If You Slow Down, You Will Stop, Then Fail + Video

OK guys I have seen a real growing trend recently of people falling by the wayside and it’s so sad to see. The worst thing is you can see it happening from a mile off, people skip a day here and there leaving their site without any fresh content, then they update it but don’t reply to comments…. Then you guessed it, the site dies.

Quickly before I carry on, I know everyone is different and a lot of people will be wary about ”burn out” etc, but seriously guys if you start to ease of you will massively struggle to get going again, let me explain;

• Ultra-Marathon

A few years ago I did an Ultra-Marathon in the desert 54 miles with kit just to see if it could be done. Yeah we paced ourselves, but we never ever slacked on the pace and completed it in an incredible time especially considering we were carrying kit. Back to my point, if we went out and got to the 20 miles point and stopped for 30 mins for a solid break. I can tell you now it would have been an uphill battle from there on in.

After that break you would have been stiff and cold trying to get the pace back up again, your muscles would have been screaming at you to stop again and guess what you will have another break in 4 or 5 miles, this time you will kid yourself that it will only be for 5 minutes then straight back to it, 2 miles in and another break which will ultimately lead you to stop.

The point I am making with this analogy is, kidding yourself to take a break in the hope that it will help you come back stronger isn’t true at all, you will come back having to make up all that ground and time you have lost and find it a lot harder to continue.

I know everyone is completely different in their approach and yes you maybe fearful of burnout but seriously slowing down can really hurt you in the long run. Some people may have had success by slowing down coming back stronger, but please don’t fall into the trap of ”If I take a break then it will be better”

• Walls

Life puts walls in front of us, every corner a new obstacle especially on the internet. Getting traffic, finding new readers and getting your brand out there, all of this can be really difficult. For me and again this isn’t for everyone, but the best way to get past a wall, if you can’t get over it is to smash it down with such force that it doesn’t slow you down. Momentum is the key here.

When I started this site I didn’t have the attitude of I’ll get to 500 unique visitors a day or 100 new subscribers a month etc then take a break for a week. You need to build on every day you have, traffic is useless unless you keep hold of it, I’m currently writing a tutorial about negative traffic, but essentially traffic spikes are useless unless you are able to keep hold of them and that means for the long haul not just for a couple of days.

Think of it this way, if you had a mile to run and within that mile there where 12 15ft walls, you could run up to each one get to the wall, stop and then think about how to get round it, all of which is costing you time and momentum which you have to make up when you eventually get past the wall. On the other hand though if you run at that wall with such a pace that you know as soon as you hit it, that wall be smashed to bits and it doesn’t stand a chance of slowing you down.

photo credit: ahisgett

• Stop Start

Another way to think about all this is to imagine someone starting a website and posting every day for a week, then nothing for a week where do you think the readers will be? Your readers, visitors and customers need to know what they can expect from you, Take Allyn from BloggerIllustrated.net for example I know to only check that site every now and again maybe once a week, but know when I do check it I can expect fantastic content, same rule applies for John over at PotPolitics.com because I kn0w I can check that daily and it will have fresh content to get stuck into.

Now I am loyal to their sites because they are loyal to their readers and everyone knows what you can expect from them. I publish on average 15 posts a week and a lot of guest posts, the reason for this is to bring in new styles and approaches and ultimately make new connections, the readers of this site know they can always count on fresh content.

If you keep dipping in and out of your site erratically you will find it extremely difficult to build up any loyalty with your readers or customers.

Again all this is typical of my approach to online marketing and life in general, however I do understand that some people are quite happy to do it their own way, but seriously and honestly I think it’s a common trap people fall into and it’s the main reason people fall and never get back up.

Below is a quick video which will hopefully add some more weight to it all;

Please Comment

Please Re-Tweet, Digg, StumbleUpon