What's the most important act you need to do for your business today, tomorrow, and till the year 2025?
You need to talk to your customers.
You need to talk to your customers on pre-fixed days.
You need to talk to your customers on pre-fixed days till the year 2025.
And I'll tell you why.
Turn on your TV at 6pm. What do you get?
The news, right?
Then turn it on tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, and the week after.
You can turn in on at any day and guess what?
The news is still at 6pm.
Now imagine if you turned it on, on a Monday, and you had sports.
What if you turned it on on a Tuesday and oops, it's an adult movie with lots of smooching and clothes flying all over the place. And let's assume you did get the news on a Wednesday. Would you continue to watch for the news? Or would you simply go to a news channel that was more reliable?
Most people don't understand that the most important thing ever in any marketing is the reliability of frequency. It's not even frequency. I don't care if you put out ten or twenty or seventy-three news segments a month. I just want to see it at the same time at 6pm.
So be reliable
If you're going to write a newsletter, then the first thing you need to know is that it needs to be published on a pre-fixed schedule from now till 2025. If you're going to posting a video on YouTube, then heck yeah, plan for 2025 too. It doesn't' matter if newsletters or YouTube will exist or change in the years to come. What's important is that you've created a channel. And you're the newsreader. And you jolly well show up, or I the customer, am leaving you for another more reliable channel.
And it's not just your credibility that takes a beating, it's also your sales.
And not just your sales, but also your pipeline of new customers.
And not just your pipeline of new customers, but also the return customers.
Your whole darned business really depends on the reliability of the frequency.
Why? I'll tell you why!
It's because if you don't show up, the customer's memory of you gets increasingly blurry. And that's only one part of the problem. The other part is that if you don't show up, and the customer wants to buy your product or service, they'll buy the product or service any way. They won't go searching for your precious website, blog or whatever. And contrary to what you think, customers won't put the money aside in the bank either, while waiting for your majesty to arrive. Nope, they'll just find what suits their needs and buy it right away.
Remember the time you bought an iTunes album, just because you got the newsletter?
Remember the time you bought something online just because you saw the video?
Remember the time Oprah or someone recommended a book, and hey you traipsed off to buy that very book?
But what if you don't really like the quality of your content?
I have news for you. You're never going to like it. Ever! You will look at your work six months from now, and your work won't be as great. You'll look at your work two years from now, and you'll wonder how you even got a single customer to respond.
You care about getting better, don't you? Well it ain't magic. You have to put out newsletter after newsletter, video after video to get better. So if you wait, well heck, you can wait forever and then wonder why you're not getting anywhere in a hurry. Put out what you have today. It doesn't matter how crappy it looks to your eyes. Just put it out. And then improve as you learn more.
Customers are always reacting to your message.
They react to your video, audio, newsletter, tweet, whatever!
They'll put up with less than polished prose, or less than sharpened video or audio, but they won't put up with fruity frequency. They'll simply change the channel; go some place else.
Which means we need a plan.
So here's your plan
1) Get started. And put a schedule in place.
2) Promise this schedule to your list (even if you have a list of three people).
3) Get your message out on the day/days you promised.
4) Remember: Reliability of frequency is everything. Quality can come later.
This is a great article–and very timely. I was just thinking about some of my articles and how I should go back and do this and that to them to improve. All this time neglecting to put out anything new. Thanks for the kick in the pants!
By the way, I love your no B.S. style.
Good stuff!
If we want to reach farmers on the radio – we have the same ad between the news and the weather at 6am every day.
Its a cheap time to advertise and when the farmers are listening in for the first weather report of the day.
Even better if you chuck some ads between 5am – 6am as they are nearly free and its when farmers clock radios are waking them up and they are having breakfast – gotta love horizontal frequency.
A.
Hey Sean,
I just imagined having a calendar with checks on it going up to 2025, and it had an interesting effect on my brain. I realized if I want to be that reliable, I’d better nail down my support system sooner rather than later, because I’m going to want someone helping me who knows the rhythm. This idea brought me into a whole new level of commitment to the work I’m doing. Hm!
Cool.
Suzanna Stinnett
Never thought about the ‘support’ sturcture, Suzanna, and you’re right. That too needs to be put into place. But don’t rely too much on getting it right. The important thing is to start, because you can’t exactly know what you’ll need till you start.
Yes, I like applying the concept of “just get it started,” applying of course to the work itself but also to the process of having a virtual assistant, which is what I’m looking at right now. I don’t know who, how, why, or what the “perfect” assistant will be, but as I make the commitment to a steady routine of newsletters for my subscribers, I have legitimized a conversation with a future assistant.
Assistant: “So what would you like help with?”
Uncommitted person: “Oh, everything, I have to get organized.”
versus
Committed person: “I produce a weekly newsletter, along with several articles each week and launches of new infoproducts every two months.”
I think when a commitment feels overwhelming or onerous, one has to look at the big picture and see what can be done right away to generate enthusiasm.
Thanks, Sean. I’m tweeting this article today.
Suzanna
Love it! It’s good to be reminded about these things. Thanks
Staying on top of your game is definitely key. I tell salespeople every day…stay on your leads; just because you have a “great relationship” doesn’t mean squat when it comes to actually building your business! You need relationships, yes…but you ALSO need to be active, work hard and continuously provide value to people. It only takes one slip to lose the deal!
My newsletter goes out automatically on the 3rd Tuesday of each month, so I know I have to fill it up otherwise it will go empty and that is inexcusable!
Thanks for another great post.
Hey Sean,
I love it. I agree, and I’m doing my best to do it with my business. For the new blog, lifeforinstance.com, it’s even more challenging since I’m presently publishing three times a week! But I love it!
Thanks, as usual, for your insight-and-wisdom-filled articles!
You’re welcome.