BETTER YOUR BIZ AND LOSING MILLIONS? ARE YOU YOUR OWNWORST ENEMY,
Do you ever feel like the bottleneck in your business? In hindsight, I can look at points and times in my business and show you that the reason we weren’t growing or moving forward on a project was because I was my own worst enemy. I feel like every entrepreneur who is honest has felt this way at one time or another. My team normally feels like I’m an asset (at least, I hope they do), but over the years, a few of them have become comfortable enough to tell me when I’m the problem and not the solution. But I haven’t always had that team or wanted that type of relationship with my team. So how do you know when you’re the problem, not the solution? One of the things I do each year is make a list of everything I do. This list serves two purposes. First, I want to try to identify areas where I am bottlenecking the process, then remove myself from that process. Second, I delegate tasks I don’t want to do any longer, giving them to someone else who
In the past, you probably relied on keywords to generate topic ideas. While that’s not a bad starting point, very few people input a string of keywords when they use a search engine. AnswerThePublic lets you know what people are actually searching for. When you input a term into AnswerThePublic, it will generate web-like visualizations of the most common searches based on three categories: questions, prepositions, and comparisons. Basically, it aggregates Google autocomplete responses in a matter of seconds. To help illustrate how AnswerThePublic works, let’s use the example of searching for “newsletters,” something near and dear to our hearts. The first web, called “questions,” is divided into terms like “how,” “are,” “can,” and “why.” Around those major terms, you’ll find results like “How do newsletters make money,” “Why send newsletters,” and “Are newsletters worth it.” The same goes for the other two webs. These are phrases that are searched the most frequently, giving you direct access to the most sought-after content topics. is better equipped and will enjoy doing them more than I do. When I go through this process with other entrepreneurs, many times, I’ll see hesitation as they are making the list, as if they are trying to decide if an item should be on the list. Many times, that hesitation means that item needs to be on the list. When I press the person, though, I typically hear something along the lines of, “No one can do this but me.” Nearly 100 percent of the time, this is wrong. If you stop and think about that statement, it is super egotistical. If you ever hope to sell the business, you should go to bed at night and pray that there are people who can not only do it as well as you, but better. I used to think no one could sell our service but me. Today, I have others who sell our service and even close more sales than I did. The areas where the founder/CEO is super strong are typically the areas where the company is weak. In my case, I’ve always been good at sales, which
allowed us to sell a lot and grow fast. But as the company grew, I went from being an asset in sales to a liability in sales. I either couldn’t properly follow up or had limited time, which led to fewer calls in a day. Let me ask you, where in your business are you the strongest? What would happen to the company if you got hit by a bus today? If you’re not trying to scale a business, playing to your strengths is very smart. But if you’re trying to scale up, you have to be aware of the places where you’re the bottleneck, and you have to actively look for ways to remove and replace yourself. Make a list of your responsibilities and include items you simply don’t want to do anymore. Ridding yourself of these will unlock massive growth in your business and, with any luck, massive profits to boot.
–Shaun
RESOURCE OF THE MONTH
CREATE CONTENT TARGETED AT YOUR AUDIENCE With Help From AnswerThePublic We’ve all heard it said over and over and over
Using these results, you can reverse engineer content tailored precisely to what people are searching. Instead of titling your article “The Value of Newsletters,” you can opt for “Why Newsletters Are Worth It.” The importance of landing on the first page of Google is paramount, and tailoring your content to common search queries is the best way to do that. Of course, your content still has to be killer, but AnswerThePublic will help you ensure that killer content doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. AnswerThePublic helps laser-focus your content marketing based on reams of data and millions of searches. And it’s totally free! If you’re not using AnswerThePublic, it’s time to start. You’ll be shocked at how quickly it starts reaping benefits for your SEO, and the increase in engagement with your audience will be well-worth the extra effort. Content marketing is a great way to catch the attention of your desired audience.
again: Content is king. While there’s no denying the truth of that statement, it’s equally true to say that not all content is created equal. You could create all the content in the world — articles, videos, podcasts, etc. — but it’s useless if nobody wants to engage with it. How do you know if the content you’re producing is relevant to your audience? AnswerThePublic, a revolutionary keyword tool for SEO, can be a huge help.
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