Marketing is my job. I have built an independent photography business. I was the CMO and co-founder for a VC-backed travel tech company. Even now, I’m a marketing consultant for several brands ranging from CPG to fintech. For some reason, it’s easy to be scrappy with clients. But, when it comes to my brand, being a perfectionist slaps me in the face.
In general, I want to grow my website audience. Though it’s great to build awareness, I also want people to read what I’m writing. Understandably, It’s not enough to just put my amazing thoughts and lessons on paper. I need to find ways to provide value and build an email list. That way, I can deliver these insights directly. Therefore, it’s time to build some lead magnets. There’s just one problem — I want to be different.
Undoubtedly, I can’t be the only one inundated by random marketers selling me courses on Instagram. Or, it could be because I want to provide value and I’m doubting my ability to create it. Truthfully, it’s because I’m also a perfectionist. I dream of perfect scenarios. For instance, I create one perfect lead magnet, drive traffic, and increase my email list by 10x.
Back to reality. Perfection is a productivity killer. It’s wild to think I’d create a perfect marketing funnel in one shot. It takes testing, learning, and iterating. It takes hard work and time. Being a perfectionist creates a framework that’s hard to achieve. Perhaps, it’s even important to accept that perfect doesn’t exist.
It’s timely that my previous blog post is the same topic from a different angle. You know what they say… Easier to give advice than to take it. Now, the hard part, it’s time to take my own advice. Create, test, learn, iterate; rinse and repeat.
In order to shed perfection, I’m going to do a couple things. First, I’m going to set reasonable expectations. I’ll aim at creating three lead magnets to test. Second, I’m going to redefine success and celebrate the wins. I’m not going to define success as a 10x jump in subscribers. Instead, success will be creating and clicking publish. Lastly, I’m going to set a time limit. If I leave this project open-ended I’ll procrastinate and ruminate. I’ll give myself X amount of time for each and launch them into the world.
Perfectionism, you have your place. It’s just not here, in this moment.