Every day there are new songs, books, and blog posts. (Like the new blog post you are reading right now.)
There are new businesses, restaurants, shops, clubs and bars. Including shops where you buy clubs and bars.
There are new clothes, accessories and decoration.
And there are enough new social posts to fill a whole new social sphere every single day.
So why all the newness, Huey Lewis?
Because people have great new ideas worth betting on all the time.
However, you never know which good new ideas will wallop and which ones will whimper.
Sometimes your favorites will fail like New Coke and Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad. And sometimes your maybes will make a mighty roar. Like cat videos.
Learn from both.
And just keep swinging.*
The only real failure is to stop sharing your new ideas.
*Don’t actually be a swinger.
If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.Especially if you know Kendall Jenner or anyone thinking about swinging.
In 2015 I read a book titled The Little Black Book of Connections by the self-proclaimed King of Sales, Jeffery Gitomer. One of the important tenets of the book is, Success is not about who you know, but who knows you. (Who knew?)
Gitomer goes on to share that the best way to have more people know you is to share your knowledge, expertise, ideas and experiences broadly. Which is what Kim Kardashian did with her first home movie back in 2007. And look how well that worked out for her.
Gitomer points out that platforms like blogs, vlogs, podcasts, editorial columns and books enable you to share your ideas with many people at once. In fact, it allows people you would never meet face to face to discover your ideas and be positively impacted by your knowledge and expertise.
What started with a single blog post has gone farther than I ever imagined.
Gettin’ Bloggy With It
In the fall of 2015, I began planning to launch a new advertising agency. So I decided to take Gitomer’s advice and start blogging to share my ideas about advertising, branding, and creativity. I also wanted to share what I was learning about entrepreneurship. Success leaves clues. And I wanted to share breadcrumbs for other entrepreneurs to follow. (It seems I failed to learn the downside of leaving breadcrumbs from Hansel and Gretel.)
I wasn’t sure how the whole blogging thing would go. I had tried it before. In fact, I had started 5 or 6 different blogs and quickly stopped. But this time I felt more inspired. I had Gitomer’s encouragement. I had a strong desire to succeed as an entrepreneur. (And I wanted to be able to feed my family.) I believed that writing a blog would be a great way to share my expertise, let people know I was starting The Weaponry, and share our growth and success.
I have always enjoyed writing. I started my career as a copywriter. So I figured that writing a blog would be fun. It would enable me to tap into my strengths. And most importantly, it would allow me to write funny things without a client or editor telling me no.
So I began writing in November of 2015. And like Forrest Gump, I just kept going, and people started to follow. I began slowly, with a blog post every week. Then I moved to 2 posts per week. And finally, I developed a 3 post-per-week habit, writing 5 days a week, and publishing on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, when Chick-fil-A was closed.
Today, less than 9 years later, I have published 1000 blog posts!
My writings have generally fallen into 3 buckets:
Marketing: This covers the topics of marketing, advertising, branding, creativity, design, writing and yes, blogging. Which is totally meta. (Non-Zuckerberg meta.)
Business: This includes entrepreneurship, startups, sales, network development, professional development, and my personal favorite, funny business.
Self-Improvement: This was unintentional. But I have written a lot about personal development and motivation. I have learned so much over the past 9 years about how to do better and be better (through trial and error) that I felt I had to share these lessons.
These are all the countries where my blog has been read. North Korea, Iran and the croissant in Africa are holding out on me.
What Do 1000 blog posts look like?
111 blog posts every year.
More than 2 new blog posts every week.
The equivalent of 10 full length 50,000 word books
A minimum of 2000 hours of writing time.
The equivalent of one full year of 40-hour work weeks spent writing blog posts.
The equivalent word count of writing The Old Testament of The Bible. (Truly I say to you, this fact hath blown my mind.)
Blogging created a pathway to publishing books. And holding books I published.
5 Benefits Of Blogging
It provides original content I can share on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Medium and Reddit (Although Reddit readers hate everything, like Mikey.)
It provides a great collection of well-considered and well-organized ideas and stories that are ready to be adapted to books. The hardest work of writing my books happens in the blog stage. The easiest work is collecting blog posts with related themes to create chapters and books.
Blogging created a path to professional speaking. The blog posts led to a book. The book led to speaking opportunities. The speaking opportunities have created the best source of income in my Information Creation + Communication Ecosystem.
Blogging organizes great ideas, lessons and stories to share as a professional speaker.
The blogs have allowed me to share far more jokes and humorous asides than I would be able to share any other way. This is really the thing that keeps me writing.
I was excited to hit 200 posts back in 2018 when I was just a baby blogger.
6 Things I Want Everyone To Know About Writing 1000 Blog Posts
Anyone can do it.
There are no barriers.
There are tons of tools and templates that make it easy. (I use WordPress to write and publish my blog.)
The 2 key steps are: 1. Get Started 2. Don’t Stop.
To sustain a blog you have to create a regular writing habit. Write at the same time for a set duration every day, or every weekday, or every Friday or whatever works for you. The habit is how it happens. (Which is also how you know someone is a nun.)
Don’t do it for huge numbers of readers. You can’t predict who will read your posts, or how many people will read what you write. If you are like most people, including me, your reach and readership will always be lower than you would want. And my blog has been read in over 160 countries. But you can create good information that can have a huge impact on one reader. That’s the real win of blogging.
Key Takeaway
As the saying goes, the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. And the best way to write 1000 blog posts is one post at a time. Find a topic or topics that you are really interested in. Get started. And just don’t stop. Write at a regular time each day or each week. And when people tell you they enjoy reading your posts, or somehow benefited from your writings, use that as fuel to keep going. The world needs more good ideas, lessons, and stories. You have them. So start sharing. You’ll be surprised by how many lives you can positively impact. And that is the real benefit.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
Content is the marketing buzzword of the millennium. If Jan Brady was alive today, (and was a marketing expert), she would be exclaiming, ‘Content, content content!’ instead of, ‘Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!’
Experts say that both personal brands and business brands need to put out content to draw more attention. It’s easy to understand why Netflix, Hulu and HBO need content. It is the product they sell. But why do non-entertainment brands and individuals need content? Inquiring minds want to know.
Connect The Dots
Think of life like a giant game of connect-the-dots. When you share your content you are enabling others to connect to your dots. Your dots may be your ideas, products, services, advice, knowledge, experience, expertise or friendship. All of those things have value in this epic game of connect-the-dots we are all playing.
A Recent Example
Last weekend Angie Eger from Columbus, Ohio posted a picture of her son on Instagram. And when she did, a curious chain of events happened.
I thought about Angie for the first time in quite a while. Angie cut my hair from 2009 to 2014 when I lived in Columbus. Then I remembered that I have a problem. I need a haircut. However, I have a bigger problem, which is that my hair person in Milwaukee, Sara Holzem, moved to Naples during the pandemic. And I have only had my hair cut once since. The cranky woman who cut my hair did a good job, but the experience was poor. And by the looks of it, she has been fired by the hair place where I saw her. It’s likely because her cranky pants were a violation of the salon’s dress code.
As I read Angie’s Instagram post I realized that I would be in Columbus, Ohio the following Friday. So I sent Angie a note through Instagram asking her if she had any spare hair time on Friday. Luckily for me, she did.
This is Angie, with a mask, for safety.
So last Friday morning I got my hair cut by Angie for the first time in 7 years. It was a major win-win. Angie offered a great solution to a problem I was struggling to solve. My fresh new hairdo looks a lot better than my expired one. I got to start my Friday morning catching up with an old friend. And Angie increased her business last week, by re-attracting a lapsed customer. As a result, she made money doing something she loves.
Share Your Content
This transaction only happened because Angie posted a picture of her son on Instagram. I was connecting dots, and she put her dot right where I needed it. Which meant that I connected Angie’s Instagram-post dot to my hair-problem dot to my trip- to-Columbus dot. Problem solved.
This is the image of Angie’s son on Instagram that started it all. Happy Birthday Cole!
Key Takeaway
Keep sharing your world with others. Every piece of content you share has the potential to help someone. It makes you or your organization top of mind when others are trying to solve a problem. We are all playing a giant game of connect-the-dots every day. So add your dots. And help others win.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
I started writing The Perfect Agency Project blog in 2015 as I was preparing to launch by own advertising agency called The Weaponry. After 2 decades as a salaried employee, I wanted to document and share my experience as I attempted to transition to a self reliant entrepreneur. I wasn’t sure if I was writing a how-to story, or a how-not-to story. But I figured it could provide value either way.
Entrepreneurship
Along the way I have learned a lot about being an entrepreneur. Including how to spell it. I learned that the word in german is unternehmer. Which I think is hilarious. Because it can be literally translated as undertaker. So you should be careful before signing up for that Unternehmer Conference in Stuttgart.
Content Creation
I have also learned a great deal about blogging. And content creation in general. Although I’ve never liked the term ‘content’. Content sounds like ‘stuff’. And no one should just be creating stuff. But alas, the masses have spoken, and they have adopted content, like they adopted VHS over Betamax.
Positive Feedback
When I began sharing my blog posts with friends and family I began getting positive feedback. It was nice to hear those close to me say that they thought a post was good, or funny or interesting.
I shared my posts more broadly on social media, and I started hearing people I didn’t even know say that they learned something. Or were inspired to act by something they read on my blog. I appreciated the feedback and was happy to know others were gaining some value from my writings.
New Feedback
But lately I have heard something different from readers of my blog. It’s not that my posts are interesting, funny or inspiring. It’s not that they are insightful or informative. The new comment that I have heard lately is short and sweet. Just 5-words in total. But those words are extremely meaningful to me.
The 5 Words
The 5 words that I have been hearing people say a lot about my blog lately are:
‘I look forward to it.’
The Reward
I don’t need a million readers. I’m not trying to win any awards. I am not trying to quit my job and become a full time blogger. Although as an entrepreneur I think it would be funny to have to resign to myself. (It’s not you, it’s me. Just kidding, it’s you!) I don’t need to make a dime off of my blog. Because knowing that there are people who look forward to my next post is the greatest reward I can imagine.
These 2 readers, and that’s all I need.
I don’t need any other validation that what I am writing and sharing is worthwhile than knowing that there are readers who look forward to each new post. It tells me that the posts add value. I’m not sure if it is entertainment, education or inspiration that readers look forward to. Or if my blog simply provides a rich habitat for typo hunters. Maybe it is a combination of factors. I am grateful regardless.
Developing A Brand
When people look forward to the content you serve up it means you have delivered consistently. Which translates to a brand with value. Even on a very small scale, that is very rewarding.
Have you tried Blog n’ Coffee?
Sunday Coffee
Over the past 2 weeks I have had multiple people tell me that they look forward to The Perfect Agency Project Sunday morning post. They have told me that reading the post has become part of their Sunday morning coffee routine. I had no idea that anyone picked up on the fact that I always post on Sunday morning by 8am CT, before I rush off to church. And I couldn’t be more touched. At least not without having to press charges.
Key Takeaway
When others look forward to your content, programming, services or products you are doing it right. Because we only look forward to such things when they are good. When they offer value. And when they are enjoyable. The same holds true in our relationships. When others look forward to what you offer you are on the right track. So dig in and keep it coming. More good things will surely come your way.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this story, please share it with them.
Adam Albrecht Blog 