are among “my most hated posts.” I already wrote a post about why those posts had low fans to views ratio.

What Makes a Post Engaging?

I’m intrigued by the most engaging posts. Even though I analyzed all kinds of stats, these posts didn’t show up in my radar.

I suspect that a high read ratio contributes to engaging posts. I’m going to analyze what made these posts so engaging and report that in a future post.

If you don’t want to miss my post on writing engaging posts, sign up to my email newsletter. Once a week, I send an email that contains my latest posts on writing, blogging, marketing, entrepreneurship, productivity, and personal development.

Acknowledgements

I thank Michael K. Spencer for recommending me to look at the average claps per article and Catherine Turner for her question that inspired me to write this post.

Conclusion

As copywriters, bloggers, and marketers, our aim isn’t necessarily to be wildly popular. Our aim is to get our readers to take action at the bottom of our funnels. This can be following us on social media, subscribing to our email newsletter, and purchasing our products.

If you want to create 1000 true fans, you might want to let go of trying to please everybody. You might want to be unique in your own way.

As a result, you might be less popular with the general public, but you might end up with 1000 true fans who are in love with your work and willing to support you in every way possible.

How I Deal with Failure

In the last six weeks, I was focused on two numbers to measure the success of my blog. These are the weekly growth rates of my Medium following and the number of my email newsletter subscribers.

My weekly goal for both figures is 10%. That goal is at the ambitious side and I have a difficult time achieving it every week.

So far, my average was 7%. Not bad, but not being able to succeed my goal every week frustrates me a little. That’s why I want to look at other sides of my efforts than the weekly goals.

The Big Picture vs. Short Term Challenges

Online business expert Gary Vaynerchuk recommends to focus on “the clouds and dirt” and to avoid everything in between. The clouds is the long term vision. The dirt is the tasks and challenges in front of you.

In my case, the dirt is my weekly goals and how I want to achieve them. I’ve been focused on the dirt for the last six weeks. Today, I want to look at the clouds, the vision, the big picture of my efforts.

The Karmic Management Model

I’ll use the karmic management model of Michael Roach to analyze my blog. I discussed this model in detail in my post A Buddhist Monk’s Take on Business.

The Ideal and Less than Ideal Business

I make a distinction between ideal and less than ideal businesses. Ideal businesses add value to humanity. Less than ideal businesses extract value from the humanity.

Ideal businesses make a positive difference in the lives of other people. They provide value. That value has a financial equivalent. Ideal businesses receive a fraction of that value.

Less than ideal businesses extract value from the humanity. They do that by exploiting the weaknesses of people.

Most of us have their irrationalities. Some of those irrationalities are predictable. Less than ideal businesses build their business on exploiting those predictable irrationalities.

The World Is Not Black and White

Obviously, we can’t make a black and white distinction between ideal and less than ideal businesses. As I explained in my post the Fallacy of Extremism, that would be a childish outlook on life. Most businesses are somewhere between both polarities.

For example, gambling businesses provide some value by entertaining their customers. Educational businesses have to use some marketing techniques to convince their prospects to pay for their products and services.

In either case, I want to be closer to the ideal end of the spectrum.

Four Stakeholders in a Business

The karmic management model takes into account four parties to measure the potential of a business.

  1. Customers
  2. Employees
  3. Suppliers
  4. Humanity at large

I want to add a fifth party to this model: myself.

Customers

I plan to build an information marketing business around my blog. So far, I have been writing mainly about personal development and marketing.

Personal Development

I consumed a lot of personal development products and services. Those products and services made significant differences in my life. Some of those products and services were paid. There was an exchange of value both ways.

In some cases, I paid more than what the product or service was worth for. In some cases, I received great value for free. Some free YouTube channels and videos made significant, tangible, positive changes in my life.

In either case, I’m more than satisfied as a paying customer of the personal development industry. My own experience is a validation of the personal development business.

Marketing

In the past, I developed several products. Those products benefited their users, but I wasn’t able to commercialize them. Marketing and sales were the missing link between those products and their prospective users.

I’m not alone. A lot of gifted people have a difficult time building a business around their skills. They have a difficult time building products and services using their skills or commercializing the products and services they offer.

I want to create content that helps people build and commercialize products and services around their skills. But first, I have to figure that out myself. I work on it and I document everything that I learn on my journey.

I already receive the feedback that the lessons I share resonate with people. If you want to receive the latest lessons I discover on my journey, sign up to my weekly email newsletter.

Bottom line, I believe that there is value for my prospective customers in my information marketing business, both in personal development and marketing segments.

Employees

I don’t have any employees at the moment. There’s only one person who helps me with household once a week. I’m grateful for their services, because they save me a complete day every week.

As I build a business around my blog, I could hire freelancers such as virtual assistants, programmers, and writers.

Suppliers

My business would benefit several suppliers. I already pay for hardware, software, internet connection, and for some tools, such as Evernote and Google Drive.

I review the tools that I use in my blog posts. I believe that is fair value provided to my suppliers.

Humanity

I serve humanity by providing as much value as I can in the ideal side of business.

Myself

I enjoy blogging, writing, developing products and services on personal development and marketing.

Conclusion

Sometimes, we lose the big picture of our businesses by being too focused on day to day details. That was the case with my weekly goals.

Today, I wrote down my business vision using the karmic management principles. Now, I can clearly see the long term benefits of my business to its prospective customers, suppliers, employees, humanity at large, and myself.

All of that helps me put things in perspective and not get frustrated when I miss a weekly goal or two.

Don’t Sacrifice What Can’t Be Measured

Six weeks ago, I published a post about measuring the success of my blog and email newsletter with growth metrics. Since then, I’m obsessed with numbers and dived deep into my stats.

I published several posts about the lessons I learned from my stats. Here are some highlights.

These and many others helped me reach a bigger audience, express myself better, and get more responses. That’s why I say “data is gold if you know how to use it.”

Pitfalls of Using Data

Data is extremely useful, but it can also be extremely distracting. If I’d dive into Google Analytics, I could spend months on it without adding any value to my blog. That’s an obvious pitfall of using data.

There’s a less obvious pitfall. That is focusing on the numbers at the expense of what can’t be measured. That’s a subtle pitfall.

Make no mistake. I don’t downplay the importance of numbers. At the end of the day, we all have bills to pay and bills are paid by numbers. But focusing solely on numbers can backfire in the long term.

Focusing solely on numbers can backfire in the long term.

How I’m Deceived by Numbers

In a previous post, I argued that my about page wasn’t that important. It only accounted for 2% of the page views of my blog.

When I was writing my post the next day, I changed my mind. The about page might be critical. Its 2% page views might come from the most enthusiastic readers. By not having an up-to-date about page, I might be missing an opportunity.

What Can’t Be Measured Is Equally Important

Numbers are important, but what can’t be measured is equally important. On the one hand, we have quantitative analysis, and on the other hand qualitative analysis.

How can we measure the honesty of a blog post? Yet, honesty is a critical factor in the long term success of a blogger.

Short Term vs. Long Term

I think this all comes down to short term vs. long term. Numbers are great at optimizing short term results.

Sometimes, optimizing short term results is also good for optimizing long term results, but not always.

If short term and long term goals contradict with each other, I prefer long term goals.

Most of the time, there’s greater value in the long term.

As I explained in my post, Quick Cash vs. Long Term Value, I made zero dollars from my blog so far. I experimented a few weeks with Steemit and already started to make money on that platform.

If I looked at the numbers, working on Steemit seemed to be better than working on my blog.

After a few weeks, I quit Steemit in order to focus on my blog. Steemit didn’t seem to be a sustainable business model. The lifetime potential of my blog seemed to be greater than the potential of Steemit.

If I needed some cash in the short term, I’d keep working on Steemit. I don’t. That’s why I skipped the quick cash.

Quick cash is more expensive in the long term.

The Right Tools for the Right Goals

It’s important to use the right tools for the right goals. Some tools are more suitable to optimize qualitative goals. Others are more suitable to optimize quantitative goals.

Two weeks ago, I published a post about commenting on Medium. In that post, I argue that commenting on Medium doesn’t boost one’s number of followers. I received a lot of responses to that post. My readers argued about the benefits of commenting.

I agree that commenting has a lot of benefits.

  • It builds relationships with other readers and writers.
  • You develop new ideas with others.
  • You receive answers to your questions.
  • You come up with new topics to write about.

All of those benefits are qualitative benefits. If you use commenting for its qualitative benefits, you’re going to act different than if you use it for its quantitative benefits.

Commenting for Qualitative Benefits

If you comment for its qualitative benefits, you’ll take your time to understand the post, and you’ll comment to add something to the discussion, including asking a question.

If you comment for its quantitative benefits, you’ll read a few paragraphs of a post, quickly jot down a few sentences, and repeat that for dozens of posts every day.

Guess which one would be more effective?

Quantitative Goals Might Not Match the Nature of Reality

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” John Lennon

Another pitfall of using statistics is that we make linear plans. My weekly 10% growth goal is a typical example of this. Most of the time, life doesn’t work like that. Growth comes in spikes after long periods of plateaus (Fig.1).

Fig. 1. Linear Growth vs Quantum Leaps

As I have written in a previous post, it took me 55 blog posts to get published in the Startup Publication. 17 of those posts have 0 views to this date, 12 only 1, and 7 only 2.

Conclusion

You can measure some factors, but you can’t measure others.  If you can’t measure a factor, that doesn’t mean it’s an unimportant one.

Honesty, relationships, and karma can’t be measured. Yet, they play a critical role in success.

Karma is unmeasurable.

Take into account quantitative analysis to optimize your business, but not at the expense of qualitative analysis.

Writing an About Page for My Blog

When I restarted blogging five months ago, I didn’t rewrite my about page. I didn’t write a short bio for Twitter or Medium either. I wanted my readers to make their minds by reading my posts, not by the two sentences in my short bio.

The Need for an Up-To-Date About Page

The page views of the about page of my blog is only 2% of the overall traffic. This figure looks small, but that 2% could be the most important 2%. Those visitors might be the most interested ones in my blog.

Not having an up-to-date about page can become a problem, because I write posts on a variety of topics.

My first time readers might get confused when they visit my blog or sign up to my email newsletter. They might expect posts on one topic, but receive posts on another. I want to clarify my position for my first time readers.

Which Topics to Expect from Me

The majority of my blog posts and page views are in the personal development category. Lately, I didn’t write much about this topic. This doesn’t mean that I stopped writing about this topic. Personal development is a topic that I’m interested in.

Blogging, Writing, and Marketing

Lately, I write mostly on blogging and marketing. It’s a topic that I’m trying to figure out.

I document my thinking process, my plans, and my progress. Some of my readers enjoy that insider look at my journey. Some of them give me feedback and tips. All of that helps me make my mind on how to carry on toward my goals.

Entrepreneurship and Startups

I see blogging and marketing as a part of entrepreneurship and starting up a business. Most of my posts on entrepreneurship and startups are also on blogging and marketing.

I have some posts on the inner game of entrepreneurship as well. I plan to keep writing such posts.

Topics I Stopped Writing About

There are two topics that I don’t plan to write anymore. Those two topics are management and investing.

Management of established businesses doesn’t excite me anymore. I’m more interested in starting something from scratch and turning it into an established business.

Investing

I don’t like to write about investing for two reasons. First, most people don’t have any funds to invest. Second, my investing strategy is extremely boring. I believe in dollar cost averaging and buying and forgetting until retirement.

People want to read about trading, technical analysis, and the latest cryptocurrencies. My posts don’t satisfy the “turn $100 USD to $10 million USD, buy a Lamborghini, and party with models” crowd.

Who Am I?

I’m a 39 years old software developer living in Genk Belgium. I’m originally from Istanbul, Turkey. I completed my PhD in Informatics in 2012.

Throughout my career, I’ve always been in the technical side of business. My focus was on B2B software. With my blog, I dive into the commercial side of B2C. That’s quite a switch and there’s a lot to learn.

From an Expert to a Novice

There’s a big contrast between being an expert B2B software developer and a novice B2C marketer. That’s a challenge.

I always wanted to build a business in B2C marketing, especially information marketing. This goal kept my mind busy for too long. I want to stop procrastinating on this goal and do my best to achieve it. If I succeed, that would be great. If I fail, I would let go of this goal and move on.

Using My Experience as a B2B Software Developer

Even though I’m a beginner B2C marketer, I don’t feel like I’m a complete novice. I bring all the experience in my career to my new venture.

Qualities like analytical thinking and focusing on what matters help me in this challenge. I apply the scientific method and reverse engineering to my marketing goals. I developed these qualities and experience in my B2B software development career.

Extracting Lessons from My Marketing Experience

One thing that helped me a lot is to know how to extract lessons from my experience. I spent only five months on my blog. Yet, I learned a lot about B2C and marketing. I documented those lessons in my blog.

Using B2C Marketing Lessons in B2B Software Development

The experience transfer isn’t one way. I transfer the lessons I learned from my blogging experience to my software development job.

In blogging, I don’t have time for busy work. Busy work contributes little or not at all to my end goals.

After five months of blogging, I developed an eye for what the end user would be interested and what they wouldn’t. Anything that wouldn’t interest or benefit the end user, directly or indirectly, is busy work. I try to avoid that to the extent possible.

Ease of Use

Another lesson I learned from blogging is the importance of ease of use. My blog post have to be extremely easy to read. A reader won’t read long sentences, long paragraphs, or long chunks of text.

An end user won’t be able to use complicated software, no matter how capable that software is. Now, I pay more attention on how usable a solution is before offering it to an end user.

My Marketing Goal for July 1, 2019

My goal with my blog is to build an audience of 100K Medium followers and 20K email newsletter subscribers by July 1, 2019.

This goal requires a lot of domain specific lessons to be learned. Moreover, it also requires some personal development, productivity, leadership, motivation, and entrepreneurship lessons. I’ll write on those lessons as I come up with them.

Conclusion

An up-to-date about page explains my readers who am I and what my blog is about. As the topics discussed in my blog get diversified, an up-to-date about page becomes more and more necessary.

I will use the information in this post to update my about page. Moreover, I’ll use this information to write my short bios for Medium and Twitter and the welcome email of my email newsletter.

Your Turn

Is there any information that you would like to see in an about page that I haven’t mentioned here? Let me know in the comments and I might include it in the new version.

Improving the Design of My Blog to Increase Email Newsletter Subscriptions

  • The email newsletter subscriptions in my blog don’t meet my goals consistently.
  • So far, I focused on improving my writing to optimize these results.
  • The next step will be to improve the design of my blog.

How I Measure the Performance of My Blog

I’m tracking two stats to measure the performance of my blog. These are the growth rate of my Medium followers and email newsletter subscribers. My goal is to grow both figures by 10% every week.

I succeed at the newsletter goal one week and fail the next week. This one on, one off pattern has been going on for a month now.

So far, I tried to optimize my blog post writing skills. I did that by analyzing my Medium stats. I learned a lot of lessons on blogging and I shared them in a series of posts.

Focus on Blog Design

Sure, there is still room for improvement in my writing, but I want to focus on my blog at the moment. There’s even greater room for improvement in my blog.

My traffic numbers aren’t that bad, but I have a difficult time converting that traffic into email newsletter subscriptions. I’ll focus on this conversion for a month or so.

My Knee Jerk Reaction

I started using Google Analytics to accomplish my goal. That wasn’t a good idea. I warned my readers not to jump on to a tool without having a plan first. I made that mistake. I didn’t think whether Google Analytics was the right tool for this job.

Google Analytics is a fantastic tool. When I get into a tool like that, I can spend weeks, months, and even years working on it. I could still learn something after a year of using it. However, that’s not my goal.

My goal is to improve the conversion rate of my blog, not to become a Google Analytics expert.

I warned against this type of tech abuse in the post Use Tech as an Accelerator, not as an End. I even wrote a post yesterday called Data Is the Gold If You Know How to Use It. Yet, I still spent hours on Google Analytics without any results.

Start with Pen and Paper

After hours of unfruitful work, I went away from my computer. I sat down with pen and paper. I brainstormed and wrote the first draft of this post.

Search Queries by Readers

An interesting insight from Google Analytics was the search queries people used on my website. Those search queries gave me some ideas for blog posts.

One of those search queries was “how write every day.” I think my visitor was curious about how I publish a post every day. Actually, that would be easy if I didn’t have a full time job. But it’s hard on top of a full time job.

Improving My Productivity to Keep Up with the Daily Publication Schedule

I’m still improving my productivity and workflow. I plan to report my writing routine once it reaches a certain point.

There’s some inner game that goes into this as well. I find it interesting how my psychology plays tricks on me. Then I play tricks on my psychology in return to keep up with my daily publication schedule.

If you want to read more about how I keep up with my daily schedule, stay in touch by subscribing to my email newsletter. I plan to write about this in the upcoming days.

Start with Quality Questions

After using Google Analytics for a few hours, I realized that I didn’t need to spend all of those hours. I could get what I needed in ten minutes.

Before you start to use a tool like Google Analytics, write down what you want to get out of it. Moreover, write down what you’re going to do with the answers you get.

If you don’t know the answer to those questions, you’ll end up wasting your time. At the end, you might end up knowing a lot about Google Analytics without adding any value to your business.

My Goal and How I Plan to Accomplish It

My goal is simple: to improve the conversion rate of my blog traffic to newsletter subscriptions. In order to do that, I need to improve the design of my blog.

I already worked on my writing. If the design of my blog isn’t good, I won’t be able to reach my goals no matter how good I write. The effects of both components are like factors in a multiplication.

Determine the Factor that Has the Biggest Room for Improvement

If my writing is at 80% and the design of my blog is at 20%, my conversion rate will be at 16%. After a certain threshold, improving one factor will only add marginal value.

According to the 80% – 20% figures above, there’s 25% improvement left in my writing. If I focus on my writing, I can improve my results by 25% at max.

Based on the same assumption, there’s 500% improvement potential in my website design. I can improve my results up to 500%, if I focus on the design of my website.

The Challenge of Infinite Possibilities

When I start a project such as updating the design of my website, the possibilities are virtually endless. Even though that sounds good, it is overwhelming at the same time. That’s why I wrote the post, How to Deal with the Challenge of Infinite Possibilities when Starting a Business.

Where to Start?

If it was up to me, I’d start with the about page and the homepage. But when I look at Google Analytics, I see a different picture.

If you look at the top ten pages in Fig. 1, you might think that the homepage is the most important page. It accounts for 10% of the page views. That means if I improve the homepage, I improve only 10% of my website design.

Fig. 1. Pages with top 10 views

There are eight pages that refer to blog posts in the top ten list. When I look at the complete list, more than 80% of the page views are blog post views. If I improve the design of the blog posts, I’ll improve 80% of the website.

Improving the design of the blog posts is relatively easy in WordPress. All I have to do is to update a few files in the theme that I use.

Measuring the Effects

Once I make that update, I’ll wait for a few weeks to see its effects. I can hardly think that those changes would result in a worse conversion rate than the current design.

I haven’t thought about the current design. I just used the standard theme and added a subscription box at the bottom.

Improvement Ideas

There are already some improvement ideas in my mind. These ideas are inspired by Medium and the Startup publication.

A Link to the Email Newsletter at the Top. There’s no information above the fold that indicates that I have an email newsletter. The only exception to that is the email newsletter subscription page.

I like the way the Startup Publication named their link. They called it “Get Smarter at Building Startups.” In my case, even calling this “Newsletter” would be better than what I have now.

The Position of the Subscription Box. The subscription box is under the post, social share buttons, related posts list, and the category and tags list. The subscription box could be between the social share buttons and the related posts list.

Author Information Bar. I’ll include an author information bar at the top, including my picture, my name, and a short bio. I was procrastinating on writing my Medium bio. Once I have a short bio, I’m going to use it on my blog and on Medium.

A Short Pitch in the Posts. This is not a design update, but it can increase the newsletter subscriptions. I included a pitch in this post. I gave a hint about a post that I’m going to publish in the upcoming days. I can do that in future posts as well.

Conclusion

When updating a project, focus on the component that has the biggest room for improvement. In my case, that is the design of my blog post pages.

Technology can be a pitfall at work. Don’t use a piece of technology just because it’s a good tool. Use it only if it serves your goals. Use it as a means to your ends. Don’t use it just to use it, no matter how fun it is.

Your Turn

I’d appreciate it if you could give me some tips to improve my email newsletter subscription numbers. Let me know in the comments if you have any ideas how I can improve this stat.

Data Is the Gold If You Know How to Use It

There are two famous aphorisms about online marketing. “Content is king.” and “Money is in the (email) list.”

Both expressions have a point. They summarize the decade long experience of online marketers. Content and email lists are critical components of online marketing.

There is a third component that doesn’t have its own aphorism yet. That component already became the most critical part of many online marketing businesses.

I’m talking about data. We all heard about big data. The term big data sounds like something that can only be used by multinational corporations. That’s not true.

You can make use of data in your small business, even in your personal social media account or blog. I already explained how I use Medium stats to improve my blogging. However, there are two pitfalls for beginners when working with data.

Pitfall #1. Data as Distraction

I published a blog post about possible pitfalls for the first time bloggers called Read This before You Start a Website or Blog.

In essence, when you first start a website or blog, there are a lot of things you can do. One of those things is to install Google Analytics and AdSense to your website.

Then, you hit the refresh button every five minutes to check the number of visitors and the money you made. I know this too well, because I’ve been there too.

Using Data as Entertainment

Google Analytics and AdSense becomes a slot machine for the first time blogger. They hit the refresh button like they’d pull the lever of a slot machine.

Those tools become a tools of entertainment. The first time blogger expects a prize from those tools. As a result, they waste their time and attention on them, instead of working on their blog.

If this sounds like you, I recommend you read my post The Only Tip You Need to Grow Your Audience as a Blogger.

How Do the Professionals Use Data?

I’m a full time software developer. Sometimes, we come across performance problems in our software. When that happens, we use a specific type of software called “profiler.”

A profiler shows us which code parts consume the most resources. Then we optimize those code parts for resource consumption. Our goal is to eliminate those bottlenecks.

Can You See the Difference Between How a Professional and an Amateur Uses Data?

A professional uses data for a specific goal. They use it to make a certain decision. They use it to take a certain action. They use it to learn something valuable that they can use later. They use data only, when it is needed.

An amateur sees data as entertainment. They expect the data to make them happy. They see it as a playground or casino. They keep playing with it without any specific goal.

Data is either actionable or useless. If you can’t use it to make a decision, take an action, or learn a lesson, it’s useless.

Pitfall #2. Lack of Big Picture

How does your data serve your overall goals? If you don’t have the answer to that question, you might be misusing data.

By improving some parameters in your data set, you might actually worsen the overall performance of your business. I touched upon this issue in my post Measuring the Contribution of My Medium Posts to My Content Marketing Goals.

How to Avoid the Pitfalls When Using Data?

If you want to avoid the pitfalls when using data, start with writing down what your objective is. Then, write down which information you need from data to serve that objective. Coming up with a relevant set of questions is the first step to success.

An Example

My goal is to improve the conversion rate of email newsletter subscriptions in my blog. Here are a few questions that would help me with that goal.

  • Which pages are the landing pages of my blog?
  • What is the performance of each landing page?
  • Which landing pages perform better or worse than the average?
  • Why?
  • What are the exit pages of my blog?
  • Why do the visitors exit from those pages without subscribing to the newsletter?

These are just a few of the many more questions that I ask myself. When I have the answers to those questions, I’ll come up with a set of action items based on those answers.

  • Improve the performance of landing pages.
  • Plug the leaks in the exit pages.
  • Promote the pages that perform better on social media.

Conclusion

Data is the gold mine of the day, but you need to know how to use it.

You can use it as entertainment. You can use it to optimize specific parameters without seeing the big picture. Both usages are pitfalls.

If you want to make the best of your data,

  1. Start with a big picture, your overall goal,
  2. Ask a set of questions that would serve that goal,
  3. And take action based on the answers you get from your data.