Consistency and Persistency

2012 was a year of absolute craziness for me. My business changed DRASTICALLY. My life changed drastically! All for the better.

It was the year in which I made more mistakes than I have ever made in a single year in my entire life. I’m not whining or crying about that, just stating facts.

Now on the flip side, it’s the year that I’ve accomplished more and had more success than any other year of my life. (Except maybe the year I was born, but I didnt’ have much to do with that. 

Notice a correlation between messing up and having success? That’s a whole other blog post!

Sooooo, I’m going to spend the remainder of the year talking about all the ways I screwed up in 2012 and what I’m doing differently in 2013. One per week, so look out!

Sound good? If so, I know exactly where to start. We’ll start with what may be the biggest (I’ll probably say that about all of them!) mistake I’ve made and that is CONSISTENCY.

I’ve done a really poor job of being consistent with a lot of things. I haven’t put out consistent content for my tribe. I haven’t consistently followed up on conversations. I haven’t consistently followed my marketing plan.

Don’t look at me…

The problem is that, in this industry, despite what the big guru’s tell you you can buy for 1997.00, there are simply no silver bullets. There are no magic formulas or blueprints, there is only CONSISTENTCY AND PERSISTENCY.

Consistency and Persistency are what gets you known and builds your tribe. Period. I don’t know if “persistency” is a word or not, but it rhymes with consistency, so it’s a go.

I’ve been saying that all year, but not doing it.

FIXED.

Here’s how:

1) I’ve created an awesome, streamlined process for creating and publishing content. It utilizes a very small amount of my time to get a considerable amount of content created for the week. Is this something you’d be interested in learning more about? If so, hit reply and let me know. I’m considering talking about that in a blog post or video…

2) I’ve implemented a new and pretty darn awesome follow-up system for potential clients and partners. I had one before, but found that when the number of people in the system got too large, it became very cumbersome and ultimately that meant it didn’t get done. Now, we’re rocking it. Stand back.

3) I’m no longer creating content that “has to go out today”. All content is going to be created at least a month in advance. As the system gets more mature and robust, content will be created about a month in advance. This will allow for much better planning and execution.

So, the bottom line here is that consistency and persistency are KEY. It is key in two major areas — content and follow-up.

Here are some really specific actions you can take to ensure that you are doing things consistently in your expert business:

1) Create a monthly “topic”, to drill down further in your content. For example. the final 45 days of content for me in 2012 are the things I’ve screwed up in 2012 and how I’m doing them differently in 2013. There is no thinking, “what should I blog about this week? What should I put on Facebook? What should I email my list about? It’s done, decided and completed in advance.

2) Put a robust follow-up system in place. It can be a simple Excel spreadsheet, Infusionsoft, or anything in between. The volume of people we are moving through the follow-up process has gotten to be insane in my business and it only works because it is organized and streamlined. But, it’s totally OK to start small.

3) None of these things will work if you don’t do them. Put it in the forefront of your head that your expert business WILL NOT succeed without Consistency and Persistency. Do them like your business depends on it, because it does.

Look for another lesson learned next week. And then another one, and another one, until 2012 is over. 

Then we’ll talk about something else.

How is your 2013 going to be different than your 2012? Tell me in the comments below.

Image Credit: Photo by Maria Teneva on Unsplash