Progress Report December 2019 / January 2020
The time of debating is done, I had plenty of time to celebrate and regret my decisions. It's over three months since the official brand-launch and still, it feels a bit like a new-born baby. Keeps you awake at night and you need to feed it constantly. I love creating content, but I want to do it right, which keeps me trapped in perfectionism. There are enough fake, polished products out there. Too much “fake it until you die” mentality. I think, in the future, it will all come back to more authenticity. People can spot much faster nowadays if you want to sell something. This generation of self-declaimed Gurus will struggle… I guess if you copy someone who was or is successful now, there will occur some problems in the future.
If there is no progress, there is no motivation to go further!
My Website
The blog is time-consuming, for example, I got a WordPress Plugin called “Prettylinks” where you can track which Links your visitors clicking. It wasn’t working anymore from one day to another. After contacting Bluehost and “Prettylinks”, it took three different engineers to locate the problem. Hours wasted. Hosting a Website 15 years ago must have been a massive headache.
Constant writing is helping me to think more clearly and to hone a craft I deeply revere. For me, to write is to become more human. Writing kept me in that lane. Sometimes it’s a bit disappointing because you get the feeling that no one is interesting, but I quickly realized that it’s all training for the things to come. You only get better if you show up every day, even if no one is watching.
Additional reading: 5 realistic ways how to work from home and make money online (Link)
YouTube
Oh, dear YouTube. It was a great feeling the moment I pressed “publish”, but the stress just began. I thought it wouldn’t be that difficult. I couldn’t be more wrong. You end up acting differently in front of a camera than you imagine inside your head.
To be honest, I completely underestimated the workload especially the editing process. Until now my videos got 200 views (Channel link), half of it must be the kids of my sons’ class. I recorded a few videos but didn’t upload anymore for the last months, for several reasons (excuses). I changed my approach recently and the next videos should come up at the end of February. Fingers crossed.
There were plenty of YouTubers which made videos for months, even years and they didn’t tell anyone. They felt the quality wasn’t good enough yet or the feedback would hurt them. Seriously, who decides what’s good or bad quality? Do it your way!
You build an audience, you listen to their problems, then you find solutions!
The Content plan
A big construction site currently, I lined up some good ideas, only to change everything a day after and my whole strategy becomes a completely new one. All the researched articles, pictures are on hold. These costs a lot of time. Instead of just producing, I am not sure anymore if this topic is worth the time. Just because I believed it was working a year ago. Which means I am spending much more time on a new one. Later, I was pushing projects in front of me just to do older ones with half power. Paralyzing by analyzing. Very interesting. Do you have the same problem with your ideas?
My Content Plan for February/March 2020 is fixed now, and it will be mostly focussed on hospitality because that’s what people are signed up for.
“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” Earl Nightingale
Social Media
Marketing is crucial, but for now, I didn’t had much time to advertise my content.
Instagram flagged the Hashtags I was using. Didn’t know they can black shadow your account if you use “misleading” Hashtags. Some of them like #onlinemarketing or #entrepreneurjourney have a bad reputation. I only realized this when I registered with a premium app that analyzed my hashtags.
The organic reach on Pinterest is laughable, it drops the moment they realize you don’t like to invest in ads.
I tried TikTok but it’s like YouTube and to do both isn’t possible. Want to do some comedy stuff there now.
Facebook is still my biggest asset, but without doing original content exclusively there it’s tough to grow. They don’t want that you out link from the platform. I consider opening a Facebook group now.
LinkedIn is maybe the most powerful platform, but it needs an approach I can’t deliver right now.
Twitter didn’t even bother.
“Quidvis recte factum quamvis humble praeclarum. (Whatever you do well, however lowly, is noble)” – Sir Henry Royce
Goals / Challenges February / March 2020
YT Videos: Publish at least 4 each month
Blog articles: Publish 5 each month
Running: 100km in February
What I learned in the last two months:
+ I tend to leave everything until the last second because I hope there will be a greater idea
+ Did the running Streak for 20 days, after that I was looking for a new challenge and stopped running
+ You need to find solutions to make a difficult task easier, that’s the trick
+ organizing the workflow, breaking it down to smaller tasks
+ People still giving you this strange look when you film in public. Its 2020 c’mon.
Conclusion
I got some highs and lows during these months, there had been days where I wanted to write and shoot videos at the same time. Followed by days where I felt nothing made sense and I wanted to do a completely new career like this hard-working girl (Link). Most of December I took a break, slept a lot, spend time on a family vacation. I just rewired my priorities.
That’s life. It kicks us around. The stuff we expected to be simple turns out to be tough. The people we thought were friends let us down. A couple of storms or unexpected weather patterns just add a whole bunch of difficulty on top of whatever we’ve been doing.
Seneca wrote that only the fighter who has been bloodied and bruised—in training and in previous matches—can go into the ring confident of his chances of winning. The one who has never been touched before, never had a hard fight? That’s a fighter who is scared. And if they aren’t, they should be. Because they have no actual idea of how they’re going to hold up. I guess that’s all part of the progress, especially if you are starting out.
Previous Progress Report: November 2019 (Link)
Thanks for reading this far, friends. Much more to come…
Yours,
Dan Draper
P.S. I would love to hear your opinion, please write to me on social media or drop me some words on admin@lostinhospitality.com.
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