‘Hustling’ to Get What You Want
One of my new favorite voices in blogging and social media is Gary Vaynerchuk. If you’ve never seen any of his videos, here are three that every blogger should watch (1, 2, 3). Interestingly enough, he’s a passionate speaker who consistently restates something both very true and very obvious, yet very ignored: success with blogging, social media and online entrepreneurship is all about ‘hustle’, in other words, hard work, persistence and most importantly, sacrifice.
The point that inspired this post was made at 12mins 15secs in Gary’s recent Web 2.0 Keynote in NYC, where he suggested that an online entrepreneur who wanted to be successful should be prepared to work on their business from 7pm to 2am every night. The audience laughed as if he’d made a joke, but Gary’s face was a picture of seriousness. “It’s not going to happen if you do it any other way!” he said emphatically. Of course, the hours between 6pm and 7pm could be designated ‘family time’ in this fictional schedule. But that’s still 1 hour family time, 7 hours work time (15 if you count the day-job). That’s also five hours sleep every night if you have to get up at 7, and assuming you don’t need any wind-down time before stumbling from the computer to bed. I know whenever I tried this I had emails dancing before my eyes.
To me, and probably to you, the idea of working on your business that much sounds crazy. But it’s an approach that allowed Gary to build a 50 million dollar wine business and organize appearances on shows like Ellen and Conan O’Brien. I’m not suggesting that we all follow his example, but rather, that the size of what you achieve is usually comparable to what you sacrifice (temporarily or permanently) to achieve it.
And that’s the justification: that a crazy schedule like that is just a temporary period of hard work/hustle/sacrifice in order to reach a glorious future time where you are doing something you love and making a fortune. And it’s true–very few people can achieve that kind of success online without a period of sacrifice where some other things (health, friendships, relationships, study, day-job) lose out a little. As much as we try to outline strategies and formulas for success, often the single difference between a successful blogger or online entrepreneur and one who hasn’t met his or her goals is numerical: a comparative measurement of hours clocked doing hard, grinding work and building momentum.
When we see someone, like a Yaro Starak, who is working 10 hours a week to earn $10,000 a month, there’s a tendency to assume that person is naturally someone who has always had an angelic work-life balance. Yet, you’d struggle to find someone in that position who hadn’t spend the months or years preceding the launch of the business sleeping too little and working too much. Behind every ‘laptop on the beach’ scenario is an incredible amount of hard work and sacrifice.
Blogging is a more poignant example than online business because I don’t believe there’s ever a point where you can coast along writing three posts a week and grow at an incredible rate (though I wanted to believe there was!) When you’ve written your content for the week, you need to be making connections with people, responding to comments, tweaking your ads, updating Twitter, building your brand and putting yourself and your content everywhere. There’s no tipping point where your workload dries up and you only need to kick-back and reap the rewards. The bigger your blog becomes the more opportunities, communiques and requests for your time you’ll receive.
Based on my own experience and what I’ve observed in others, if you want your blog to be growing at the maximum possible rate, you probably need to be spending about 20 hours a week on it. If that sounds scary, think of it like this: a whole lot of people spend 20 hours a week watching TV, playing piano or shooting aliens on the computer screen. The obvious progression from that point is that you should give those things up and spend the time blogging if you really want to succeed (as Gary puts it, “stop watching f-ing LOST”). But here’s the rub: a whole lot of people spend 20 hours a week doing those things because they love doing them. If I didn’t like spending time with friends and family so much, Skelliewag would probably be updated ten times a week. But I do, and I can’t help it, and it’s not. It’s no coincidence that when I was spending 20 hours a week on the blog and willing to make those sacrifices, it coincided with the time when the blog grew most rapidly. When I started to devote more time to new projects, the blog’s growth began to slow. Funnily enough, it works through the same principle — I sacrificed the blog’s rate of growth to have success elsewhere because securing a career I loved became more important.
What I’m getting at in this post is that if you want to become a big name in blogging or online business you’ll need to make sacrifices–hopefully temporary, but very possibly long-term. This sounds a little depressing, but it’s not. It’s no different to the author who has to scale back to part-time work to finish the novel she’s always wanted to write, or the aspiring young footballer who practices juggling the ball for hours while his friends sit sprawled in-front of a Playstation 3. You can have a bit of it all, but you can’t have all of it all. You’ll drop some balls, you’ll let some people down, you’ll forget some things and break some promises, all despite your best intentions. If you were perfect, you’d be a millionaire philanthropist Zen master already, right?
If you want to take your blog/business/brand as far as it will go, you need to commit yourself fully. If it’s truly a high priority, you’ll make the necessary sacrifices. If you like the idea in theory but aren’t willing to ‘hustle’ to get there, you should feel no shame about realigning your goals to match your true priorities.
Good post. Shows people why they should devote themself fully to something they want to make successful.
Nice to see a post again. The first of Gary’s videos you mention I thought was one of the best ever (the Cold Call one). Very compelling that he just calls a guy and promotes a deal right there. That’s the kind of content that makes you famous.
Wait, you mean there isn’t a quick buck?
Great post :)
Pierre
I really liked this post. And I’ll be heading over to see Gary’s site in a minute.
I guess it’s true - you work hard and eventually, one day you may just get to play hard! Some people work hard all their life and never get anywhere but that’s just something that separates different people. I spend hours a night constructing blog articles for the week ahead, buying new design-related books off Amazon that I’ll then spend till 1am the next night poring over while wiping yawn-induced tears off the paper…
I think you need stuff to keep you going, to keep you motivated to keep pushing and dedicating so much time to your cause - milestones, rewards along the way, people to help share and keep you focused on your ambitions.
For example if you’re trying to build up a blog or site, this can be measured in RSS subscribers, general traffic or revenue. One of the main things that keeps me blogging on Redswish is when someone leaves a really nice comment or links to my articles - then I know someone is appreciating my effort, and the late nights put in.
Anyway, there’s my contribution!
you’re totally right about this - but i think it’s important to distinguish between quantity of work and quality of work. if you’re mindlessly working 12 hours a day you’re not necessarily going to get the same results as if you’re focused, and working towards a goal 5 hours a day…
Skellie, I missed your posts. Glad to see you back. :)
This can never be stressed enough. Many people ignore this fact. What’s worse: among those who’ve been through long periods of hard work before finally succeeding, many make money nowadays by selling this “work-a-little-succeed-a-lot” illusion, misleading their readers and fans.
I’ve been checking your blog back and forth for a few days now to see when your next post would be, guess I got kinda’ lucky.
“stop watching f-ing LOST” The entire post in a nutshell.
Hiya Skellie! Its really great seeing you post again :)
I’ve often read about the hard work that goes into blogs. This includes the interviewv with Darren Rowse, where he talks about contributing 25 posts a day. Heres the link: http://www.buzzmarketingwithblogs.com/weblog/item/interview_with_problogger_darren_rowse/
Personally, I’m in a somewhat fortunate position. I had a nervous breakdown last year because of severe anxiety. I’m now in support program where I can get income support for the next two years. We’ve decided that I’m not to get part time employment for at least a year.
Ironically, being ill has resulted in a lot more free time ;) I don’t leave the house as much and most of my contact with family and friends is via the phone. I’ve since set a work schedule where I devote 40 hours a week to just blog writing. I treat all other tasks as a hobby - networking, blog reading and commenting etc. I would really love to devote more time to my ‘work’ as gary advocates, but sometimes its too difficult when I have anxiety flare up.
I’ve set out a plan to work conistently on those two blogs over the next year. I’m hoping that during that time, the income will replace the $200 a week I currently live on. I’ve been working hard on them for two months and am really starting to make some financial headway! I’ve set 6 months where I am going to work full time on one specific blog. I’ll work on my other blog during the ‘non work’ hours.
Sorry for the ramble - the post really resonated with me. I am so thankful that you, Gary and Darren were able to inspire me to reach beyond my illness and find a viable work option.
Again, really happy to see you posting!
ooh yeah… i believe it. but i also think that a lot of my time ‘working’ was also a lot of soul searching time, meaning when i started i didn’t have any clear ideas what i wanted to do.
only as time progressed, i started to find things that i really wanted to work on, and i feel like i’m just at the starting point.
Thanks Skellie.
While I agree with the heart of the post, I don’t agree with “20 hours”.
Its like the gurus saying you need to put in 1000 hours to master a subject. How did they come up with the 1000 hour magic number? No one knows. But it does sound good…
Anyways…
All blogs are not equal.
A news related blog owner will probably have to put in 40-50 hours per week.
A blogger who relies on ad revenue alone will have to put in about 15-20.
A slacker blogger with products can get away with 5-7 hours.
How?
* Write 3 posts per week (2 for his blog, 1 for guest posting) = 3 hours.
* Spend 2-4 hours per week marketing and networking. Twitter. Email. Thank You letters. If you’re disciplined with your time, you can do good networking in 20-40 minutes per day. (Discipline is the key word there.)
So while I agree that a lot of work goes into creating a successful blog, the time investment varies on the type of your blog and your sources of revenue.
Your words speak volume Skellie. This honestly is universal truth that for some reason or another people tend to forget, overlook, or just choose not to believe.
Great kick in the butt here on your part. Thank you.
Hi Skelly
To be honest I don’t want to do that for a blog. I want to write, to be a good writer. That’s my main focus.
Awesome post.
Sometimes I listen to “Rick Ross - Every Day I’m Hustlin” to get myself motivated :)
LOL Mike I second that :) rap is hustlin’ music :)
I agree that there is no magic number - but the idea of hustling is most certainly true. I built up my blog a lot during my son’s newborn months, when I was at home a lot anyway. I read and ready (at places like Skelliewag), developed, wrote content, edited, and then edited some more. And while I still work around 15 hours a week on my blog, a lot of the back end work is already done and running itself.
I’m really glad I took advantage of that particular season in my life.
[...] it seems sacrifice works for a lot of other people. It may be that to achieve your goals you have to be willing to sacrifice something…possibly permanently. (Thanks to @mark_hayward for tweeting @skellie’s post…even if it scares [...]
Whatever you decide to make your garden, that is what will grow.
Oop, sorry. Wasn’t quite done.
I plan to be working ten hours a week someday, but I’ve no illusions that I’ll get there without working sixty a week for a long time first.
Wow! I couldn’t agree more! It’s so true that this Social Media game requires a lot of hustle. I remember watching Gary V, at Web 2.0, describe what it takes to make it, and thinking to myself “Of course it does!” This, by the way, was days after reading the Tim Ferriss approach in “4-Hour Workweek”. Maybe it’s because Gary V’s way speaks to the hopeless workaholic in me, but you reap what you sow!
When I first started out, I didn’t realize that it required that much of a “sacrifice”. I only saw the glamorous parts, without an idea that there was so much work that went behind the success of a problogger or an internet marketing guru. Now I know…..
The other side of the coin is that there’s no shame in not wanting to put all those hours in - as long as you are prepared to accept less success.
I find that I can’t work full-time, learn a musical instrument and take on community projects whilst putting 20-30 hours or more a week into my blog. I accept this means that my blog will grow more slowly and it’s a trade-off that I’m willing to make for my own sanity. It helps that I’ve got absolutely no intention of giving up my day job to be a full-time entrepreneur.
Wise words! And I, for one, wish you did still update your blog more often…
If success is sacrifice, how do you know what to sacrifice? Can dreams be prioritized? Choosing where to give it your all is a crucial first step.
Nice article. Good reminder to the reality that what you invest is usually what you get in return. With blogging this is true too.
Twenty hours a week sounds pretty reasonable, as a necessity to make ones blog go to the next level.
Interesting post. Although I think Gary is successful because he can sell himself very well in front of audiences and he like to be listened to (nuffin wrong about that) and Yaro, mmmh I dunno. Maybe I’m a little jealous about his success but what I don’t really like about him are his ruthless sales techniques. His websites and the way he tries to make profit from his stuff I compare to some of most trivial and dumbest ads on TV. But apparently people buy it…
In the end, it’s not only hard work that gets you the big bucks. It’s ruthless and strong sales techniques in every sense…
No shortcuts! The rule we most want to forget, but when you embrace it, magic happens :)
It’s all about the trade-offs! Well put.
I like to think in terms of a portfolio of results and invest across my life frame: mind, body, emotions, career, financial, relationships, fun. They support each other and the sum is more than the parts.
The reason having a frame is important is because I can set boundaries around them. For example, I can have a max of 50 hrs in career, and a minimum of 8 hrs on body … etc.
Setting time boundaries forces me to find the most effective techniques to achieve more results. I think of results as the intersection of time, energy and technique … each one can be a gating factor.
Let’s hustle. It’s a huge key to getting success now. Right to say that?
You know, Gary Vaynerchuk has been a real inspiration for me over the past few months. He’s abrasive and brash, but he’s the real deal. He tells people like it is and shows you just how simple everything can be.
I wrote an article “Who Else Wants to Sell Like Gary Vaynerchuk” as a tribute to him a week or so ago and I thought you might find it interesting Skellie
http://prevential.com/gary-vaynerchuk-selling/
Spot on. This is one of the biggest myths about making money and building an online business.
Unfortunately this may lead to a decision about quitting a job to pursue online venture, which is a bad idea unless there is a reserve of saving account serving foods on the table during the period of “sacrifice” and “hard working”.
As a virgin blogger, I think I have been naive?
I thought it would take work and time and effort etc etc Or maybe due to my own work ethic I believed I should be working hard? Am I wrong?
I started to blog after reading lots of other blogs, I am so interested in the process and all the possibilities the internet provides I hadn’t thought about working for just a few hours a week? As I spend an inordinate amount of time anyway trawling through ‘stuff’ on the internet I guess I hadn’t seen this as actual work?
I have to admit I have been seduced (easy virgin again) into believing I have to write what other people want to read.. and also ‘monetize’.. which is a big part of what all bloggers appear to do. (Something I think I am doing in a particularly crass way.. but I accept this is a learning curve.. perpendicular though it appears to be at present!)
I know now I have to be focussed and more selective in what I do online and how long I spend on each task. I think if I can transfer skills as a nurse, ie prioritising and identifying what does and doesn’t work in a more effective way then I will use my time on my own blog in a more effective way?
Repetition is the mother of skill.. :)
Lemon x
I’ve been following this blog for quite sometime and this has been one of the best motivational pieces yet. I have to admit I’ve been quite overwhelmed with blogging and having a life and going to school and working (my regular job). I never seem to find the time to blog
This post has made me eager to improve and to continuing “hustling”
Great Post Skellie!
Another fundamentally truthful post. If you work at something long and hard enough, it will grow. It’s that simple.
I swear this is a coincidence, but I also cited the exact same statement in Gary Vaynerchuk’s mentioned speech about “seven to two in the morning is plenty of time to do damage.” It’s a stretch — especially for those of us with families — but the message is right on.
I’m now taking first steps to lock in my blogging schedule around the rest of my day job and family and surfing. It’s going to be more aggressive and demanding of my discipline. Let’s see if it works.
I love Gary Vaynerchuk’s passion. Saw his videos - really awesome!
Is Gary on Twitter too??? Would love to get his updates!
Thanks for that post - it was timely. He certainly tells it like it is.
[...] ‘Hustling’ To Get What You Want – Skellie (Skelliewag.org) Playing off of Gary Vaynerchuk’s insistence that to succeed you have to hustle, Skellie points out that, “Success with blogging, social media and online entrepreneurship is all about ‘hustle’, in other words, hard work, persistence and most importantly, sacrifice.” Decide for yourself. Could you sacrifice an extra hour of television every day for 50 unique hits a month? [...]
[...] I’m not a big fan of the word “Hustle” but it’s put to good use in this post from Skelliewag. - “Hustling” to Get What You Want [...]
I’ve been reading your posts for a while now and have found them very useful and educational…I started a blog a few months ago as part of my work as a musician (the blog is about practicing). Any thoughts about the difference between a blog that is your job, and a blog that is in service to a bigger job?
I love this post.. love this blog.
Gary Vaynerchuk is great example for all of us internet entrepreneur-wannabes. I wish it as easy, but looks like I will have to hustle a lot to achieve what I want :)
[...] I’m not a big fan of the word “Hustle” but it’s put to good use in this post from Skelliewag. – “Hustling” to Get What You Want [...]