Entry #58: Including yourself, Optimizing Facebook ads … still so much to do.
By: Isaac Rudansky
Tags: Startup, Advertising, Online Marketing, Webinar, Elearning

This is the 58th post in a series. The first post can be found here.

Progress Made Today

Here are the Facebook stats from Friday and Saturday (3/15/19 and 3/16/19):

Abysmal results. Spend was about $1,000 and the CPA was $10 for the conversions campaign and $7 for the lead form ads campaign.

There’s a few reasons for the increase in CPA, and it likely comes down to editing the ads and updating the budget. But It’s worth this period of inconsistency to optimize the ads as much as possible before getting too deep into it.

I’m going to make more edits to the ads today, because I still have not spent a solid chunk of time on the actual copy, which is important of course.

I recorded a 30 minute video explaining the bonus billing model template that students of the course get.

Originally, my plan was to email the students that template, but I realized I may as well make it a $10 or so standalone product.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

Hopefully, I’ll use that product as a lead in to the full library of billing templates which I’ll price at about $499.

Last night I was feeling completely overwhelmed again. No matter how much progress is made, there is still so much to do, and so little time to do it.

I realized it’s important to allow myself to focus on one thing at a time. Last night it was getting the billing template overview video done. Really zero in on that one task, and consciously believe that down the line, somewhere, sometime, the work will come around.

It’s difficult, because emotionally you feel that about 20 other tasks should take precedence. But it doesn’t matter. If you let that doubt creep in, you’ll end up doing shoddy work on whatever you’re working on which is the last thing you want to do.

Things I’m thinking about

A lot of people feel excluded.

Companies should aim for more inclusivity, but I also believe people need to stop complaining about being proverbially left out and start inserting themselves into the contexts they want to be included in.

I never felt included. I’ve always felt (and still feel) that if I don’t seriously do whatever I can to stick my neck on the line, I’ll be left as scraps on the floor of the slaughterhouse. That pressure has helped me continue to work hard, appreciate the hard work of others, and to not become complacent with minor successes.

As a result, I don’t have time or energy to worry about who’s leaving me out.

It’s really hard to get speaking gigs in our industry. It’s a known thing. Either you know someone or you’ve contributed over many years in a significant way to the industry … and even then, it’s not a given.

The last time I was at a conference, I approached a speaker there who I knew hosts his own respected marketing conference in Vegas every year. I approached him three times throughout the event to strike up a conversation, and on the third time, I asked him if I could speak at his next event.

He told me to apply like everyone else.

But I knew I made a good impression on him.

I applied, and spent a lot of time on that application.

I also reached out to contacts of mine who I knew were contacts of his and asked them if they’d personally reach out and give me a recommendation.

They did.

I was invited to speak.

I could have took to Twitter to complain about how hard it is to get a speaking gig. That’s actually what I initially wanted to do. But I caught myself before doing that realizing that was a weak excuse for not trying hard enough.

Inclusivity is an unbelievably important attribute of any corporation, society etc., but it’s far more effective for individuals to do everything in their power to proactively insert themselves where they want to be than to spend that time and energy complaining about being left out.

Keep on truckin’

- Isaac

The next post can be found here.