synchronistic strategy part IV - do what I say, not what I do with this stuff

My blog is getting a little 'know it all'y and this is not a good thing.

Since we often teach what we need to learn - it is easy to get a little carried away with this stuff and this is a slippery slope for business blogs.

(of course this is only a business blog if you squint from 5 yards while drinking your green tea with honey and doing a sudoku)

I only want to pass on information that is tried and true, in the sense that I have tried it and found it to be true (my truth is not everyone's truth) - we should always, always do what feels right to us.

We never want to take action steps to make up for our own lack of focus. Sometimes we take our inventory too early - we have to trust that life is enfolding perfectly for us, because it always is.

Anyhoo, back to synchronistic strategy and inbound marketing. I am going to be honest here and talk about all the ways I have mucked this up since they are more plentiful than the stuff I did right.

A few months (or weeks, I think my memory has been eaten from my years on aspartame - ditch all diet sodas if you haven't done that yet) after opening on Etsy I was in a treasury that hit the front page. It changed my business.

I started making treasuries - from my very first treasury my treasuries mostly got on the front page - no clue how this is possible but it's true - to be sure there were a lot less treasuries in those days. One day I had 3 treasuries on the front page in the same 24 hour period (treasuries I made, not treasuries I was in). I loved making them.

Anyhoo, people started putting me in a lot of treasuries - I didn't realize at the time that much of this was because I was making treasuries that got to the front page and there was a kind of reciprocity to the system. When my treasury got someone on the front page I never thought for a second that seller needed to put me into a treasury and I never put people in my treasuries for that reason either. Some people did this and honestly it did not occur to me for a long time.

Sellers in the forums were complaining that the same people were always getting on the front page, and if you have ever been on the front page you know it is priceless real estate - it was even in those days when Etsy was much smaller - the real payoff though comes to those who have a consistent presence there.

At one point Uncorked was on the front page at least twice a week and Polarity at least once a week (now I am on the front page about once a year).

The treasury system really helped me to grow my business - now this wouldn't have happened if I didn't have original work and great pictures - but I do not kid myself that the consistent front page exposure was priceless.

(there is a seller on Etsy with more sales than we could ever imagine - their work is absolutely amazing - well, in the earliest days of Etsy - before I was on there and I only know this because I once saw a bunch of screen shots of front pages for a few days on Etsy in 2006 and 2007, this shop was in every single front page treasury - not on the front page everyday but in every single front page treasury all day long - this is not to take anything away from this shop's amazing work - you could say this person helped grow Etsy as much as Etsy helped to grow this shop, but ... I'll just say front page exposure=priceless)

There came a day when the treasuries I made did not get to the front page anymore ... it was a very sudden halt. I wasn't sure if Etsy staff had changed, my eye for making them was gone or I was blackballed. I made a treasury under a friend's name to test my blackball theory and it got to the front page, so I knew that something had changed (probably just Etsy staff, they are people after all - I wasn't really thinking blackball, but it makes this story a little more exciting and I am a proud conspiracy theorist).

A few months (again with my memory thing the timing could be screwy), maybe a year later the treasury system changed and the serious treasury makers formed teams. I know people who are on multiple teams, who make multiple daily treasuries, who know what time of day to make what type of treasury live to get the best access. There is a science to it now. They still get to the front page a lot - although not as much as they used to either. Me - pretty much never.

The lesson here is not that I should still be making treasuries - there is always a gift in letting go and lots of good things have come from the multiple legs this has forced me to grow - although to be honest it was my ego that took me out of the game (if there was no chance of a treasury I made ever getting to the front page, ie me winning the game, I didn't want to play - I'm taking my ball and going home - wah) - the real lesson is about connections - the reciprocity of the treasury system is all about connections, without me making treasuries I wouldn't be in many either.

This is totally in sync with the new connections marketplace.

I did not learn this lesson though

as evidenced by the next thing I did.

back tomorrow with - the next thing I did.