If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, it’s probably very obvious to you that I am terrible at marketing. My preferred method of marketing is to not do it at all and hope that good things happen.
This generally works to some extent thanks to you, my readers. Over almost ten years I’ve built up enough trust and a track record of producing good quality work that when I say that something’s good, I get the benefit of the doubt.
As I’ve done more and more projects, though, it’s become obvious that I need to get better at marketing. Every project I do seems to grow to about the same size and then plateau. I’m really determined to make CruiseSheet a big success, though, so I’m trying to push through.
Luckily I’m friends with some incredible marketers, guys who are effective but not sleazy, people like Noah Kagan, Sebastian Marshall, Ramit Sethi, and Nick Gray.
These guys give me advice, and I hate taking it. It’s all very smart advice that totally makes sense, but I have a wall of resistance against it. I’ll start doing what they say, but then I think of some new feature I could program, and next thing I know I’m working on that instead.
The first step to growth in these sorts of situations is to recognize that your instincts are wrong. Subconsciously I don’t believe that following their advice will actually lead to increased sales. Since this is illogical, I have to admit and understand that my instincts are wrong.
This is the exact same situation I had with working out. I took Dick Talens‘ advice, and never expected it to work. My primary motivation for listening to him was to prove that working out didn’t work for me so that I’d never have to do it again. But then I gained 15 pounds of muscle.
It’s really important to recognize patterns, especially when there are emotions clouding them. It’s easy to rationalize why CruiseSheet is different, but it’s not. I just want it to be different so that I don’t have to work on marketing stuff all day.
At first I didn’t like going to the gym. It felt foreign, like something that other people did. I wanted to quit in the first month, but wouldn’t let myself. Now it feels normal and I don’t mind going. The same will happen to marketing– I’ll change my patterns until they feel normal. Soon I’ll probably like marketing and will come up with my own ideas.
History repeats itself, especially personal history. If you find yourself hitting the same barrier again and again, eventually you have to admit that you aren’t going to cross that barrier without doing something differently. And with that, it’s off to doing some marketing for CruiseSheet…
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Photo is from an event I went to in Vegas, hosted by Neil Strauss and his Society. They ran over a car with a tank, which was a lot more interesting than I would have expected.
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