Getting back on the treadmill

This morning I willingly subjected myself to 16 minutes of pain.

It was my first run in over four months.

Back in September I had a health issue come up so I decided to stop running for a bit so it could clear up.

At the time I had already completed all of my races for 2017 so I was running to stay in shape and for the fun of it.

Today I finally got back into it and oh boy, was it a difficult run.

I knew it would be a struggle.

I knew that when I started.

I also knew that a month ago when I started to procrastinate starting back up again.

But both the payoff and process are worth it so last night I committed to starting my run as my first thing today.

I'll do it again tomorrow. And then again the next day, and so on until it's become a habit again. By then it will be effortless to get going and I won't think anything of it.

There are business activities that follow the same pattern.

They take a lot of effort to get started and keep going, but after time they start becoming easier and easier until it's just a thing you do.

Daily emails are like that for me. Same with supporting my Shopify apps.

Yours could be doing SEO work on your store, running Facebook ads, or pick-and-packing orders.

If you haven't actively thought about his yet, here's a question that could guide you:

What activity where if you applied an excessive effort upfront to create a habit, could become effortless in the long-term?

One activity that's always useful is to talk to your customers. Do it enough and I'd guarantee you'll learn something beneficial.

The problem is that it can take a long time and some customers just aren't going to be good conversations.

What you can do is use Repeat Customer Insights to find our who your best customers are and start by talking with them. There are a bunch of different segments you can start with. The customers who have spent the most, who have placed the most orders, or even something more specialized.

Eric Davis