Just One Shaboodle Away

This post is inspired by Russell Brunson whose company catch-phrase for Clickfunnels is “One Funnel Away”.

Which is both brilliant and also has the possibility of being misleading.

(nb. I have almost zero feelings about RB either way. I have maybe corresponded with him 5-10 times over the same number of years. On the whole, I hear only great things about him.)

I received an email from him with this phrase last night and it really made me think about it though…

The implication is that at any point you can have a life-changing success. You just need to put in the graft. And it’s true – kinda.

Let’s put it into a different context though…

You are just one practice/action away from:

  • being a musician
  • being a famous sportsman
  • becoming president

Now, this just isn’t true. Many of us even if we put in 10,000 hours would never be good enough to play in the NBA (putting height aside) or be a concert pianist.

And although many may say that Donald Trump is an example of the fact that anyone can be a president – whether you love him or hate him he does have ‘something’ that the vast majority of people don’t have.

I have started to listen to a lot of Jordan Peterson – check him out if you haven’t already. One thing that he says (am summarizing a lot) is that the US army no longer takes recruits with an IQ below 85. They have found that the expense of recruitment and training is not worth the ‘value’ which they get from them.

So, there are people who objectively are not qualified enough to join the US army.

Let’s go back to marketing…

You are just one xxx away from being successful.

That xxx could be a funnel or an ad campaign or an email or an introduction or almost any action that you do to move forward.

This is one of my favorite cartoons which illustrates it well I think:

You are just one dig away from the diamonds
You are just one dig away from the diamonds

And it’s true to an extent and the way that I like to think. Most of my business successes have been due to ‘luck’. Has been a matter of trying something and it actually working and then going on to scale it in some way.

And with online marketing, we do have the ability to throw a lot of (*&) at the wall as much of what we do is extremely cheap with the tools at our disposal.

But is it really luck?

Just as not everybody can join the US army, is it also true that some people as much as they try will never be able to be successful online?

The longer I am in business, the longer I think so.

Perseverance definitely increases your chances of success but I also am starting to think that many people will not be successful online because they just lack the skills/qualification.

I am very involved in eCommerce at the moment and have had large failures and also successes. Much of what I am doing is dropshipping which seems to be very en vogue at the moment.

It is popular because it crosses all of the boxes of being able to be successful at it even if you lack skills. The initial investment is extremely low and building a store in Shopify is also VERY easy as well…something that can be done in a few hours.

There is also a philosophy that the more products you test the more chance you have of having a hit.

Remind you of something?!

“You are only one product away from being a millionaire”

Undeniably, you do need a product that will sell well and will fill certain criteria, but even dropshipping is not so easy.

Just some skills/qualifications you need:

  • Facebook Ads
  • Copywriting
  • Email writing
  • Conversion Optimization
  • Cashflow
  • Supervising staff
  • Graphic design

And the list goes on…

I personally don’t think that you are one product away from having a winner. Or as I put it in the title that you are one shaboodle away from success.

Putting aside all of the lies that are said to make you buy a course, I think that you have to do something that suits you. If you have been trying online marketing for a year or 3 years or 5 or 10 years then either you have not actually persevered like the man in the cartoon. Or you literally don’t have the skills necessary to be successful online.

And that is alright. You can move on and try something that you are more likely to have success at.

The ego is a big thing and I saw it a lot when I was more involved in the Internet Marketing niche. People were trying to make money online because they wanted to earn a bit more in order to do x,y or z. In fact, they wanted it so much that in the last year they had spend $x amount of dollars and time trying to do it.

And they were determined. So much so, that they would continue buying courses and trying different things hoping that one day that would hit that success. But instead there was too much belief in the dream that you are One More Shaboodle Away.

At risk of repeating myself, I’ll try and finish off with a final message. And I think it applies not just to online marketing or business – but almost anything in life. And that is to be true with yourself and put your efforts where you have the biggest chance of success.

Any thoughts?

Make Your First Sale Online

In almost every Facebook Group and Forum that I am in which is connected to selling online, the biggest complaint is not making sales.

What I want to do in this post is tell you why you are not making a sale.

When you make your first sale, things become a lot more exciting as then you can concentrate on optimizing. Whether that is split-testing or different traffic methods or copy or upsells, you can only do that once you make your first sale.

As before that, you have little to no data to work with.

So, why aren’t you making sales?

  1. Targeting

As well as being the most boring subject, this is probably also one of the most important. You must have a product which your target market is going to buy.

You must have a product that is not just ‘bah’ but makes them excited enough to get out their credit card and give you money which they can also spend in many other places.

This is both if you are selling a physical product or a digital product. I am going to be concentrating more on physical products here, but almost everything is the same with digital products.

So, first you need to find a target market (or niche) which people are passionate about and will want to spend money in.

I enjoy playing table-tennis (ping pong) and even have a table. However, past a bat and a ball (which I already have) it is unlikely that I would buy a mug or t-shirt as it is just not central enough to my life to advertise the fact that I would play.

So, if you target table-tennis players on Facebook Ads, you may be advertising to me, but there is little to no chance that I would ever buy from you. And I am guessing it is the same with others who also have an interest in table-tennis.

So, you want to find a market who are passionate about the interest that you are targeting. Dogs is always a good example. People love their dogs and treat them as part of the family.

So, is dogs a good market to advertise to?

Well, it’s not awful, but is probably too large in order to be able to get a group of people passionate enough in your product to do with dogs.

How about we niche down to a breed of dogs. For example pit bulls. Although there are far less pit ball dogs than dogs in general, any product that you advertise to them which has a real connection to pit bulls will be more relevant.

How about we go one step further and try and find pit bull owners that are really passionate about their dog? I don’t really know the market, but if you were to target people who are interested in pit bulls and also are interested in a dog magazine that would probably give you more passionate people.

Or how about pit bull owners who also have the profession of a dog trainer?

Hopefully you can see where we are going with this. You want an audience that you know is passionate about their niche. You need to be able to qualify that when picking your ad interests on Facebook (if you are advertising on FB).

This will be the same whether you are selling a physical product or a digital product. For example, a pit bull owner is far likely to buy a pit bull training ebook than a general dog training ebook.

Let’s now find a product that may be suitable.

You are interrupting this person’s day. You need to wow them. Try and sell them a dog lead or dog food and they probably won’t care. It doesn’t solve a problem for them as they can get one from Amazon or their local pet store. It also won’t lead to an emotional response so that they will stop what they are doing and click on your ad.

What you need is something which will make them laugh or cry or say ‘wow!’

For example, a new kind of dog lead where the owner doesn’t need to hold it, may make them interested.

A mug of a pit bull with a great design and something very funny or apt also may make them interested.

The thing to remember here, is that it is very hard to sell anything online to any market and if you are not matching up the perfect product with the perfect target audience then you will NOT sell and therefore not make any money.

Niche down your audience until you know they are passionate about something.

Choose a product that WOWs them, else you won’t get them anywhere near your website.

2. Your Credibility

It is likely that your prospect has never heard of you before. When they land on your website they are going to make a very quick decision whether they are going to buy anything from you.

If you don’t make them feel comfortable with making a purchase then they will just leave very quickly.

Make sure that your site looks clean and professional

Make sure that you have https even if you are not taking payments directly

Make sure that you have a well-written product description in short paragraphs

Make sure that you show clear images of what they will be getting

Make sure that you have clear navigation and pages about you, contact, T&Cs etc.

Many people hate Paypal. Make sure that you offer another method of payment also if possible.

This really is the minimum of what you should be doing. You are asking them to give you money. They will not give you money unless they fell that they are actually going to receive the product and that they are not buying from someone who has never sold before.

3. The Conclusion

If you are yet to make your first sale, then the reason is very very likely to be found in one of the reasons above. Once again, it is bloody hard to make any sale online, but unless you have credibility, a passionate market and an amazingly wow product you won’t make any sales at all.

Ask yourself if you would honestly buy your own product.

People will buy from you because they want your product so much that their guard is let down about your credibility and they believe that they will receive your product as described. Don’t let them down!

How to predict your own future

Massive studies have been done by insurance companies to try and increase the amount of money that their customers spend.

The number one reason why people don’t buy insurance is that they don’t believe that something life-changing will happen in the next 5 years.

An added question was asked about whether something life-changing had happened in the previous 5 years and over 80% of participants answered yes.

If you look over the last 5 years, you will probably be able to identify multiple life-changing events.

  • unemployment
  • serious accident or car crash
  • death of close family member
  • bankruptcy
  • serious loss of property due to burglary or fire or natural disaster
  • etc.

So, if logic tells us that something bad is going to happen, why don’t we do everything in our power to insure against that?

You see a similar phenomenon with gamblers also…

Overall all addicted gamblers lose. Every single one of them. So why do they continue playing?

Because they believe that the next game of poker or the next hand of blackjack or the next coin in the slot machine will be the big win. Even if the statistical odds are strongly against them.

Changing the future comes about from changing the present. As I have said previously, a split second decision now can change your world.

Obviously, there are natural disasters which won’t change however much you try.

However, there are ways that you can make them less disastrous for you and your family.

So, how does this apply to your business?

Make a decision that you are going to change your business. And really believe that it is within your ability.

The secret of successful people is that they don’t believe that luck has caused their success. They know that at some point, they created a plan and massive change and massive work that led to their success.

If you want something to change in your life, whether that is making more money or being debt free then you need a plan on how to get there. If what you have been doing up until now has not created the future that you want, then you need to change your game.

Otherwise nothing will change.

What 80% of your time should be spent on:

if not now whenIs funny, because I have actually read
the same thing three times in the last
24 hours.

And it makes so much sense.

If you are not spending 80% of your time
on the following three things, then you
are not maximizing your time.

They are:

1. Creating traffic

2. Capturing leads

3. Converting sales

Such simple advice, but also so brilliant.

I would suggest that the other 20% is mostly
spent on product development, but that will
vary from business to business.

But whether you are working online or offline,
the same three things are those that will
actually make you money when running your
own business.

I would suggest, that you actually write
down your figures either daily, weekly
or monthly and you will see that those
are the three things that will simply
make you more money.

Is it cliched to say “Take Action!”?

Keeping it real in an unreal world,

Ben Shaffer
Helpdesk: http://www.replytoben.com

Tony Robbins speaks about rituals

Cultural Web Paradigm, strategy mind map, business concept

Was just watching this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZD0dzlG27s

He speaks about a lot of things, but one of the things he speaks about is how different people have different rituals upon waking up in the morning.

Someone who is fit and is used to doing exercise will get up in the morning and put his shoes on and go for a run.

If you are not used to doing exercise then you are much more likely to decide NOT to exercise as it is too much effort.

However, if you get into a ritual of doing it everyday then not only will you become used to it, but it will become easier as you are more fit and therefore the actual exercise itself will also become easier.

He also speaks how the ‘unfit’ person will go to starbucks as a ritual and buy a coffee and a muffin and sit for half an hour eating it as opposed to having done a run and having your mind clear to go and do some work and make money.

This can apply to many areas of your life and it is generally a split decision that makes you go one way or the other.

When you ask yourself the question on whether you should do something or not, try not to think of the NOW, but how this will lead to better habits.

I (Ben) believe that we are all inherently lazy but those who succeed are the ones that fight against this laziness and form great habits.

It doesn’t days or weeks or months to come to a decision. It is a split second decision to go one way or the other.

Tony speaks about major successes or failures and how they are generally made up of good or bad decisions. Someone doesn’t have a surprise failure, but there are always many smaller events that lead to it.

For example, your washing machine may break down one day which leads you spending money on replacing it which means that you can’t use that money to buy bread for your family which leads to a divorce. What is it that led to the washing machine breaking down and then to the rest of the butterfly effect? Usually this can be planned in advance.