Basketball and Content Marketing

When first building your online business, there is a painful period that we refer to as “publishing into the void.”

You’re writing your best content, you're spending hours, days, and even weeks writing the most informative and helpful articles that you can. The moment finally comes when you hit publish and… crickets. Hardly anyone notices.

This is a painful, but important step in the journey of building your brand.

Publishing into the void is not without purpose. It’s what separates the people who really want to succeed from the people who just kind of want to succeed.

I like to compare this process to the basketball player who is in an empty gym, alone, practicing their free throws.

In some respect, those practice shots have no direct relation to success. Those shots don’t score any points in a game and there’s no audience to cheer him / her on.

But, we know that’s not the case. Those practice shots are the difference between good players and great players.

My message to you this week is to keep hitting your practice shots.

If you’re just getting started, I encourage you to avoid measuring your results too much. Try not to focus on your traffic numbers and your email open rates. Instead, try to focus on your craft and treat every article you write as the most important article you have ever written.

After you hit publish, separate yourself from the outcome. It’s about putting in the reps.

This routine, this habitual action, will eventually bring you to the place you wish to be.

The practice shots count, even if no one is watching.