We’ve all heard people talk about “hustle”, the drive that keeps you going even when you’re having to do the nitty gritty work that doesn’t thrill you. It’s an important part of any entrepreneur’s toolbox.
My guest this week has a serious amount of hustle and an equal amount of passion for what he’s doing. Neil Patel is the co-founder of marketing software programs including KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg, as well as the co-author of a new book, Hustle: The Power to Charge Your Life with Money, Meaning, and Momentum.
Neil’s talking with me about one of the biggest questions we all face: what exactly is my passion? He’s giving me some tips on how to find the things that you’re actually excited about and let go of the things you only think you’re excited about.
We’re also digging into working backwards to achieve your goals, what to do with feedback and criticism, and focusing on quality content to drive up traffic.
Neil is a highly successful entrepreneur as well as a marketing genius, I’m thrilled he’s here to share his expert knowledge--you’ll want to take advantage of his advice.
Bravery in Business Quote
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Cliff Notes
- The internet is becoming more personalized. Now, it knows your location what you and your friends like and tries to show you information based on that. Neil thinks it’s going to become even more extreme in the future and make faster connections in terms of marketing.
- Co-market with people who already have a good audience for your product. Look for people with established followings that would also be interested in your work, and joint venture with them on a project.
- It can feel like the middle class is disappearing and like there is no way to success if you weren’t born wealthy, but this isn’t true. People need to start looking for nontraditional ways to the top, since the traditional methods are no longer working.
- Work backwards. Think of your goal, and then write down what you need to do to get to that goal. Then, just try to spend 10 minutes on one of the steps. After 10 minutes, evaluate if what you’re doing is helping you get closer to the goal or not.
- You’re going to make a lot of mistakes as an entrepreneur. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, sit down and think about why it happened. Learn from what you did so that you don’t make the same mistake over again.
- When people tell you know, or criticize you after a failure, choose to listen to their feedback. You don’t have to follow their advice or internalize the criticisms, but listen to it and evaluate it as you keep pushing forward.
- If you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, don’t do it. Only do things that you’re really passionate about right now, because once you lose the spark, it’s really hard to reignite it.
- Try different things. Sometimes, we don’t know what we’re actually passionate about. Start something, and if you don’t love it, stop it and start something else. What you love now is not always what you thought it would be ten years ago.
- Focus on quality over quantity. Create the best content, not just a lot of it, and then work on getting people to come to your site. Spend more time marketing than creating content.
- If your content is really good, it’s more likely that clients and visitors to your site will quote and link to it to share the content. This kind of marketing is much more effective than self-promotion.
- Kristin is giving away 5 copies of his book.
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Resources
HustleGeneration.com
NeilPatel.com
CrazyEgg.com
KissMetrics.com
HelloBar.com