This is a transcript from episode 67 of the OMGrowth podcast

I’m Lanie Lamarre and I’ve never had a scarier quarter than what Q2 2022 was for me. Today, I’m going through some of my “lessons learned”, key take-aways and yes, my OMGrowth moments, in the hopes that sharing these will help you tap into them for yourself as well.

I want to start off by admitting that I only kinda planned my Q2. This is typical for me because I go into super-mega-ultra in-depth planning mode for Q1 and Q3, but then my Q2 and Q4 tend to lean on its previous quarter’s planning so that I kind of just outline what I’m looking to accomplish.

I’m going to blame that lack of thoroughness on why I took so dang much on but also, everything I did in Q2 had been on the horizon during my Q1 planning. Plus, I never felt burn-out or drained but it really did make my boundaries clear for Q3 planning so, I don’t see any what happened, what I did or how I spent my time as a bad thing at all.

But scary? Oh, definitely.

THE PODCAST

I kicked off Q3 talking about why I uninstalled Google Analytics (GA) from my website and I have been a major cheerleader for the platform over the year as THE option for knowing your website numbers so heck yeah, it was scary to publish that episode.

I had prepared for this in Q1 in more ways than one:

  • I installed privacy-compliant analytics software on my site in January;
  • I uninstalled GA in February;
  • February was also when I started removing all of the GA-related products I had on my site; and
  • I recorded and scheduled that podcast episode in March.

The week that episode was going out was the first time in years that I had felt NERVOUS about something I was publishing.

That thing they say about doing things that make you nervous? Yeah, there’s definitely something to that because episode 53 about uninstalling GA and episode 54 about analytics options I recommend instead are definitely my highest downloaded podcast episodes and they’re about double the amount of my other episodes.

Did that translate to more podcast subscribers? You can’t actually see how many people are subscribed to your podcast, and I’ll need to see a longer data collection period to identify whether I retained those listeners but at this point, it looks like I’ve had a marginal increase in long-term listenership and I’ve had a significant increase in brand awareness.

If you’ve listened to me for any period of time or read any of my books, you’ve heard me say this many times before, but…

The most useful thing you can do with your data is to interact with it and ask it questions. A good place to start? “What are these numbers telling me to do more of and what is it telling me to do less of?”

In this case, the numbers seem to be telling me that solopreneurs and online business owners want to be better informed about the platforms they’re using as well as what their options are.

I thought maybe this meant listeners wanted to hear more about their legal obligations but then my episode on the laws that govern email marketing didn’t do especially well. In fact, that episode had my lowest downloads all quarter.

So I have you, my dear listener, living in this very interesting and specific Venn diagram where it seems like you want resources to better and more easily understand the Terms and Conditions you’ve agreed to, and yet you’re not super-stoked about listening to the legal implications that govern you.

Fair enough, and please feel free to email me or to DM me to let me know if you think I’m hitting the nail on the head here or totally missing it.

But based on those insights, I have it on my new Q3 To Do List to integrate a new series on the podcast called “I agreed to WHAT?…” where I break down the Privacy Policies and Terms and Conditions for some of the most popular business tools we all use as online entrepreneurs, and that we may not realize or understand what happens with the data we’re collecting, entering and using on those platforms.

SOCIAL MEDIA

I also started putting my podcast episodes on YouTube in Q2. It’s literally a production to do this and so time-intensive BUT! it also makes social media in general easier to manage and be consistent about because I just take a few snippets from the produced episodes to repurpose.

So at this point, it feels worth it and I’ll be looking at ways to more efficiently outsource some parts of this. For now, it still feels fun and it makes me not worry about things that keep us all up at night like “social media visibility” so wins across the board for this one.

I also started showing up on TikTok. The way I decided to approach TikTok felt very sustainable to me because I read a lot of news on digital marketing and I keep informed on changes in the online business world anyways. The idea of just sharing those stories on TikTok felt like an extension of something I already did so that was fine and I do enjoy showing up in this way.

However, I was not as consistent as I would like to be and there are a few reasons for that.

THE BOOKS

The biggest one is because I wrote, published and marketed 2 books in Q2. No biggie, right? I learned all I could about self-publishing, dealt with all that comes with adapting to a new learning curve for the first one, I explored Amazon ads in-between books, parlayed all I did learn into making that second book a best-seller – it was a LOT!

Who writes, publishes and promotes 2 books as a first-time author in 3 months? What was I thinking? I still don’t know but I do know that it’s been a great experience, there will be more books to come including planning tools and paperback editions but I think I did more than enough in the time I had in Q2. Like, way more. Like, a goofy amount more.

TRAVEL

Especially when you consider that I had a little trip planned in the midst of all this. I was in New Orleans the February before the pandemic started because I typically spend any spare moment I have there, but I hadn’t been back since then so it was an understatement to say it was great to spend time with friends and loved ones for the first time in 2 years.

Did I bring work to do on this trip? You bet I did. Did I do any of it? I didn’t crack it open until I was in a queue of return flight delays, so I actually didn’t mind the flight issues for a change.

I was very anxious going into this trip. I was very isolated over these last 2 years and this took a toll on my mental health. I’m obviously not a mental health specialist but I’m going say that I’ve benefit exponentially from doing the things that used to be “normal”, even if they felt scary to do at first. Everyone has to do what’s right for them but sometimes doing the scary thing IS the right thing to do, and personally, I have no other way of explaining it than to say that I feel “fixed”.

These last few years, I’ve also developed a whole new sympathy for anyone who feels like they “just can’t”. Whether that’s taking on more work, or even a baseline like getting out of bed, I have a better and more personal understanding of what that means now. It’s a real thing and it’s a hard thing and doing the thing can be really effing hard and whether it felt easy or hard to do, you have to make room for acknowledging yourself and all that you do. It is so, so, so important!

So hey! make that an action item and a priority today and feel free to pause this episode RIGHT NOW to do this, but you don’t just have a To Do list, boss. You have a DONE list and if you haven’t been keeping tabs on all that you do and you’ve done, create one right now of all the things you’ve done in the last quarter. You’ve done A LOT, even if most of what you did was take care of yourself – that’s a lot! – and please take a time-out from “the next thing” to just BE with all that you’ve done. Spend some time with it.

When I looked back on all that I’ve done in Q2 – including and especially the big scary things! – it felt easy for me to make decisions about where I was going next. For instance, that podcast series on “I Agreed to WHAT?….” feels important and relevant, but also time-consuming to research so I’m giving myself some space in Q3 to get that done.

I also want to live in the moment and effing ENJOY summer music festivals – do you KNOW how long I’ve waited for this Rage Against The Machine tour? I’ve had these tickets in my possession for almost 3 years now, and I’ve been waiting to do it again since I last saw them at Lollapalooza in 2008. I don’t want to just look forward to things anymore, because I want to enjoy them as they’re happening.

My nerdy little heart wants to enjoy putting that podcast series together, I want to enjoy the process of writing the next book, I want to enjoy the time I’m spending on social media.

And to do all of that, we’re going to take a few weeks off from the podcast and come back with Season 3 of the OMGrowth, which will give me more space to spend time curating that habit I want to flex for delivering the digital marketing goods over on TikTok so if you’re worried about missing me, follow me @omgrowthpod because I’ll still be showing up, just not in your earholes exclusively.

If you have suggestions, if you have comments, feel free to slip into those DMs.

If you think my podcasts are the bee’s knees, I love when you tell me this in my DMs and my inbox but nobody else sees those, while reviews are top shelf value for someone like me who publishes a podcast and publishes books. If I being any kind value, I value a gold-star review more than ANYthing else you can offer to me, ok? So please, hit SEND on those reviews.

Have a great summer. Make some memories, it has been too long since we’ve had the opportunity to make enough of them and always, always remember – you’re my favorite – talk soon, baiiiieee!!!