Majoring in minor activities

In the school of business, most owners are majoring in minor activities.

Everyone is busy doing everything.

But…

...if you asked the deeper question of why they’re busy, and what they’re busy doing - I would be genuinely shocked if over 30% was attributed to the vital few activities that actually yielded results.

Most would lament they are extremely unsatisfied with the outcome, from their inputs.

The crazy thing is that their follow up decision is to

… work even longer 

… push even harder 

… stay up even later

… commit even MORE time to activities - most of which are trivial, and even less are vital.

They fail to realise that this behaviour is continually taxing their future self from the rest, recovery, and response needed to actually use their critical thinking to find the higher-level solution to get out of the cycle.

It’s the script we’ve been sold since we were old enough to develop thought patterns, and until we bring it to the forefront, it will continue to rule our lives.

Having been through my own bouts of burnout, staying in a cycle of exhaustion just to keep my head above water, and even to the point of collapsing in a park and being hospitalised a few years ago - I’m a big believer if we don’t treat the lessons with respect, we will be forced to.

I ignored the warning signs over and over again, until I was forced to recover and really only put energy towards what mattered - I didn’t have a choice, I could only focus on the essentials.

In the world of business, the market doesn’t owe us anything, we are the ones that must lead with value and follow it through.

We can’t wait for the opportunity to fall in our lap, BUT, what if we knew exactly how many opportunities we needed to create, and the domino’s we needed to line up to predictably get the outcomes we were striving for?

To break through the glass ceiling and grow to new heights - we need to understand this success is the product of making more balanced decisions on a moment to moment basis.

In the marketing world, balanced decisions come from understanding the metrics that lead to a sale, and from there, creating a structure of how to consistently walk the right clients through this journey, while ensuring the math continues to stack up, profitably.

This is not about ‘task management’ or ‘tactics’ 

This is about investing in our essential marketing activities and pursuing them in a disciplined way.

Investing in your audience, communities, and partnerships - educating them and providing value on the front end.

Building a pipeline of prospects that have voluntarily stepped forward to acquire your services as a qualified lead

All while, creating that system that bolsters retention, re-engagement, and advocation on the back end - this is the true driver of Lifetime Value.

This brings me to Metrics That Matter - a modification of a concept that was so transformational for myself, that I engaged the author to mentor me.

This simple formula is the foundational math and science of producing valuable clients - everything that isn’t anchored to this, is realistically a waste of time.

It calculates how many leads are required, and factors in the profitability of a client, before reverse engineering exactly how much we can invest to acquire them sustainably, in addition to what are the key drivers to increase their Lifetime Value.

For this example, I’ve plugged in some generic numbers for a single Offer to demonstrate a part of the process.

I have deliberately blacked out over half the equations, not to withhold information, but the whole sheet is overwhelming if not explained in full context - if you’re interested in understanding more, just reach out and we’ll chat through it.

Once calculated, all marketing decisions are run through the lens of MTM and how to hit the baseline, first and foremost, before implementing the Law Of 10% which drastically compounds growth, and becomes the tipping point for the business.

It’s not easy - it takes time, money, patience, and mental fortitude to commit to understanding the process and seeing it through. there are speedbumps, delays, and things will inevitably go off track at times.

However, with a strategy in place - it is significantly easier to anchor and step back on the line, than to look for the new shiny object, or the perils of the all or nothing mentality (more on this in my next article)

I’m a firm believer we rise to the level of our commitments, so let me know - what activities are you committed to that push your business forward?

And on the flip side, what activities keep you busy (but not necessarily productive)?

Zac