I’m currently in Amsterdam on my world tour. We just completed South Africa, London and Stuttgart, sharing the stage with amazing people like Nick Vujicic, Les Brown and other thought-leaders.
It’s my day-off today so I’m doing a little sight seeing and when I saw this beautiful canal I instantly thought about the two categories that make up a business:
- Staying Afloat
- Swimming to Shore
They’re both equally important and dependent on each other to keep your business alive.
So what are they?
Staying Afloat
When it comes to staying afloat, I categorize all the activities required to keep the business running smoothly. For online marketers such as yourself, these activities include:
- Consistent research in your niche
- Staying up to date with trends
- Listening to your audience by reading forums
- Creating follow-up emails
- Providing customer support
And of course, much more…
They are absolutely necessary to succeed in your business, however many people get stuck at staying afloat. Because this category of activities requires daily work and produces almost instant results.
A customer sends a ticket. You reply. They’re happy. Instant result.
The problem is that it’s time consuming and none of these activities bring you a step forward. What it does is keep you at a plateau.
Many pour all their resources into this area and eventually cannot sustain the business and get stuck.
In order to take things to a higher level, every business, including your business, must focus on swimming to shore.
Swimming to Shore
This category of activities is what you need to do to bring your business to the next level:
- Refine your product
- Implement sales strategies
- Generate targeted traffic
- Improve conversions
- Create a solid sales funnel
These activities take a more time, more effort and ROI is not instant. However, in the long term, it’s these activities that will get you to where you want to be.
Your sales funnel will eventually do the selling for you, automating your process and cutting you completely. When you focus on refining your product, people will come looking for you through word-of-mouth, buzz and viral marketing.
Understand the difference between the activities you do on a daily basis. Shift your focus and keep things in balance.
Swimming to shore is tougher than staying afloat, but both are necessary to keep you from drowning.
