Fear of Focused Efforts (Good-bye 2020)

ASG 060 – Fear of Focused Efforts (Good-bye 2020)

Chris L. Davis: [00:00:00] You’re listening to the All Systems Go! Podcast, the show that teaches you everything you need to know to put your business on autopilot, learn how to deploy automated marketing and sell systems in your business the right way with your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of Automation Bridge, Chris Davis.

Chris L. Davis: [00:00:31] Welcome to the All Systems Go! Podcast, I’m your host, Chris Davis, the founder of Automation Bridge an online publication for small business marketing automation. And our focus is we turn digital marketing professionals into the most sought after marketers in their industry, which is another way of saying they are an automation service provider. Right. So in this episode, what I want to do is, is discuss focus, OK, and what makes people so fearful to focus? Have you ever heard of that fear to focus? It’s a thing. And why don’t people focus down on on one market and one idea, one niche and one avatar? So as I address this, I also find it appropriate to to provide to to disseminate a big farewell to a year that has challenged many of us, brought pain, loss and despair. To many,and has been great to others and so many. So it’s been such a mixed bag in twenty twenty. I have I have to say I would not be looking back if I had some big victories in this year and some huge struggles. But collectively I just think there’s been so much loss in this year, it just almost feels wrong to look at it and be like, man, that was a great year because so many people, so we lost so many people and so many people were were were just devastated, you know, and then there’s a lot of people that thrive. So I’m just not one of those people where it’s just like, well, since it was good to me, it was a good year. I’m think I’m empathetic. Right. And when I can’t express empathy, there’s sympathy always. So I’m mindful of that. I’m mindful of the people who lost loved ones and lost careers just changed and haven’t been able to get on their feet and all of that.

Chris L. Davis: [00:02:27] So again, let’s all collectively say goodbye. This is the last day to focus on it like it’s onward focus for the next for the next year and beyond. So give that brings us to today’s topic. But before we go into it, if you’re new to the podcast, make sure that you listen to this episode in its entirety and then subscribe, subscribe and leave a five star rating and review if you are a listener and haven’t subscribed yet. Listen, we’re an Apple podcast, Google podcast. You can subscribe on YouTube anywhere where you get podcasts. We are there, OK? And while you’re at it, if you haven’t left your five star rating on review, please do so. It will be greatly appreciated, not just for me, but the algorithms and all of the podcast apps will greatly appreciate it because it will show them what to feature. Do the work for them. OK, let’s make life easier, everybody. Right. So again, 2020, it’s been an interesting and overwhelming year to say the least. But but it provides an opportunity to focus ahead. Right. Looking back at all that’s taking place, it’s always good to use the good and the bad to shape and guide your focus forward. Right. That’s just one of my principles, but but I find I find people really struggle with the idea of focus. I really do. It’s it’s as if telling someone to focus is, like, into telling them say goodbye to more profits, say goodbye to more opportunities. Well, you’re cutting your you’re losing in some way when the opposite is true.

Chris L. Davis: [00:04:01] Just if you if you were to just briefly study business historically and I mean big business talk about corporate rates, the big corporations, Fortune 100. 40 to 50, right, the big corporations, you’ll see them, most of them have reached premature failure somewhere along the way by going too wide to early. It’s just what it is, they lost focus, some sort of never going wide at all and others should have stay focused. Flip side, you can look at the market now and see. Businesses that focus singularly on one experience and just you can’t quit five guys comes to mind like five guys is going to offer you burgers and fries. You’re not getting no chicken patty chicken wings. You’re not getting any of that. Is what type of burger do you want and what kind of fries do you want with that in and out burger the same way, right? So we see these these neach the the these NEACH companies and then these bigger companies, they get greedy and say, hey, look, let me go big.

Chris L. Davis: [00:05:06] And I and I’ll say this. This year I read a book from Al Rice entitled Focus, and he provides a lot of historical failures of corporate giants who fail to focus. And because they’re corporate giants, they’re failures. They they often are able to overcome them with big banks. Right. Like they got a lot of money to to absorb that failure, the impact of that failure. But let me tell you this. You are not that corporate giant. And if a corporate giant can lose focus and lose a portion, a third, a quarter, a half of their business and rebuild. Let me tell you, you can’t afford that. You can’t afford to lose half to three quarters to almost all of your business and then rebuild. Not you can. Right. And I like what he says. He summarizes the lack of focus. In a statement, he says, you know, this is how most people think when faced with a fork in the road. Take both forks.

Chris L. Davis: [00:06:00] Right. And anybody who disagree with that, like, yeah, take it all. You’re you’re the problem. And the good thing is you’re listening to this episode so we can fix that thinking before we go into the new year. We’re saying goodbye to that. Leave that in twenty twenty, OK, because once you take that, take both forks in the road approach, your failure is imminent.

Chris L. Davis: [00:06:24] Ok, or you just raise your hand for extreme trials and he goes on to mention companies like GM, Xerox, Southwest, IBM and more that have made the mistake of losing focus, thus losing market share, thus losing profitability for a time. They’ve all rebounded. You see that these companies are still around. But listen, if you if you want to check out this book and read for yourself now, granted it’s dated. So this is like where we’re seeing the after of his before. So he’s making some projections and they’re just totally off because technology has really just changed the game. But if you take it in context of where he was writing and what he was experiencing, you see that lack of focus has always been an issue. And it’s plagued every business, every business of all types all the time. OK, so some of you in business need to do a bit more of history researching about business, how they’re grown. There’s a formula to this specifically in America, right? More on that later. OK, I don’t want to get deep new, too philosophical and factual when you guys write. But it’s hard to focus. It requires discipline, both discipline to stay the course, we call that fortitude right and discipline to say no.

Chris L. Davis: [00:07:42] You throw in the inexperienced entrepreneur that doesn’t know what it takes to make a million dollars, do focus efforts and you’ll find where the market is today, those three elements. I’ve never made a million dollars and never seen it. Don’t know what it takes. I don’t often have the discipline to stay with one thing long enough. And I hate saying no. They they are deceived and easily distracted, unable to stick with one thing long enough to truly see it through to success or failure, quickly hopping from one idea to the next, creating multiple products, looking for shortcuts to multiple sales, thinking that multiple products is a shortcut in trying to sell to as many people as possible. You give them if you gave them a choice, would you like us to put this product in front of everybody in the world, or would you like us to put this product in front of everybody in your target audience? They would truly think that putting the product in front of everybody in the world somehow would IMO amount to more sales.

Chris L. Davis: [00:08:50] And it won’t it won’t now, now, Grant, I just heard somebody say, well, if it’s everybody in the world that’s going to include everybody in your in your target. And that’s the problem right there. That is the problem. It’s all of the effort, all of the exposure to somebody that is not in your community, not in your industry is wasted effort. So if I frame that differently and say, hey, what if I showed you how to how to put your product in front of everybody in the world, whatever effort that it took for you to put that product in front of everyone, it would have took a fraction of that of that energy, to put it only in front of your target audience, and you would have got exponentially more results from it. It’s just how it is, because ideally you think it sounds good. Everybody can see my product. I don’t care who says no, no, you have you don’t have the bandwidth to execute on the effort required to do that.

Chris L. Davis: [00:09:56] You don’t.

Chris L. Davis: [00:09:58] Right, so I could at this point, I could throw out some of the old marketing and some of the old marketing sayings, I’d say I was going to say adages, but that’s that word just didn’t seem right, although I just said it. But some of the old marketing, same sayings. Right. If you’re selling to everybody, you’re selling to nobody, there’s riches in the niches, right? And so we can go on for days what marketers say. Right. And it doesn’t matter to them, not naive or non focused entrepreneur. It’s in one ear, out the other. Because they’re their naiveté leads them to believe, to get more, you must do more, make more, build more, talk more when often the opposite is true. Sell more by saying no more through true qualification. There is not a business on Earth that won’t benefit through qualified lead acquisition, this just means I am focused on the people who have the highest propensity to take action on the offer that I put in front of that. You do that consistently focused on delivery. We talked about delivery, right, in full customer experience. You’re going to be in business for a long time.

Chris L. Davis: [00:11:23] Some.

Chris L. Davis: [00:11:25] So, again, like to take all the forks, sell more by excluding some of the forks, though profitable.

Chris L. Davis: [00:11:34] They take away your focus from the one road that can work better alone than all collectively, and that’s that statement can only be proven with data, which is another reason why people are not focused, because they’re not driven by data. They’re driven by emotion and thoughts. They’re arrogant to believe that their thought is so great that they’re seeing something somehow that’s new to the market in it, it requires, in addition to the business, an additional offering or a total shift.

Chris L. Davis: [00:12:08] No data not looking at any data, so they don’t know that man. Wow. Once I started to just focus on this one industry and really dial it in, I may more on this one industry than I’ve ever made. Maidservant three or four. They’ll never know that because you need data and discipline and focus, and it’s true, they’re the more true statement is multiplication by subtraction.

Chris L. Davis: [00:12:37] And what I’m saying is it’s required we move into the new year with this type of focus and mentality if you truly want to be successful. I learned early the rule of one to make one million dollars. And this was by Clay Collins when I was at lead pages. But I’m sure he got it from somebody. And I see marketers and coaches and consultants still use this. I’ve seen numerous coaches and expert use this teach this same principle. And it’s one product, one funnel, one audience until you’ve reached one million dollars. And it’s not a golden rule, but it’s a strong guiding principle. Again, I must stop saying this because you should you should just know that there are no 100 percent laws and rules and marketing, OK? There’s always outliers. It it burns me when people like. Yeah, but what about that. Yeah, but come on now, you know, nothing is proven. So just if you will stop. Yeah. Button while you’re listening you’d be able to actually understand more and do better with what you’re listening to.

Chris L. Davis: [00:13:40] Ok, but that yeah, but that’s that’s that butt is hurting you, but you got to stop that. And I just felt that, you know, I know my people, we’re Teche, we’re analytical. And sometimes we just get in our own way. We just get too technical.

Chris L. Davis: [00:13:57] Yes, there’s outliers, there’s always going to be outliers talking about the majority, one product, one phone of one audience, one million until you reach one million of what you raised, a million dollars that you could. Hey, what if we do this? What if we do that? But by that time, you’d be like, look, this audience is so profitable and it’s still underserved. Let’s just keep going deeper, right? So, again, it’s not a golden rule.

Chris L. Davis: [00:14:17] It’s more of a guiding principle that calls out focusing the power of focusing on one product to force success before splitting efforts, because it takes a lot to sell one product. Well, to dial in that copy, to get advertising in place, to get organic in place, to have this follow up system in place, your delivery system, your resale or re delivery system in place. It takes a lot, so, again, the inexperienced entrepreneur doesn’t know how much it takes, so they blindly start adding more early, spreading their focus.

Chris L. Davis: [00:14:57] And and let me just say this. Anything you add.

Chris L. Davis: [00:15:04] Doesn’t shorten the time, it extends it because the time required just for one process, one product in front of an audience, that the time required to get that to a million dollars. If you add in another process, you didn’t shorten it. You didn’t cut the time in half you times that by two because you’ve got split efforts that both require the same amount of energy. There is no effort that you can easily add to your business that doesn’t require just as much attention as the initial effort. It doesn’t work like that. And if it’s strongly aligned, it’s not a split effort. It’s an upscale. Learn how to sequence your offers instead of creating offers in serial. Right.

Chris L. Davis: [00:15:50] Like they’re all on the same same plane. Right, sequence them, say, OK, this, then this, then this, but keep it for the same audience.

Chris L. Davis: [00:16:01] Right, and let me let me rest, you assure your FOMO is not welcomed, your profit, your profit FOMO is not welcome when it comes to focusing your offer down and your audience, you’re offering your audience down. FOMO, fear of missing out. You’ve got profit, FOMO. You think you’re missing out on some money out there. You think the second you say yes to focusing on one audience, you’re just excluding all of these million dollars that people would have paid you for if you just kept focusing on everybody? No, you won’t make a million. What you make is a no million. That’s what you do if you let FOMO get the best of you, make, you’ll be the first to make no million. You said you’re not going to miss out on customers. You’re going to gain more of your ideal customer, and when you serve an audience, great and excellence, that audience will go find more of that audience for you. Your marketing is easier, your copy flows. Just everything is better. It’s better, and it takes time. You should not be introducing multiple avatars in your business within the first five years unless you’re trying to figure out which one to focus on.

Chris L. Davis: [00:17:19] Like I’m serious.

Chris L. Davis: [00:17:23] Now, I would say I have an MBA and I’ve you know, I’ve got a master’s in business administration, I study models, I’ve worked with startups, I’ve seen countless businesses fail. And this is why this is how I can say all of that to back me up. But you know what? A lot of you are experiencing the non growth of unfocused efforts as we speak. You’re experiencing that. And that’s stronger than any any of my credentials, anything that I could say, those of you who are willing to listen and take my words at face value. Yes, I have credentials behind me. So listen to me. Help me. Let you avoid making that mistake.

Chris L. Davis: [00:18:00] Right.

Chris L. Davis: [00:18:03] But when you say no to alternative avatars, all it is, is you saying yes to more consistent revenue. OK, because, again, from lead generation of product delivery, it just takes a lot to get it right and scaled. It does, and if you’ve never done it, you don’t know. So that’s why you switch so quickly and easily. If you’re not focused, you’ll never make it. I’m telling you all, I’m not saying a million dollars should be your your your goal. And I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be. But whatever your revenue goal is, first you got to double it because we often think small. So simple rule of doubling whatever you were initially after forces you to think bigger, but even if that’s not a million, that’s fine. The quickest way to get there is a focused offer and a focused audience.

Chris L. Davis: [00:18:55] Ok.

Chris L. Davis: [00:18:57] You have to, because of all that it takes to get to know that audience and to sell to that audience effectively.

Chris L. Davis: [00:19:06] All right.

Chris L. Davis: [00:19:08] You will have your business will have multiple avatars. I am not. I will be a fool to say there’s only one avatar, there’s multiple avatars. I have multiple avatars in my business. Sometimes you hear me speak to some of them, but you all know who my primary avatar is. If you don’t by now, you’re you’re just simply not listening. Is the digital marketing professional. And what do I want to do with the digital marketing profession? Everybody know I see your hand.

Chris L. Davis: [00:19:32] What you want to turn them into automation service providers, the most sought after marketers in the industry.

Chris L. Davis: [00:19:38] Yes. Yes, you’re right. As my emulation of the voice that’s in your head, unless you said that out loud, why are you listening? That’s my market. That’s when I’m dialed to do I have other avatars. Yes, but if we’re going to apply the 80-20, this is more of 90, 10. For me, 90 percent of my effort is my market. 10 percent is exploring these other avatars, just seeing the profitability. Right. Because you always need to be ready for a shift or, you know, be have a hand in some green pastures that could potentially potentially produce profit. But most of you you’re not 19. You’re like 10, 30, 40, 10, if that makes 100. Right. You’re like, OK, this avatar is 10 percent. This avatar is 40 percent is Avatar is 30 percent in this avatar gets another 20 percent. You’re all over the place. Split efforts, split focus, no revenue. So let’s leave that lack of focus in 2020, let’s say goodbye to that, let’s move into the new year with laser point focus that can break through many of the barriers that you’ve been facing and you will face. Let’s say goodbye to a lack of discipline that enables you to jump from Toura to a consultant, a consulting agency to agency prematurely, because you won’t you won’t buy into the process for one. And you won’t stay focused long enough to see it through. If you’ve never sold a sold a single product for five years to a market that you knew was profitable. You never quite understand how deep I should say, how profitable it could be, and I’m not saying you have to do it for five years, I’m giving you a baseline. But when they say most small businesses fail within the first five years, it’s because of this. When you’re exploring your audiences and this isn’t that you’re not focused, you’re not making that decision. Hey, this is our product. OK, let’s go find out who this product is good for, OK? This audience, this product. This audience, Dallin. Say no to everything else, Dyle.

Chris L. Davis: [00:21:52] Let’s.

Chris L. Davis: [00:21:54] Let’s say say goodbye to moving the needle just a little bit, but never enough.

Chris L. Davis: [00:22:00] That’s what a lack of focus, focus efforts does, right?

Chris L. Davis: [00:22:05] Let’s say goodbye to thinking we need more when we just need to focus more on where we have stopped going out to search for what you already possess. We’re talking about marketing here. But listen, if you need to hear that in your marriage, so be it to.

Chris L. Davis: [00:22:24] Look, look at what you got at home. Look at these tools that you’ve that you’ve purchased.

Chris L. Davis: [00:22:31] Look at this product that’s been selling, you may think is old, it may just need a little dusting off, go deeper with that product in that audience.

Chris L. Davis: [00:22:43] 2020 has brought a lot to focus, it’s brought a lot of focus on working remotely, marketing and selling digitally and the need to have an online presence. I mean, wow, Chin check for every business. Do you have your online presence in place and remote working strategy finalized? Right. That’s going to keep increasing, moving forward. This is the new norm, right? Like zoom attire is a thing.

Chris L. Davis: [00:23:14] We all know that if you ask anybody to stand up on a zoom call, there is a great chance not not only do their bottoms not match their top, but their bottom is nonexistent. We know this. This is the new norm, this used to be just reserved for up talk, right, like start ups used to use these tools. When I when I tell my I told my brother recently how long I’ve been using Zoom, he’s like it’s been around that long? I said, I get it. You just know of it because it’s been in the market now trading on the stock market higher and blah, blah, blah. But yeah, but using some forever but using slack for almost eight years now. You know, like starter space, we’ve been using these tools now the whole world is like, oh, wow. And then this company called Slack and oh, there’s this company called Zoom. And there’s this place called Shopify where you can sell stuff online. And it’s just like, whoa, we’ve been doing this.

Chris L. Davis: [00:24:09] So the focus is here, everybody. And you only you focusing. Will enable you to fully capitalize on it. OK, I want 2021 to be all that it can be for you, but it can’t if you’re not going to focus. I need you to focus on pleading for your own well-being, not mine. I’m a be all right. I’m locked in laser like I if I who you all are going to see. 2021 is crosshairs. I got on it. I want you to have it on it. I don’t want to win alone. Can we win together. Is that is am I asking for too much. If so you’re listening to this because I’m pushing you a bit. I want you to be better. OK, so in closing here, here’s some language. I’ll help you out with some language. Those of you who struggle with profit FOMO thinking you’re losing out on all this money by saying no to people and focusing on your primary avatar longer.

Chris L. Davis: [00:25:15] Ok.

Chris L. Davis: [00:25:17] And when you start thinking you need to do more because hold on, let me say this, you’re going to be surrounded by family and friends that have every idea for your business to do. Oh, look. Look at what they’re doing on Instagram. You should do that. Hey, why why aren’t you posting on Snapchat? You mean to tell me you don’t have one video? Not just one. Was that platform in the video one that everybody is using? You see me it come back to me. But anyway, whatever the new platform is. Well, you’re not you’re not on clubhouse yet. You should get on there and just talk all day. There’s going to be so many people throwing all of these ideas. And focus it ticktock, that was the platform of focus is the only way that you’re going to cut through all of these ideas and what you should and could do and get down to what you need to do to generate the money that you need right now. OK, so I told you I was going to give you some language for those of you who who who struggle with it. And the words right now are the ones that come to my rescue when when I get to the point where I’m looking at two things that I could be doing right now, I see that fork and I want both what I tell myself and say, hey, look, I’m a go down this road right now.

Chris L. Davis: [00:26:34] OK, because it acknowledges that this is my choice right now and I’m keeping the potential of the other path in play, but I’m just not focusing on it right now and in it and in what it does is it prevents my brain from the overwhelm of the total elimination. Because your brain hates ultimatums, people cringe. This is where analysis paralysis comes from. When I have to make a decision is either or people lock up. That is terrifying. I mean, you have grown folks that can’t make that decision and just continue to be with multiple people in their life. Right. Like it spans beyond technology. Your brain and ultimatums do not work well without some level of stress and overwhelmed. So to remove the ultimatum, I don’t say I’m doing this, not this. I say I’m doing this right now. And it removes that overwhelm of total elimination, that ultimatum, it keeps me focused on the task at hand and it keeps these other opportunities in lieu, Lou. I just got them cued up. And when I have some time, I’ll go revisit them and say, hey, is it time? Is there a quick offer that aligns with the direction I’m already going that I could put in front of this audience, this secondary avatar? Right, that’s the 10 percent that I’m talking about. And if it makes sense, if it moves me in the same direction, doesn’t require a whole lot of extra effort, entertain that.

Chris L. Davis: [00:28:01] But otherwise, like, nope, just focus, stay focused. And that’s what I want you all to be. I want 2021 to be a focused year for you all. Let’s collectively just close the chapter of 2020. Don’t bring that baggage into 2021, start fresh, start new. And if you’re listening to this already in 2021, start new wherever you’re at. And this is what the New Year always provides us is a new start. Acknowledge your victories, acknowledge your pains and your losses, never forget the lessons learned, but let’s not look back. Let’s just focus on 2021 and let’s get more focused. OK, again, I want this year to be great for you. Let me be the first to say happy New Year. You should be receiving those of you who are listening to this live my life listeners. You’re getting this on the last Thursday of the year. OK, so let me be the first to say happy New Year, I want the new year to be filled with the new you and buy new you. If you’re a marketing professional, it’s time to level up and become an automation service provider. This is what we are dedicated to it automation bridge. And this is what we have training community. We’ve got certification. We have everything that you need to shorten your learning curve to go from marketing practitioner to automated marketing professional. It’s all here, I’ve built it, I built a community of automation specialists who are openly sharing the latest tools strategy, automation, building tips, what’s working, what’s not, what’s what’s being what what people are looking for.

Chris L. Davis: [00:29:53] Right. I mean, it is the exclusive opportunity to rub shoulders with other like minded people. Shorten the learning curve and just get better, faster. It’s a community that I’m in daily, engaging, discussing and more in depth these podcast episodes, as well as private podcasts, running office hours where you can just live Q&A. We’ve got the digital whiteboard where I’m drawn out flowcharts in automation’s for your business, not mine for yours. This is the community and there’s no better time now. To join it’s a new year, do a new thing. Get new results. OK, if that is you, you know, I want to do this marketing thing more, so I want to do this marketing automation thing, I’m telling you, this is the place. Go to automationbridge.com/join. Let us see if you’re a good fit. OK. More than likely you are. If you’ve listened to this, you’ve been a listener in a lot of what I said resonated. Come on in. Join, join the community. OK, that’s my invitation to you. For those of my first time listeners, now is the time to hit the subscribe in your podcast app. Go leave a five star rating and review for me in an Apple iTunes.

Chris L. Davis: [00:31:21] Wherever you get your podcast, all the show notes and podcasts are available at www.automationbridge.com/podcast. You can subscribe there and listen to all other episodes at your leisure.

Chris L. Davis: [00:31:34] So again, until next time, which you know it is until next year. I’ll see you online. Automate responsibly my friends.