How audience-based businesses might handle initial success

I’m bought in on the idea that getting to a point of consistency in doing a few important things well gets you to a measure of success.

And as I slack on the daily publishing habit I know it’s going to be that much harder to get a streak going this week and ultimately hit 300 posts for the year.

I remember a story supposedly told by an employee of Warren Buffet’s (original article? found via jamesclear.com) that he gave the advice of writing down the 25 most important things you want to accomplish in life, sort them by priority, and then do everything possible to completely avoid the bottom 20 at all costs in favor of the top 5.

For levels of audience first businesses, it’d be great if I could say, “you start by doing a few important things consistently well and then you graduate to doing a lot of things consistently well.” But that’s clearly not the answer given we all have the same 24 hours.

What initial success looks like

You reach a measure of success, which for arguments sake we’ll say looks like a steady income that if maintained you’d be a-okay, recognition of your expertise by your peers, and audience validation, support, and ultimately, impact as some measure of lives changed.

At that first level, it doesn’t feel like success as much as momentum. And hallmarks of this kind of momentum are having less time than you used to, things having to give, and opportunities needing to be prioritized.

Because you have finite time and energy.

Now here’s the tricky part. How do you go from rinsing and repeating on your regimen to juggling other opportunities and efforts?

Integrating systems and support (or not)

You could:

• start growing a team, hire a VA, or find specialized contractors to pick up the slack
• look into consultants or coaches to help orient you in the new environment of lots of decisions to be made
• create systems, automations, or processes that support desired outcomes

At this point the next level looks like some semblance of balance of continuing to focus on the things that are important while experimenting with creating more leverage given the better positioning you now have.

How do you keep things simple enough while layering in necessary complexity?

Enter the content audit

Working on this now, more tomorrow.