Less Talkie Talk, More Workie Work

I got a strange text message today out of the blue from one of my former staff members at my last job, he wrote, “Less talkie talk, more workie work.”

It made me laugh because that’s a saying that I use a fair bit and obviously he’d just been having one of those days.  When he worked for me, I was the Global IT Director of a large international company, so I would get pulled into tons of pointless meetings on a fairly regular basis.  I think most meetings are pretty much useless, but some are actually toxic and counterproductive, it would be in those meetings that I’d eventually lose patience, drop that line, stand up and walk out.

I still see it in my current job, but now I am largely paid by clients to attend meetings, so that’s a slightly different kettle of fish.  I will, however, drop that line occasionally when an internal meeting goes sideways and people start talking pointless rubbish.

Strangely enough, I’ve also seen coaching students and just people I know in general who run their own business for whom this statement can also apply.  They aren’t necessarily trapping themselves in meetings, but they do spend a ton of time “researching”, “learning” or “strategizing”.

I’m going to put it out there right now, 90% of that time is entirely wasted.  They are piss farting around not doing work.

Less talkie talk, more workie work!

The number of people who I talk to that have the most incredible strategies and business plans but have taken absolutely zero action is unbelievable – seriously, you wouldn’t believe it if you saw it yourself.  I reckon the Pareto Principle (the 80/20 rule) holds true for this is as well, about 80% of the people I run across are talking about taking action and doing pretty much nothing.

If you’ve been reading these emails for a while, you know that I place a high value on planning and strategy.  If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re never going to get there.  At the same time though, sometimes you have to stop plotting your course on a map and just get in the car and start driving.

There are plenty of reasons why people get stuck.  I talked about excuses yesterday and the day before I talked about getting going – this is becoming a bit of a theme.  The reality is that the more people who get these daily emails, the more comments I get back.  Of those people who respond or send me an email that is looking to start their own business on the side or move their offline business into the online space, the more I see this trend hold true.

People that I refer to as Casual Marketers are often plagued by inaction for a variety of reasons, but let’s just put those aside for a second.  I could write thousands of words telling you why this is bad and talk about what’s holding you back, but if you’ve gotten to this point in the email and you know deep down that this applies to you, then there’s no real need to delve into it any more than that right now.

Go back to first principles of business online: you need a product or service, you need to have an offer, you need a market and you need a means of collecting payment.

That’s four simple things.  That’s it, don’t overcomplicate stuff.

Focus your attention on breaking the cycle.  Pick one thing that will move you forward on one of those four elements and do it.  Then pick another and another.  Build momentum.

Remember, “Less talkie talk, more workie work.”

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