100!

by John R. SedivycloseAuthor: John R. Sedivy Name: John R. Sedivy
Email: john@capecodbranding.com
Site: http://www.capecodbranding.com
About: See Authors Posts (216)

Wow – really hard to believe. This is our 100th article. Back in November 2008 Amy and I started Cape Cod Branding to satisfy the final project requirements for successful completion of business school. One month later in December we decided to start the blog in order to drive traffic to the primary Cape Cod Branding website as we had read that this was a solid business development strategy. Funny enough this blog has surpassed our wildest dreams and has taken on a life of its own – so much for the best laid plans! I discovered that I really enjoy writing and it has shown in our results. So nearly six months of blood, sweat, and tears and 100 articles later we are still at it. Going strong and looking forward to the next six months. It is worth noting that there are a wide variety of articles, and many are substantial – consisting of over 1,000 words, if you feel so inclined check out past work in our archive.

As part of reaching this achievement we took a minute and reflected on the past six months. What contributed to our reaching this point? What were the challenges we had overcome? Many start blogs but very few follow through and generally end up abandoning their work after a couple articles. What did we do different that allowed us to join the ranks of the few rather than the many? We decided for this article we would discuss our top three attributes that were critical for success and the three biggest challenges we had overcome. Let’s start with the challenges.

Challenges
Although the past six months have been a blast and I wouldn’t trade it for anything – not everything was fun and games. There were some serious obstacles we had to overcome. At some points I wondered how or even if we would make it to the next day let alone closing in on the six month mark. Nearly six months ago this seemed like an impossibility to me – I could barely come up with the next great idea in time for our next posting. Let’s look at the top three challenges which I will discuss in detail.

1. Motivation – This was critical. In the very early days of the blog (especially week one) it was tough to generate enough momentum to overcome gravity. Writing was (and still is) hard work and in addition to the sweat equity I was still searching for my voice. In the beginning of a blog, or any project, the early days are critical – web traffic is slow (if it even exists) and I liken the experience to watching paint dry. In addition to writing content there were many technical challenges to overcome – each roadblock chipped away at motivation, while each success fueled our motivation to have sufficient energy to weather the next storm or set of challenges. As we continued forward motivation became easy, especially as we started building an increased web presence. Motivation is tough at times now, but not not nearly as difficult as in the beginning.
2. Learning Curve - The learning curve for blogging and the Internet is steep. Continuing to find new content to write about that was fresh and interesting while learning about the technical aspects of the Internet and developing a blog were tough, especially in the beginning. Things are easier now, however the learning curve is still steep, but this challenge is more manageable now. The Internet is fascinating and challenging in that it is an evolving organism – it is constantly growing, morphing, and evolving, this is a fact of life of doing business on the Internet and one must continue to traverse the learning curve in order to stay in the game. What shape will the Internet take in the next six months? I cannot say for sure – but we will be there!
3. Focus – This is probably one of the largest challenges that I face on a daily basis. I have a wide variety of interests and have always considered myself a generalist rather than a specialist. Sometimes it is difficult to stay on task and not run off on a tangent and chase fads or the next great thing. I consider this blog to be rather general in nature and Amy supports me in this, however there are some boundaries that we strive to stay within in order to build credibility in a niche as recommended by many who have come before us. Maintaining some degree of focus is key and will continue to be a challenge – however as with the other challenges it becomes easier over time.

I will next discuss the positive aspects of CCBbuzz which were crucial to overcoming the preceding challenges.

Positive Attributes
The following three aspects helped us push through the challenges, listed in order of importance:

1. Partnership – Amy touched upon this is her article “The Key To Successful Business? Partnership.”. This article was published on February 18, 2009 and continues to be our most popular article – by far. This fact mirrors the importance of our partnership to the business and this blog. As Amy discussed in her article – we are essentially peanut butter and jelly or PB&J – we compliment one another well. Individually peanut butter and jelly are great, but they are excellent when paired – the same goes for our partnership. Amy strengths offset my weaknesses and my strengths offset her weaknesses. I cannot overstate the importance of having a successful partnership and the part it played in our reaching this point. The partnership pushed us to overcome all three challenges of motivation, steep learning curves, focus as well as many, many others. I liken this to having an exercise partner. It is unlikely that as an individual you will be at 100% every day – it is downright impossible. On the days when you do not feel like exercising you push yourself so you do not let your partner down, and a good partner will do the same for you. So it goes with business, or any project for that matter. A solid partner will help you strengthen your areas of weakness and in turn you will do the same for them. And in the process you will both grow – together.
2. Flexibility – Behind the partnership, flexibility is critical and runs a close second. Without flexibility you may commit yourself to a less than optimal or even destructive path. The world and your environment changes by the minute. As you learn and gain more experience it may be necessary to adapt accordingly. I had initially started out with engineering consulting, moved to marketing and branding, and finally landing in personal development. More changes will likely be in store for us, and this blog, and I embrace that fact. The day you stop changing is the day you die. We also had to realize that past endeavors were not a wasted effort – what you do in the past prepares you for what you are destined to do next – it is the same with the steps you go through with a business or any other project. Early on I had ignored this fact and stayed committed to less than ideal paths – these paths were incongruent with where I wanted to be. As soon I embraced flexibility the easier things became.
3. Persistence – In other articles I had hammered home the importance of passion and persistence. Persistence is critical. I have learned that you can take nearly any idea, and if you work at it enough, you will eventually become successful at it. Where people fail is that they give up too soon. Sure some ideas require more persistence than others – but if you persist long enough any endeavor will pay off. Passion fuels persistence and continually persisting towards the success of a project will ultimately get you there. Keep your eye on the prize and keep persisting towards it! The only question is – what goal will you persist towards?

It was a very tough job ranking these positive attributes that led to us reaching this point. We found that they were all nearly equally important, however in the end partnership won as it made the other two attributes stronger – as two are always stronger than one. Next, flexibility allows one to more easily persist as it allows for the choice of a more optimal path towards the end objective rather than stay the course for the sake of strictly following the plan.

Show Of Appreciation
In hindsight we have found this blog to be a great opportunity and have had fun along the way. At the very least it has sharpened our writing skills, technical prowess, exposed us to whole new fields and people, and the list goes on. However in the end we are grateful for you, the audience. For without the audience – our readers, we would have no reason to produce this blog and develop content. We would like to thank you and look forward to the next six months!

In reaching 100 articles we have had a blast, but the best is yet to come!

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding

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