The Power and Strength of Slow and Steady Growth
As long as we are moving forward, we are continuing to win the day.
The age-old story of the hare and the tortoise is one that holds a lot of truth. We have become a bit jaded with instant success, and shortcuts to riches touted every day in the places we visit and the media we consume.
Top Ten Ways to Create Free Content That Sells Millions.
Use ChatGPT to Write A Thousand Amazon Books a Day.
Get Rich on Medium With This One Weird Trick.
Yeah, it’s weird alright.
And it makes us wonder what is wrong with the way we are going about it, slogging through the work day in and day out.
DAMN!
So we strive for big events, huge impact-creating moments that will increase our revenue by 30% overnight. We want to instantly find new markets, tame them, and be able to tell everyone on Medium how successful we were last month.
We read about incredible deals, owners walking away with millions, new talent getting plum gigs, and how effortlessly he or she has become the new leader — a shining icon amongst all of us riff-raff.
OK, now we’ll even pay good money for that one goddamned weird trick!
And we think that is normal because we hear all about it every day.
But really, they are outliers. One-offs. Non-typical.
That is precisely why we hear about them.
If all we hear about are the rare outliers, we begin to file them away as what we MUST do to survive. Create the ‘big bang’ deal! That’s what everyone is doing!
Right?
No, sorry, that is demonstrably wrong.
That is not reality, that is anomaly writ large.
In reality, most successful businesses grow stronger in smaller increments. Smaller steps. Measured growth.
Lower weights, more reps.
Steady, sustained growth is not rare. It is commonplace. So it gets little press and hype. Who wants to hear “she busted her ass for a long time and finally got a chance to bust her ass even more, then failed, then made herself a situation where she got to bust her ass for a while longer and achieved a modicum of success before changing it up and busting her…”
Well, you get the idea.
Contrary to what we are often expected to believe, a company that builds strongly on sound principles and steady upward growth can indeed become successful — and keep that success — far more often than the flash-in-the-pan outliers.
But we still want that bang.
We go to expensive business seminars and expect that flashy guru with a huge grin on stage to change our lives in a weekend. Everybody’s dancing in the aisles as platitude after platitude wafts through the rafters like smoke at a Grateful Dead concert. It is a heady time, and we just gotta walk on hot coals to top it off!
Hot coals = business success.
Or something.
A few weeks, and thousands of dollars later, we are back at square one. That sort of instant high only lasts a little while. That is what it is designed to do. Then when you need another fix, there is magically another seminar to attend.
And a never-ending supply of hot coals.
What if we had invested that money and time into a steady growth program? Perhaps we would be a bit farther along.
Waiting, or worse, planning for an “AHA” moment to come like an epiphany from the heavens is the stuff of novels and $30 self-help books with offers of additional training, seminars, courses, and mentoring.
For, you know, a price.
Look. Nobody knows what you are capable of more than you. You set your agenda, keep your eyes locked forward, and get into the trenches with your art, your idea, your system, and your gut.
Foreigner, the rock band, played college frat parties, schools, clubs, weddings, and private gigs for over 10 years before they became the overnight success we all heard about.
Steven Pressfield wrote for 30 years before someone accepted his manuscript for “Bagger Vance”.
Herb Ritts photographed friends, family, wannabe models and actors, and anyone who would go in front of his lens before he was “discovered” by Vogue and had instant stardom.
It can be depressingly deceptive to sit and look at those accomplished artists and write it off as a ‘special circumstance’, a “family privilege," or being really lucky.
In reality, it was none of those at all. It was steady growth, both in the work they did and the impressions they made on the growing numbers of fans that appreciated them.
If we simply stopped checking email every 30 minutes and made social media a set time of day instead of all the time, we would have so much more time to devote to what is truly important in building our business.
Emails could be written and sent in less time than cruising to see how many people liked your latest post.
Cold calls could be made (yeah, they’re icky, but they are also a fantastic way to get to people) since most others are hoping their IG catches the eye of the contact they need.
Address 10 mailers and get them out the door in less time than we would spend scrolling for “inspiration” on Behance or in constant search of the next cool, easy, free thing that will “triple our income in ten days”.
Talent is not bestowed in a lightning flash.
Success is rarely overnight.
Scrappers, fighters, the ones that hate to be told no… they persevere.
WHAT DO WE DO NOW
Commit to a plan for the next full month
Reach out to a minimum of 15 possible clients. Show and tell them what you do. Be positive and look at ways you can help them get what they want.
If you touch 15 people, then mark the month as a success.
I don’t care if you didn’t get a gig, or sign a single contract. That is not how we are measuring success. The fact that you met with or talked with 15 potential clients is a win. The process is the win.
Then keep track of what happens over the next month.
Did you hear back from any of those folks you talked with?
Did you get any gig inquiries?
Did any inquiry turn into a proposal?
Of course, you're talking to potential clients again this month, but the goal is now 20—five per week.
And once again, the process is the goal. Winning means working your system, and dropping expectations to a lower tier.
Slow and steady we will eventually work up to 3 client contacts per day. And when you do that, the “luck” that was so elusive starts to pay off. Because luck is hard work in disguise.
Gear up, we have much to do.
All photographs by me, the author of this fine tome.
I am a photographer, designer, and photo editor. You can find me at my self-named website or at Project 52 Pro System (enrollment begins January 6, 2023) where I teach commercial photography online. This is our tenth year of teaching, and it is the most unique online class you will find anywhere.
Check out my newsletter and community at Substack. We are new, but growing.
You can find my books on Amazon, and I have taught two classes at CREATIVELIVE.