There once was a telesummit. And then it ended. It had all kinds of hoopla attached to it: great press, lots of media coverage, expert guest stars, fun video’s, lots of cool new (to us) technology, 50- 60 hour weeks of prep work to launch it, enough angst and sleepless nights wondering when were going to mess it up to fill Brooklyn’s new Barclay Stadium, a social media frenzy, a cool Facebook Group, lots and lots of new contacts, a shiny new mailing list, JV partners, great material for new blog posts and newsletter content, heck we even had a legal agreement. It was an official “thing”.
And, yeah, then it ended.
In the meantime, prior to our launch, I’d had clients, and then during the project didn’t have time for many of them and so back burnered them. My funnel, which used to be there..(really! I had one! ), all but disappeared, because, well that’s what happens when you don’t pay attention to your funnel: they move on. My time, which a few weeks earlier had been so filled that I barely had time to throw food at my kids during a drive by, despite my commitment to walking the walk of and teaching the skills to be able to ‘work smart, not hard’ now was suddenly, well, there again. We were, at least for the time being, until the next project launch, essentially…. freed up.
But hold the phone there, sista. Although a period of downtime was definitely in order, and the brain was definitely in need of some healthy decompression, bills still needed to be paid and business needed to, umm, happen.
Where was everybody? Well, for one thing, everybody had lives too. Everybody had their own needs, struggles, timelines and goals to accomplish. They weren’t standing in line waiting for me to finish my telesummit to move on with their own issues?
Suzen to self: “They weren’t?”
Self to Suzen: “No, jerkey girl, they weren’t”
Really who did I think I was? Well, no one special really, honestly. I just hadn’t been paying a lot of attention and had been so absorbed in Telesummitville there were many days when I’m surprised I remembered to dress.
Dan Kennedy, master marketing guru, talks about bundling your days into projects, rather than having to-do lists with 12 different non-relating items on them as being much more efficient. He claims, and I agree, that when we break our to-do lists into tasks of unrelated items, our ability to focus and do a superior job at these tasks is compromised. In other words, we end up, like so many of our over-medicated kids, on an ADD bender, accomplishing a few of each days tasks, but none too well and rarely finishing. Dan goes on to equate project bundling with the way an actor working on a project would manage his/her time. While preparing for the role, he/she would be totally focused on learning her lines, once on set, she would be immersed in taking on the role and interacting with the other actors, etc. His point is that while immersed in a project, the really good actors have blinders on; there is nothing else.
Agreed. I’ve tried it both ways and I’m with Dan.
That being said, here in lies the danger…..see first five paragraphs.
There is a delicate balance to be had in total project emersion and taking your eye off the ball. Us small business folks can’t afford to do that. Once we’re the next Bradley Cooper, then perhaps maybe- Bradley’s got people to handle the rest of his life. But we little wee folk? Not quite yet. We can strive for this, that can be our goal; the day our “handlers” make sure all of our balls are neatly spinning on without us, but until that day comes, immerse away, for sure, but don’t forget your funnel!!
This much I can happily report, which gives me a bit of an “aaaah”: my blog continued and still continues to run on auto pilot- not the writing of the blog posts of course, but the automated pieces that run in the background while the telesummit ran me. It makes money for me, and keeps me very happy.
That’s the good news. Now then, due to my 75% negligence of my consulting and mentoring practice over these last 3 months, it’s time for me to make a win- win proposition for us all, so come on over here where you can learn how to do the same, and make some money while you get some sleep!
