Category Archives: Internet Marketing

The Silliest Entrepreneur I Know

Mrs. Stephanie Padovani has got to be the silliest entrepreneur I know.  She showed up in the Alpha Wolf Den in September last year giggling her way to profitable advice on all our webinars, and has ever since been impressing me with her expertise, fortitude, and emotional sensitivity.

Since y’all hadn’t heard from me for a little while I thought it might be fun to do a biographical interview with Stephanie all about her Entrepreneurial Journey… all the way from her lowly beginnings as a struggling disc jockey… to her humble position now as the premier marketing advisor for businesses in the wedding industry at BookMoreBrides.com

Enjoy!

Christopher Columbus was a Dickhead Marketer

Christopher Columbus Was a Dickhead Marketer

Last Columbus Day my good friend Howie Jacobson pointed me to a revealing article in “The  Oatmeal” about Christopher Columbus  (IMPORTANT: Since publishing this post it’s been pointed out the article on the Oatmeal itself has possibly relied upon erroneous sources. If true, then Christopher Columbus wasn’t really a dickhead, and I might have been a dickhead myself for not checking the Oatmeal’s sources more thoroughly.   I’m therefore now going to frame my post in the this context “I don’t really know whether Columbus was a dickhead.  He could have been a really nice guy.  I’m guessing probably not, but he might have been.  Everything which follows was based upon the facts quotes by the Oatmeal article linked to at bottom.  I’ll leave it to you to make up your own mind.  I think it’s a worthwhile to post for marketers to read regardless” – Glenn. )

In the article I learned:

  • Nobody actually really thought the earth was flat in 1492 because the Ancient Greeks proved it was round almost 2,000 years earlier
  • Leif Ericson discovered America about 500 years before Columbus.  And how can you “discover” a land which is already populated by organized tribes anyway?
  • Columbus was much more interested in the Gold he found in America than establishing better trade routes for the Europeans

Our hero also correctly assessed the Lucayan natives as a generous, hospitable, kind people… whom he could exploit and slaughter for his own profit.  And on his next voyage Mr. Columbus convinced the Queen of Spain to back his exploits with 1500 men armed to the hilt.   (Think “raising capital” for a venture)

When he reached shore, he and his army demanded food, gold, and sex from the Lucayan women…cutting off the ears and noses of any dissidents.   The Lucayans rebelled and interfered with his plans a little.  So our dear Christopher took 500 of them back to the Queen to serve as slaves.  Hundreds died en route.

If this weren’t cruel enough, Mr. Columbus enslaved another 500 natives to be kept in the New World, and allowed his men to hunt them down for sport.  After they were killed, he let their bodies be fed to the men’s dogs to keep them healthy.

It gets worse and worse… I could go on and on.  If you’re really interested, go read the article for yourself (I’ll give you a link at the bottom of this post.)

Columbus really was a dickhead who ignored the human rights and basic dignity of the “undervalued asset” he had “discovered”…and then arranged to market that asset to the Queen and the Spanish people for as much profit as he could possibly muster.

Why did I tell you this story?:

  1. I want you to carefully consider how you choose your heroes.  Most Americans have little to NO idea about the true exploits of Christopher Columbus.  We honor and celebrate him with a Holiday, but few of us know  more than a few trite sayings put forth in a long game of telephone from historian to historian.  Similarly, you may be under the influence of people in the marketing world whom you know precious little about.   Mythology has a life of it’s own, so always ask HOW you know what you think you know about someone who’s advice you’re about to take on significant business decisions.
  2. To show you how easily people can get carried away when they see an opportunity to exploit.  It’s one thing for us all to sit in judgment of the obviously despicable things Mr. Columbus did.  It’s quite another for us to hold ourselves to a higher standard when we find undervalued assets of our own ready for the taking.  In a truly ethical business transaction, everybody benefits.  It’s easy to SAY you operate like that, but pretty hard to do when you find yourself in the power position.

Terry Dean and I are looking for a few more ethical marketers this month who want to leverage OUR tested and proven systems to find undervalued assets in other people’s businesses and help them profit.  (So they’ll pay your premium business coaching fees!)  It just may be the fastest way to turn your passion for marketing and business into a lucrative, rewarding, and fun career. Dickheads need not apply:

www.GrowthAccelerationSystems.com 

Onwards,

Dr. G 🙂

PS – We’re taking people for just a few more days or until we fill our 30 person quota.  So if you’ve got any interest at all now is the time to apply.

PPS – Here’s the article on Christopher Columbus in The Oatmeal.

 

 

 

The Paradox of Joint Ventures


Know what’s really weird about joint ventures?   If you go after them the right way, you actually won’t need them.

Think about it for a minute…

Let’s say you control a 100,000 person mailing list.  Maybe you’ve generated through paid advertising.  Perhaps the leads cost you $15 each.  And to maintain that list, you’ve got to KEEP paying for new leads.  (One thing a lot of new marketers don’t realize is that once you get to a certain size with a list, you actually can’t keep growing it with the same lead source.  Because at some point, even with a very low unsubscribe rate, the number of leads dropping out exceeds the volume you can attract each month.  It’s just a byproduct of the math)

The “bandwidth” (mailing slots) on that list are therefore NOT really cost-free, despite what most people who’ll be pitching you joint ventures seem to assume.  You actually HAVE TO earn substantially on every mailing to “keep the lights on” for that particular list.  Plus, especially with a list that size, every mailing has it’s own costs…mostly in unsubscribes, but also in managing complaints, customer service inquiries, and the like.

The upshot of this is, before you’re going to agree to mail for someone, you really want some kind of proof their system is going to profitably convert your visitors into customers.  You’re going to ask to see evidence of previous mailings… or even better, paid advertising tests to a similar audience.

This is why it’s difficult to get major list holders to mail for your new offer.  What you really need to do before you approach a major mailer is develop PROOF that your system works. Which means, oddly enough, to get really solid joint venture partners you usually need to spend some money on advertising and conversion optimization.

Now, here’s the paradox…

If you develop your paid advertising funnel correctly (so it converts!) you actually may not need the joint venture partners at all.  Or rather, you may only desire them for extra volume… but most likely you’ll be able to buy all the traffic you need.

In fact, you should be able to approach the joint venture partners and just BUY traffic from them directly, rather than asking for a joint venture.  (For example, if you’ve got a proven list of 2,000+ responsive coaches, consultants, authors or speakers I would consider paying you $2 per visitor you send to my site via a specific email I’ve tested… contact me via www.PsyTechSupport.com if you’re interested)…

Of course you’d need to test this out slowly in order to protect yourself.  But if you CAN do it–and the fastest way to get there is by conversion optimizing your site on paid advertising–you’ll be in an incredibly powerful position…

Because it’s unlikely your “JV Partners” will want to reciprocate.  (Thanks to Bill Harrison for pointing this out to me originally)

On the other hand, if you have a brand new site with no proven conversion statistics, but you approach a power JV player to mail for you, what you’re really doing is asking THEM to take all the risk.

In a rational world, they won’t play ball…

Hence the JV Paradox.

However, we don’t live in a completely rational world.  Not even close!  And because of this, there ARE ways to convince power players to joint venture with you:

  • Perhaps they’re really in love with your idea…
  • Or maybe you’ve built the relationship in such a way as to imbue a feeling of reciprocity or obligation…
  • They could love YOU…
  • Or they really feel your free promotional series is valuable for their list and they’d like to use it to educate their own customers (Perry Marshall once told me I made his customers smarter, and that made it possible for them to buy more from him)…
  • Or maybe you offer them a ridiculous commission to compensate them for the risk you’re asking them to take.  (But remember, 100% of zero is still zero if the system doesn’t convert.  And no matter how much of the work you do for your partner they STILL are spending their credibility and mailing-list-bandwidth on your promotion)

There are actually about 101 different ways you can compensate for asking a JV partner to take more risk for you… but before you can use them effectively you really need to understand and accept the magnitude of what you’re asking.

Asking for a serious joint venture is kind of on the level of asking to stay at someone’s house for the evening.  You kind of have to prove you’re trustworthy, have something to offer, and invest a little time in the relationship first.

If you’d like to learn more about using joint ventures to put cash in your bank account and visitors on your list year after year, please opt in to the JV Fast Track Sublist here.

Are You a Marketing Junkie Without a Home?

Are you a marketing junkie in search of a home?

I’ve been teaching this stuff for almost 10 years now, and I’ve run into a lot of people who are utterly intoxicated with marketing… and I don’t blame them!  For people with a certain personality (including myself) the first taste of the idea you can create a tribe-building-money-making machine is enough to make you sell all your belongings, forget your old life, and dedicate yourself full time to its pursuit.

You mean I can build SYSTEMS which genuinely help people, connect them to each other, create appreciation for my own thoughts, opinions, and philosophies of life…and get paid for it separate and apart from the time I put in?    Why didn’t anyone send ME the memo sooner!!!???

But here’s the problem…

You’ve gotta have something to sell.  And that “something” requires systems of it’s own.  It turns out if you want to indulge your passion for marketing to its fullest, you might actually have to run a whole business…

Which means you need to keep track of finances, customer service, branding, legal issues, government regulations, managing team members, operational and delivery systems, technology, accounting and tax compliance, research and development, banking and cash flow management, and the opinions and needs of partners, spouses, and family.

Kind of ruins the mood, doesn’t it?

This is the reason I run into SOOOO many “marketing junkies without a home” in my line of work:  Genuinely proficient people who really DO know how to sell, but lack the time, energy, and resources to put the whole package together and run a business of their own.

It can be a little demoralizing… and at first these people start to think that perhaps what they’re learning about marketing is wrong.  Or that there’s some “secret sauce” they’re really missing.  Or that there’s “something wrong with them” and they’ll never get it…but inevitably it’s just that they fell in love with the sexy side of marketing and didn’t understand the size of the mountain they were signing up to climb as a full business owner.

Marketing is a sexy siren indeed!

Thankfully there’s a solution…and that solution is letting other people run their businesses while you coach them through their marketing.

Despite all the bad jokes about coaches, the truth is when it’s done right EVERYBODY wins.  That’s because a great business and marketing coach has the luxury of focusing all their efforts on THINKING about another person’s business.  They not distracted by the necessity of executing the work, managing the people, or spending the resources to accomplish the goals…

Sure the coach is accountable.  There’s nothing which makes a client leave faster than bad advice…but that’s much different than the natural disincentive which exists for a business owner to see what actually needs to be done.  When you’re the one who’s gotta lift the heavy weights, you tend to want to leave the gym.  There’s a reason people do better when they work with trainers… if you’ll permit the metaphor.

A great business coach is always in the business of showing clients “the next right thing” to do, regardless of how painful it might be.  And because “the next right thing” improves profits when you get it right, the owner’s all too happy to keep going.

Now here’s the best thing…

When you know how to identify and attract the right kinds of clients (established businesses–and there are millions of them–which meet a certain set of criteria) you’ll find EIGHT hidden profit opportunities just waiting for you “the business coach” to come in and create explosive growth. They’re almost always just sitting there waiting to be discovered.  Point them out and look like a genius.

All you have to do is pull one of these ideas out of your bag of tricks to immediately multiply the profits of your clients in your first couple of sessions.  Once your client has earned this kind of immediate return on investment—often even before they’ve paid your first month’s bill!—it becomes simple for them to justify paying your premium fees for years on end.

In fact, the marketing-junkies-turned-business-coaches who specialize in a particular niche, channel, etc are probably the people who go from zero to six figures fastest.

Which is why we’ve been hard at work creating a program to help YOU take your passion for marketing and turn it into a lucrative, fun, and rewarding career.  Just a peak at what you’ll get…

  • You’ll get to use OUR systems for attracting dream clients…
  • You’ll get to use OUR systems for multiplying their profits so they’ll be interested in paying your premium fees…
  • You’ll get to use OUR extensive training library to educate YOUR clients.  (Save a tremendous amount of time establishing trust and buy-in for your coaching process and business advice by simply pointing clients to the right link and letting them watch a video or read a cheat sheet)…
  • You’ll get to work with us personally each week to develop your own niche, marketing materials, and plan of attack…
  • And if you’re one of the 30 people to join us this fall, you’ll get a VERY significant Founder’s discount!

If you think you MIGHT be interested you should do two things right away:

Even if you don’t plan to work with us, I’d encourage you to watch the videos or listen to the MP3s.  Especially #2 about attracting dream clients.  You’ll be glad you did!

Onwards and Upwards (even if sometimes a little sideways)…

The Very Good Dr. G 🙂

 

 

Bob Serling and Glenn Livingston Go Head to Head Without a Referee

Bob Serling may have been the very first direct response marketer to whom I was ever exposed.  I think it was in the year 2,000… or maybe even in the 90s I bought one of his early set of tapes on copywriting.

So I was totally honored to get an email from him (through Perry Marshall) wanting to debate me about something I put in my auto-responder sequence several years back!   What ensued was a very intriguing 40 minute conversation in which we actually did NOT need a referee 🙂
(Even though we had somewhat dissimilar points of view going into it)

I hope you enjoy it, I know I did!

How I Won Over Perry Marshall’s Audience

As we roll out Joint Venture Fast Track this week I wanted to make one VERY important point clear to everyone considering building their own joint venture channel:  Winning the JV game involves more than just getting a big mailer to promote for you.  You’ve got to win over the hearts and minds of their audience too…

Of course, your partner’s endorsement goes a long way, but do you know what goes MUCH further?

TO WIN THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF YOUR JV PARTNER’S AUDIENCE — GET NAKED!!!

No, I’m not advocating you ask your JV partner to send one of your “Selfies” via their Twitter account!  I’m talking about bearing your soul and telling the most painful part of your own journey.  Show them that you’ve been someplace much worse than they have, but emerged realistically and believably victorious.

Once you do THAT–provided you do it thoroughly and with 100% honesty–you’re no longer part of some “big boy’s club” who’s trying to siphon cash from them.  You’re ONE of them and they want to connect with you.

And it’s from this perspective that I’m re-presenting an extremely powerful interview Perry Marshall and I did many years back as we were first starting to JV together.  See, most entrepreneurs believe they should bombard a JV partner’s list with “Benefit Heavy” offers in order to squeeze out the maximum amount of cash…

But Perry knew we wouldn’t really win over his best customers that way…even with my strongest offers.  (This was particularly true since I was selling a “how to do your market research” system… and no matter how you slice it, research isn’t sexy!)

So he asked me to get on a teleseminar–which wound up being attended by more than 2,000 people!–and share my most intimate, embarrassing business story (ever).  If that wasn’t enough, I was to have my wife Sharon join us to discuss the total financial meltdown and near bankruptcy we went through from 2001 to 2003!

This was certainly enough to require a double dose of Kaopectate for even the most confident entrepreneur… but I really respected Perry’s instincts so I agreed without hesitation.

It turned out to be extremely valuable on many, many fronts. Listening to it you can’t help but absorb tools to better manage your most serious financial problems.

In fact, since the time of this one hour spontaneous call–which was recorded and distributed to literally hundreds of thousands of people–dozens of people have approached me in conferences, seminars, and other meetings to tell me the recording “saved their lives” and helped them get through some very serious financial downturns.  Strangers have hugged me.  People have come up to me in grateful tears.

In fact, this might have been the first time where I understood the notion of capturing emotion in an interview and distributing it’s power far and wide…

It’s also very entertaining – in a train wreck sort of way. (I don’t cringe quite as much when I hear it anymore)

But…

While you’re listening, I want you to put your JV hat on and think about the business impact the interview had on Perry’s customers (and mine). Take a step back and think about how this interview effected people who’d never heard of me yet and had no idea what I was selling.  Think about the bonding impact it had with Perry’s audience…and then think about what story in your own past YOU could tell with 100% honesty, humility, and a little bit of shame to bond with YOUR prospective JV partner’s audience.

In under 60 minutes, two thousands of Perry’s customers and prospects got to KNOW, LIKE and TRUST me… and within a few weeks hundreds of thousands more!

Even though we sold nothing on this call, we laid down a VERY strong foundation for Perry’s audience to purchase my products and services in the future.  We sewed the seeds for a powerful, long term JV.

Listen soon, while you’re in the “learn how to JV” mindset. And then…build on this template to win the hearts of new customers for whatever JV partnership you set up.

And whatever you do, be sure to get in on the introductory price for Joint Venture Fast Track.  Because if you miss it, you’re going to want to smack yourself in the head with a spatula.  And that’s something none of us wants to see!  (Intro price good only for a few more days)

Onwards,

The Good Dr. Glenn 🙂

My Dirty Little Marketing Secret…

I’ve got a dirty little marketing secret…

In fact, it’s the ONLY thing which has made it possible for me to break into the most brutally competitive market I’ve ever attempted…

A market where I’m competing with the likes of Tony Robbins, the founder of the Sylvan Learning Center, and the International Coaching Federation…

Little old me!

It’s a secret I wouldn’t have dreamed of even trying to enter this market without…

A secret you’ll find MOST of the best direct response marketers quietly using behind the scenes…

Yet it’s something we all seem to tacitly agree NOT to talk about publicly…

SCREW THAT NOISE… I’M TALKING!!!

So what’s my dirty little secret?…

It’s NOT some secret traffic source…

Or a new and brilliant research technique I invented…

Nor is it my ability to analyze and optimize ppc advertising or landing page conversion (although those are good guesses)….

And it most definitely has NOTHING to do with advanced mathematics, tracking, or software I’ve had developed…

My dirty little secret is…

JOINT VENTURES!

See, I noticed something very unusual in the last few years.   It seemed none of the people I knew who were doing the best in direct response were relying SOLELY on paid advertising.  And, for the record, I’m talking about people who spend a fortune on media…

In fact, many of the people I knew who were spending the MOST on paid advertising were also extensively utilizing Joint Ventures!

At first this seemed very counter-intuitive…

I mean, if you can make paid advertising work, isn’t it preferable to rely on this more controllable, cleaner traffic source than to be beholden to some JV partner who’s love for you is largely determined by how much profit you made him (or her) YESTERDAY?

And since a big part of my personality is oriented towards CONTROL and RISK MITIGATION in business, I had hitherto always thought of joint ventures as a kind of “gravy” for my business as a whole.  Kind of like a “nice to have”, not a “must have”…

But when I took a hard look at how much several business people I greatly respect were relying upon JVs in addition to their paid advertising, I had to challenge my reasoning…

And, now that I’ve begun to crack the code on this brutally competitive market I can tell you first hand WHY joint ventures are such an important part of virtually ANY business… especially one which relies on paid advertising!…

First and foremost, to make a competitive market work in paid advertising these days requires a much longer time horizon than it did in the past.  Advertisers are more savvy, the major ad platforms have higher quality and screening standards, and there’s just a lot more money chasing the media than there used to be (so it’s a lot more expensive).

What this means is, you’ve got to have enough capital, time, and energy to get passed the profit line.  You really can’t expect to be there in a month or two like the old days.  Going into a competitive market under-capitalized is both emotional and financial suicide…

Which leaves you with three options: Either you can fund it yourself with the full expectation of running seriously in the red for a while, raise the money from investors, or take it from other, more successful, lower risk parts of your business.

OR… you can try to do it without any of the above and spend night after night smacking yourself in the head with a spatula.  It’s entirely your choice!

Joint Ventures serve as a low-risk/high-reward financial infusion into your business to give you the staying power to make your paid advertising work!  They also are a morale booster because their speed to monetization is a stark contrast to the “slow climb up the mountain” which paid advertising almost always requires.

In plain English?  It’s a LOT less painful to beat your head against the wall with test after test while you slowly go from losing $20K/mo to $18K/mo to 15K/mo to $10K/mo, etc IF you’ve got $10K to $20K/mo coming in from joint ventures.

Duh!

Beyond this though, there are many other benefits of integrating joint ventures as a strong marketing channel in your business (assuming you do them the right way–not the scummy way):

  • You can use JVs to build your business even if you’re unknown in your industry, have NO list, and don’t have enough money to buy a cheeseburger at McDonalds…
  • Because JVs rely on warm, friendly relationships with real people—NOT behemoth advertising companies—you’ll be almost entirely invulnerable to Slaps, Penalties, Sandboxes, Rising Bid Prices, and the whims of wet-behind-the-ears employees who just barely know how to shave…much less understand your business…
  • When (and I do mean “when”, not “if”) you have trouble with a cherished paid advertising medium, having a strong joint venture channel established in your business can be the one thing which keeps you afloat…
  • JVs can help you keep pace with your list’s desire to consume when you can’t produce enough products and services yourself…
  • JVs can be MUCH more instantaneously scalable than paid traffic…
  • And, of course, when you’ve got the RIGHT partners JVs can be a helluva lot of fun!

The problem with JVs is that (a) it’s easy to get conned; (b) most people don’t treat them seriously; (c) the most typical JV is a one-shot-deal, not an evergreen funnel.  But with a little education you can learn to use them the way I have… finding just a few key partners to work with year after year, often in an automated way.

Anyway… I hope this gives you some food for thought.

And I’m sure it won’t surprise you to learn I’ll be releasing a ridiculously affordable product later this month called “Joint Venture Fast Track”…

Keep your eyes peeled for it because we’ll have a very time limited introductory discount you’ll want to take advantage of…

Until then,

The Good Dr. G 🙂

PS – In case you’re curious, here’s my offer in the market above.  If you’re remotely interested in becoming a coach you should take the trial and/or get on the waiting list.

 

 

MP3: Targeting Your Ideal Consulting Client

Michael Zipursky of Consulting-Business.com is the “Consultant’s Consultant”…

He’s also a former coaching student, friend, and a serious man on a serious mission.

In this intriguing interview, Michael sheds light on the research process for consultants looking to attract more IDEAL clients.  He also reveals some subtle shifts in the hyper-responsive process which are definitely worth listening to.

Enjoy!

Dr. G 🙂

Real Business vs Bull Crap IM Business

There are a just a few insights into the nature of REAL businesses vs. BULL CRAP internet business ideas I’d like to share with you today…

1. REAL BUSINESSES SELL LOTS OF PRODUCTS (AND SERVICES) AND RUN VOLUME ON UNDER-OPTIMIZED FRONT ENDS. (Bull-crap internet businesses, on the other hand, spend all their resources waiting to perfectly optimize their front end.  This is based on the very faulty belief that a well optimized front end will make the whole business profitable in the long turn.)

This one’s a little tough to grasp, because intuitively we all know optimization is a good thing.  I mean, I’ve spent the last several years studying and teaching RESEARCH AND CONVERSION, all in the name of optimization, and I’ve been trying to hammer home the notion there’s no such thing as a traffic problem, only a conversion problem.

It’s all true.

But what’s equally true is, it can take a LOT of time, money, and labor to optimize your front end…

And once you’ve got a customer who trusts you, that customer is likely to be interested in buying LOTS of products and services from you…IF you’ve got them available to purchase!  (One of the most common complaints from MY customers, for example, is “I wish you had more for me to buy, Glenn.”) 

Once a REAL business has a semi-manageable front end, they turn their focus to creating a multitude of back end products.  A WHOLE CATALOG of things to sell.  They say “good enough is good enough” (to quote someone we all know) and just run with the damn front end conversions…

SHOULD they keep optimizing the front end?  Sure….

But it’s often easier, faster, and more economical to add visitor value by pumping out back end products and services…

And the overall profits in the business get maximized not so much by the efficiency of front end acquisition, but by the VOLUME of customers acquired who then go on to buy lots of back ends.

Short story?  Once you’ve got the ability to build a list of buyers, build baby, build!  (And add LOTS of products and services). You can fix the front end ROI later.

Another way to look at this is, what if you had to make a business work with crappy front end conversions?  It’s a good exercise to model out in a spreadsheet for your business because several of the 8 figure businesses I’ve run into recently are built on really crappy front end conversion numbers! (Seriously… even some really famous ones you’d recognize in a heartbeat if confidentiality didn’t prevent me from revealing them are running 0.5% front-end conversion or worse)

2. REAL BUSINESSES HAVE LONGER TIME HORIZONS.  (Bull-crap internet marketing businesses, on the other hand, start out with the question “how can I make money quickly without a lot of work”)

It’s become fashionable to make fun of the “Wall Street” business model.  You know the one I mean… let’s go raise $50,000,000 and burn through it at a million a month while we talk about lots of ideas and make lots of spreadsheets.  We’ll get profitable in 3 to 5 years…

So in many ways it’s only natural for the pendulum to have swung the other way…

We internet marketers HAD to say “that’s silly and wasteful, you should hold yourself to profitable results MUCH sooner, perhaps immediately”…

But you know what?  Thinking you’ve got to be profitable immediately is probably the best way to fail!

  • It prevents you from doing the 20 or 30 market tests you may need before you can achieve escape velocity.  (Because you’ll deem the business a failure way before then)…
  • It prevents you from seeking funding when necessary, so you  really CAN have time to study the market, craft the best offer, and see it to fruition and profitability…
  • It prevents you from recognizing your true successes, which prevents you from building upon and strengthening them..
  • And it creates an overall sense of panic and “unworthiness” in your organizational culture…especially in the founders.

In my experience the sweet spot is in-between.  REAL businesses make a realistic plan for achieving profitability in 12 to 18 months. Sometimes it takes them longer to achieve that profitability but it’s clearly worthwhile to keep going because the path is so well laid out and progress in that direction is obvious.

Real businesses also figure out how to FUND this time horizon so that the members of the business are financially calm and focused on achieving it.

Food for thought, right?

3. REAL BUSINESS PEOPLE WORK LIKE *$#*&%!! MANIACS (AND THEY LOVE IT!).  Bull crap internet-marketing people work as little as they can get away with, and only do so in order to be able to not work later on.

My apologies… it’s pretty rare for me to curse, but I wanted to underscore the point!

If you’re in the right business, you’ll know it because you won’t want to stop working…

Instead of looking at your workload and saying “I have to do this work today”, you look at it with a kind of perverse excitement and say “Oh good, I get to work on this today”…

Not every moment of every day…

But there’s a general feeling of passion, interest, and excitement for the business…

The essence of your being gets poured into it.  You burn the ships at the shore and fully commit to conquering the territory…

You feel in your heart it’s not a matter of IF the business succeeds but WHEN it will…

And because of this you’d rather be working on the business than almost anything else…

In your “free” time your head is constantly running with thoughts, images, and feelings about the business…

You feel thrilled with the littlest successes, and heartbroken with the smallest defeats…

Much the way a mother might about their child. (The best description of having a child I’ve ever heard was  “It’s like having your heart outside of you”)

What does this all mean for YOU?

1. Do the math.  Set up a spreadsheet with at least a half dozen products and services in the mix, and see if you can make it work with a low front end conversion.

2. Once you’ve achieved escape velocity and you have a catalog of products, buy as many customers as you can as fast as you can (provided your business systems can withstand the load.)  The cost of advertising almost always rises over time, so get them in your funnel while it’s most profitable to do so.

3.  Keep developing your conversion and optimization skills, but recognize these are NOT the only skills required to build a real business, and that because optimization is a resource-intensive activity, keep thinking about whether optimizing a particular front end (especially) is the “highest and best use” of your available time, capital, and labor.

4. If you can’t see your way to becoming passionate about your business so you’ll actually WANT to work like a “*&$#*!! maniac”, think about how the business would have to be transformed to make this possible, or how to safely transition to something where that motivation would exist.  Because SOMEONE’s going to have to provide that driving force or else, in my experience, escape velocity eludes you.

Onwards!

Dr. G 🙂

PS – In a mood today I guess!

PPS – I’ll be opening my business coaching practice for perhaps the LAST time on January 1st, 2016…for one day only.  (It’s been closed to NEW clients for almost three full years.) If you’ve got any interest in working with me personally, now’s the time to sign on.  Read the letter and get on the priority notifications list please.

www.GlennCoach.com    www.MakeThemBuy.com

Getting Out of the Low Margin Pricing Trap

A lot of businesses–particularly tradition local businesses selling a “commodity” service like pest control, accounting, psychotherapy, etc–feel their pricing structure is defined by the competitive landscape… thereby boxing them into a fairly narrow margin game.

But there are several not-immediately-obvious ways OUT of this low margin pricing trap…

And I do believe Ryan and I covered almost all of them in this interview.

Enjoy!

Dr. G 🙂

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