Avoiding Death by Cookie Cutter

By Lisa D. Jenkins

Have you ever been doing one thing and found a correlation to another that sidetracks you? It happens to me all the time.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about doing what I love, it’s that sitting on my butt and working online for hours is all too easy. I’ve gone from running 5 to 7 miles a day to working 7 to 9 hours without ever getting out of my chair. It’s not good for me.

So two weeks ago, for the first time ever, I hired a personal trainer because I wanted some expertise and experience to help me avoid hurting myself while I got back in shape.

At our first meeting, I expected to be told how ‘the program’ worked and what I should be prepared for. Instead, we had an hour long conversation about what I wanted to achieve, any goals I was pursuing, how I ate and how much water I drank in a day. She was serious about food and water.

We talked about all the different nutritional plans out there – paleo, vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, raw, etc. Then she said, “I don’t want you to change how you eat, I do want you to keep a food diary. Write down everything you eat each day. Make a note on the days you feel great, get enough sleep and have a good workout, and make a note on the days where things aren’t feeling right for you. When you find the eating pattern that works best for you – stick with that. It’ll be the best Lisa Jenkins diet I can recommend.”

That’s where the correlation happened.

Most of us with online businesses look to others for support and inspiration to build stronger, more successful businesses. We seek out blogs like the one you’re reading now and conferences like SOBCon and Genius Shared to help us learn from people who’ve gone before us.

But that doesn’t mean we should blindly pattern our success on a cookie cutter version of theirs. We have to know what advice fits our needs and we need to know how to measure the effect of that advice against our unique goals. Here are a few simple ways to get started:

• Create landing pages for each online campaign and track conversions using Google Analytics.
• Collect email addresses instead of Likes, Follows and Connections and use them to segment customer markets for targeted campaigns you can track.
• Use A/B testing.

Adapt the tactics of others, don’t copy their steps.

There’s nothing wrong with looking to others who’ve successfully built online businesses for inspiration and guidance to build your own business. It’s a smart move. Just make sure it IS your business you’re building and not a shadow of someone else’s.

Keep YOUR goals in mind. Track what works FOR YOU and what doesn’t. When you find what works best – stick with it. That’s the best strategy I can recommend.