I don’t know Paul Jarvis personally, unless you count our email correspondence on his business help line.
But I’ve read his book Company of One and listened to many of his podcasts, and I have been inspired enough to create a post about him to highlight the things I’ve learned from him.
What I’ve Learned From Paul Jarvis
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.
This sentence shook me because I am victim to wanting to grow as fast and as big as possible to validate myself to those around me. (Which is a flattering way to say – “Feed my ego.”)
If you’ve ever found yourself more miserable after growing your business because you thought you probably ought to, then I’d spend some time learning from Paul.
Passion in work comes from first creating a valuable skill set and mastering your work.
It’s all too common for us to hear about people that cold turkey quit their steady, corporate job to jump into the unknown abyss of self-employment to “follow their passion” and end up making millions of dollars a few short years later.
While this is true for some, we often forget that this is the exception not the rule.
If you want to go deeper on this idea, both Paul and I recommend a book by Cal Newport – So Good They Can’t Ignore You which talks about the relationship between passion, craft, and fulfilling careers.
If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.
One of Paul’s company’s is Fathom Analytics. It’s a GDPR compliant analytics provider which means if you use his service to track your website visits, you don’t have to have that annoying pop up that forces visitors to opt in to relinquishing all rights to their online privacy.
Long story short, most people use Google Analytics to track a bunch of stuff that doesn’t actually move the needle on helping their customers. It’s just fun to look at data. When you’re ready to start really putting your customers first and not being complicit in selling out all their data to the highest bidder, consider a switch to Fathom.
Here’s why I left Google Analytics and switched to Fathom as my digital analytics provider.
Consider developing an audience first, then creating products for that audience.
This is the opposite of the way I’ve always thought business worked.
“First create the product, then go market it.”
Paul has had success doing just the opposite. By first creating your audience, you are so much more informed by the needs and wants of that audience and can build better products for an immediate buyer group. Another great way of rethinking business.