Repeat And Amplify: Making Your Work Count

Repetition works. What matters is how you keep coming back to an idea and magnifying the process.

Over time people know what to expect from you.

When you find something that has the opportunity to work out for you or even start new, repetition makes ideas work faster and you become better and more efficient at your craft. 

Let me share with you what is happening to not have huge goals to work to, but focus more on your output and delivery.

The message here is to keep showing up and repeat what matters. The result is learning, self-sufficiency, creation durability and togetherness.

Finding a way of working and sticking with your idea and delivery increases your chances of being heard and people committing. 

When you repeat a narrative, it gets better with time. It’s like telling your favourite joke. What starts from hearing from someone else, becomes crafted over and over again, where you add layers, and pauses, so it always feels fresh to new ears.

Over time people become comfortable as it helps to foster confidence and trust. It just needs that momentum and process to come back to over and over again. 

The last thing we ever want to be is annoying. However, that becomes the biggest hazard when people start to switch off from the message that we want others to act on.

If all you do is repeat the delivery/punchline and not the process/build-up, the frequency can become your downfall. If no one is listening to you or making that decision to commit, then repetition as your only fallback, means that you need think more creatively. 

Let me share with you what it means by doing something over and over again, that is intended to attract and build.

YATM now delivers events in Bristol. The idea for this was to take what we had packaged for the live Lunch Club events in Dorset and see if it can be delivered n another town/city. This is about duplicating ethos, rather than replicating another version of me to deliver.

It follows a format. We’re looking to find out if delivering a live event can follow a formula, no matter where the location is. A lot is built on trust around who hosts, but it’s all around repetition around build-up and delivery.

Let me share this with you. We started with a trial event in November 2022 and now will continue for the rest of 2023 (alternate months). It’s working, we’re filling out our venue (The Strawberry Thief).

Repetition in the build-up (we follow these steps every time):

— an event page is produced on the YATM site with Stripe button for payments (we don’t use Eventbrite)

— create an event page on LinkedIn (set up by the hosting team)

— be specific with invites relevant to the local area (pointless for a lunchtime event in Bristol and sending to overseas contacts)

— from the interest shown, a DM was sent to people who said they’d like to come

— for people who show interest but are not subscribers, they are asked if they’d like to subscribe to the weekly newsletter (so they know that it is part of much wider activity)

— up and coming event is referenced on the YATM newsletter from a small banner to its own segment (that way it’s not a cut and paste every week)

Repetition for every event:

— people arrive 

— food is served (albeit for the February event the food was served late)

— we have a section called #winning (that we started during lockdown down on YATM Online Offline)

— we have a main focus on a topic area that relates to marketing/creation/growth

— we share what else is happening around YATM for people to get involved with

Can we now start to repeat this:

— take the steps in the build-up (website page, LinkedIn reach)

— have a central space where people are informed (the weekly newsletter)

— find other community leaders to make it work in other towns and cities (why should all the fun just be B2B, Bournemouth to Bristol?)

Highlighting this recurring process means that the more you do, the more straightforward it gets. You have systems and ways of working in place.  

Having a framework to come back, isn’t just about cutting and pasting, you’re also learning and intending to continually improve. 

Like telling your favourite joke, you add little touches that make the whole delivery stronger. 

Catherine Adams and Fleur Cook lead the Bristol events. As we begin to find our feet in Bristol, we’re not setting ourselves huge goals. We want to become a fabric of the area before we start to introduce further intentions. We want it to become an event where it’s an easy choice for people to commit and tell others. 

Our goal as we start is to keep going and end the year with a Christmas event with the people who feel a part of the Bristol space. 

We can make it better.

— encourage attendees to introduce themselves at the beginning 

— share more faces who are part of the wider YATM community and their stories

— provide newcomers with more of a backstory and thread to follow 

— keep coming back to the importance of familiarity, learning and making occasions

If every LinkedIn post from me was promoting the next YATM Lunch Club event, you would probably start to switch off. 

It is important to have a central place where people are prompted. For me, it’s the YATM newsletter, but it could be a podcast, it could be a video series. With all the activity that is happening around you, you always need a trusted space, where people have already subscribed to share more. You don’t bombard, you nudge to the family.

Finding ways to reaffirm, repeat and readjust can become such a valuable tool when you want to put your work to a wider, but relevant audience. You need to be tuned into what works, and the steps you take, so you know what it takes for someone to say ‘I’m in.’

Over time, you start to see the traits that work, so you have to stick with them. It’s a case of moving, not sticking with what you have but finding ways to update and improve.

Repeating a framework means you deliver your message in structured ways. Over time this increases retention and the impact you can make. It also proves that you have a choice to approach from so many angles, rather than thinking you have to stick to one tried and tested way. 

Hope you can come and join us. Our YATM Lunch Clubs will be in Poole from the summer, but our Bristol events are already picking up steam and we’re back on Thursday 30th March.