Consistency Is A Powerful Thing That is So Often Overlooked

In today’s world of the 5 second attention span it’s easy to forget about consistency.  With all the great data, entertainment, and choices,  its becoming harder and harder to focus on one thing for any length of time.  Viewers love the big plays all the while the consistent throw or run across the middle for 5 yards is what really is getting them down field 95% of the time.

If someone were to ask me my keys to success in the domain industry or any of my endeavors, I would tell them that I took a patient approach and consistently worked at what I was doing.  When you do things consistently you get noticed.  It may not always be a good thing, but it becomes part of your life and everyone else around you. If I stand out on the corner in a yellow jacket and wave to you one morning on your way to work, you probably won’t notice me.  But if I’m out there every day, the entire year, I’m going to become part of your life.  If I change my jacket one day to blue, don’t show up one day, or flip you off, you are going to question why the change. Start making up a story as to why the change happened and the reasons behind it.   Your daily life changed in a slight little way and I became part of it because of consistency.  I’ve taken that idea and worked it in to how I live my life.  Some times its to save time, some times its to save money, other times its to break up something large into small little pieces.  But its a scheduled event that takes place regularly.  “Inch by inch, life’s a cinch”.   Or Bruce Lee’s “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times”.   You know the sayings, and consistency is a bit of what’s behind them.

I don’t attribute the success of this blog to the incredible content, the breaking news, or the words of wisdom.  I attribute it to having something to read every day.  Some of it will be good, some will be funny, and some will be terribly boring, but it will almost always be there.  The daily list has been up 350 days a year for 6 years straight.   That is consistent.  Whether you read it or not, if you go on the Domaining feed you will see it there.  They remember DomainShane.   If it didn’t show up for a week or two, many of you would call to make sure I’m OK.  My Mom would probably call as well.   By being there every day it also grows a little as time goes by.  Like a small tree you plant in the back yard.  You may take it for granted most days but one day you are going to notice how big its become.

I use this same approach to my marketing efforts.  I used to try and target specific audiences, chasing them around media, looking for good buys and price per reader, listener, or viewer.  But now I’ve found a better approach. I try and find what my audience is doing at a certain time of day and hit that show and stay there.  Every week, the entire season.  Same time, same day, different message every week.   As my sales grow and my marketing budgets has grown I have added more stations.  After 20 years, if you hop in the car and listen to any radio station between 6-8:30 am or the drive home (unless your are on Sirius),  you will hear little old me talking to you about why you should come to the nursery.  Same voice, every day.  After all these years, if they hear my voice they immediately think about the nursery.  I can be talking to my wife at dinner and I can see that people know that voice.  Some may say that people become blind to seeing or hearing the same thing.  They do if its not different.  My voice may be the same but the content changes and I try and make it entertaining and informative.  Much like the daily list. It’s the same thing every day but it changes, and it’s always there.   I do the same thing with the newspaper.  We used to spend tens of thousands trying to put an ad in the paper to help drive sales.  Nothing worked until we picked a spot in the paper, picked a day, and put a coupon in the same spot, the same day, every week.   People now know to go to that section and look and see what we have on sale that day.   “That’s basic marketing Shane”  Yes it is, yet so many people don’t do it.

So where am I headed with this?  I am saying all this because I feel people want all the great things that they see around them, but don’t realize that it is going to take a blend of this consistency, combined with some intelligence, skill, and luck.  You can have what Frank Schilling , Andrew Rosener, and Mike Berkens have.   None of them had giant bankrolls to get where they are going.   They each worked all day, every day, for years, picking off a little piece at a time.   I can guarantee they didn’t miss very many days, didn’t worry about having less money, less time than others.  And yes, there was a point where Frank didn’t have hundreds of millions.  He had to work years to build a little at a time until it became a lot at a time.  They all started somewhere, and it is in the same place many of you are standing now.  “It’s was easier back then”  Back then? Drew started 5 years ago and has millions of dollars in domains, all from nothing.  That wasn’t back then.   The stories of Toronto Domainer are nice.  Selling a big name for a lot of money and making a good paycheck.  But those are those touchdowns I talked about.  The real 5 yard passes are the daily phone calls, the gathering of information, and all the hard work that it takes to repeat or keep the cash flow rolling in that Drew is putting in.  Consistently……every……day.

So enjoy the articles about apps being bought for $500 million after 6 months, and the start ups with billion dollar valuations with no sales.  Those are reality, but not the reality for most of us.  Most of us will have to put in the time and effort over many years.  But if you stay consistent, you will eventually get there and people will notice.