Stop Doing What You’re Told in your Business

Just because everyone says you have to do something doesn’t mean it’s the best move for your business.

I’ve been seeing some interesting trends emerging lately that flip some of our entrenched thinking on its head.

Things we’ve been told we must do to run successful businesses.

And some of the canaries in the coal mine are seriously successful entrepreneurs – Tim Ferriss, Tim Denning, Alex Hormozi, Steven Bartlett

And they’re all saying the same thing:

A social media strategy that focuses on chasing ‘impressions’ is the fastest way to burn out, disengage your audience and waste money.

Steven Bartlett (Diary of a CEO) says,

“Chasing impressions will mess you up long term.

It’s an addictive drug that will lead you astray.

It pulls you from your message into cliché, fluff, and forgettable.

I have been guilty of this.”

I think we’ve all been guilty of it.

I’ve had posts go ‘viral’ with millions of impressions and despite all that visibility, they haven’t made a jot of difference to improve my business.

So Now What?

Try applying this logic to just about every kind of outreach and engagement your business does and you’ll start to see how the wrong approach turns people off your business, brand, products and people.

You’ll attract the wrong people into your orbit, waste a huge amount of time and money, and erode productivity.

Challenge Conventional Wisdom

You might have heard the advice that you need to post on social media every day or multiple times a day.

You might have been told you need a multi/omni channel strategy – LinkedIn, Insta, Facebook, TikTok, X.

Maybe you’re running ads or continuing sponsorships because you always have or need to be seen.

You may have been told you need to attend a certain number of conferences.

Perhaps you’ve been running the same program of events for years only to realise the original reason you started them no longer exists.

You might be using the same processes to measure and motivate your people, yet they’re completely checked out.

It’s all become BAU, so you keep on.

‘Good Advice’ Isn’t Always Right

Sometimes, you’re told by an expert to do something that feels off but you do it because they’re the expert…

This happened with the marketing for my eBook.

I was told by a number of experts that I needed an automated email sequence to keep people interested, informed and engaged.

Except it didn’t work.

In fact, it was off-putting and people checked out.

Worse, people thought I was spamming them.

It also felt wrong given the people in my community are smart, high performers, who are really busy and don’t want a bunch of follow up emails.

They just want to read the book when they’re ready, are generally happy to receive these newsletters, connect on LinkedIn and will often reach out when they’re ready – or not, as the problem may have gone away.

It could be perceived as confirmation bias or avoiding something uncomfortable, but this approach was not a true reflection of the Harmonic brand or the value we bring to clients.

The same can be applied to a lot of BAU processes if you look a little closer.

• Do you need to be at all of those conferences? Can you afford the downtime, lost productivity and cost?
• Do you need to be posting so much on your socials?
• Do you really need all those social channels?
• Are you seeing any favourable outcomes from these efforts?
• Do your current KPIs and methods of engagement work for your people?
• Have your customers, employees and stakeholders tuned out to your emails?
• Are those sponsorships still working for you?
• Are those team bonding events working?
• What about the leadership roadshows, lunch ‘n’ learn events and attempts to bring people together? Does anyone attend, let alone care?

Is what you’re doing providing a viable return on investment?

Are you solving the problems you set out to solve or are you just adding noise?

What else could you be doing that’s more effective, engaging, interesting, innovative, worthwhile, sustainable?

Here’s what we’ve done

1. We’ve switched off the email sequence and have started calling people, asking them how they found the book and if we can help them in any way or introduce them to people who might be able to help them.
2. We stopped posting to Facebook and Insta.
3. We started experimenting with a Substack newsletter and are putting up regular articles as a complementary channel to our blog, this newsletter and as an insurance policy for LinkedIn [You can find it here – https://ninathomas01.substack.com/]
4. We’re resuming our executive lunches, bringing smart, interesting people together to foster diversity of thought, peer relationships and stronger networks.
5. We’re running masterclasses, AMAs and workshops to scale and share our programs.
6. We’re laser-focused on adding value and helping clients smash their goals in every engagement.

The beginning of the financial year is a good time to be asking these questions and thinking about what you can do differently this year.

I’d love to hear if this article has raised any questions or ideas for you, or what you might stop doing because it doesn’t make sense any more.

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📅 I’m running a LinkedIn Ask Me Anything session at the end of the month. Contact me if you’d like to know more.