Quantifying Quest 1

Regardless of my propensity to complicate things, I still decided to continue what I have started because it's been proving to teach me a lot. I've managed to put some numbers together. Here goes nothing (literally):

What I have done:

• set up blog for the competition (no editing, just chose one of available templates and found a poll plug-in)
• sent 41 friends a message on FB about it. 5 responded - 12%. Sent the messages on the 3rd of October. There were 18 page views on the blog on that day, and 16 the following day, nothing on the 5th.
• Met 5 group leaders, some of them more than once - one has acted
• posted 2 updates on FB asking friends to vote - There were 19 page views of the blog on the day of the first update and 7 page views after the second.
• 10 people voted on the first poll, 2 have voted so far on the second (still open until Sunday)

The post for Current Quests was written on the 8th of August. Today it's the 13th of October. This means that the above has taken me 9 weeks and three days (63 days - two full months).

OK, so I have come to the conclusion that I have overcomplicated the original "goal" of advertising our little business with going for this competition, but now that it's in preparation and so many people have been involved already, I want to finish it. Besides the benefits of all the lessons I'm learning outweigh any negatives. To finish I need to know what really is the goal. Quantifiable goal that is. I want 5 people to submit a photo and donate money to the local charity. Before Christmas this year!

One side note: We ought to engage people this way once we build a pool of fans of the business (my wife's photography) and not the other way round. What gives??? Make a living first, then grow it by making it really special.

Lesson Tokens:

• Keep the path to the goal short
• Don't undervalue myself, believe in myself - otherwise I take longer routes or feel bad about taking money for goods and service that really bring value to the customer.