When Building An Email List Don't Confuse Activity With Progress

 

Don't Confuse Activity With Progress

It's possible to be busy all day and still not accomplish what you set out to do.

Online marketing makes this especially easy.

There is always something else you can do.

Check your traffic.

Join another program.

Change your landing page.

Try a new tool.

Post on social media.

Read another article about how to build your business.

Before you know it, the day is gone.

And you may not have actually moved forward.

Being Busy Feels Like Progress

There's nothing wrong with staying busy.

The problem comes when activity becomes a substitute for progress.

You can spend hours working on your website without getting another subscriber.

You can join ten traffic programs without knowing whether any of them are sending you interested visitors.

You can spend all day changing your capture page when the one you already have is working just fine.

Activity isn't necessarily bad.

But it should have a purpose.

Go Back to Your Goal

Remember what we talked about in an earlier article:

Build your system around your goal.

If your goal is to build an email list, ask yourself whether what you're doing today is helping you accomplish that goal.

If it is, keep going.

If it isn't, perhaps your time would be better spent somewhere else.

Measure What Matters

You don't have to become obsessed with statistics.

But you should know enough to recognize whether something is working.

For example:

Are people visiting your page?

Are they signing up?

Are they opening your emails?

Are they responding?

Those numbers can tell you more than how many programs you've joined.

Don't Change What Isn't Broken

One of the easiest traps is constantly changing things.

You try one landing page for a few days.

Then you see someone else's page and decide yours needs to look completely different.

You change your headline.

Then your offer.

Then your autoresponder.

Before long, you don't know what was working because you've changed everything.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is leave a working system alone and give it time.

Make Progress One Step at a Time

Progress doesn't have to be dramatic.

Write the next article.

Send the next email.

Improve one part of your capture page.

Learn one feature of your autoresponder.

Talk to one person who is interested in what you're doing.

Those small actions add up.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, ask yourself a simple question:

"What did I actually accomplish today?"

Not how many websites you visited.

Not how many programs you joined.

Not how many hours you spent online.

What actually moved you closer to your goal?

That's the difference between activity and progress.

You don't have to do everything.

You just have to keep doing the things that matter.

— Randy

The List Builder

P.S. If you're looking for tools to help with your list-building system, you'll find the ones I use on my My List Building Toolbox page. Remember, the goal isn't to collect tools—it's to build a system that works for you.