Results, Not Feelings

Psychedelic revival band The Brian Jonestown Massacre has a song:

“Talk – Action = Bulls**t”

With that in mind, come join me on a little journey of self-flagellation.

Are you focused on results — only cold, hard, measurable and predictable results, instead of feelings?

Why not?

Don’t you like feeding your family? Employing your staff? Solving problems for your customers?

This feeling stuff has gotten way out of hand.

“This doesn’t feel right”.

“That doesn’t feel fair”.

“Well, it feels good”.

What is your next business goal?

I mean the next step of your business. Doesn’t matter where you are at on the timeline:

Make your first dollar. Double your profit. Become the market leader. Scale back to part time hours but maintain full time service. Innovate and ramp the quality.

You have it in your head.

Well… you should. If you don’t, forget this post. Go and figure out what it is and write it down, immediately.

So your goal…

That thing you want to do next. That thing you need to do.

What data do you have? Are you testing and tweaking?

Or does it all just feel like it’s probably maybe going to happen… I guess. One of these days.

Or not.

I’m writing this and I’m thinking “why so urgent?”. “Is it too shrill?”

You know why I’m pissed off?

Because I’ve been researching for three hours straight so I can write an email to 20K+ people.

My client has promised tips about online tools and tactics that will help these people grow their business and make their workload easier.

What the hell is it worth if you can’t keep your word?

And so I’m reading one of the most popular blogs on the net for web conversions and optimization.

** CONVERSIONS **

As in, those actions that add up to more than zero when website users engage with your offer.

This pop blog has built brick walls out of text, telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.

They’re citing some big name companies as cautionary tales:

“Whoaaa… we have good advice and these guys don’t follow it. Don’t be like them!”

Guess what they’re not doing?

Showing any damn results.

They’re telling me Evernote has a bad landing page because they didn’t include testimonials. Okay. Got some data to back that up?

Oh right. They needed to pump out an article to confirm some talking points, so no time for that.

Don’t get me wrong. They may have generally useful advice for their target market.

But with all the info out there, if you’re going to make a hard claim then you’d better be ready to back it up. Especially about a world-class service.

And now to the point.

I know this! I already knew it long before I read this article and lapsed into a rage rant.

So why did I read half of the 3000 words before I realized it?

Dumb dumb dumb. Lazy. Rushing — head down — into my own deadline.

Full stop.

Next great piece of advice your hear about running your business? Remember the Jonestown song.

Talk without action is worthless. Show me the hard data.

Do you level-up your results, or are you swaying in the wind of meaningless feelings?

Demand more of yourself.