When we started up in the year 2000, we had a terrible business.
I was a cartoonist. No one would hire me as a marketer. I had no clients, no income (except from cartooning) and I was going around in circles trying to get people to listen to my ‘marketing advice.'
What's worse is that our so-called marketing site was terrible as well.
The font was an unreadable 9 point. The website was created in frames so search engines couldn't index the information. The subscribe button wasn't even a button. It was a tiny little link at the bottom of the page.
What's surprising is that over 1000 people subscribed over a period of one year.
1000 people or more found it useful to get the information we were offering. And mind you, we weren't even selling anything to begin with. The only thing we did on the website was show people why customers buy, and what causes them to avoid buying a product or service.
We started with five pages
The pages: Articles. About Us. Clients. Contact Us. And frankly I can't even remember the fifth page. But once we had that website up, we didn't sit on it like most people do. We found other websites that were giving out the same information. And we approached them. We asked if they would like some articles. And some of them were easy to convince. Others need a little convincing. But persistence often pays off, and soon we were getting our articles published.
Every time some one published an article, we got a bucketload of subscribers.
So we did something else. We joined several forums on marketing. Not just any forum, but busy forums. And we started posting answers to people's questions.
This tactic was good in two ways.
1) It got me to write almost every day. And I wasn't even writing. I was just answering questions. But I'd take the answers and put them away to be used as articles. So not only would I answer the question on the forum, but I'd take the time to answer it in the greatest depth possible. I'd write whatever I could (and I knew little back then). Then I'd take that answer and hey presto, my article was 90% ready.
2) Everyone on the forum was answering in three-four lines. I was answering in three hundred words or more. Guess whose post got more attention? And slowly but surely I was getting traffic to my website. More people subscribing (And note, we still didn't have anything to sell).
I want you to notice one thing in this entire story
We did really, really simple stuff.
1) We set up a website. Five pages.
2) We wrote some basic articles (to allow people to sample content and ability)
3) We went to forums and posted. And then recycled those articles again on our website.
4) On occasion we'd find someone else to publish our content. And we'd get another um, bucket load of customers.
We did this over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.
Always looping round and round.
And the subscribers came. First in dribbles. Then in bigger numbers. Today they come in torrents. Today we can send out an email, and take $20,000 in a matter of days. And we can do it without any joint ventures, or affiliates, or ad words, or Twitter-fitter-mitter (In fact in the world of Internet marketing, there not ONE big name marketer I know of who can do the same without a torrent of email from joint ventures and other blah, blah). And I don't say this to boast (though I'm proud of what we've achieved). I say this to underline the fact that it's possible. That it's possible to do the boring stuff over and over again and succeed without all the razzmatazz and hoopla you see around you.
Most businesses like hoopla. They don't like the boring stuff
They don't realise that despite the technology, nothing changes. That all people ever want is something that's of value. That when they find that value, those people (we call them customers) sign up. When they sign up and they get continuing value, they buy something (we call them clients). That if you keep caring, guiding and protecting these customers, they'll keep coming back (as long as you don't start acting like a dolt). It might also interest you to know that less than 3% of our customers generate over 90% of our income.
Most people are too enamoured with every new thing.
They flit from one thing to another. With the attention span of a gnat.
And it's the boring stuff that gets results.
Over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.
Don’t forget: Look at the Psychotactics Sequence of Marketing Products and Services.
Sean,
This article is like a brain tonic today. The reminder to stay centered on your readers and your topics – your mission, perhaps, and to stay, stay, stay there, being consistent and showing up, is just what I needed to hear. I’m not sure why, but I do have trouble being consistent with my subscribers. I don’t send my updates to them on a regular schedule. I think I’ll put that challenge in the middle of my living room and make sure I keep looking at it until it is resolved. Yes, I know. Commitment.
I’m very glad to know you.
Cheers,
Suzanna Stinnett
Thanks Suzanna 🙂
The way to beat the system is to make sure that you get stuff done in advance. Like for instance, I’d posted all of these articles weeks ago on a schedule.
Today was day out of hell.
There’s no way I would or could have written anything today. But because I did it weeks ago, it just went out and you got it…and you know the rest 🙂
I love the content, and admire your writing style.
In this article, one typo found: revisit “Others needs a little “
Thanks Cath. I fixed that typo.
And it’s not hard to get that writing style. It takes about a month or two to begin with, but pretty much anyone can get there.
Hi Sean,
I printed, framed it and put it on my workstation as a constant reminder to just focus on the “boring” stuffs.
Thank you.
Now there’s an idea. 🙂
Hi Sean,
I really liked what you wrote here. Consistency and commitment is definitely the key to success (Napoleon Hill refers to it as persistence in ‘Think and Grow Rich’). I confess I have the same problem as Suzanna and welcome the tip about writing a set of articles/posts in advance.
I’m also interested to know how you made $20,000 – I presume you’re selling info products and courses?
One last thing. I provide internet marketing services for my clients and the problem I have is that they expect almost instant results. How do you persuade them that it does take time and effort to get the kind of results you’re talking about. Often they want zillions of traffic and no 1 on Google, they want it NOW and for very little money! There are so many SEO companies promising the earth for £30 a month. How do you compete?
Keep up the good work, I find the psychology of writing fascinating.
Janet
I really like this message, because it’s this exact thing…the simple stuff, that internet marketers need to concentrate on over anything else. There really aren’t any short cuts. Getting out there and working…commenting, producing good content, responding to inquiries, etc. This is the stuff that real businesses are built from.
Janet: It’s not “made”. It’s “make $20,000” And it’s not necessarily in a month. It could be in a matter of days. And there’s no trick involved. We have no affiliates, no joint ventures, no ad words, no publicity campaign. In short, we’re just like most beginners. But we do have a list that we’ve carefully looked after over the years, and the customers on this list trust us.
It may seem like some magic trick, but it’s not.
And the best analogy I have is buying Apple products. I recently bought two iMacs, an iPhone and a Time Capsule. That’s a considerable investment, but in most of my ‘Apple’ buying decisions, I completely trust their stuff. So I don’t even investigate too much, because I know they’ll deliver the goods. And so it is with our customers.
By doing the same “boring” tasks over and over again, we’ve developed a reputation—and it’s the reputation and consistency that people are buying into.
And yes, we don’t do consulting so we sell infoproducts and courses.
To answer your second question: the only way you can call the shots with clients is to be perceived expert. When clients come to us, they already perceive us to be the experts. And that means that we can work on our terms–not their terms. Often their terms are not based on reality, and nothing ever happens overnight, because it can’t. There are a few tactics etc., that you can put in place, but for a long term strategy to work, you need the long term 🙂
One of the ways I get clients to get to ‘expertise’ is to be able to communicate through presentations, articles etc in a way that 99% of people aren’t communicating. Most articles, presentations etc are pure crap. Useless. And don’t establish expertise at all. So of course everyone get thrown into one big common heap, and then it’s down to discounting.
At Psychotactics, we’ve been increasing prices consistently. We never give discounts, and instead increase prices. Our sales of the Brain Audit have increased. So has the membership of 5000bc. And the prices have gone up by 20% just in the last few months, and will keep going up. So how can we sustain this price rise? By expertise. And expertise is gained by the quality of the information and the presentation of the information.
And the core of the expertise starts with not just writing or communication, but doing it in the most impact-driven way possible. Article writing is what counts. If you can write outstanding articles (not based on your opinion) but on client’s opinions, then you’ll have the expertise you seek.
And none of the discounting.