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What is your REAL goal?

By Christian

People in business (such as you and I) are often busy trying to get people’s attention.

Getting new clients
Tweaking an ad to get a bigger response
Building your email list
Changing the layout of your website for higher conversions

These are all examples of trying to “grab” people. I am a fan. It’s essential, really. But I was talking earlier this week with a friend on Facebook, and she said something that disturbed me. I was making fun of this ad. Thank you Gunes for bringing this ad to my attention!

I pointed it out as an example of perhaps the worst marketing in the world at this particular moment. Most people agreed. Many were appalled. A few were disgusted. But this girl said “Well, at least they got our attention. Mission accomplished.”

Getting people’s attention is NOT the goal

Is this where your primary focus lies? Is your main marketing objective to get people’s attention…at any cost? If so, I have a simple question for you. The question is, “And then what?”

And then what?

After you have someone’s attention, what then? Have you put so much force into getting their attention that they are now offended? If so, how are you going to convert that attention into a sale? I don’t see it happening.

There is a saying that “any publicity is good publicity”. People cite public figures like Howard Stern and say all the negative press actually grows his listener base. OK. But consider Howard’s objectives. His entire goal is to get people’s attention. It is his only objective. Very, very few of us are in that boat. I’m not criticizing the dude; I’m simply pointing out that you need to compare apples to apples.

If you’re a shock jock or the frontman of a rock band, go on right ahead and continue making an ass out of yourself. But remember that Howard Stern is not you, and you are not him.

Can you imagine what the world would be like if EVERYONE was a shock jock? Oh my goodness.

But that’s what many companies try to do. Their sole goal is to get your attention. Consider the EFFECT your marketing is going to have on others. Remember your REAL goal is not to get attention; your REAL goal is to make sales. The two really can be mutually exclusive! And don’t forget your BIGGEST asset…the biggest asset that most business owners completely neglect…

I’ll hit you up with that in the next post…

Are you selling on accident?

By Christian

This is a quick follow up to my last post, “Why People Who Like You Still Don’t Buy From You“. Go read that first 🙂

I understand that most of us don’t like the idea of selling. In fact, most of us avoid it like the plague. I’ve always found it interesting that this is such a common trait amongst business owners. I mean, we need sales, right? Business owners should LOVE selling and study the craft intently.

But this doesn’t happen, because something horrible has happened to the sales industry. It’s gotten a bad rap. It’s all a big misunderstanding, but the damage is already done. People associate sales people with high-pressure, slick-haired sleaze bag used car salesmen. This is a largely deserved reputation. The sales industry is not regulated for the most part, so a lot of selling is done very badly. Most people see only the worst of sales, and as a result we lose sight of the fact that selling is an honorable profession and an essential part of our economy.

In my last post, I basically said all small business owners need to study the craft of selling and that “relationship marketing” doesn’t work. One of the biggest objections I’ve heard so far is that Scott Stratten (I don’t know why I’m singling out Scott!) and many other “social media gurus” have made a name for themselves by saying the opposite. Here is a group of very successful business owners speaking the praises of “relationship marketing”. They’re building strong businesses, making money, and they’re doing the opposite of what I say. So what gives?

Relationship marketing is built on a faulty premise that I call “selling on accident”. Building relationships implies the cultivation of trust, which is the first primary element to any mutually beneficial selling situation. If you have solid relationships with a lot of people, some of them are inevitably going to buy from you. My last post was not meant to imply that no one you have a relationship with is going to buy from you (obviously); that would just be ridiculous. My point was that the relationship is merely one component of a successful sales process. Depending on sales to come in after addressing only one component of the sales process and ignoring the others is what I call “selling on accident”.

If “selling on accident” is how you like to roll, I have no fight with that. We all have to make business decisions, and how you’re going to pursue sales is one of them. Just know that learning to sell doesn’t mean you have to use high pressure tactics. It doesn’t mean you need to become a sleaze bag and start spamming people or cold calling them at home during dinner. It simply means you become deliberate and skilled in your approach to taking your readers, customers and clients from point A to point B.

When it comes to my business, I don’t want to “sell on accident”. I want my approach to be as skilled and deliberate as possible. How bout you?

Why People Who Like You Still Don’t Buy From You

By Christian

If you run a small business, you need to make sales, right? Without making sales, you go broke, and when you go broke, your business closes. That’s no good.

Unfortunately many of you are under the impression that having a relationship with someone means they’re going to buy from you, so I want to challenge this assumption today. Just because you know someone…and you sell something they need…doesn’t mean they’re going to buy from you.

The Myth of “Relationship Marketing”

“Relationship marketing” is not a new concept, but it’s picked up quite a bit of steam with the explosion of social media. Many of us are working hard to “build relationships”, to “connect” with other people and build our brand socially. Kudos. It pays to have a strong network of people behind you. Just don’t assume that it will translate into sales automatically.

Did you know it’s entirely possible to have 20,000 subscribers to your blog and still make NO money whatsoever? I’ve seen it happen. Did you know you can have a huge email list that generates NO sales for you? It’s true. So if tons of subscribers and a huge email list are the assets everyone seeks out in this whole internet marketing world, what gives?

The fact is that blogs don’t generate sales. Email lists don’t generate sales. Twitter lists don’t generate sales. Relationships don’t generate sales either. Selling generates sales. Selling is the ONLY thing that generates sales.

If you want to generate lots of sales for your business, learn to sell. You can sell via a blog, Twitter or any other platform. These are all just communication tools. Communication tools can be used to build relationships, and they can also be used to sell, but selling and building relationships are NOT the same thing.

Don’t count on your friends

Don’t count on relationships or any other mechanism to do your selling for you. If you think about it, it’s a great way to cheapen your relationships…to think of them as a mechanism for generating sales. Nope. Don’t do it. Instead, learn how to construct sales offers that connect with people. If you want to make more sales, study the craft of selling! There are thousands of books out there. I do sales training daily with clients. The tactics and training are available.

Back in the day, I earned good money (probably more than you think) selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. No list. No followers. No relationship at all. Knock, knock, knock. 90 minutes later I’d have a check for $1648.50. I’ve sold 1, 2, 3 and even 4 in a day. Imagine how much easier it is to sell when you DO have a relationship and trust built between you and your customers. But the relationships you have don’t excuse you from having to sell. Don’t forget…

Selling is what generates sales. Nothing else.

Why Do Most Blogs Fail?

By Christian

There’s a statistic out there which you’ve no doubt heard. 95% of all businesses fail in the first 5
years. We take it as a fact, but few of us question why. WHY do they fail? We ASSUME it’s because business is risky. Yet some people start one successful business after another, while the rest of us struggle. I encourage you to look at this a little more closely, because there’s a very powerful truth to uncover.

In nearly every instance, a business fails due to an identifiable and correctable issue. Perhaps you didn’t have the capital necessary. Perhaps you didn’t have a competent management team. Perhaps your offer wasn’t in alignment with the target audience. My point is that almost every business failure can be tracked down to a cause. Fix the cause; prevent the failure.

The same goes for blogging.

Blogging is the same as business. For some of you, blogging IS your business. Are you going to fail? If you do, it’s not because blogging is risky. It’s not because most people simply fail, and that’s all there is to it. It’s definitely not because “blogging is dead”. I hate it when people say that 🙂

The fact is that most business blogs fail for the same reasons most businesses fail. As the old saying goes: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Do you have a plan?

Does your blog have a written plan?
What goals do you want your blog to achieve?
What specifically are you going to do to make those goals happen?
Why do you think your plan will work?

Do you have answers to these questions? It’s not particularly time-consuming or laborious to answer them, but if you DON’T have these answers, the success of your blog is in the “crap shoot” category. If you’re blogging for fun, then you may be cool with this. If your blog is supposed to be a part of your marketing though, then you may want to step up your game a bit.

Can writing a plan really make that much of a difference? Yes it can!

I don’t know how many people tell me they want more traffic to their website. Let’s just say lots 😉 Invariably I ask the obvious question “What are you doing currently to get traffic?” Too often, the answer is “Well, nothing really.” It’s difficult to know what to do if you don’t have a plan. When you don’t have a plan, it’s easy to get frustrated, because nothing really has any perspective.

I find out by working with clients that a lot of you aren’t very sure what you want to be getting out of your blog in the first place. Sit down for a minute and DECIDE what you want your blog to achieve. It’s really one of the coolest things about blogging. You get to pick! You can use a blog to build your email list, make offers, establish yourself as an authority in your niche, break into a new niche, etc. Focus in on one or two things that you really want to make happen with your blog. Then do some research or hire a consultant to sit down with you for a bit, and put together a PLAN to make it happen.

A well-written plan. It makes a huge difference. This one simple thing will put you in the top 2%.

What do I want my blog to achieve?

By Christian

Your blog can be used to achieve any number of goals. A business blog is great for building an email list, establishing yourself as an expert in your niche, making offers (you know…SELLING stuff), reaching out to a new audience, communicating with your audience, staying in front of your prospects and much more.

With so many benefits, we tend to simply set up a blog and wait for the magic to happen. Then…nothing. How can such a powerful marketing tool just sit there and accomplish nothing?

Setting up a blog, plodding along and waiting for cool stuff to happen is not the approach I recommend, in case you hadn’t guessed! You need to have a plan, and the best time to have put a plan together for your blog is now. What do you want your blog to achieve?

For this particular blog (Dangerous Tactics), my main goal is to stay in touch with my subscribers. My secondary goal is to continue building my email list. As a result, you don’t see a lot of opt-in forms, banner ads or any overt attempts to monetize this site. My mission is to continue the conversation with my clients and readers, so this site is mostly all content, and there are a few links to sign-up forms. That’s it.

It’s surprising how many blogs are cluttered with all types of widgets and ads that aren’t even helping the blogger achieve their goals. This is why it’s so essential to decide what you want your blog to accomplish. When you don’t know what you want, you end up wandering aimlessly in the blogosphere. It’s a boring an intimidating place to be. I know; I’ve done it.

The fact is, succeeding with your blog is 100% impossible…it absolutely WILL NOT HAPPEN unless you have a clear goal and a clear plan to achieve it. With a clear goal and a clear plan in place…success becomes probable. That’s right. I didn’t say “possible”. I said “probable”.

So few people make a real plan for their blog…

My 7 Biggest Marketing Mistakes

By Christian

I’ve made tons of mistakes in marketing. These are the biggest:

Trying to help instead of focusing on the negative – I used to think that nice guys finish last. I was right. As it turns out, negativity pays when it comes to marketing! Make your headlines negative. Don’t focus on solutions. Focus on problems.
Trying to work with everyone who wants to work with me – It took me a long time to accept the fact that my target market is not everyone. Your target market also…is NOT everyone! As small business owners, learning to focus on a specific type of client or customer requires making some emotionally difficult decisions, but once you do things get so much easier, so much more profitable and so much more fun!
Too many calls to action – when it comes to marketing, we often try to sell too much. We want to tell everyone everything we do. In reality, our customers’ attention is a valuable commodity, so let’s treat it as such. Don’t expect your customer to care about everything you do. You’ve got their attention for a few seconds. Tell them one specific thing. Connect with them on one specific point, and build from there. Making fewer calls to action gets you a more meaningful result.
Not charging enough – I’ve raised my consulting fee several times, and business has not slowed. As it turns out, charging more (when you do it right) doesn’t cause you to lose business. It causes you to get better customers.
Holding back valuable information – I used to feel that I should share some ideas only with people who pay me. You know, leave the crappy ideas on my site for free, but give the GOOD stuff to paying clients. As soon as I started giving everything away, something funny happened…I started getting more orders.
Thinking quality content speaks for itself – as a blogger, I used to think great content was the key. All I needed to do was create great content for my blog and people would eventually catch on. Wrong. You need to spread the word. You need to market your blog. Great content is important. Marketing and networking are just as important.
Not selling products – the idea of putting a product together and selling it was always really intimidating to me, so I stuck with selling consulting. That’s fine, but consulting is always a trade of dollars for hours. Products are leveraged. Put the time in once, and then you can simply sell it over and over again. After I created my first product, I learned it’s really not that hard, and the benefits are huge.

These 7 mistakes have cost me a LOT of time and money. They are easily avoidable, so I’ve put a report together that addresses each one specifically. It’s free. If you’re a subscriber of Dangerous Tactics, you should already have received a copy. If not, please let me know, and I’ll make sure you get one. If you’re not a subscriber of Dangerous Tactics, head on over and grab a copy of My 7 Horrible Marketing Mistakes. I think you’ll dig it.