Stay the Course

February 14, 2012 in Lessons from Oola with 0 Comments

Building a business takes time, and patience. And it simultaneously requires running 100 miles per hour (which is like 160 kph -eeek!).

Some days these things are at odds with each other in my world. I want to do something and immediately see results. Something like this chart reminds me that I’m doing something right. But then the next day comes and the spike was just a spike. I didn’t show that chart!

Yesterday was a day where after my initial spike, I felt desperate to keep it going. And so I pulled out my one page roadmap for Oola and set it beside my keyboard so that I could gaze at it out of the corner of my eye. It was a great reminder that I have a plan and that I still believe the plan.

We all need a simple reminder to keep with it in the days of business literature picking up on startup “pivot” and highlighting stories of businesses who have changed their product, service or offer completely and then found amazing SUCCESS. Sometimes that’s the right strategy, but when it is, make sure that’s because of the market and your business, not just a spike in the numbers. And remember that journalists are story tellers so even though they are reporting facts, they are weaving them into a story that will engage you.

So I’m taking the very first signal for what it was – a signal. Over time, more actions like last week should build upon each other to create a sustained trend in the right direction. Here’s what I believe caused that:

  1. I created a Facebook Welcome page and made my first special offer for fans. Lessons: offers work, but mine could have been better.
  2. I returned to my Editorial Calendar and posted both to The Oola Blog and Facebook so that my page has original content.
  3. I began experimenting with Facebook Ads. Lesson so far: this at least creates reach. It is too soon to know meaningful results.

All the business training in the world and all the experience I’ve had in digital media since the nineties could not have prepared me for this. On the contrary, being slightly less metrics obsessed might help my psyche into a state of ignorance is bliss. But that’s not me.

I’m wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience. What did you do? Let me know in the comments.

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