At the risk of sounding like an idiot, let me pay off today’s subject line by telling you about my olive tree:
I have a small olive tree on my balcony. It arrived as a present for my birthday two years ago.
(Btw, if you ever want to get me a present I’ll love, a plant is a good bet.)
Right now, my olive tree is thriving. It’s got lots of healthy leaves. Small shoots are popping out everywhere. There’s even one green olive that’s maturing, which I’m planning to cure when it’s fully ripe.
But earlier this year, my olive tree was only causing me worry.
Each day, I went out onto the balcony to inspect it. Leaf after leaf was turning yellow and falling off. No new shoots were visible anywhere. At this pace, my olive would soon become barren and die.
I stood there each day, inspecting my olive tree and worrying.
Was it some kind of fungal infection? Had the soil become depleted? Was it bad feng shui?
It was only after weeks or maybe months of this that it occurred to me that the olive tree might be parched for water.
I mean, it’s sitting on my balcony, exposed to the blasting Barcelona sun, for many hours a day, day after day. Maybe a cup or two of water, twice a week, just wasn’t enough for all the heat?
That’s why I said I risked sounding like an idiot.
I told you how healthy and thriving my olive tree is today. Watering it every day is the only change I made from then to now.
Watering a plant is the most obvious thing to do to keep it alive and healthy. And yet, I thought of every other rare and novel explanation first, while my olive tree turned yellow and withered.
Now that I’ve risked sounding like an idiot, let me risk sounding like your mother:
Maybe don’t have an olive tree. But maybe there’s another area of life that’s struggling, withering, or causing you worry. Maybe it’s family, or your health, or your business.
A rare and novel explanation might really lie behind your problems.
But more likely, there’s a common, obvious explanation to it all.
You can’t keep going the way you’ve been going, inspecting and worrying. Most likely, you just gotta water more regularly – or do whatever the equivalent is for the problem you’re seeing.
But enough gardening wisdom. On to sales:
Maybe you have a business. Maybe you’re working too hard, or you’re not making consistent sales, not as many as you’d like.
What’s the real reason?
Maybe you need to optimize your ads… or increase the conversion rate on your landing pages… or innovate and come up with totally new products, new funnels, new sources of traffic.
Maybe.
Or maybe just gotta get your existing customers to pay you more frequently. Maybe you just gotta email them more, instead of allowing them to wither away. And if you want something to make your emailing easier and faster: