fire on the business

It’s been an absolute hectic week of seemingly every single one of me clients committed the #1 sin of business: 

Majoring in the minors. 

Which is to say… 

Focusing on minuscule tasks and ideas that devour time and energy for little to no benefit. In some cases, these minuscule tasks carry an opportunity cost so high that it’s actually negatively affecting business. 

Take, for example, a new website switch a client made that coincided with a complete overhaul of his backend fulfillment branch of his ecom store. 

It’s been over a month for the developers from this new fulfillment software to set up the most basic of metrics that I can use in my client’s Klaviyo account. As such, the most basic automated flows—I’m talking abandoned carts, browse abandonments, and post-purchase sequences—have not worked in a month. 

This has devoured at least $20k of lost revenue. 

And the real number is probably much higher. Especially since I sent a product launch which crushed, but would’ve crushed more with these simple automations working properly. 

Or another client wanted to set up a new marketing channel, but instead of pulling the trigger (like we agreed to weeks ago), there’s nonstop hurdles that aren’t really important, but she’s making them seem so important that she’s having doubts. 

And another example: 

Another client is listening to pitches from email agencies—despite, yanno, already having an email person on his team and one that consistently drives as much as 60% of the online revenue for the entire store—for seemingly no reason. He asked me to look at this agency’s pitch… and they offer absolutely nothing tangible nor anything we need. And yet, my client is letting himself get distracted on something that isn’t a problem instead of filling the actual holes causing problems. 

Many such examples. 

Point being?

Most business owners have a weird glitch where they purposely create fires around their business just so they can solve them. This is a common and annoying phenomenon that happens because a business owner has some mental junk that keeps them stuck instead of growing. 

The mental junk?

Majoring in the minors. 

You could spend the rest of your life majoring in the minors and have no tangible results to show for it. 

Whether it be a new website… 

A new logo… 

Or anything else that doesn’t actually matter to a business’s success, but instead is just a discretion to tell yourself you feel busy. 

Worst part?

There are probably several ways you’re doing this in your own business or your clients are doing in their own business. 

It’s one of the most insidious ways to sabotage your business. 

But awareness is the first step.

Where are you making this mistake in your business?

Anywho:

I, unfortunately, have to try to extinguish a lot of these fires. 

So… Hit reply if you need help preventing yourself from starting these fires in the business or just want to see how your life changes when you make as much as 60% of your revenue from email. 

John