Making it Happen in Online Marketing

Published in

vergeCo

6 min readApr 2, 2013

It’s been three years since I’ve written below piece. I’m looking at writing a follow up post so I had to re-read it.. And it was cringe-worthy. Still, I believe we should own up to our successes and failures. So here it is, edited with some minor fixes and re-published.

I’ve spent two years as an executive in a fast growing Online Marketing agency. We have several offices across the globe. Large number of to-dos can accumulate in any given day. There is a lot of delegation that I go through. Continuous prioritising exercises and seamless decision making. All this while I’m trying to keep my composure and sanity on a daily basis.

In other words — I have to ‘Make it happen’. In any one day, I may act as a CFO, COO, HR Manager, Project Manager, Sales Team Leader, and Affiliate Marketing Coordinator. And I still have to be responsible for the big picture items that make the company tick.

I had to adapt to a variety of roles to keep a profitable operation without borrowing millions or getting VC. I have to prioritise among major planning and high level decisions.

Here I share my thoughts on dealing with: ‘background noise’, tedious tasks and interruptions. I also touch on how to find the right balance with productivity and achieve great results.

Look at the big picture

In a typical day, you might be dealing with: prospective clients, campaigns, people, data, meeting agendas and a whole lot between. Now, let’s add to this some interruptions and a steady flow of 25 emails every four hours that need to be processed to Inbox-zero.

So how do you manage to make it through a day like this?

There is no magic system that fits everyone, but you should find one that works for you. One example that I find useful is to use a spreadsheet to prioritise the backlog of tasks.

You must make time to step away from the noise. Make sure that you spend time looking at what’s crucial to achieve the dream. Find a way to re-focus on the goal that you’ve set and that everyone else on your team should be striving towards.

Make it a game!

Before I came on board to help run the agency, I worked in the video games industry. As much fun making games was, it also taught me how important for us humans is to treat work as a game. One tool that is good to get through your tasks in a simple but fun way is Asana. You’ll need to create simple headings that match your scheduling methodology.

It feels good when you tick task as complete. It feels good when you get three things done during your 25-minute allocated time frame. It feels great when you clear your inbox.

So, find what feels good for you and make it a part of your daily routine. This game should include an accomplishment which in turn rewards you. Prize makes you feel better but it also makes you more productive.

Finding the balance is the key

Ever found yourself having too much fun moving things around, fiddling with little tasks, options, stars or timers? That means you’ve gone too far. You’ve now become less productive by wasting precious time playing around with unproductive buttons. So make it a quick and productive game.

You can use Pomodoro Technique to time yourself for 25 minutes before you are allowed to take a break. If you get interrupted, either by external party or your own ‘creative’ thought, don’t let it break your focus. Add this thought or an interruption as a new task in a separate section, called “Unplanned & Urgent”. Now you can deal with it after you’ve finished with your current point of focus.

The anxiety of the email awaits

The email gets in the middle of all this, breaking your beautiful routine, your big hairy audacious goal. What do you do with all the emails that keep coming in?
Use the simplest email archiving system with few folders. Align your email checking periods with the logical break so that it’s not in the middle of your productive time. Don’t use inbox as a task-list, use it as mean of communication.

Email is meant to be a great communication tool, a replacement for writing a letter or a “memo”. [All right, chances are that you don’t even know what a memo is if you were born post-seventies]. Email is not good for resolving a complex back-and-forth discussion. A meeting, concise, pre-determined get-together is a much better solution.

Email is good in those instances when you need to convey specific items such as:

Agendas
Meeting minutes
Attachments
A clear way of communication that prompts for simple, focused answer (‘Can you get me that report’, or ‘Do you want to have lunch this Friday?’)

There are a lot of resources and techniques covering email, but here are my top ones.

Inbox Zero

I may have OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), but I swear by Inbox Zero.

Four Sentences

Once you look into four sentences methodology, you realise how you’ve been over-doing your emails.

Follow Up

Before moving to Google Apps, I used Follow up then and it worked.

This changes everything!

Combine logical time-boxing with Gmail starred messages system.

How to find your inner genius

There are some people that are just pure genius. They are the kind of people that whatever they touch turns to gold. Both sides of their brain are working. They’re creative and at the same time focused on doing technical wizardry that’s beyond an average person. I’ve met some of those people in the video game industry; I’ve met some in the online marketing industry and I’m always fascinated by them.

I’m not a genius. I’ve accepted this. But what I can do is — put plan into action and get things done. I do it because I like to do it, because I made it my passion, my favourite job and lifelong challenge to do just this– make things happen.

Goal is to not just get as much work ‘done’ as possible in a given day. It is about spending right effort and energy only on those tasks that are going to generate the best results. Start and finish the day by asking yourself why you are here — what is it that should be your focus and priority. Whether your goal is to keep the client happy, manage a team of people or to generate higher profit, if you want to make it happen — you must remain focused.