Effectiveness > Quality/Quantity

If you’re struggling to choose between quality and quantity, let me offer a different perspective: neither metric is as helpful as you might think. 

Instead, I propose a more impactful metric: effectiveness.

Quality is subjective, and quantity is relative.

Effectiveness is measurable, especially in today’s world of conversion tracking, CRMs, and business intelligence. There’s never been a time in history where we’ve had this many ways to tell us if something is working.

How many times do you do something perfectly on the first try?

I’d hazard a guess that the number is close to zero.

You are almost guaranteed to fail if you only try one thing. That thing may have been visually perfect; the code may be completely bug-free. But it was a waste of time if it didn’t generate a single sale.

That leads me to believe that whenever I start on something new, I’ll have to try a few things before I find the one (or more things) that works.

So, what is “a few”? That depends; it’s almost certainly more than one. But it doesn’t depend on some emotion or feeling.

It also doesn’t depend on checking off a bunch of to-dos.

It depends on how long it takes to find something that is effective.

That may be two, three, or one hundred things. The number is irrelevant.

The only thing that matters is that you try enough times to either find something that is effective or determine that you cannot be effective and that it’s time to move on.