Your Lack of Output
This post is not going to be “New Year, New You! Just start!”
No.
If you start, you start. If you need a date change to make you start, you’re not going to make it past March anyways.
This post is for the people that are working but aren’t outputting as much as they’d like. Not growing as much as they’d like. To grow anything, there is a tremendous amount of output that you need to do.
Your plan for 2023 should be to increase your effective output.
This isn’t hours worked that I’m talking about. This is product shipped.
Whether that’s blog posts, videos, Tweets, or other exposure methods for your brand, you have to create way more output than you’re currently doing.
Below are some things that are likely dramatically decreasing the output that you need to create.
Your Lack of Knowledge
We all like to think that we have the secret sauce and that just another $1k a month and I could focus on X. Or that if it weren’t for Y, I could actually focus on building. While that’s true in a small small subset of cases,
Much of the time, you don’t know what to do or how to do it well.
IE - lack of knowledge
There’s always a degree of luck, especially in growing very large very fast, but much of it comes down to other factors that the average person makes excuses for.
I hear it all of the time.
“If I would have just done X, I would be where you are.” - But you didn’t do it…
“Not everyone can do that” - Best coming from someone that was raised in the same household/neighborhood and with the same base intelligence as the person they’re talking to…
The truth is, one of those people developed a skillset over years and can apply it even if they were wiped out.
Let’s use MrBeast as an example. His stats are outrageous but he would have some degree of success again if he started at 0.
No name recognition, no contacts, no money, and no following.
With his knowledge, I’m confident that he could be up to a million followers in 1-2 years time. He just knows what people like in video content. This knowledge was built up over a decade of making videos.
So how do you replicate this and speed up the process?
Grind for years
Invest in yourself
When I say “invest in yourself”, I don’t mean read a bunch of books and action on none of it.
I also don’t mean invest in “how to get rich” courses/seminars/etc.
When you need to learn a specific skill, invest in teaching yourself that skill. Say you need to learn video editing for TikTok. Do you:
Spend 200 hours teaching yourself with no resources
Spend 100 hours teaching yourself from YouTube
Buy someone’s course to speed up your learning in 50 hours
Pay someone to teach you in 20 hours
The bullet points above are listed from worst to best idea. It’s also listed from cheapest to most expensive.
If YouTube wasn’t free, how much are those 100 hours worth to you?
If you can afford the course, how much is it compared to the 50 or 150 hours of your time saved?
If you can afford to pay someone, how much is it compared to the 80 or 180 hours of your time saved?
Most people quit during the learning phase of acquiring a skill that will lead them to growth. That’s why I’ve tried to lay out so many posts that focus on the 0 to 1.
You’re not going to be able to learn everything from this Substack. Find experts or at least competent people in the domain and learn from them.
Your Lack of Efficiency
You can work 100 hours a week on a project but if you’re not efficient, your output will be low. If you spend 40 hours per blog post or per video, it doesn’t matter how many hours you work. It’ll never be enough.
Efficiency in Creating Work Product
If you want to scale the output of work product, you have two levers. These levers work best when you combine them.
Develop a better process that’s more efficient
Outsource to a VA or agency or employees
Combining them is best and you don’t have to develop the process if the person you’re paying is good at that specific task.
Efficiency in Your Life
This is where most people are just completely trash. They either waste a ton of time doing things that they shouldn’t be doing (actually busy) OR they’re wasting a ton of time and not realizing it (not actually busy).
The first was me growing up. There was rarely a down moment. Horses, farm work, garden, sports, waiting tables, school, fixing tractor/cars, etc.
I was working my ass off but I wasn’t moving my life forward as I was doing a bunch of stuff that wasn’t necessary. Most people create useless work for themselves or have it forced on them because they can’t say no.
They buy more stuff that needs maintained. They do things for themselves that could easily be outsourced.
Your focus while building should be strictly things that keep your life afloat (job) and building your business.
The majority of Americans think they’re busy when they’re actually not.
They spend hours per week gossiping about people and celebrities.
They’re in countless unproductive meetings that last way too long
They try to multitask leading to all of the tasks taking longer
Saying “yes” to every stupid normie convention imaginable. Holiday party/planning, “drinks” where nothing is accomplished, sports, etc.
Digital media consumption
I would bet that the average American spends 6 hours a day on meaningless media like TV or social media consuming.
6 hours. I’m not joking. 40+ hours a week.
If you’re “at work” and you’re on social media, you could be working on your side business. There’s 3 hours a day right there.
The other 3 hours is the “Netflix and chill life” because “I’ve had such a hard day. I deserve it…”.
Your Lack of Focusing on Inputs Instead of Outputs
Posts written, Tweets/threads sent, DMs sent, emails sent, HAROs sent, ad copy tested, etc. are all inputs.
Sales, impressions, email signups, rankings, links, reviews, etc. are the outputs.
It’s your job to figure out which inputs are the most impactful to your business. You are likely focusing on inputs and aspects of inputs that don’t matter and don’t drive the outputs that you want.
You ever hear someone say something like “How does this site rank? It’s ugly as hell.”
The prettiness of a site is (mostly) not a ranking factor. But. People will spend months making a site beautiful but not actually write content or build links. No traffic for the pretty site with 10 links and 2 articles…
User Interface/Experience does matter if you’re trying to optimize click through rate to your affiliates or decrease friction in your purchasing path. Worry about that after you have a ton of traffic though.
So how do you action on this?
Write down all the ways/channels you're going to grow
Write down *action items* you're going to take in each channel
Measure completeness of items (the number of times)
Track impact of said action items
Prioritize work based on impact
Iterate
What does steps 1-2 look like?
SEO Channel
What’s going to help me grow? Write content and build links.
-Write Content-
Number of posts written
-Build links-
Number of HARO requests answered
Number of emails to other websites for guest posts
Number of DMs to website owners on social for guest posts
Hours spent interlinking articles
Etc.
Twitter Channel
What’s going to help me grow? Value add Tweets & replying to comments
-Tweets-
Number of monthly Tweets
Number of monthly threads
-Replying-
% of replies to questions
% retweet questions with answers if they apply broadly
Etc.
The above is very basic. The point is that by the time you get to #3 on the list, you’ll realize two things:
You may not have a good grasp on what’s going to help you grow
You’re not doing nearly the work you think you are in actually trying to grow
Focusing on the inputs and efficiency at those inputs is what will make you effective at growing.
Wrapping Up
I wish everyone a Happy New Year and from the bottom of my heart, I hope you accomplish what you’re setting out to accomplish.
Not a resolution, but an ironclad plan for growth and accomplishment by increasing your outputs.
If you’re subscribed to this newsletter, you need to keep in mind why we’re here.
Your boss and company, no matter how nice, doesn’t care about your future. Nobody outside of a few family members and select friends care about your growth and your future.
You are the only one that can save yourself and make your life what you want it.
Single player. Just you.
This Substack is here to help you build a business and build the life that you want. I’ve laid out the basics to understand, analyze, & grow most any online business.
The best way to learn how to do this as fast as possible is to start from the beginning of the Substack. That and follow me on Twitter & Instagram.
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Disclaimer: Nothing written here should be construed as legal for financial advice of any kind. These are opinions and observations, written by an anonymous cartoon Opossum, built up over years working in e-commerce & affiliate marketing.
Fabulous and inspiring. Thank you!
Great post. Really well done. Thank you.