I recently adopted the habit of opening:
- Quora
simultaneously.
I scan “blogging tips” and #bloggingtips keywords and hashtags to help people searching for blogging tips. My blogging business at Blogging From Paradise is based on helping people blog. I teach bloggers how to blog by sharing smart blogging tips.
A few moments ago, I noted a lull in engagement on each network. My ego told me to engage in busy work to try to drum up blogging tips engagement. But my business mind told me to write this guest post for Personal Growth Channel for a few reasons:
- even though this blog is personal growth oriented the business influence allows me to help people running online ventures through posts like this guest blog
- publishing guest posts on a respected blog like this boosts my business credibility
- business is not busy work
Business is based on sharply targeting people interested in your offering and helping these individuals generously, patiently and persistently. Anything else is busy work. Busy work does not build your business because busy work seems to be designed to keep yourself:
- occupied
- distracted
- deluded
For example, if I tried to force engagement, chat with people well outside of the blogging tips niche or boost my follower count without considering the quality or targeted nature of each follower, I would be engaging in busy work. I used to follow all manner of people on Twitter in part to meet new folks but secretly to snag a few follows back. Unfortunately, most of these people did not seem interested in blogging tips. Few followed me back. Once again, I suffered the effect of engaging in mindless busy work.
I kept myself occupied, distracted and deluded but did not grow my blogging business.
Get Clear
Get clear on engaging in business-building activities.
Write and publish in-depth content on your blog.
Write, publish and submit in-depth content on blogs through a guest posting campaign.
Follow keywords and hashtags related to your niche. Help people for free who seem interested in your niche. Build your business not by keeping busy with mindless, ego-driven activities but by systematically helping people keenly interested in your business niche.
If engagement seems low for a bit across my networks I dive into business-building activities. Blogging, guest blogging and executing a genuine blog commenting campaign are common go-to's for me to keep expanding my blogging business. Even though I do not attach to any set business outcome I do see the benefits of only doing what builds business and nothing else.
Note Business Builders
Any time I bumped up blog post and guest post word count to 1000 words and added practical tips to the mix I noted increased interest in my blog. Social media engagement jumped. Comments increased on my blog.
Spotting this pattern goaded me to blog and guest blog with the 1000 to 1500 word count in mind.
I also drove significantly more Google traffic – a clear business builder – by publishing in-depth, detailed, 1500 word blog posts optimized for SEO. Seeing this trend influenced me to keep doing what seemed to build the foundation for my business.
Note business building activities. Spot who buys your eBooks. Where did these people find you? How did these individuals come across your premium offerings? Being a successful business owner seems to involve being a detective.
What activities build business? What actions seem to be busy work? I did things that pros professed built business, for quite a bit, but eventually realized how said actions became busy work for me. What works for one entrepreneur may not work for other entrepreneurs. Spot patterns. Build your business by doing what works. Let go all else. Even if a seasoned pro swears by a business building activity only you can try it out and see if it works for you.
Beware Email Busy Work that Diminishes Business Growth
Some entrepreneurs check their email 30, 40 or 50 times daily.
But until you receive 1000 to 2000 emails daily – or more – does it make sound business sense to check email 50 times daily? What do you see each of those 50 times? Most of the time, you see no new emails. Does a new client pop up each one of those 50 times? Can you take on 50 clients at once? Or do you spot only a few new emails after checking email 50 times daily?
Consider your business returns. If you check email 30 times daily to see no new:
- clients to engage
- customers to engage
- business partnerships
- follower feedback
stop checking email 30 times daily because you are:
- wasting your time
- not that big yet
- not getting a strong business return on checking email frequently
Check your email 5 times daily to cut down on busy work and to grow your business.
Take the time you save by checking email 5 times daily and devote it to writing and scheduling 15 tweets today that grow your business.
Do you see how spotting busy-ness can help create a shift that grows your business?
If you ever plan to:
- sell your business
- make your business a virtual passive income machine
you better cut out all busy work to engage solely in business building activities.
How can you sell your business if your busy model is dependent on you checking email 50 times daily?
How can you make your business a passive income machine if you actively waste hours in mindless busy work daily?
Slowly, steadily and gracefully divorce yourself from an active business model unless you want to work your business until you step into your grave. Cut out the busy work. Replace with business building activities that net you profits now or down the road, around the clock.
The moment I publish this guest post it goes live on the blog, blasts out to Triberr and pops up on the radar screen of many readers deeply interested in personal development and entrepreneurship. Since I publish blogging tips posts with a heavy emphasis on entrepreneurship and mindset this business building activity makes sense for me.
Build your business on intelligent activities, not busy-ness.
