Creation and Distractions

Year of Alchemy / By

This post is part of my year of alchemy, you can find the whole series here or subscribe for future updates here.

I am still in shock that the first month of the year is done. But here we are.The month has been all about distractions and content creation for my first product.

Let’s dive in.

The Distractions

For so long I’ve been trying to put energy into this project, and now I am being more aware of where my energy is being sucked, it’s quite an eye opener.

Job opportunities

This month I’ve had multiple job opportunities that I’ve seriously considered. It’s taken my focus away in a big way. My head says yes, but then I take the time to sit with it and my gut comes back into play. The idea of getting out of the house and interacting with adults is appealing. But because I am an introvert, also not.

Motherhood

I’ve also struggled this month with being Mum. The good old introvert Mum issues, never getting any alone time. My eldest has dropped her day sleep, my youngest has dropped his second sleep every other day, we’re also in the midst of potty training and the tantrums have been extreme. Lots of big transitions happening which I’ve had to hold space for.

I am lucky if I’ve been able to allocate 4 hours for the entire month to the project (as opposed to 4 hours a week like I had planned). I’ve really come to the conclusion that daycare needs to be back on the cards sooner rather than later, especially if I want to get anything done. Or it’s more about preserving energy during the day and working at night.

Questioning all the things

With the tests of job opportunities and motherhood holding me back, it has slowed me down enough to question where my energy should go. Should I launch a program? Should I launch a membership? Should I instead look at relaunching Digital alchemy or just take on extra website projects. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve had waaaay to much time to over think this, and I need to somehow have a constant reminder of what my main priority is.

Product progress

I’ve found creating my course challenging, more so because I don’t know what I know unless someone asks me! Then once I get started I go out on so many tangents which is really debilitating as it becomes overwhelming. And if it’s overwhelming for me, my students will be just as overwhelmed. So of the content I’ve created I have stripped out probably 80%. Seems like a total waste of time but I am starting to understand it’s part of the process.

I’ve found the process of creating a sales page to be super helpful in terms of knowing how to craft the content BUT I still get distracted by the busy work (ie instagramming, sending emails, writing blogs). It’s like a shiny object I want to chase, the instant gratification. And truth be told I love organising the chaos (recently took the Johnathon fields Sparketype test which makes perfect sense to me), but I need to constantly remind myself that it’s just time wasting until I have something to sell.

My goal of writing all my course content fell flat (see distractions) but I am pushing forward anyway, I am halfway through so not all is lost. I am still planning to launch something at the end of february with an alpha round.

Other actions

Website changes

In late December I changed my optin incentive to a single optin, previously I had 2. I also changed my pop up to be the native mailchimp one as opposed to a third party plugin (pop up ally).

I am not sure if it’s due to the Xmas / January time or the changes I’ve made but I’ve had a huge decline in new subscribers. And spam signups, so many spam signups. I’ll watch this for another month and see where it sits in March.

Listening to what people want

I’ve always struggled with knowing what to create as a good optin incentive. One that’s really freaking good, but also relevant to what I want to sell.

I am in a few Facebook groups in my specific niche and lately I’ve just been following them just to really see what questions people have been asking. It’s a fantastic way to get ideas for content ideas too. This month the penny dropped on what a perfect optin incentive would work, so I am adding that to my list for when I am finished creating the content for my course.

On the flipside, groups (particularly in my niche) can be a minefield of mansplainers. It is the place you go when you just want your confidence knocked down a notch. So be careful where you tread. In the bigger groups I prefer to observe rather than participate.

Summing up January

For January I pledged to put the busy work on hold. Minimal social and blogging so I could really focus on creating the product. But due to ‘life’ everything was put on hold.

It wasn’t wasted though, I got half the course written, my sales page done and addressed some key mindset issues my priorities.

January stats

Email subscribers –262 (17 new, 9 lost)

Instagram followers – 4315

Facebook followers – 361

Average Monthly website hits – 1120

Money earned – $0

Money spent – $0

Hours spent on the project – 4

My commitment for February

This month is all about getting my first product out there with a launch!

I’ll be:

  • Finalising content for the course

  • Finalising the sales page

  • Ramping up the social media

  • Investing in some ads

  • Launching!

March snapshot

At this point March will be all about delivering the course. I want to really focus on building an engaged community so I can retain them as customers.

I’ll also get back to regular blogging again.

Until next month, if you’re not on the list to get my regular updates on this project and are wanting to follow along you can sign up here.