bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

When you are stuck in the trenches battling you inevitably hit some hurdles and need inspiration.

Inherently we are somewhat intrinsically motivated but even that can falter.

When I set up up bwagy I needed something to remind me, that yes you are doing the right thing and you should never give up.

What I did was search for ‘internet marketing’ on Seek a local job site, grab the rss feed and add it to Google Reader.

Therefore whenever a job came up it would load into my feed.  Now the key was this was always unexpected, unanticipated and it has arrived at a few crucial times. 

1) When my two biggest clients delayed payment for almost two months which in the life of a 6 month old company is tough.

2) When I started 2009 to find all contracts were on hold.

I was flicking through my reader and they would pop up.  This would remind me of a few things:

1) Of what I didn’t want to be doing which was working in a job I didn’t like.

2) Not to give up.

3) A bit of an external nudge to keep going.

I reflected on this today as I came across another item and how much value that has been. 

So what can you set up to provide you unexpected inspiration in times of need?

When it is unexpected you gain the most.

(Also if you know someone who may be struggling send them a quick note to say how well they are doing, I’ve had this along the journey from lots of random readers of the blog, they may be perfectly timed for them)

Benchmarking, is about setting a goal and trying to beat that.

Think about when you drive somewhere.

Let’s say driving to work.

As per experience it takes 25 mins.

You are running late and only have 20 mins.

You still make it on time?

What just happened? Well you got creative, maybe you took a different route, drove a little faster, or didn’t stop for coffee.

Now apply this to other things.

Where do you want your business to be by when? What can you do to be creative?

Benchmarking. It’s an interesting thing.

Note: Like driving. If the benchmark is too impossible. You will fail and be late. Or take unnecessary risks (think speeding vs employee burn out).

Update: Interchanged Analogy for Metaphor in title.  Not quite a metaphor really. (thanks Karen!)