Don’t Be An Expert In Fleetership

Imagine that you are face-to-face with a salesperson who seems very enthusiastic and passionate about her industry and the product she’s pushing.

She lays out the benefits of the product, shares a story with you of how it helped her tremendously, and despite the fact that it all sounds amazing, you’re just not in the position to take advantage right now. 

Two months later, you see the same woman on social media pushing a completely different product for a completely different company, and you can’t help but wonder…why?

You dare not ask, because there’s already a message sitting in your inbox from her about this new, “most amazing product”, and at this point, you’re just not interested. I mean, If she doesn’t really believe in what she’s selling, why should you buy into it, right?

This is a prime example of fleetership.

Yep, I just made up a word, but go with me…I have a point to make.

The main reason a lot of people are not successful in an endeavor is because they lack consistency. They start a project and abandon it halfway through. 

Results don’t always come immediately. Sometimes, you have to work at a thing for years before you see real movement.

Have you ever read (or heard) the story of the bamboo tree? It goes something like this.

In it’s first year, a Chinese bamboo tree shows no signs of growth. In the second year, again, there is no activity above ground. In the third and fourth years, the tree still gives nothing…no signs of growth or life, or any activity, but you must continue to water it and make sure it is getting the sunlight it needs to grow. In the fifth year, the Chinese bamboo tree sprouts up to 80 feet!

Success in entrepreneurship is sometimes like a Chinese bamboo tree. You don’t see all of the growth and results right away. You just have to make sure you’re doing your part in building a solid foundation. You may not see the monetary results immediately, but you may have been making some progress behind the scenes.

I have compiled a list of things you can work on to build a solid foundation for your brand, while you wait (patiently) for things to sprout up. These foundational tasks are important to your overall growth. Neglecting to do some of these things could result in major setbacks in your business.

As you may know, more than half of all businesses started fail within the first five years. It is my guess that those businesses either didn’t have a solid foundation from the start, or they grew impatient, took shortcuts, or stopped watering their tree on a regular basis, and it eventually dried up.

Ways You Can Make Progress Before Seeing Results

1 Bring value to other people

Affecting people through your work is a major way to build your brand/business or to make strides toward your goal. While this is a great foundation builder, it may not show immediate financial results. Being patient, this work is very meaningful, and will pay off in the long run.

2 Establish your business structure

This is a step that is very necessary, but will not have an effect on building your brand. This is one of the back-end things you must do in order to set up your business properly. Not every task you complete in and for your business will have front end results.

3 Build your website

Building your website is an activity that has a direct effect on the brand you’re building. You can see immediate results from building your website during your launch. You have to build it so that people have somewhere to visit you on the web. 

It is important to note that building your website properly takes time, and some expertise in SEO, technical SEO, alt text, interlinking, and a few other things in order for your site to compete on search engine results pages (SERP). There is even more to be done, if you plan to sell products on your website. Your website is your brand’s home. Take your time and do it right. Don’t throw something up that looks pretty but doesn’t get any traffic. You will hurt your brand in the long run by doing that.

4 Create content

Content is still king these days. It is important that you create and distribute content regularly. This allows your audience to get to know you. If you don’t have an audience yet, that is even better. Why? You get the opportunity to build your content so that when people start to find you, they have enough content from you to binge on and enjoy for a while.

Like the 90’s movie Field of Dreams’ famous quote says, “if you build it, they will come”. This quote holds true for content. Someone is bound to find your content on the internet, if it is set up properly. You don’t want someone to find one video or blog post you wrote and walk away, because you didn’t have your content built up or other systems in place to keep them around and to offer them something more.

5 Focus on email marketing

You need a plan for your audience, long before they arrive. Think of this as cleaning house and setting up for your event. Email marketing requires that you have subscribers for it to work, but you can set up automations so that when they do show up, they don’t have to wait for you to come up with something each week to send over. You will have already prepared and provided content to drip to them based on their actions in your automation setup.

Clearly, setting up email automations does not garner immediate results, but it is very necessary work that should be completed as early on as possible. Doing this helps to set yourself up for success.

I understand that it can be frustrating to work, not knowing if your work is garnering anything, but if you are on purpose (operating in your purpose), you would be less likely to abandon your project. If you need help finding your purpose, and learning how to operate within it, click here.

If you operate in purpose, your work is always garnering results. You just have to be patient and wait to see things move. Don’t give up, friend. You got this. I’m here to support you on your journey too. Subscribe to my email list and get weekly supportive emails from me. 

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