Quiet

"One genuine new relationship is worth a fistful of business cards." "There's a word for "people who are in their heads too much": Thinkers ""Quiet leadership" is not an oxymoron." All of these are statements from Susan Cain in her manifesto for introverts. Mahatma Gandhi once said, "In a gentle way, you can shake the world." He was a great example of a true introvert who impacted the lives of millions and truly started a movement. We live in a world that values loudness, extroverts, and a dominant leader with the loudest voice. However, in the book "[Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking](=)," Susan Cain masterfully argues for the need and true value of leadership from introverts. ​ ​ Those that take time to think. Those that value being left alone to consider ideas and to create inventions. Bill Gates. Warren Buffett. Steve Wozniak. Rosa Parks. The list goes on and on of introverts that have impacted the world in a major way. Quiet is one of my favorite books of all time, and I highly recommend that you read it. I've been thinking on this concept more and more lately as I'm pulled in different directions to "hop on a quick call", "can you come on my podcast?", or considering whether to "go big with YouTube". I definitely lean towards the introverted side of the equation, which has suited me extremely well with an online business. I can take time to write out my thoughts and to create new ideas (like Long Tail Pro, Link Whisper, and many others). Sure, it's okay to put on that extroversion hat when needed, but introversion and quiet thoughtfulness should be embraced. We see influencers in just about every niche with a massive social media following posting content all the time. But then we see the founder of Shopify, Tobia Lutke, with almost no followers, no major marketing where he is the face of it all...and yet he's the one worth billions. I'm letting these thoughts guide my business more and more. Perhaps it's something worth considering in your own business as well. --------------------------------------------------------------- A Quiet Loss of Traffic... Over the past few months, Google has ever so quietly been sending less and less traffic to NichePursuits.com. Yikes! I appear to have been hit with the May update and I never fully realized the extent of it (perhaps because I've been running in too many directions, instead of quietly sitting down and analyzing things). So, I plan to recover this lost traffic and get Niche Pursuits back to where it used to be in Google (and hopefully even better than before). Yesterday, I read an [excellent article by Glenn Gabe]() that walks through how to recover from Google core updates (with a focus on the May update). If you've ever had a site negatively impacted with a Google update or you want to prevent future negative impacts, you may want to follow along (I'll be sure to share how it goes). To start, I've done a complete site audit in Ahrefs and will be working on cleaning up any issues I see there: - Meta tags missing - Broken images - Duplicate content - 404 pages - and more ​ Yesterday, I started using [Link Whisper]( to clean up broken links and other error links. You can quickly fix the link or even delete the link within the Link Whisper reports, rather than going into each individual page. ​ ​ When I look objectively at my site, I realize that I have a popup and an exit intent opt in form, that could get annoying to users. I plan to clean this up. I also see web design issues and some minor site structure issues that could be cleaned up. (Could lead to an entire site re-design...we'll see). Long story short, I've got my work cut out for me over the next few months. If you are in a similar situation, hopefully some of my thoughts today have been helpful. --------------------------------------------------------------- $170 Million Exit This isn't "news", but I didn't realize that BleacherReport.com was started by a 22 year along with a couple of his buddies. I recently started following [Dave Nemetz on Twitter](, the founder of Bleacher Report, and he shared the following: Bleacher Report revenue by year: Year 1 - $0 Year 2 - $80k Year 3 - $900k Year 4 - $4.8M Year 5 - $14M Year 6 - $31M* *Profitable and exited to Turner Sports in year 6 (sold for $170 million). Was it self funded? No. Year 1 - bootstrapped Year 2 - $1.5M angel round Year 3 - $6.5M series A Year 4 - $10M series B Year 5 - $20M series C I'm more of a bootstrap kinda guy, but you have to admire the hustle of a 22 year old! Here's some words of wisdom from Dave Nemetz that you might find helpful today: ​ ​ "When I was a 22 year old founding Bleacher Report, I cold emailed all sorts of accomplished people asking for advice or to collaborate. Most ignored. But some replied. Many I’m still close with today. Never be afraid to take your shot." Overall, I hope a few of these insights spark an idea or two in your business. Thanks again for reading. Spencer [Unsubscribe]( | [Update your profile]( | 8524 W Gage Blvd # 1, Kennewick, WA 99336