By Idabel
Allen
Monopoly,
Payday, Life even dominoes - as a child I rarely read instructions to any game
or activity. I just winged it. Starting with Chutes and Ladders at six, I
couldn’t be bothered to take five minutes to understand what I was about to
undertake for the first time. There was a game before me, a task, something to
do, and I jumped in feet first trusting I would figure it out as I went, or
that another player knew more than I.
It’s the
same now, at forty-eight. Only, I’m not playing board games, but publishing and
marketing books utilizing a whole bevy of technical tools I’ve never used
before: MailChimp and BookFunnel and WordPress and more. Tools that have, for
the most part, clearly written instructions and training material to help you
understand what you are doing and why.
The
smart thing to do would be to read through this material, familiarize myself
with the steps and start off with a solid base from which to build.
And yet,
old habits die hard, and I am back to my old ways, uncertain of process and
tool, consulting the instructions only after hitting a wall.
I like
to think my aversion to instructions has less to do with laziness and more to
do with impatience that goes back to childhood. Who has time to read
instructions when there are dice to roll and game pieces to move about the
board? Rules were often what we made them.
Playing
board games by your own rules has few repercussions. Building a website,
setting up email sequencing, inserting pixels, or developing ad campaigns is an
entirely different matter. Each piece is critical to your overall marketing
plan, which has its own architecture similar to a building. Your website is the
foundation and social media accounts, ad campaigns, promotions and giveaways
the floors above. Furnishing rooms are content – newsletters, blog posts,
articles, interviews, and reviews.
This
building is quite a complex piece of architecture. Without a blueprint for
guidance, construction is a nightmare. I know because I created this nightmare
for myself. Not out of laziness or ignorance, but out of a deep-seated
impatience to get the job done that rode shotgun over common sense.
It’s not that I didn’t plan; I’m a planner by nature. I had a general outline in my head of what needed to happen and corresponding deadlines. I gave myself two weeks to build my website in Wordpress, a tool I’d never used. Another week to update my social media accounts. Once these things were complete, I would start my ad campaign and go from there.
Then
reality set in and I discovered how much lack of preparation cost in time,
effort and stress. I lost more time tracking down issues with my email account,
system performance, and countless other technical issues.
Turns
out the saying, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, has never been
truer. Read Part 2 on 1-8-18.
___________________________________________________________________________
IDABEL ALLEN is the author of Headshots, Rooted, and Cursed!
My Devastatingly Brilliant Campaign to Save the Chigg and Rooted (February,
2018 release). When not burrowing in the written word, Idabel is generally up
to no good with her family, dogs, and herd of antagonistic cows. Learn more
about Idabel at www.idabelallen.net. or
follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/idabelallenauthor/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/IdaFiction
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