What does a successful life really look like? More specifically, what does ‘success’ mean to you? For some, it could be having more time to be with family and friends; for others, it’s creating and building a business doing something you really love.
The point is, the definition of success can vary depending on who you ask. For this blog post, I will speak more towards the entrepreneurial side because it is contextually relevant to me and those in my community.
I get it. Taking that initial leap into entrepreneurship is scary because it feels uncertain. Financially, you have to figure out how to really hustle so that you can support yourself (and even your family) and then grow your business. On the flip side, we live in a world where it has never been easier to create a side hustle without having to leave your full-time gig.
In a previous blog post I wrote, How to Build a Six-Figure Income with Your Side Hustle, I highlighted the following stats around the benefits of building a side hustle:
- 76% percent of side hustlers love their hustle, but only half like their job.
- The 2 most popular side hustles are blogging and freelance work.
- For most folks (70%), financial freedom is the main reason for side hustling — making it the most popular one.
What does it mean to get shit done?
“Get shit done” has become a popular expression that startups and entrepreneurs alike love to use as part of their approach to productivity and progress. The magic really happens when you align this expression with actual actions. For that to happen, the following needs to take place:
- Accountability, which means you are in the driver’s seat.
- Responsibility and control for what needs to get done.
- Productivity that progresses towards achieving goals — meaning no busywork.
One of the most effective ways to ensure that you are setting yourself up for success, i.e., to get shit done, is to develop workflows determining what tasks you’ll prioritize to be completed now vs. later.
By getting into the habit of developing a workflow mindset like the image above, you move from “I have 100 things to get done now” to taking the larger goals at hand and breaking them down into smaller, digestible, and executable tasks. In a way, it’s like scaling back so you can scale further ahead.
Finally, the entire concept of getting shit done should be centered around the hustle (action and effort) you put into creating your own opportunities. The more you do this, the more you will be disciplined to hold yourself accountable for putting in the work needed to yield the desired result.
With all of this in mind, let’s dive into the blueprint of getting shit done and unleashing your greatness.
Build a personal brand
Having a personal brand will be an important part of truly connecting with your target audience through the content you develop. In other words, you can humanize your brand by putting a face with whatever it is you want to sell or where you want to position yourself as an expert.
People buy from people, so put yourself in a place where you can easily interact with your target audience. Engage with your followers to foster community building while also growing your site traffic, generating leads, and closing sales for your business.
Given that we live in a digital age, it’s a no-brainer that you need an up-to-date and nicely designed website. Even knowing this, almost 50% of businesses don’t have a website. More importantly, don’t half-ass your website because nearly 40% of people will stop engaging with your site if it is unappealing. There should be a healthy balance of great UX/UI with proper positioning to funnel site visitors to take action (e.g., get in touch with you, buy from you, get a consultation, etc.).
What happens if you don’t have a website?
Your options for getting a website up and running are endless. As a starting point, I’ve always recommended Bluehost. They’re cost-effective, and you can claim your domain name and then start building your site right away utilizing a simple drag and drop plug-in like Elementor. This also means that you have no excuse to delay getting your site set up because you won’t need to have any HTML or CSS knowledge to get it running.
To be more specific, here are 2 key steps to take now:
- Fill out your account information.
From there, you can look at getting your site set up with Elementor, which is a WordPress plug-in, by doing the following:
- Log into Bluehost using the account information you created in the previous section. You will be automatically redirected to your cPanel Dashboard. Click the icon labeled “Install WordPress” as shown on the screenshot below.
- A pop-up window will ask you to select which domain you want WordPress installed on. Select your domain and click the “Submit” button.
- WordPress is now installed. Click the green button to configure the password for your new WordPress site.
- Choose the username and password you want to use to log into your website.
- This is where your creative side can shine. WordPress makes installing pre-designed themes straightforward and easy. If you’re on a tighter budget, WordPress offers plenty of free themes to choose from under Appearance –> Themes. Be sure to select a theme that fits your business’s identity.
- Select “Add New” to visit the WordPress free themes page.
- You can search and filter through the free themes. Once you find a theme you like, you will have an option to install that theme.
- After you install the theme you like, you will need to activate it in the themes section.
Since free themes don’t offer a ton of features and customization options, I highly recommend spending a little extra on a paid theme. ThemeForest offers hundreds of unique WordPress themes ranging from $40 to $60. You can follow the screenshots below to install a custom theme.
- Go to www.themeforest.com and select Blog/Magazine themes from the WordPress menu item. Just like the free themes above, you can search and filter through all of their premium themes. Once you purchase the theme you like, you will receive a downloadable .ZIP file.
- Just like before, select the “Add New” button in the themes section of your WordPress dashboard. You will have the option to upload a theme. Select that option and upload the .ZIP file you downloaded from ThemeForest.
- Be sure to activate the new theme to make it live on your new domain. All of the premium themes from ThemeForest will include documentation and instructions on how to customize the theme to your liking.
Finally, to make it even easier, make sure the theme you choose is compatible with Elementor so that once it is installed, you can customize it however you want without worrying about editing the actual HTML and CSS.
Make it easy for people to get in touch with you
Having a way to capture and communicate with your community of subscribers and leads will benefit your overall business growth. The most obvious paths here would be email and social media.
Social media is a clear route that you can leverage to engage and interact with your target audience. Show them behind the scenes of your everyday hustle and how you get shit done to provide educational content and, of course, then direct social traffic to your actual website to learn more about YOU. In fact, 90% of businesses express that social media effectively builds brand awareness — and that is exactly what you need.
Further, email is going to be instrumental in sharing exclusive content and offerings that are segmented to those in your database based on what they are interested in. It is important to note that 320% more revenue is driven from automated emails than non-automated emails (this is good for you because automating will save you a ton of time). On average, a welcome email series drives more revenue than having a single welcome email or none at all.
Which email marketing tool should you consider?
With email, you not only have a direct way of getting in touch with your target audience, but you can also further communicate specifics of what’s happening with your business. Plus, the win here is that those who subscribe to receive your emails show that they are even more interested in hearing from you and what you have to offer.
Strategically, I always recommend you segment your subscribers to understand which folks are just wanting to learn more about you versus those interested in buying and even those who are already customers. This will help you personalize your messaging so it is more contextually relevant. In fact, personalized emails deliver 6x higher transactional rates. Segmented, targeted, and personalized emails generate 58% of all revenue.
The one tool I use for my business is Ontraport. Plain and simple, it offers a ton of features and is cost-effective. For only $79/month you can do the following:
- Set up automated emails.
- Schedule out email newsletters.
- Input any sort of lead scoring.
- Send out SMS messages and so much more.
Like I said, check out their plans, and sign up for one that’s going to help you get going.
Start blogging consistently
Research relevant topics your target audience cares about and actually wants to consume — address their pain points. Once you write and publish blog posts, make sure you repurpose the blog content as much as you can. For instance, you can re-publish your content on Medium and LinkedIn’s Pulse.
Next up, distribute the content across your social media channels and break them out into multiple posts. Every single social media post will be different based on the platform. Planning all of this content will take some work, but it’s important that you customize and care about how your content looks and comes across. This is going to be essential in driving strong engagement, interactions, and traffic to your site.
SEMRush has a great Content Marketing Toolkit that can help you navigate this entire process. Their toolkit helps you research topics, make a schedule, write the content, and then analyze its effectiveness once it’s published. Sign up for the toolkit here.
One of the most important aspects you should focus on after getting your site set up is developing a regular cadence of how many blog posts you publish every week or month. I can’t emphasize enough how important fresh, evergreen content is. This will get you showing up in search engines and drive more relevant traffic to your site.
Additionally, you’ll have more fodder for distributing your content via social and email. The key here is consistency. The more consistent you are, the more you’ll see your site traffic begin to grow like crazy, and that’s something you can capitalize on.
Get social and build a community
Don’t just pump out content to speak at your target audience. Rather, be a part of the conversation they are already having. Be present on the platforms they are on. Genuinely engage and bring value without asking for anything in return.
Here are some quick ways to leverage some of the conversations that are happening:
- Listen and monitor what’s gaining the most attention, and then take those topics and blog about them and create simple social posts.
- Comment and share posts that are relevant to you.
- Tag relevant profiles and make a genuine introduction.
Lastly, make the investment to build out your community. Don’t be afraid of spending money to ensure your content gets in front of the right audience. With the saturation and noise to get through, it helps to pay to play and get the right eyeballs directed towards your online presence and website.
Have the right perspective
The more authentic and genuine you are to yourself and your audience, the more it’ll come through clearly within the content you share. The notion of self-awareness will help tremendously because you consistently need a pulse on the landscape you’re in, what you bring to the table, and how you’ll eventually monetize it. But more importantly, put yourself in a position to add value rather than just pushing for a transactional sale.
Also, stop thinking that working your ass off and getting shit done one day is going to yield wild success the next day. It’ll all compound over time — so think of it as a marathon, not a sprint.
Take the following tips into consideration:
Work/life integration
It’s real. Know when you need to take time to recharge. Working all of the time isn’t always going to be the answer, no matter how much you love your work. Further, entrepreneurs like GaryVee (btw I love him) who say that they love their work so much they have to work 18 hours a day to be happy just show me that their personal life sucks. They thrive off of the attention and validation they get from their work. And quite honestly, if they have kids and/or spouses, I bet you they aren’t nurturing those relationships as much as they are with “the work.” There’s a huge imbalance. Just as much as you nurture your work, relationships should be held with the same regard because they’re even more fragile. My point here is that you don’t need to compare yourself to those types of entrepreneurs. You need to focus on what’s truly going to work for you.
Get sleep
Get out of the mindset that successful people only sleep 4-5 hours a night. It’s simply not true. Push to get 7-9 hours of sleep a night. You’ll feel so much more refreshed.
Eat healthy and exercise
Simply put, your health is the way to wealth.
Over to you: Take the lead to get shit done
The advice I’ve just given isn’t going to work for everyone. However, the point of this is that in order to truly get shit done and unleash your greatness, you have to take massive action. That action is predicated on a clear vision with goals attached and strong discipline.
Don’t get bogged down by just doing busy work because that’s what you think will make you feel great or how you can portray yourself as “successful.” Truth be told, nobody gives a shit. You have to do what works for you and that’s how you’ll be able to keep growing personally and professionally.
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links. I only recommend products and services that I use and stand behind, and if you decide to try them, I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Doing so helps me run this blog and provide free content for you, my readers.
