How To Avoid Confusing Activity With Accomplishment

The other day, an e-mail came in from a prominent Internet marketer who I shall not name, selling a new course on how to get one million e-mails in under 10 days. How that got through my junk filter is a good question for a later time, but I supposed spam filters haven’t evolved to block B.S. yet. Heck, maybe he HAS figured something out…

Of course, having a million e-mails, and the ability to send them doesn’t guarantee anything but getting shut down by your e-mail service provider and your domain blocked. But this is what most Internet and social media marketing is about: confusing activity with accomplishment.

If you get one million people to opt into your list, then what?

A million random subscribers are worthless to most unless you know what do to with them. Call me crazy, but I’m not interested in a Costco-size bucket of random e-mails. I would much prefer a smaller list of e-mail addresses to the right people, to whom I can make the right offer so that they may give me money.

With the tools most business owners all have access to, you could get a million e-mail addresses as well, scraped off the dark web. Easy. But then what?

It reminds me of a beloved Jack Russell I used to have named Ozzy. He was obsessed with squirrels. As in “lose your ever-loving mind” obsessed with chasing them. One day, he actually was able to sneak up on one – it ran around the tree one way, he went the other, and they met face-to-face on the ground on the other side.

Stunned, he stood there frozen in his tracks in shocked bewilderment, not knowing what to do with it now that he “had” it. Naturally, the squirrel came to its senses sooner than he did and climbed the tree to safety. Ozzy had “accomplished” what he thought was the objective but then didn’t know what to do to “monetize” the situation.

Small business owners are often like this, getting busy DOING (chasing) but not making any real progress in their growth, profits, sales, or systems.

Often I can find people stuck in sending out a newsletter or routinely posting a blog post but never giving it any thought other than to check the box and feel good about doing something. You have to be smarter than that.

Yes, I’m thrilled when I see people doing something, but that is not where you want to stop. Now that you have momentum, let’s get more strategic and more sophisticated with the activity.

Let’s be more intentional about the messaging. Let’s add a client of the month to start securing great testimonials and case studies. Let’s use it as a referral marketing tool. Let’s start selling advertising to get sponsorship money or secure marketing development funds from the vendors to make it a profit center, as I did with my magazine.

The last thing you want is to be swamped with “things to do,” hamster in a wheel, running at top speed every day, every week, every month, every year and not really accomplishing anything. There’s no honor in that, yet people say all the time, “I’m SO busy!” not “I’m so accomplished.”

It would be a worthwhile exercise to make a list of the accomplishments you’ve achieved over the last year. Not *just* growth, but systems. Not *just* sales, but oil wells. Not *just* more hires, but leaders on the team. Have you simply grown or have you implemented systems to sustain that growth? Have you just gotten lucky with a few sales or have you put in place a sales team and process that is producing?

Another question worth spending time on: What IS your ultimate goal?… For your business and your life. And are you making progress or just flailing around creating a bunch of activities? What are you going to STOP DOING this year? What are you going to do MORE of?

Did you have clear goals at the beginning of the year and are you on track to accomplish them? If yes, what’s next? If not, what are you doing about it? We’ve kissed 2022 goodbye. Another one bites the dust. But don’t forget we’re here for a mere moment – life is but a flicker. If you have ambitions and goals, you better get after accomplishing them.

If you feel like you’re doing everything you can to grow your business, or get things ‘on track’, but no matter what you still seem to never be able to get ahead… Then maybe it’s time you consider putting in a little time extra towards investing in yourself and getting help to start achieving those types of results for your efforts.

If that sounds like you, then I’ve got really great news for you.

Right now you can get on the registered list to attend a FREE masterclass for MSPs where you learn how to put your marketing on autopilot AND consistently land 1-2 new high-paying MSP clients every single month.

However, maybe you don’t think you have a marketing problem, and maybe you’re right. But if you can get just one piece of your operation to run on autopilot for you, then you can take that time and use it in other areas of growing your business. It’s what thousands of other MSP and IT services business owners have been doing for the past 20 years, and IT WORKS.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
There’s no doubt about it: Robin Robins has helped more MSPs and IT services companies to grow and prosper, liberating them from stagnation, frustration, drudgery and low incomes. For over 20 years, Robin has been showing MSPs and IT services firms how to implement marketing plans that attract higher-quality clients, lock in recurring revenue streams and secure high-profit contracts. Her methods have been used by over 10,000 IT services firms around the world, from start-ups to multimillion-dollar MSPs. For more information and a FREE copy of The MSP’s Ultimate Guide To IT Services Marketing And Lead Generation, go to https://www.technologymarketingtoolkit.com

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