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Advice needed: rushing in VS overthinking (6)

03-09-2012 01:08 PM #1 johnnyfitz (Member)
Advice needed: rushing in VS overthinking

Hi all,

in this post, I'd like to get to know how you handle(d) a couple of situations I'm struggling with.

I am a real newbie in AM and, as most of us beginners, I stumbled upon an unlimited amount of resources (on this forum specifically), tools to investigate, markets to explore, etc....

I know the rule is DO, FAIL FAST, DO IT AGAIN, DO IT AGAIN, DO IT AGAIN, ....

But how do you manage this, when you feel like you don't want to rush into things?

One day of thinking can get me to choose a completely different market, that can completely change my focus for the next 2 months.

Another day of thinking can save me few quids and days.

But, are those days of thinking just procrastinating the actual start?

How do you handle this situation? When do you feel like you are rushing in, and when do you feel like you're overthinking?

Is a "thinking" plan helpful (ie: day 1: find niche, day 2: investigate niche, day 3: investigate competition, ...)?

Also, I am thinking to go through the SEO route as that's something I can do very well - but it may take a month or two before I know if it's successful or not. And I am a very ambitious guy (like, I'd be checking the stats every 5 minutes every day). How do you handle this kind of long waits? Am I approaching things the wrong way?

Thanks a lot!

03-09-2012 04:46 PM #2 inversion (Member)

This is an awesome question.

The truth is, you'll never be done thinking and changing strategy. So, you have to take action. But, what is the right balance? Between jumping into something blindly vs. having a solid plan?

The trick is to take small, risk-managed actions while you are still thinking.

For example, I'm still "thinking" about how to advertise on POF. I've read through every thing there is. Yet, I'm still not sure I know the strategy I want to take. BUT, I did start with a couple of small campaigns that I just threw out there. Then I did a couple more with a standardized naming convention. Then launched some more with different creative templates. Then I thought a little deeper about how to target session depth and launched a few more campaigns.

I still don't feel like I have a good grip on how I want to approach POF. But, I've learned a ton along the way that has helped me to better think about how to approach POF.

So, my general rule:

The more experience I have with something, the longer I'll allow myself to create a detailed plan.

The less experience I have with something, the sooner I'll force myself to DO SOMETHING and see what happens. That's because if you aren't familiar with the tactics of what you will be doing, the chances of you creating a worthwhile strategy are very low. So, you have to iterate.

03-10-2012 03:55 AM #3 luscioust (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by inversion View Post
The less experience I have with something, the sooner I'll force myself to DO SOMETHING and see what happens..
I totally agree with this.

If you're new it's easy to put off taking action, but when you take action you have a chance at making something work and you learn a lot more.

03-10-2012 09:07 AM #4 johnnyfitz (Member)

Great tip inversion. The only risk is that the possibility of failure is indirectly proportional to the experience, therefore it's easier to get demotivated at the start. But I guess this is one of the biggest obstacle for us beginners

03-10-2012 02:50 PM #5 inversion (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by johnnyfitz View Post
Great tip inversion. The only risk is that the possibility of failure is indirectly proportional to the experience, therefore it's easier to get demotivated at the start. But I guess this is one of the biggest obstacle for us beginners
Very true. That's why, you take much smaller steps and you have to be in the mind frame that it probably won't work. You're taking the action to learn how to do it right in future iterations. So, just make sure the risk is minimized (small budgets, small bids, etc.)

Every once in a while, though, one of these quick actions will actually produce a good ROI. It's important to realize this is an exception, rather than the rule.

03-10-2012 04:28 PM #6 bizman007 (Member)

Both of those words are negative. Rushing is not good and neither is Over thinking. Your mindset overall is too negative. You DO want to have an intelligent approach before you take action. Once you have a good basic strategy, much of the learning is done while you Take action about what will work for you. The most important thing though is to take action.

Having a mental knowledge of something will give you an ego boost and will give you some sense of entitlement. Also the mind uses this as a trick to get you to not take action, so you tell yourself "I have to learn more" and you just go into information overload, look out for these things. Try just one good strategy. No need to have tons of variations it will confuse you with taking action.


The thought pattern is this

Absorb Good Information > Have an Intelligent Strategy > Take the most action possible towards you goal = winning


Your thoughts on how you take action are incorrect to give you a productive mindset.

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