Black dog attacks
I am already very successful in another business, but that business has sagged this year. It needs marketing skilz, and no one I have encountered, from a $16,000/month boutique firm in Seattle to an ex-con defrocked scumsucking Phoenix lawyer has been able to juice up my business. I realized I had to learn this stuff myself. Which shouldn't be a problem, because I have always been a self starter.
I am a high school dropout. The last thing I graduated from was junior high (but with honors, woo hoo!). My real "education" was as a teen during the financial turmoil of the 1970s, so hauntingly familiar now. I knew then I would have to take care of myself. I taught myself programming, and was good enough to make it to Microsoft as a manager, back in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. I taught myself business, and I now take home a very substantial salary, even with business down. How hard could this IM thing be?
Kidding on the last part. I did not underestimate it, and I knew it would be a ripping good experiment when I decided to teach myself marketing last month. What has intrigued me is my frequent bouts of paralysis. Understand that I have always looked at things reductively: are their people dumber than I am succeeding in the field I plan to conquer? If yes, then I can do it too. I may need to work harder than everyone else, but that's fine. And I never shirked a challenge. My area of programming was compiler implementation, widely considered a black art even among most programmers. I did that on purpose. It was great fun, but it also meant that companies would be willing to hire me without a degree because if you needed a compiler guy, they were rare enough that you didn't care where he came from.
Many on this forum write that the most important thing to do is execute. I have learned that a lot of people purchase IM products and shelve them, never even bothering to work the steps. That seemed odd to me, since it's such a vibrant and enticing field. I, on the other hand, bought some very good quality products, read them with unbridled enthusiasm, made plans excitedly, took copious notes, and... made more plans excitedly. And took more notes. But taking real action? Not so much.
Today I started promoting my website seriously. It's a month old (the domain name has been sitting unused for about 9 years) and time to get cracking on the promotion. Really, the linchpin of an IM effort. While fumbling my way through the many new sites Socialmarker.com has introduced me to, a rare case of depression struck. Churchill called it the black dog. The black dog sank its teeth into me today.
Because there's so damn much I'm bad at! This from a guy who has traditionally treasured failure, because it mean there was learning going on. Each of the bookmarking sites is different. I have a gigantic list on Delicious, but had never used Connotea and while I had visited Fark way more than I'd care to admit, never tried to post a link. The blog dog nipped at my heels. Yesterday WebmasterWorld almost canceled my account because I posted a noncommercial informational link that would have easily passed muster here, but they got upset. Normally, not a problem. But the black dog had attacked.
If posting a link is dangerous on WebmasterWorld, what's the penalty for posting something on Fark that's not absolutely fascinating? I skipped Fark. I wondered whether I had made a faux pas of similar magnitude on one of the other sites. That actually started to bother me. WTF? I lived through beatings and molestation as a child, near bankruptcy this year due to a failed startup, a marriage that seems unsalvageable too much of the time, and... Farkers are intimidating me?
Money doesn't buy happiness. My wife would certainly tell you it doesn't keep away the black dog, a condition I have avoided despite a turbulent home life. She has not been so lucky. Yet this tiny, laughably insignificant wrinkle in my promotional efforts-the thought that perhaps I might get banned or penalized for posting a link to an information-packed article with no commercial intent-pulled me down way lower than anyone in his right mind would allow.
I'll be over it soon. But I thought of the many IM folk who don't have my 8 months of savings and debt-free lifestyle. Like me, some have handicapped kids, bad marriages, and maybe bad jobs too. Doing new things has never scared me, but it did tonight, when the black dog dropped by. I just wanted to stop and surf the web instead of trying to understand each bookmarking site's cultural DNA as I signed up for them. If I had a TV, I'd probably be watching a late night talk show instead of working.
The good news is that after an hour and a half of bumbling through less than a quarter of the sites I need to learn my traffic has skyrocketed, and people are stopping for a while. They read 9 pages on the average, which is pretty much the whole site! They're reading the articles I worked so hard on! The bad news is the black dog has made this job much more trying.
Life is hard. When you've failed at a lot of things, IM represents not just the possibility of success, but something we don't discuss quite as often: the possibility of yet another failure. Maybe, sometimes, that's what keeps people from taking that first step.
I am a high school dropout. The last thing I graduated from was junior high (but with honors, woo hoo!). My real "education" was as a teen during the financial turmoil of the 1970s, so hauntingly familiar now. I knew then I would have to take care of myself. I taught myself programming, and was good enough to make it to Microsoft as a manager, back in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. I taught myself business, and I now take home a very substantial salary, even with business down. How hard could this IM thing be?
Kidding on the last part. I did not underestimate it, and I knew it would be a ripping good experiment when I decided to teach myself marketing last month. What has intrigued me is my frequent bouts of paralysis. Understand that I have always looked at things reductively: are their people dumber than I am succeeding in the field I plan to conquer? If yes, then I can do it too. I may need to work harder than everyone else, but that's fine. And I never shirked a challenge. My area of programming was compiler implementation, widely considered a black art even among most programmers. I did that on purpose. It was great fun, but it also meant that companies would be willing to hire me without a degree because if you needed a compiler guy, they were rare enough that you didn't care where he came from.
Many on this forum write that the most important thing to do is execute. I have learned that a lot of people purchase IM products and shelve them, never even bothering to work the steps. That seemed odd to me, since it's such a vibrant and enticing field. I, on the other hand, bought some very good quality products, read them with unbridled enthusiasm, made plans excitedly, took copious notes, and... made more plans excitedly. And took more notes. But taking real action? Not so much.
Today I started promoting my website seriously. It's a month old (the domain name has been sitting unused for about 9 years) and time to get cracking on the promotion. Really, the linchpin of an IM effort. While fumbling my way through the many new sites Socialmarker.com has introduced me to, a rare case of depression struck. Churchill called it the black dog. The black dog sank its teeth into me today.
Because there's so damn much I'm bad at! This from a guy who has traditionally treasured failure, because it mean there was learning going on. Each of the bookmarking sites is different. I have a gigantic list on Delicious, but had never used Connotea and while I had visited Fark way more than I'd care to admit, never tried to post a link. The blog dog nipped at my heels. Yesterday WebmasterWorld almost canceled my account because I posted a noncommercial informational link that would have easily passed muster here, but they got upset. Normally, not a problem. But the black dog had attacked.
If posting a link is dangerous on WebmasterWorld, what's the penalty for posting something on Fark that's not absolutely fascinating? I skipped Fark. I wondered whether I had made a faux pas of similar magnitude on one of the other sites. That actually started to bother me. WTF? I lived through beatings and molestation as a child, near bankruptcy this year due to a failed startup, a marriage that seems unsalvageable too much of the time, and... Farkers are intimidating me?
Money doesn't buy happiness. My wife would certainly tell you it doesn't keep away the black dog, a condition I have avoided despite a turbulent home life. She has not been so lucky. Yet this tiny, laughably insignificant wrinkle in my promotional efforts-the thought that perhaps I might get banned or penalized for posting a link to an information-packed article with no commercial intent-pulled me down way lower than anyone in his right mind would allow.
I'll be over it soon. But I thought of the many IM folk who don't have my 8 months of savings and debt-free lifestyle. Like me, some have handicapped kids, bad marriages, and maybe bad jobs too. Doing new things has never scared me, but it did tonight, when the black dog dropped by. I just wanted to stop and surf the web instead of trying to understand each bookmarking site's cultural DNA as I signed up for them. If I had a TV, I'd probably be watching a late night talk show instead of working.
The good news is that after an hour and a half of bumbling through less than a quarter of the sites I need to learn my traffic has skyrocketed, and people are stopping for a while. They read 9 pages on the average, which is pretty much the whole site! They're reading the articles I worked so hard on! The bad news is the black dog has made this job much more trying.
Life is hard. When you've failed at a lot of things, IM represents not just the possibility of success, but something we don't discuss quite as often: the possibility of yet another failure. Maybe, sometimes, that's what keeps people from taking that first step.
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Thanks
Signature"Better to have gotten off my behind and risk falling on my face, than never to have gotten off my behind at all!"-Carrie's Quote of the Moment{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[418745].message }} -