“The more you try to do, the less you actually accomplish.”
From a park bench on Bondi Beach — 634am [AEDT]
I’m not going to lie, these are the moments in my life that I love the most
Sun slowly rising
Waves crashing
Dogs playing
Surfers bobbing up and down against the backdrop of the horizon.
The parks and the beaches full of activity of people ready to start their day in the best possible way.
As we’re in the homestretch of 2019, it’s got me thinking about next year, and the timing feels right to explore one of my favourite topics.
Focus.
It’s what we all say we want, but yet, our behaviours typically sing a completely different song.
So why does focus elude us?
I’ve been diving into Cal Newport’s latest book ‘Deep Work’ — and honestly, it’s completely changed my perspective into how to get things done.
Focus, more than anything, is the currency of worth in our increasingly distracted and hyper-connected world.
If we consistently focus and follow through on our key activities and improve by just 1% per day — the compound effect of this is that we are 37X better for it by the years end [source: James Clear]
On the flip side, if we have fractured focus, we will stay in a perpetual loop of franticism and a state of dissatisfaction with things never getting ‘done’.
It’s the mental and emotional equivalent of having 100 open tabs on your internet browser, and it’s been scientifically proven that the more tasks we try to pile on our plate, the less we actually get done.
We are the sum total of what we focus on, and our brain favours simple, easy repeatable, effective action.
Now, you might wonder what this has to do with marketing…
Well, firstly — I believe in exploring the universal truths that live out in adjacent topics — there is a lot we can learn as we explore the threads through all of the pockets of our life.
Marketing is people
Business is people
So why do we rely on getting our lessons from single streams of activity, platforms, or pieces of technology?
Why would we only regurgitate lessons from self-proclaimed marketing ‘gurus’?
Humans are on the other side of the screen…
They make the decisions, so we must think outside of the transactional nature of business and explore these relationships as whole beings.
We can begin to understand what they’re going through, and how to cut through the noise in a world of distraction and decision fatigue.
It’s no wonder that our ability to follow through on key activities is affected.
This is why we work longer and harder to achieve the same result (and in some cases, diminishing returns).
As a population, our attention is fractured, and this is why so many business owners I talk with are stuck in a state of paralysis by analysis.
They don’t know where to orientate, so they ignore it at their own peril.
However, many a false step was made by standing still.
So, what’s the antidote?
Make your marketing, and sales activities as simple as humanly possible for your customer to walk through.
Clarify the outcomes and the process.
In the B2B space, we can often find that our clients are experiencing many of the same things we are.
This is the beauty in the opportunity — by creating more focus, we can raise the standard for our clients and help take them to a new level.
To do that, you can achieve this by putting yourself through these steps to understand in your own business first.
- Before you create anything ‘new’ — start with a review — don’t ignore the lessons that are right under your nose — get curious and ask your clients questions — don’t assume.
- Identify the key activities that have moved the business forward — what actually generates you more revenue, what fills the pipeline, what keeps them around? Ensure this stays consistent regardless of what else you plan to experiment on.
- Anchor the above list to simple, repeatable activities — this needs to be systemised.
- Review and refine each week, so you can create space for ways to move you forward at an exponential rate — this is the tipping point — and truthfully, it’s not far out of reach at all.
Allocate a four hour block per month to work ON making productive use from the findings.
Use these focused times to incrementally add and experiment new activities to strategically move you forward.
This needs to be distraction-free (no phones, emails, instant messaging — create an out of office autoresponder if you have to).
This is specifically to work ON the strategy and planning.
From there, you can introduce new ideas with confidence, and you’ll have worked on your focus muscles to actually be able to deliver it and give it the best possible chance at success.
Zac
Ps. I believe that every business owner should spend four hours of focussed time on their marketing strategy per month.
Ideally, this becomes four hours per week (10% of the standard week), but baby steps — you need to crawl before you can walk.
If you need more help for the content and structure of these meetings — just reach out — this is absolutely one of my favourite things to talk about