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Become Instantly More Valuable to Your Clients

By Christian

acts-of-kindness — Random acts of kindness...probably the most overlooked and effective marketing tactic ever.

Zappos randomly surprises their customers with shipping upgrades. Not all the time, but sometimes. The surprise is delightful to the customer and costs Zappos very little. It probably wins them a customer for life more often than not. Not a bad return on investment, especially when that investment is only a few bucks.

We need to stop dumping money into wasteful mass marketing and look for SMALLER ways to be effective.

Not only does an act of kindness like that often win a customer over, it also encourages good will. This causes the happy customer to spread a positive message about you. A little goes a long way. We need to stop dumping money into wasteful mass marketing and look for SMALLER ways to be effective.

One small act of kindness doesn’t cost much, and it has the potential to create an advocate. This is the process of reaching out to just ONE person, who will likely reach out to many others on your behalf. This is leverage at it’s finest. We need more of this in business today. A single advocate for your business offers a far better return on investment than focusing large amounts of time and money trying to get a .1% better conversion from an old, tired marketing piece. Yet this is exactly what businesses do.

Established business owners with thousands of past clients will spend their entire marketing budget trying to reach new customers, and meanwhile they ignore everyone who’s already bought from them. I see this all the time. The people who have already bought from you aren’t old news. They’re your biggest asset. Treat them as such. Spend more time and money here than anywhere else!

This doesn’t have to be overly complicated. The whole point in fact…is that it’s simple, effective and inexpensive. Think of ONE simple thing you can do to surprise your customers or clients this month. Genuinely surprise them with something cool, and watch what happens. You’ll be delighted at the response you get.

One final thought; in order for this to be awesome, it has to be genuinely valuable and cool. Don’t fall into the temptation to send them some branded postcard that says “thank you”. You know the postcard I’m talking about. It says “thank you”, but it REALLY says “hey look at me and how nice I am”. Would your customer ordinarily pay money for it? If so, you’re on the right track.

Why I Worked for Years, For Free

By Christian

It takes the average business 5 years to become profitable. Think about that for a second. That means working…for 5 YEARS…for free. Who does this? What kind of sick-minded, masochistic fool starts a business?

We’re called entrepreneurs. We work for wealth, not a paycheck.

The difference between wealth and a paycheck is fantastic! It’s huge. I came across this graph that @mjdemarco posted a long while back, and I think it is very succinct:

Notice how employees (i.e. MOST people) earn quite a lot more than business owners at the start. Business owners are such fools, aren’t they? What losers. They could be making so much more money if they just got a REAL job. So why don’t they?

Again, it comes down to wealth vs a paycheck.

What is the difference?

A paycheck pays the bills. Wealth sets you free.
A paycheck comforts you. Wealth challenges you.
A paycheck makes the car payment. Wealth creates the opportunity for hundreds or thousands of others to make the car payment.
A paycheck makes you smile on Friday at 5PM. Wealth makes you smile when you wake up every morning.
A paycheck makes you look forward to vacation. Wealth makes you look forward to work…AND vacation.
A paycheck sees the internet as a way to kill time. Wealth sees the internet as an opportunity.

So you’re trucking along, and your blog isn’t pulling it’s weight yet. You’ve been working to get your email list going, but it’s taking a while. You’re doing all the right things, but you’re not seeing the results yet. That’s GREAT! You’re in the “working for free” phase of entrepreneurship.

You know what’s REALLY cool? Building a successful and profitable website or blog is even FASTER than building a traditional business. If you’re doing things right, it’s just not gonna take you 5 years. But a lot of you are getting really frustrated and quitting after just a few months. Sorry, you have to stick with it for a while. Please do. The results WILL come.

Why work for free? Because a paycheck is not your goal. Wealth is your goal. What’s wrong with paychecks? Nothing. It’s just a completely, totally different mindset, and if you want to build wealth, a wealth-focused mindset is a prerequisite.

For fun, I’ve included this rant from Chris Rock. Yeah, it’s been around for a long time. You may have seen it already. It stuck with me. It’s hilarious, and it contains a sliver of profound truth. If you’ll be offended by some adult language, don’t watch it.

From now on…build wealth. Have WEALTH be your focus.

If you’re viewing this in a feed that doesn’t support video, click here to view the video 🙂

The Number One Most Horrible Business Strategy Ever

By Christian

Every year this time I ask readers and clients…especially clients…what they’re planning on doing next year.

How will you improve?
How will you grow?
How will your business improve it’s reach?

A disturbingly high percentage of people respond with something like this;

“I’m going to try harder…”

or…

“I’m going to work harder…”

Candidly, this is the most horrible business strategy ever! Why? Because it’s not a strategy at all. Don’t let yourself fall victim to this trap!

This is a great opportunity to talk specifically about web marketing, since that’s the primary focus of this blog. Many people out there right now have some smart things on their to-do list for 2011. They might include:

Start a blog
Launch a new product
Do more prospecting
Get more sales people and/or affiliates
Etc

These are smart items to accomplish. Go for it! I am also an advocate of “try harder…” and “work harder…”. Let’s not misunderstand each other. It is important to work hard; just know that working hard isn’t a strategy. Starting a blog isn’t a strategy. Launching a product isn’t a strategy either. Let me clarify…

The difference between an asset and a strategy

Everything mentioned so far is an asset. Your energy…and the amount of energy you decide to put into your business…is valuable. It’s an asset. It’s an important one. So is your blog. If you’re going to launch a new blog this year, that’s great! It’s an asset. So is a new product. These are all assets, and a successful business needs to have strong assets. Just don’t mistake an asset for a strategy.

I see business owners make this mistake all the time! They create checklists, and they run through everything, convincing themselves they’re working hard and doing the right things. They’re acquiring assets.

Launch a blog…check!
Create a Facebook business page…check!
Create a new product or service…check!
Put in a few more hours each week…check!
Hire a new assistant…check!

You’re piling up assets, but there is no STRATEGY anywhere in sight! So my question to you is…what is your STRATEGY this year? I don’t care much what you want to accomplish. That is highly personal and subjective. You can set whatever goals you want. Whatever edifies you and motivates you…go for it!

Want to make a hundred thousand dollars this year? Great. A million? Great. Goals are important, but they’re very easy to set. We all know the importance of having goals and writing them down. What we need to FOCUS on is strategy. Most of your business plans contain 90% asset aquisition, and very little strategy. This is fun for a month or two, because you get to be busy, and you get to check things off your list, but after a short while it starts to become apparant that nothing is really happening.

Have you ever started a website, and it just sat there accomplishing nothing?
Have you ever launched a new lead generation system that cost you some money but fails to pull it’s weight?
Have you ever hired someone that doesn’t add to your company’s bottom line?

These are all examples of assets that have been mistaken for strategies. Let me explain…

The problem is that when we mistake assets for strategy, we end up with a bunch of assets that aren’t performing. If you buy a rental property, you have an asset. But if you fail to manage it properly, it turns to crap over a period of time, and you end up with a liability that just ends up costing you money. That’s what assets do when you don’t attach a strategy. So, make sure you have a strategy!

What is your strategy?

Want to start a blog? That’s a terrific, powerful asset. Congratulations! Now…what is your strategy?

What specifically do you want your blog to accomplish for your business? Brand awareness, lead generation, sales, client engagement?
What schedule will you follow to produce content for your blog on a consistent, regular basis?
What specific tactics will you employ to drive traffic to your blog? SEO, PPC, social media, etc?
What metrics will you use to TEST and measure your growth?
Why are these specific metrics important to you?
How often will you visit these metrics, and if things are not on track, what will you do to GET on track?

These questions are the BEGINNING of what it takes to create a strategy, and some of them aren’t necessarily easy to answer. You might have to do some research. You might have to do some networking or hire a consultant to give you some perspective. I do consulting by the way 🙂

The ideal asset to strategy ratio

Do you see the difference between an asset and a strategy? Do you see how essential it is to have one strategy for every asset you have? An asset without a strategy quickly becomes a liability. MANY of you have a lot of liabilities on board that are costing you a lot of time and money. You can cut them loose, or you can put them to work for you.

Importantly, when it comes to marketing most of you guys (for those of you who don’t know, I work with and write this blog for a specific type of small business owner) only need a few marketing assets. 2-3 strong lead generation systems coupled with a strong marketing strategy WILL produce more leads than you even know what to do with.

Are you marketing efforts getting that type of results in your business? If not…it’s time to develop a STRATEGY that works for you!

The 5 Stages of Awesomeness and High Conversion

By Christian

Want a highly profitable, effective marketing plan? I’m going to hit you hard and fast with this. Your marketing plan HAS to include all 5 of these elements, or you’re throwing away money…lots of it. Here are the five stages:

Attention – get their attention
Cultivation – build relationships
Conversion – make offers; sell stuff
Contribution – generate repeat and referral business
Advocacy – identify your greatest “fans” and aid them in the work of spreading your message

These five stages are all essential when it comes to making a huge living from a small blog or website. Interestingly, before internet marketing came to power, most businesses lived solely in the “attention” and “conversion” stages. Sell a product. Find a new customer, sell them a product. Find yet another new customer, sell them a product. And on and on it goes. Madness.

Most internet marketers these days spend all their time in the “cultivation” category. The focus now is all on relationships. I’m a fan of relationships. Where would I be without my friends and clients? Nowhere. That said, relationships are not the end of the story. They’re not even the BEGINNING of the story. Yet most marketers these days are convinced they’re the WHOLE story! Bullocks.

Read Jeffrey Fox’s great book The Secrets of Great Rainmakers, if you want the TRUTH about relationships. Read the chapter called “Relationships are Bunk”. Succinct. Beautiful.

Successful marketers make a killing all day long by taking each one of these essential phases to task. It can be done intentionally or unintentionally, but it’s a lot easier to take a deliberate approach and make sure you’re covering all your bases. Like all of the tactics we discuss here, if you do it, you’ll get the result. It’s just how it works.

Let’s discuss each of these 5 stages in depth. Please fire any of your questions to me by email or Twitter. I’ll answer them. Articles covering each of these individually are coming soon…

Actually, Content Marketing is Dead

By Christian

blogging is dead content marketing is dead — Blogging, content marketing. My God...they're all dead!

Recently, Brian Clark declared that Actually, Blogging is Dead. He’s totally right. But dammit, he offers up content marketing in it’s place, and I have a problem with that. The fact is that actually…content marketing is dead also.

What is content marketing after all? It is the act of sharing valuable, targeted information with your audience, no? The problem is that we continue to mistake information as being valuable these days. Be honest. You think information is valuable, don’t you? Well, it’s not. Information isn’t valuable at all. Why?

Because information is free, yo

Look around. Information is free. Is this fair? No, actually it’s not. It’s just the way it is. Look at the facts. Almost no one pays for news anymore. It costs millions of dollars to produce, and people literally risk their lives bringing it to us, and no one is willing to pay a dime for it. Why? Because it’s information; we’ve had enough already. We’re freaking inundated with it. Screw information. In fact, we want less.

If content marketing is the act of sharing valuable information, then it’s fundamentally flawed, because information isn’t valuable.

As marketers, we need to stop offering our customers and clients information, thinking that we’re giving them value. It’s one of the biggest reasons blogs fail actually. We publish awesome information, and no one cares. Why? Because information is blue on black. It’s frickin invisible. It’s meaningless.

The next big thing is…

If not information, what then? Context…it’s the next big thing. Context is the new information. Ironically, Brian Clark’s blog was the first to say this in my recollection. Larry Brooks wrote a while back that Content is No Longer King. He’s right. Do we not remember this?

I work with a lot of real estate professionals in my business, and these people have it tough. They’re busy as all get out, running all over town showing homes, negotiating deals and trying to get things to the closing table, and now they have to worry about internet marketing on top of all this. Literally 99% of home buyers use the internet as an integral part of their home search, so REALTORS have to get good at internet marketing if they want to survive.

They start with content marketing, and they fall on their face. Why? Because content marketing is dead! Clients just aren’t impressed that their agent knows about a home on the market. The client knows about the home too! They have an internet connection, after all. Who doesn’t? Clients need more. Way more. They need….CONTEXT.

For God’s sake, they don’t need any more content. They don’t need anyone to tell them what square footage a home has. They already know. They don’t need anyone to tell them the listing price either. Again…they already know. They already have gobs of information; what they need is context.

Examples of CONTEXT

They already know the price, but they NEED a professional to tell them what’s going to happen to the value of that home over the next few years…and why. That’s context.
They already know the square footage of the home that interests them, but they NEED a professional to point out how they can make a small change to the layout of the home and unlock a lot of hidden potential that they wouldn’t have otherwise seen. That’s context.
They already know that the home they really wanted is off the market, but they NEED a professional to let them in on the fact that the buyer is having credit issues (uh, oh!) and the deal is likely to fall through, so instead of writing an offer on another home they don’t like as much, maybe they should sit tight for a second. That’s context.

Context is what separates the men from the boys, so to speak. Thing is, you have to ACTUALLY know what the heck you’re talking about…you might even have to take some risks on occasion, if you want to offer genuine CONTEXT to your audience. You man enough?

Would you like 100,000 fake subscribers to your blog?

By Christian

You send an email to your list. Nothing happens. You work hard and publish an awesome new article. Nothing happens. What the heck?

There’s a crucial difference between subscribership and engagement. I submit that what you’re seeking with your marketing is engagement, not subscribership. I know, this is deep stuff. Yet our focus is usually placed in the exact opposite direction. So I’ll say it again…

We keep wanting to reach MORE people. Why?

It’s time-consuming.
It’s expensive.
It begins a new relationship…which is good, but a NEW relationship is also the most difficult to monetize.

The days of building huge websites that get tons of traffic and then simply monetizing with ads and affiliate links are over. This is old news, but most of us who market ourselves online haven’t changed our approach.

Small is awesome

Focus on who you have NOW. Do only 20 people subscribe to your blog? Don’t discredit yourself, and most importantly, don’t discredit THEM! TALK TO THEM! Get a response. Be awesome to them. Give them cool stuff like a free report that is actually WORTH something. Maybe give them a video or some chocolate. I don’t know. Be cool to them. You know how to be cool. You don’t need me to tell you how to be cool. You’re a reader of Dangerous Tactics, which means you’re already way smarter than most people! Your brand of cool is going to be different than mine, and that’s cool. What matters is that you connect, engage and convert. That’s what businesses are made of.

Getting more people is not the answer. Increasing engagement is the answer.

What happens when you’re awesome to 20 people? Lean in close, because I’m going to reveal a massively powerful SECRET to marketing right now…

When you’re awesome to 20 people, they tell other people how awesome you are! All of a sudden you have 40 subscribers. Not impressed? Maybe you should be awesome to those 40 people too. I know…40 people to be awesome to…that’s a lot of pressure. What are your alternatives?

You COULD just go spend an insane amount of money on ads that don’t convert.
You COULD triple the number of times you link out to your own stuff on Twitter and Facebook, alienating your friends and followers.
You COULD buy a coop email list with 300,000 ill-gotten email addresses on it, and become a spammer.
You COULD spend a thousand dollars per month (or more…probably more) for a SEO firm to help you get more traffic.

You could do any of these things if you want. Or, you could just be awesome to the people whose attention you already have. The cool thing is that when you do this, people talk and spread the word for you. It’s free, and it’s WAY more powerful and effective with regards to building your blog’s readership, your email list or whatever it is you’re building.

Do you want a BIG list and a LOT of readers? Or do you want a RESPONSIVE list and LOYAL readers, who “get” what you do?

Bigger isn’t necessarily better, but it IS more expensive and wasteful

More and more people on your list who don’t respond…that’s what happens when you focus solely on “getting more subscribers” or “increasing traffic” instead of actually TALKING with the people you already have on the line.

I’ve seen sites with tens of thousands of subscribers close up shop. They called it quits after achieving what most bloggers can only dream of. Lack of engagement is why. Are you trying to become a rock star? OK then, if so…you’re reading the wrong blog right now. Are you trying to build a very profitable business using web marketing? If so, you’re on the RIGHT blog, and you DON’T need tons of traffic or a huge email list to make it happen!

There’s an important need for things like traffic generation, SEO and such. I’m not completely disregarding these things. They’re important. But most of us place way too much importance on it. Focus on the attention you already have. It’s worth a LOT more than you realize. Attention is not the goal; it’s merely the first step.

In new articles coming soon, we’ll discuss the 5 stages of marketing you need to use in order to have maximum impact with your small audience. Until then, don’t sweat the small stuff…be small, stay small. Lean and mean. Lose the need for an ego stroke…you don’t need thousands of people to come out to your site every day, and you don’t need a huge email list to make a great living do this.

Do you want 100,000 subscribers who don’t respond to your content? It may feel good to have the numbers, but it doesn’t mean ANYTHING if the engagement is not there. Here’s a litmus test you can use:

Is your small readership hyper-engaged and responding really well to what you’re doing? Do you only have 20 subscribers? If so, you should still be making sales. Not a lot of course, but something. If you’re making no sales with your small amount of traffic, why do you think getting MORE traffic will help? Zero times a bazillion…is still ZERO!

Place your focus on increasing engagement and really doing something that connects…something that is really MEANINGFUL to a small number of people. Who can you truly reach in a meaningful way? That is your true audience. That is your true list. Everyone else…all those people who don’t respond…are just fake subscribers. Maybe they’ll come around one day, but don’t hold your breath. You have better things to focus on in the meantime.