Trust Versus Experience

Last week, I was on a consulting call with a cool dude. Looking to take his successful one-man business online in order to scale things up and increase his leverage.

As part of that conversation, we were talking about some of the advice that other people give.

In this case, specifically, it was the idea of building a business specifically to sell it.

This is advice given by some people. Mind you, it isn’t bad advice. But, it isn’t “one size fits all”. And that’s kinda my point here.

In his case, this was causing a little bit of paralysis. Specifically when it came to his branding.

Should he sorta keep himself out of it so as not to make himself the focus? Keep things more generic that way he could sell it down the road?

When we started talking about his strategy to begin building up traffic, it was pretty clear to me he needed to make it personal. He needed to be himself. Get out there and make videos and make a personal connection. People form bonds with other people, not generic logos.

But, it did conflict with some of that other advice out there.

A lot of marketing “gurus” preach. They write books. They do webinars. They chuck out blog posts. And MOST of them are just telling you what has worked for them. They say it in an authoritative way that inspires trust, so people trust it.

None of that advice is gospel. It isn’t “one size fits all”. Most of it is perfectly fine advice, but it doesn’t mean it is the thing for you. You should treat it as a data point.

In a completely different arena, a business acquaintance of mine has been on a big weight loss regiment lately. And he’s done really well. Down like 80 pounds or something.

He tried all the diets people talk about. Keto, paleo, atkins, etc. And for him, none of them worked. It just didn’t suit him, for whatever reason.

But, he found what did work for him. For him, he focused on nutrient dense foods, controls the timing of when he eats, etc. He even eats carbs.

Point is…

He found what worked FOR HIM.

All the “guru” diets with labels didn’t really do it for him. So, through learning on his own, doing the research and trying different things, he found what DID work for him.

Works just like that for business.

Don’t take advice as gospel. There’s no one right way to do things. You’ve gotta find what works for you.

And there’s no real shortcut to it.

You gotta do the work.

You gotta take responsibility for your own knowledge. Build your own expertise through doing things and applying things and seeing the results.

There’s just no substitute for it.

Reading business books looking for some “aha” moment to pop out at you isn’t going to do it. There is no moment when you just read something,  a lightbulb goes off, and suddenly you’re walking in seas of cash.

You gotta get your hands dirty.

Find what works for you and do that.

And that’s true in business, life, health, you name it.

You see a lot of people out there in society preaching about just trusting authorities right now.

Nope. Don’t do that. You do you. Responsibly so. Don’t glibly follow anybody.

Tech Talk

Yoast has been acquired by Newfold Digital. Yoast is most well-known for their SEO plugin and there's a good chance many of you guys are using it. It is one of the most popular plugins in all of WordPress.Newfold Digital owns Bluehost, Hostgator, etc.Now, in the past, I've talked about EIG hosting companies and how much I don't particularly like them. EIG is Endurance International Group. And, earlier this year, EIG was acquired. And it was merged in with Web.com and the resulting company was called... Newfold Digital.This means, Yoast was basically just acquired by the company that has commoditized and (in my opinion) screwed up many hosting companies.In my opinion, this doesn't bode particularly well for Yoast SEO.I know that in every acquisition, they always say everything will remain the same. But, then, that's not exactly what happens.Who knows. All I know is...I switched to RankMath.Not because of this. I did it awhile ago.But, I definitely think RankMath is a better option. I thought it was a better option already. The PRO version was a better deal than Yoast. I've seen Yoast cause some issues in the past. But, this news of the acquisition just seals the deal.If you need an SEO plugin (and I think we should all be using one), I recommend RankMath.If you're using Yoast now and wish to switch, RankMath has a great importer that will make it a breeze to switch over without changing any of your settings.