Have you ever been in a season of life where you felt like you were absolutely killing it? I’ve had plenty of moments like that as an entrepreneur. But then, after taking a step back, I realized, “Man, I could have done a lot more. I could’ve been so much better.” Now, understand that I’m seasoning this statement with grace because I truly believe in giving yourself grace. But if you’ve ever read my book God Bless The Entrepreneur: The First Decade, you know I’ve been transparent about moving on to the next thing too quickly.

Looking back, I began to see that what I was doing should have been executed at 100%, but I was operating well below that mark. Money can fool you. Sometimes, when the cash is rolling in, you think that’s the only indicator that you’re killing it. But that’s not always true.

When I think about “deep work,” here’s what I mean. I’m giving you a glimpse because this really could be an entire chapter in a book, but I’ll try to keep it brief. I was working on the SMS text marketing journey for my customers and realized I could have put so much more effort into the copy, more into split A/B testing, and I could have synced social media with text marketing better. The fact that I grew my list past 10,000—back then, you couldn’t tell me anything! But in reality, that 10,000 should have been 50,000 with the right effort.

That’s when you know you could’ve gone deeper. You could’ve spent more time on the thought process and connected with your customers in a different way. And don’t even get me started on segmentation. I could have changed the game with better segmentation. As a brand owner, you’re often left with scattered sizes of inventory. Since we were doing so well with text marketing, I could’ve sent individual size updates directly to people who had purchased that size before. For example, if we had 20 smalls left, I didn’t have to leave that out there for everyone to see on the website. I could’ve hidden it and sent a direct link with a crazy discount to all the customers who had ordered smalls in the past. The public would’ve never known, and I would’ve cleared that inventory.

These are just a few examples from one segment of my business. The point is, don’t rush the process. Be willing to do the deep work. Start with your ‘why,’ then move to your brand story, your brand identity, and so on. All of it matters. All of it counts.

God Bless The Entrepreneur