August 22, 2007
Random Thoughts
This may be the most important post you will ever read.
- Your business is built on leads… so lead gen is priority one.
- Capture the customer’s attention, capture their mind, and capture their wallets.
- Recurring income is queen, forced continuity is king.
- Content isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Ok, maybe it is.
- Those that focus on search first are missing the boat.
- Go offline. Hell, just go online (did you get that?).
- Push the envelope… average is boring.
- Follow the herd and then break away and go in the other direction.
- Find a mentor and stick to them.
- Most 'guru's' are nothing more than people that know how to launch a product and are then asked to speak at seminars. Seriously.
- Relationships are not everything they are cracked up to be. I know plenty of people that make plenty of money without slobering for JV's.
- The real guru's are smart enough to never talk about it. Some of them are just dumb enough to start a blog.
- Give everything you have away for free… sell the details.
- There's a lot of money in software… are you stuck on info products?
- Selling a business should make you more than any product launch. Why aren't more people doing that?
- You'll never make a dime if you don't try.
- Testing is a good thing. 99.9% of those that know this still don't do it.
- Recurring income is queen, forced continuity is king. Wait, I already said that… hint.
- Don't build a list for the sake of doing it… do it for the sake of turning these leads into customers.
- Workout…. you will feel better. Have sex… you will feel better. If you are too lazy for either one, then you are too lazy to succeed in business. It's all about passion.
- Once you taste success, give something to those that need it.
- If you are confused as to what to do next in your business, don't buy the next product pitched to you.
- If you use words like 'search engine optimization' when describing your core business, then you have no business.
- Viral marketing is a good thing… so is sex… just don't combine sex and viruses.
- You can learn a lot from a cult. You can also learn a lot by watching infomercials.
- Supplements sell very well.
- You don't need long form copy to sell… but it's always nice to have.
- Why do offline marketing gurus need help online? If they are 'billion dollar rainmakers', why do they partner with million dollar guys? Last I checked, there are some billionaires online too…
- It's easy to create a product… go make a phone call and record it.
- Finding a market isn't much harder.
- Do those that make their livings selling from the stage at seminars have anything worthwhile to talk about off the stage? I met a few 'big guns' and these guys could use an infusion of personality ASAP.
- If your ego is bigger than
And finally…
- Recurring income is queen, forced continuity is king.
Enjoy,
Woody
Filed under Marketing Strategy
Comments on Random Thoughts »
Dude this post is CLASSIC!!!
Expect a call from me soon.
JL
Woody,
Can you do me a favor?
Since you mentioned this one three times.
Recurring income is queen, forced continuity is king.
Can you share the difference between the two…
Thank you,
Sincerely,
Paul Kleinmeulman
Australia
Brilliant!
Hey Woody,
Great post. I was starting to wonder after the "I don't know what to write" and "Deliverance" posts, but this one sure picks things up again.
@paul
Recurring income is basically a subscription based income of some kind (magazine, website, etc.) that people pay for on a recurring basis each month.
Forced Continuity is when you give access to a recurring income product for free (or a reduced trial price) and which then continues at the full price after the trial period unless the subscriber explicitly cancels.
lots of other stuff floating around in the grey matter after this post…may need to comment again later.
Till then,
Cheers,
Eric
Yo Woddy!
You should really charge for this post, man.
Thanks,
dK
I will be the Huckleberry here.(Whatever that is)
Some of these are really deep and profound.
That is why they are going over my head like a 747.
Capture the customer’s attention, capture their mind, and capture their wallets.
Sounds great—help me
Content isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Ok, maybe it is.
Duh—don't understand
Selling a business should make you more than any product launch
Not sure what this means exactly.
Go offline. Hell, just go online (did you get that?).
No
Give everything you have away for free… sell the details
Huh?
There is more on the other post Random Thoughts II
There is enough to explain here for a months worth of blogs—maybe 2 a day
Maybe I am off-base here. However what I understood by forced-continuity was a membership where somebody does not have a choice but to continue.
For example, webhosting. Once you have a site set up on webhosting, it can be more expensive to move it than to keep it where it is and pay more.
Or autoresponder. With double optin you don't have a choice but to keep your leads in the same place.
Or paid text links. If you take them down, you will then lose your rank.
I can give more examples if needed…
Surely this is forced continuity as opposed to charging someone's credit card or Paypal account with the hope that they don't notice.
Ben Shaffer
Hi Ben,
Forced continuity can be viewed as an auto enrollment (that's as simple as it get's).
What you are referring to is a stick tactic that I call the pleasure/pain principle. You are already a customer and receive pleasure for being a customer, but if you cancel, you experience the pain of loss.
Woody
This is my first post ever with you. I have always enjoyed your humor, wisdom and straight forwardness, but a comment about promoting a seminar really got to me.
Not sure why you have a problem with seminar promoters. Did Armand pee in your cereal?
Learning, keeping up with current trends and meeting people seems perfectly fine. I do know you don't like pitch fest, but promoting or selling is what every single person does in life whether they admit it or not. Even yourself must agree. Whats the difference between paying for coaching or learning at a seminar? it's just a form of deliverbility of education.
I am an advocate of learning no matter what form; reading, audio, private coaching, seminars, etc.
The idea that a promoter of a seminar is being a scumbag is being completely negative on education. Maybe you should not send out an email promoting your coaching program if you feel so strongly on that. Never be down on education and sales.
Give me a break! While your thoughts overall are great…you carry a grudge with promoting seminars that show a negative side of you.
My advice is to learn to forgive! Put on your own seminar; there's money in doing that and lighten up on other promoters. While this comment will stir the pot…I also know it's exactly what you want for rankings. You taught me that.
Quincy,
Everyone has positives and negatives.
I'm only down on seminar promoters that specifically host a seminar with the intent of ripping people off.
I've attended many seminars where the content was good.
But those in the speaking profession know the difference between a content set and a disguised content for selling set.
It's when ALL of the presentations are disguised content, yet you are still asked to pay $2000 to attend.
If this doesn't eat your goat, then chances are you are one of the fleeced and that's ok too.
Woody
Re: Seminar Promoters.
Paying $500-$5000 for a seminar only to end up at a pitchfest is exactly the reason I've not gone to seminars as of yet.
It is pretty much impossible to know which seminars will actually give you content vs. those that will require you to buy homestudy courses at $1000 a pop to get information.
That said, does anyone know of any truly good seminars that aren't disguised pitchfests?
Heck…maybe I should organize one… then I can learn for 'free'
Only problem is despite being a great, beautiful little city, Saskatoon would be a hard sell! Hmm.. maybe Banff in the Rockies would be better!
Cheers,
Eric