Where will you be a year from now?
Gary Bloomer | SHAKING THE TREE #165
Imagine yourself a year from now.
You’re an established newsletter writer and publisher, or a video producer, or a podcast host and you have a small but steadily growing list of readers, viewers, listeners, and email subscribers.
Well done. That’s quite an accomplishment.
You got to this point through hard work, consistent effort, and through sustained momentum.
You developed systems, processes, and habits that were easy to adapt and apply, and that were simple to stick to. Given that as many as 80% of all blogs started in any given year fail within six months, the simple fact that you were able to keep creating and publishing puts you in the top 20% of all content creators.
The majority of people who start an online newsletter quit because they:
run out of ideas,
don’t have a plan,
cannot commit to making content creation a habit.
By overcoming those three things you position yourself for success.
Making your vision a reality—being the successful content creator you see yourself as a year from now—requires effort, dedication, and action on your part.
If you didn’t already have an idea of what you want to create, you probably wouldn’t be reading this article.
So, take your idea—whether that’s showing people how to bake the perfect cake or teaching someone the ins and outs of ballroom dancing, and chop it up into a series of simple steps—in order to accomplish goal X, first you need to do A, then B, then C—and so on, and make each step into a specific piece of content—an article, a video, whatever.
Then, keep creating content along those themes and keep getting your material out there, sharing it via social media, via related websites, through link exchanges, and so on. Encourage readers and viewers to subscribe with their email address so that they don’t miss the next thing you publish, and then continue messaging to those people over time via email—not in a sales-based way, simply by adding value.
Do this frequently and consistently, do it openly and honestly, and eventually, you become the go-to person for advice in your specific niche.
A year from now, if you do nothing, you’ll wish you’d started now. Why wait another year? Get started today. Start where you are, use the resources you’ve already got, and get your stuff out there.
Be relentless.
Be consistent.
Keep showing up.
Don’t quit, even when you feel you have nothing to contribute.
You’ve got this.
I believe in you.
As always, thanks for reading.
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P.S. Next time on Shaking the Tree … Start solving problems.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Originally from the U.K., Gary Bloomer is a writer, branding advocate, marketing specialist, and an award-winning graphic designer.
His design work has been included in Creative Review (one of the UK’s largest design magazines). Since 2009, he has answered over 5,000 marketing and business questions in the Know-How Exchange of MarketingProfs.com, placing him among the top 3% of contributors. He lives in Wilmington, Delaware, USA.