Finishing Is What Gets Remembered
Editor’s Note: This newsletter was originally published on January 10th, 2021.
At the time that I am writing this newsletter, we are just over 24 hours from Alabama and UGA kicking off in this year’s National Championship game. It should be no surprise that I am cheering for Kirby Smart and his Bulldawgs.
When asked who will win, my answer remains the same: The team with the most points at the end of the game! #Guarantee
Who will end up with the most points? We’ll have to wait and see for that one.
That said, these events are great reminders of how sports and other parts of our lives truly work. How you start is important; likewise, how you perform during the event matters as well. However, it is how you finish that dictates what gets remembered.
Back when we owned a racetrack, I used to tell people that “I’ve never seen a race won on the first lap, but I’ve seen a bunch lost there!” That was a direct result of how many racers tried to pass a bunch of people on starts or restarts taking chances that usually knocked themselves (and others) out of contention.
In Life as well as racing, they pay the money and give out trophies at the end! It truly is more important how you finish.
USA Hockey Coach Herb Brooks of the 1980 team who beat the USSR is remembered for a lot. What often goes forgotten is that U.S. team beat the Russians in the semi-finals of the Winter Olympics.
Brooks reportedly told his team before their Finals match that game would possibly be the most important that many of them would ever play. They had just accomplished a great achievement in defeating the Soviet team, but a loss in the Finals would sour that memory for their lifetimes.
I’m hopeful that my Dawgs will pull this off. There are over 40 years of frustration built up among the fanbase since their last National title in 1980.
We’ll see how it goes, but after some recent disappointments, it will be exciting to potentially go from bridesmaid to bride!
Both teams are good. Top-to-bottom, UGA might be better, but the toughest steps of any climb are your last ones. It is truly near the summit when your resolve and will get tested.
Here’s to this batch of Dawgs stepping into a spot worthy of being remembered! Time will truly tell.
Update
By a final score of 33-18, UGA won their first National Championship since 1980. It’s been a fun and surreal aftermath having been a Georgia fan enduring a number of “close, but no cigar” letdowns in the past.
Here’s a link to the Championship celebration from Athens.
It truly is a different perspective being atop the mountain as opposed to failed attempts to scale it.
Now the next task is learning how to stay there! #GoDawgs
If you are unhappy with your life, it is your responsibility to change it. #mistysummers #ownit
— Misty Summers (@MistyASummers) January 9, 2022
There are all sorts of marketing and advertising advice (Tweets, Blogposts, Videos, etc) filling our inboxes and timelines. As businesses and organizations plan their strategies and budgets for 2022, everyone is looking to find (or share) the “next big thing”.
Keep the above in mind as you plan yours.
Regardless of your tactics or objectives, your audience has to notice you and respond before anything else positive is going to happen. If they cannot find you, they will never hear you; if they do not hear you, they will never respond in a meaningful way (for you or them).
As you are making your plans for 2022, be sure that you are doing things that they will see and motivate them to respond.
Good luck starting the New Year!
In the modern world, don’t minimize your risks - maximize your opportunities
— Naval (@naval) January 9, 2022
For those checking out the book reviews, I reviewed Twelve And A Half (Amazon affiliate link) by Gary Vaynerchuk. You can check out my notes at this link.
Keep a lookout as I have finished reading the following books and will be posting my notes for those very soon!
- E-Myth Revisited (Amazon affiliate link) by Michael Gerber [review notes link]
- One Million Followers (Amazon affiliate link) by Brendan Kane
- Content Inc. (Amazon affiliate link) by Joe Pulizzi
- Twelve And A Half (Amazon affiliate link) by Gary Vaynerchuk
Other Links
Content Marketing: Create Once; Use Many
You don’t have to look far to see this practice in use. Some of the biggest value of your content is embedded in how you repurpose & reuse it. We see this practice by TV and radio networks and it is a skill that we all need to better develop.
Small Business SEO Tips for 2022
#4 & #5 are my favorites. Customer Stories are a great form of “user-generated” content and working together with other businesses & organizations in your service area expands both your reach (among their audience) as well as their reach (within yours).
How To Build Backlinks
Backlinks suggest to Search Engines that your content is valuable because someone else valued it enough to share it. An intentional strategy of sharing your content with others and getting wider exposure via their sharing needs to be on your agenda. If you don’t have a strategy yet, definitely go about putting one in place!
Y2K22 Bug??
As someone who “fixed” Y2K bugs in code (and knows how we “fixed” many of them), it is no surprise that some systems are now encountering problems. One of the techniques was adding structures that assumed two-digit years before a certain point (like 20) were in the 21st century while dates after that point were in the 20th. It was an acknowledged short-term “fix” that (like Y2K itself) had an expiration date. If you or your company implemented these types of solutions under the expectation that “we’ll replace those systems before we get there”, then I hope you did!
People don’t like the idea of buying products or services from a business that doesn’t have any heart or soul. Three of the companies on LinkedIn’s list use their executives and employees in their social media marketing. https://t.co/mtts2Vcfld
— John White (@juanblanco76) January 9, 2022
