#91 - How To Decide What To Learn (And What To Disregard)

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Welcome to podcast #91! Today we are talking about why paying attention to the wrong things could really cost your business (and what you should pay attention to when you decide to pay attention!). Lately we have found that a lot of business owners have struggled to move forward and have run around in circles trying to figure out what they should be doing – we are often bombarded with things to learn and it can be confusing to know how to decide what to learn!

What have Andrew McCauley & Heather Porter learn this week?

Andrew is excited! Twitter is rolling out the ability to listen to audio while browsing your Twitter feed. That means, for example, people could listen to your podcast while flipping through Twitter and gives you the ability to reach out more.

Heather learnt about a new cool tool to create landing pages – Unbounce. This also served as a reminder to her that, while we may experience shiny object syndrome a lot when it comes to new tools and technologies, we can also tend to become insular with what we like and are using.

How To Decide What To Learn

So how do you decide what you should be learning about or paying attention to? In our industry there are new products and services all the time – some things are ‘nice to have’ and others are more needed.

We ask:

Is it needed in our business right now?
Is there something else I should be concentrating on in order to get results?
What is the end result that strategy will give me?

What if you don’t know what results you need?

You should have an idea of at least big picture goals (e.g. “I want my business to make money”) and work backwards from there until you understand where any knowledge gaps lie.
Drive until you hit a ‘red light’, then work out what you need to do from there.
You can’t learn everything! Learning for the sake of learning will not get you the results you want.
“Version one is better than version none”
Look at what will clean and simplify your processes.

When looking at new tools/education/programs etc…

Do influential people/businesses who you look up to and trust use them?
Does the person have a history of using different tools?
Is it more intuitive/easier for you or your customers?
Do you need all the functions of that fancy toolbox? (Can I get the results from a cheaper/free tool?)

Examples of messaging: