The valley of despair
There are 5 emotional stages one moves through as they are building their business. I egotistically thought that they wouldn't affect me. I thought this because I have been working at my business for about a year now and I hadn't lost motivation. This made me think that I was past the valley of despair and success was right around the corner. Reality has settled in, I am barely at the informed pessimism stage
I egotistically thought that they wouldn't affect me.
1. Uninformed optimism
The first stage is the second best stage out of all 5, or at least I assume it is. The reason I think that it is the second best is because it is the one with the second most overall happiness. In my situation, I was making consistent progress every week for about a year. There were times of low motivation but I got over them fast since I could see my business start taking shape. Because I had been at this for a year, I thought I had had skipped all the bad emotional stages, I was wrong.
2. Informed pessimism
This is the stage I think I have reached. The realization is finally settling in that just because I think I can build great websites and make better websites than others, doesn't make my business good. What made me reach this informed pessimism was the amount of rejections I received from my initial cold calls. Even if I did convince to take me up on my free offer, it takes hours of work to create the free offer, more on this below. The reality is finally settling in that I have very far to go.
3. Valley of despair
The valley of despair is the stage at which most people who have a business quit and say that business wasn't for them. At this stage it is the original plan has crumbled and business owners start jumping from one thing to another thinking it was them choosing wrong which led them here.
- "I am offering the wrong kind of service"
- "I'll try doing ads instead of cold outreach"
- "I'm just trying to sell it to the wrong person. I'll change my niche"
And many other excuses. This leads businesses owners to cycles of uninformed optimism, informed pessimism, and valley of despair all over again for each new thing they though would solve their problem. What they don't know is the overcoming the valley of despair isn't to switch what you are doing, but do it for long enough that you succeed. After writing out this section I am thinking I might actually be in the valley of despair.
This leads business owners to cycles of uninformed optimism, informed pessimism, and valley of despair all over again...
4. Informed optimism
At this stage the business owner has finally made the realization that what they chose wasn't the problem, but it was not being able to stick with it. Business owners know what they have to do and the amount of work that will be required, and are willing to do the work. At this is stage is when occasional wins will start to happen. Which will usually reinforce them enough to get past this stage.
5. Success
Finally success has been reached. The business owner has figured out a channel which gets them clients. They have enough sales skills to close people on their services. The business owner is finally seeing the fruits of their labor. That doesn't mean that business will get easier from this point on, but they have gotten past one of the hardest periods.
How I got here
On Friday March 15 2024 I had "sold" 3 people on a cold call. I sold them on giving me permissions to deliver them my lead magnet, which is a website evaluation. The entire weekend I put off the work of creating the lead magnets. On Monday I only did 3 cold calls in a 40 minute block because I was fighting internally with myself. Asking myself "why am I even doing cold calls if I don't even want to create the lead magnets" Currently each on takes me hours to create.
...I only did 3 cold calls in a 40 minute block...
For each lead magnet I go to their website and take notes on the biggest problems that I can find wrong conversion wise, visually, and technically. I then create a video pointing out all the problems that I found with recommendations on what could work better. Lastly I also create a 3 section concept design of what their website could look like if they incorporated my feedback. I purposely make something that looks way better than their current website so they are inclined to work with me and know that I can already deliver.
Why would I sell someone on something I don't want to deliver on? That right there is a good question, why don't I want to deliver my lead magnets?
Wrong expectation
I have delivered over 10+ lead magnets so far and none have yet converted into a client. I don't want to deliver the lead magnets because of how much time they compared to how much I get, which is nothing. That right there is the wrong expectation. I was creating these lead magnets with the idea that I should be getting clients through this, but nothing in this world says that should happen. I need to shift my expectation
Improving my skill
I need to look at the lead magnets as learning opportunities, not money making opportunities, even if deep down that is what I want ultimately. Right now it takes me hours to create an evaluation, but the more I do this the faster I'll get and eventually I could get to a point where I can do an evaluation start to finish in just 1 hour. The truth is that I don't think I can keep spending so many hours on this free work without a noticeable return.
Going forward
I am going to changing out what I do as my lead magnet as it simply not sustainable. The amount of effort put in vs the return does not make sense. What I think I am going to do instead is switch over to only doing video audits pages. This will take far less time and this one with enough skill can be done within 30 minutes.