Scott McNealy, former Sun Microsystems CEO, and
Larry Ellison of Oracle announce a closer partnership
in 2006, which led to Oracle acquiring Sun in 2009.

Back in 2000, the company that I worked for, Cobalt Networks, was acquired by Sun Microsystems. I interviewed, and was accepted for, a position in Sun’s marketing department, working on Sun.com. As part of Sun’s marketing department, I got to see some of the advertisements Sun created to sell products to potential customers.

Sun’s potential customers were mainly large government agencies and giant corporations. These government agencies and corporations were used to buying products from IBM, Oracle, and the like. (Imagine a customer so large that your billion-dollar company is still considered a “startup”!)

The Tactic

Sun’s main tactic was to go negative in its advertising. One ad I remember them being so proud of (they actually photographed it in the San Francisco office I worked out of) was a shot of a man in a suit. He had dollar bills in his pockets, and the ad made it appear as if they were being “vacuumed” out of his pockets. The tagline was, essentially, “This is what IBM does to your company.”

The request for a negative campaign like this came straight from the top–from Scott McNealy, who was CEO at the time. Sun was negative toward everyone else in the industry. IBM? Hated ‘em. Microsoft? The devil! Apple? A joke! Oracle? Pfft!

At the same time I was working there, I was studying sales psychology. The books verified something I had already suspected: When you go negative in your advertising, the net effect is that the potential customer thinks more about the thing you’re being so negative about. (That explains why the “War on Drugs” actually increased usage of many drugs during its lifespan.)

I also made a friend in the sales department. Over lunch at In-N-Out Burger one day, he told me something interesting. He said, “I hear this over and over again–a large organization requests Sun, IBM, and others to make a presentation about their products. IBM is first. They show a great presentation about their product line. Then comes another vendor. They show up and do another fantastic presentation about how amazing their products are. Then it’s Sun’s turn. Sun does a presentation–about how awful everyone else’s products are!”

He continued, “The net effect is this. Most of these people have bought products from the company Sun’s presentation is bashing. So they get to thinking, ‘Well, IBM’s product isn’t as bad as Sun makes it out to be.’ And then, they go buy from IBM. We lose the sale, again and again and again.”

I was stunned. “Haven’t you taken this up with Sun’s management?” I asked. (Scott McNealy in particular practiced an “open door strategy” where he appeared to be responsive to suggestions.)

“Oh, yes,” he said. “But they don’t care. They like this sales strategy.”

Leading from the Ego

It was then that I realized two things: One, Sun was leading from an egotistical perspective of “we’re better than everyone else, and we’re going to prove it by bashing everyone else.” And it wasn’t making them many sales. Two, if they didn’t change, they weren’t going to survive as a company. Not only was the sales culture bad, but it created rot within the company as well. The company culture was oppressively negative, and it attracted people who enjoyed complaining and bashing others.

More importantly, though, I realized I had to take this to heart. When I ran my hosting company, I remembered this clearly. People loved to ask me, “Why are you better than [a competitor's name]?”

In response, I would always ask who they were hosting with now. If it was the same competitor they just named, I was careful to not bash the competitor–because that would be bashing the choice that they made. Instead of indulging my ego, I said, “I completely understand why you’ve made the choice you have. You wanted a good deal.”

Then I would find out what had happened that made them want to change hosting providers. If they were just shopping around for a better deal, I’d tell them honestly that we probably weren’t the best fit. But if something had happened–they’d had an outage recently, or they needed room to grow–that’s when I’d be able to go into my preferred sales strategy, which was showing them why we were a much better choice for them. I’d point out our redundant power, have them meet our employees, and do a datacenter tour. By the end of the tour, 90% of the time, they were ready to sign up with us. Then I wouldn’t hesitate to collect their credit card information and get them set up!

Despite its questionable company culture, working at Sun taught me a valuable lesson. You can’t serve your customers effectively when you’re busy bashing your competitors. And you can’t survive as a business (or as an ideal) if your main issue is “We’re not this other thing.”

What are you saying to your customers? Are you presenting your business in the best possible light–or inadvertently turning your customers toward a potential competitor?

Recommended Reading:

• One Million Dollars, The Hard Way. Ever wonder how I sold a business for $1.1 million? This post gives all the details.
• Are You Making This Common Mistake (That Could Ruin Your Business)? Here’s another big mistake (and a true story) that could really kill your business.
• How Writing a Story Could Strangle Your Business. What is “writing the story”? Are you doing it? If so, you could be leaving a lot of money on the table…

What’s Wrong With Us?

The young people’s discontent starts off early. Their parents and grandparents push this mantra: “Go to college, get a stable job, and then be happy.”

But they don’t see it the same way. The younger generation, by and large, doesn’t want to work for big companies. They want to travel, make their own way in life, etc. They’ve watched the Baby Boomers splurge relentlessly on consumer goods and bigger houses, and realized that it doesn’t make the boomers any happier.

Oh, sure, the kids are trend-aware and brand-conscious–perhaps the most brand-conscious of any generation we’ve seen. But they would rather have one $200 pair of jeans that they love and wear every day than 10 pairs of $20 jeans that don’t fit and look bad. That’s one of the differences between the younger generation and Baby Boomers.

Warning: Generation Y Is “Opting Out”

Brand-conscious though they may be, many of Generation Y are starting to “opt out” of the traditional life their parents envisioned for them. Embracing minimalism, they keep all their things in one backpack and go “couchsurfing”.

Many of Generation Y/Z have gone to college and have college degrees. They have also usually had one of those “stable jobs” that their parents so raved about–working for some big company or government organization where they were a meaningless cog in the wheel. And they gave it up after a short time.

The younger generation has embraced cell phones and laptops as two of their most prized possessions. Their goal? To make enough money to live on while they explore their dreams.

The problem, then, is the giant gulf between what these kids want and what employers have to offer.

What Generation Y Values

The employees of Generation Y and Z value freedom and mobility, and want to have a job that is meaningful. They are willing to work for very little–if that job is for a company whose goals and values they believe in, and their job will make a significant impact on that company.

The employers (Baby Boomers and Generation X), who themselves value stability and security, want to put Generation Y and Z into cubicles and have them do rote work.

And then we wonder why Generation Y and Z are dropping out of the workforce, and choosing to live on a couch for a year or work at a coffee shop instead of doing what we (employers) want them to do.

Both sides need to have a realistic sit-down and come to grips with this reality. If we don’t, we’re going to be faced with an entire generation that abhors “work”, and we employers will have to rely on an ever-shrinking (and more expensive!) pool of older workers.

What Can Both Employers and Employees Do?

As employers, here is what we need to do:

• Figure out how to satisfy the largely mobile workforce that is Generation Y.
• Rewrite our job descriptions to show that we care, that we as a company have a mission to change the world in some way, and that we value employees’ freedom.
• Strongly showcase our mission on our websites and in corporate branding.

And as employees, here’s what Generation Y/Z need to do:

• Wake up and realize that a job at Starbucks is working for a large corporation, and that you might be far better off going out on your own, starting a startup, or working for a smaller company.
• For graduates: Don’t shun your field entirely. Find a job that helps you utilize your degree, or start your own business in your field.
• For Computer Science graduates specifically: Programming is fun! Find a company that values your contribution, and don’t write the whole computer industry off because you had a bad experience working for a huge company or government organization.

The Struggle Between Making a Difference and Making Money

I was born in 1981, and I straddle Generation X and Generation Y. I find I fit in more with the Generation Y way of doing things. I grew up in a large house with parents who weren’t always happy, and I have far less of an attachment to material things than my parents do. I would definitely rather have less stuff and love every item I own.

I’m content starting my own business, but also feel strongly that Generation Y needs to accept that revenue is directly correlated with the value that you give to the world. If you are a “life coach” with no clients who lets your spouse, parents, or other people pay your bills, are you really helping the world in any meaningful way?

If you refuse to get a job because you want to do something more amazing with your life, but then you move back in with your parents, are you really making a contribution to the world? The answer, in my mind, is a firm no.

Changing the world and making a profit don’t have to be at odds with each other. In fact, some of the people changing the world in the biggest way now are the ones who made huge profits and then used those profits to make a massive impact. (Look at the Gates foundation, and Warren Buffett.) Personally, I would rather become a billionaire and start a foundation that helps millions than become a life coach, struggle to find 2 clients, and barely be able to feed myself. I wish more people had this perspective on life. Sadly, many of us just don’t think big enough…

What Changes Can We Make?

Ultimately, I believe it is up to those of us who hire younger people to sculpt our job opportunities to their wishes–to allow more part-time employment; to open up our job positions and allow people to work from anywhere; and to make it clear that we are on a mission to improve the world in a significant way.

But it’s also up to younger people: to not give up on an entire industry because the big company they worked for previously was clueless; to be more open-minded about the types of jobs they accept; and to understand that it’s perfectly acceptable to make a huge profit and change the world–that, in fact, making a huge profit may enable them to change the world in even more significant ways.

We have the opportunity to close this gulf now and get some younger people back into the workforce and helping us to change the world. We just have to sculpt our message to clearly resonate with them. Let’s take a page out of our own marketing playbook and apply it to engaging Generation Y and Z.

Recommended Reading:

• This Simple Saying May Kill Your Next Business Idea. Most products aren’t anything completely new or unique–they’re just a different take on a product that is already out there.
• Are You Ready? One of the most powerful posts I’ve ever written–that you probably haven’t read.
• Are You Making This Common Mistake–That Could Ruin Your Business? I pinpoint one mistake I’ve seen over and over and share a true story of how it nearly killed a business.

Now, you may be inclined to jump head-first into creating a business. Lured by dreams of freedom and setting your own hours, you spend all of your free time researching a name and hammering out the details of getting people to your door.

But there’s a common problem that may trip you up and cause you to work long hours for low pay (not the most exciting prospect!) Here’s a good example of how that can happen, and what you can do to avoid this situation.

Recently, I had a chance to speak with Stephen Ou via email. He’s an up-and-coming entrepreneur who’s quite good at identifying problems others are having. He sent me an email asking whether I would use a new product he’s developing.

Stephen later posted an excellent blog post on his market research called “How I Got 38 Willing-to-Pay Customers Before Writing a Line of Code.” I love Stephen’s entrepreneurial spirit (especially considering he is only 16 years old!) But I noticed he has a thought process that is common with many talented first-time entrepreneurs: He’s not thinking big enough.

How many people can you serve, and how much will they pay? I see far too many entrepreneurs go after tiny markets and then charge too little to really make a difference. Follow this path, and you may end up working your buns off for a few hundred dollars a month in revenue…not a great place to be!

After reading Stephen’s blog post, I wrote him back and said:

“Cool, Stephen! I really like this. I just have one recommendation for you: Think bigger next time! You can use this same process to validate larger ideas. For instance, 10 people saying they are willing to pay for my new service, Whoosh Traffic, means a minimum of $1970/month in additional revenue for my business (and probably more.) So, how can you use this process for a product that will generate you thousands of dollars in revenue for each additional customer you bring to the table?”

Stephen wrote back with, “Great advice. It’s only my second time charging for a product–sometimes I always fear that when I charge too much, people will not see the value at the beginning. Therefore, it’s hard for it to go anywhere. Mind to share your thoughts on this?”

The Key to Your New Business: Breaking Down the Numbers

Let’s say you want to have a business that does a million dollars a year in revenue (a reasonable target–at this point, you will have employees, some work still on your hands, maybe a small office, and a pretty good salary.) Assuming you are charging $10 one-time, you need 100,000 customers a year–every year–to make that happen. That means you better be going after a market that a huge number of people are buying products in (office supplies, maybe, or cheap technology, or food.)

The problem is that many of those markets are commodity markets, where thousands of businesses are competing. The markets are crowded–you will need to find a real way to stand apart from the other companies selling similar goods. Plus you may need to support customers, and you won’t have much of a margin for that. What if other people want to sell your product as salespeople, affiliates, or distributors? You won’t have much room to pay them, and without incentives, they won’t be as motivated to sell for you. Most salespeople are not interested in selling a product for a $1 commission per product sold!

I’ve spoken about this to many entrepreneurs I see going down this path. And many will say, “But I don’t want a $1 million a year business.” If that’s you, that’s fine–but I do take a hard stance against going for a small market anyway. It’s not worth burning yourself out for less than minimum wage–an unfortunate position that many business owners are stuck in because they picked a market that just wasn’t that big.

My Criteria for Starting a Business

I have three major criteria that I look for when I start any new business:

1) The business must be something that I don’t have to explain to people–something that people easily understand. The value proposition for Whoosh Traffic, for instance, is compelling: Get more traffic to your website. That’s something that a huge proportion of businesses with websites need. It’s better to start off with a big market and then narrow it down than to start off with a small market filled with only a handful of people.

2) It’s something I can charge a lot of money for and have a relatively small customer base to be successful. When I sold my hosting company for $1.1 million, we only had 161 customers. But they were paying us an average of $425/month. That’s over $800,000/year in revenue from a small customer base. I didn’t need 80,000 customers to make that work (or 6,667 shared hosting customers paying us $10/month in revenue…can you imagine the support nightmare for that customer base?)

3) It’s scalable and systematizable. I don’t want to get into a situation where my expertise is the only “glue” holding my business together. I want any business I create to be sellable, and that means I have to create systems that other people I employ can follow, and gradually pull myself out of the business.

With Whoosh Traffic, our minimum service level is $197/month, and 55% of our customers opt for a more expensive package. Our average monthly revenue per customer (since we changed our pricing plans) is $365.73/month. That means we only need 228 customers to hit the $1 million mark. And our projections show us hitting 7 figures of annual revenue in under 2 years of being open.

Infographic by Brian Fryer.

Here’s an example of a known 7-figure business in Stephen’s niche: Premium WordPress themes. WooThemes, one of the most popular premium theme providers, now makes over $2 million/year–and their business meets the criteria I outlined above. (Note: The percentages in the above infographic are not accurate, as I couldn’t find real data on how many bloggers choose to opt for a premium WordPress theme. However, it does show the relative size of the markets in the WordPress arena.)

How Big is Your Market?

When picking out what type of business to start, seriously consider how big your market is. And instead of trying to create a market out of thin air, why not take a huge market, go for the high end of it, and pull a nice chunk out of it for yourself? Go where the money is, and sell something where there is clear, proven demand.

Also–I cannot recommend highly enough to sell a premium product and then deliver with amazing customer service. It is so much easier to support 10 customers than 10,000. And if 10 customers pays all your bills and allows you the freedom you desired when you started your business, do that. Find customers who do see the value in what you offer, and charge them appropriately. There are very few entrepreneurs who started out charging a lot and then regretted it–however, there are a lot of business owners who charge too little and now feel stuck with their businesses.

Charge more, find a way to take your business into the monthly sphere, and then overdeliver with amazing customer support, and you’ll hit your revenue and profit goals much more quickly!

Recommended Reading:

• Artsy Editor. Stephen has been a great sport at letting me use him as an example for this blog post. If you’re tired of WordPress’s default editor and its cluttered feature set, check out his awesome new product, Artsy Editor.
• How to Choose a Business. The story of how (and why) I chose web hosting as my first big business, and more criteria I look for when starting a business.
• How To Start A Business With No Money. How to get started even if you’re not sitting on piles of cash.

Tyler Tervooren and I were walking along the street toward my rental car to head out and grab the best chicken wings in town for lunch at South by Southwest.

Tyler decided to stay in a hostel directly across the river from the Austin Convention Center. And although he took the bus from the hostel to the convention center every day, he told me he envisioned renting a kayak and simply kayaking across the river. “It’s a straight shot,” he said.

While Tyler saw kayaking across the river as an interesting story, I saw it as an example of something else: something I’ve recently been completely fascinated by. I call it the 100% verbal opt-in, and I’ve lately become obsessed with documenting this phenomenon.

While “opting in” in web lingo means having a person give you their email address to subscribe to your list, I consider a verbal opt-in to be when you pique someone’s interest enough with just one or two sentences that you get them to ask, “What do you mean?” or “Tell me more.” That acknowledgement is their way of “opting in” to your story.

Not only did I become fascinated by the introductions that made people verbally opt-in 100% of the time, I started noting them when I came across them. As we walked down the street, I explained verbal opt-ins to Tyler, and mentioned that his kayak story was a shining example of a 100% verbal opt-in. After hearing that he came to South by Southwest in a kayak, it would be hard to resist saying “A kayak?” or “What do you mean?”

Pattern Interrupts: The Key to Being Memorable

If you have studied NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), you will recognize this as an example of a pattern interrupt. That is, when people meet you, they expect you to say certain things. “Hi, I’m Tyler, and I’m a blogger,” is what they’d expect–it’s all about who you are and what you’re doing. (At least in America, we’re obsessed with the “What do you do?” question–and defining ourselves by our work.) But you can pattern interrupt easily by coming up with a creative story instead.

“Hi, I’m Tyler, and I came to South by Southwest in a kayak,” will not only pique their curiosity enough to get you the verbal opt-in, but it will make you instantly memorable. Here, in a room full of web designers, real estate agents, and social media douchebags, er, “experts”, you are unique. Different. Interesting.

If you hone your pitch to the point where you can get 100% verbal opt-in, you will find yourself quickly becoming, well, famous.

You see, however, there is a catch to all of this, and it’s why many of those other people who read this article will not attempt such a feat. Going for the 100% verbal opt-in means being different. It means having unique stories to tell, and it means living your life in a way that’s slightly off from the norm.

The Courage to Be Different

If you live your life as an insurance agent, for instance, it may require not only taking a vacation to a country most people would never visit, but actually re-crafting your story, so that when you introduce yourself, you’re no longer Bob the insurance agent, but Bob the guy who went to India and climbed the Himalayas in search of a mythical healer who lived in the mountains. (If you leave the story there, you’ve opened a loop that most people will find irresistible to ask you to close. “Well, did you find the healer? What happened?” 100% verbal opt-in. Like magic.)

If you go for the 100% verbal opt-in, it doesn’t matter what you sell or who you are in your day job. You will find that people naturally gravitate toward you, that people are constantly coming up to you and saying “Have we met before?” or “You look familiar.” In a sea of sameness, you will stand out. And, not surprisingly, you will have less effort selling whatever it is that you hawk in your business–even if it’s in a commodity market.

Creating a 7-Figure Business in Mere Months

I have consulted for so many people who are scared of commodity markets. When I started Whoosh Traffic, for instance, people seemed surprised that I was starting an SEO company. “Isn’t SEO dead?” they asked me. Au contraire…SEO is a thriving market with businesses willing to spend a lot of money on it.

Before I started Whoosh Traffic, I engaged other SEO services to see what gaps the market had. I found two major gaps. One, the market was full of individuals, often from other countries, who built links to your site and then sent you a list of the links they had built. These services were generally effective, but unwieldy. You had to pay the people via Paypal, usually weekly. You had to double-check all their work and ensure they weren’t building links on the same site over and over again, and confirm that all the links they built actually were linking to your site. They were inexpensive, but exasperating–managing them required a lot of work on your part.

The second gap was more interesting. We found quickly when we launched Whoosh Traffic that many of our customers didn’t know exactly which keywords to optimize for. We quickly adjusted and started offering a free 30-minute “keyword consult” to all of our new customers. In this consult, I personally walk through keyword analysis, showing our customers how to do their own analysis, what keywords they should go for, breaking down how their competition is doing SEO, and even how to redo their website to rank better in the search engines.

This analysis has proven immensely popular, and it’s also helped us gain feedback about the Whoosh Traffic website and user interface. We’re now working with a designer to redo our website to better address popular customer questions.

What Your Competition Can’t Do

This high-touch method is one thing most of our cheaper competition will never do, and it’s why I’ve been so insistent and vocal about doing these consultations myself, even though they can take up to 10 hours a week of my time. Yes, they could be easily outsourced, but I gain so much valuable insight into how our customers work that I’ve been happy and grateful to perform them.

There’s nothing more valuable for a business owner than talking to customers and understanding why they chose you (and why they almost didn’t choose you!) It’s that high-touch difference that allows you to grow a company quickly in any market. It’s exactly what I brought to the hosting industry. And it is why I am pleased to announce that after being open for only 5 months, Whoosh Traffic will hit 5 figures of revenue this month, and will be well into 6 figures of revenue in its first year. That’s with no outside investors and very little capital invested.

Whoosh Traffic could very well be a 7-figure business within 2 years of its opening. It has the potential to be a far larger company than my hosting company. (My hosting company didn’t hit 6 figures of annual revenue until the end of its third year!)

We’ve grown Whoosh Traffic so fast with no marketing so far…all that growth is from people who read this blog. I am extraordinarily grateful for my amazing community and how so many of you have chosen to engage our services…and I am amazed when I look back and realized that it all started with one story that made so many of you ask, “How did you do that?” or “Tell me more.”

That’s the power of being memorable.

Want to get started making money online? On Monday night, I’m co-hosting an online workshop with Chris Guthrie. Chris has generated over $1,000,000 in Amazon product sales, netting him about $90,000 a year, all from websites that you can set up too (no geekery required!) The online workshop is 100% free, and will show you exactly how to get started. You must sign up to attend: Sign up here now! Don’t miss this free workshop.

Recommended Reading:

• The One Thing Successful Entrepreneurs Do Differently. One huge mistake that many beginning entrepreneurs make could mean the difference between success and failure…
• How to Read People’s Minds (And Then Create the Product They Most Desire) Two methods by which you can (almost) read your potential customers’ minds.
• How Do All Those “Idiots” Make So Much Money? Does it drive you nuts that some idiot with a terrible product seems to be constantly making sales, when you know your product is better? What’s the difference between you and that “idiot”?

Either that, or you will think I’m a genius.

Perhaps both.

There’s a valuable piece of online real estate that you’re probably not using to its fullest potential. And even though you may have heard this advice before, I bet you’re still not implementing it.

I didn’t implement this tiny tweak for months, even though I knew about it. (That’s the stupid part.) But once I did, I gained $804/month in passive income.

Here’s my big “Duh” moment, and how you can easily put my stupidity/genius into action and gain some income as well, even if your site doesn’t get a lot of traffic. (By the way, I’m not selling anything here. But this tweak–I’m not going to lie–could make you more income than a lot of products you buy for $497 do.)

The Most Valuable Piece of Online Real Estate That You Aren’t Using

Let’s look at the sequence of a typical information product website:

On your home page, your web visitors put in their email addresses. Then, of course, they are redirected to your thank you page. Usually, your thank you page just has some text asking the person to click on the link in their email to confirm his/her email address.

So what do your visitors do? They close the window and go check their email.

And you’ve just missed the opportunity to make a quick sale with no effort on your part!

The Stupid Mistake That Cost Me Thousands of Dollars

This is exactly the mistake I was making with my Guest Post Secrets thank you page. Visitors come there who are interested in my product. Either they typed in “guest post” on Google, or they clicked on a banner or link on this blog. Then they opt in, indicating their further interest in my product.

Yet, my thank you page was the typical generic thank you page:

Knowing I could make an offer for the person to purchase Guest Post Secrets on my thank you page, I put “Redo Guest Post Secrets thank you page” on my to-do list. Then I procrastinated on it for months. There always seemed to be something more important to do.

Finally, last week, I resolved to get that to-do item done! And, with just 30 minutes of work, I had posted my salesletter as my thank-you page, with a one-time discount of $30 off Guest Post Secrets:

(The page then continues into my Guest Post Secrets sales letter.)

Check out the new Guest Post Secrets thank you page to see what I did. (And yes, the $30 discount applies if you’d like to pick up a copy of Guest Post Secrets! It rocks.)

A couple hours after I posted it, Parnell and I were busy working on Whoosh Traffic when a sale notification rolled in. I thought an affiliate had made a sale (Guest Post Secrets is a Clickbank product, so anyone can become an affiliate), but there was no affiliate ID attached.

Shocked, I realized it came in from my thank you page…

The next day, I woke up and lo and behold, there was another sale. And the next day, another.

I went from selling 4-5 copies a month of Guest Post Secrets to 4-5 copies a week.

Based on my calculations of the additional sales I’ll make from just this single tweak, I will pull in an additional $804 of completely passive income every month.

Had I known that, I would have made revamping my thank-you page a huge priority. My mistake is your gain. If you have people opting in for more information, make sure your thank-you page presents a related offer. Making it a one-time deal for a price they can’t always receive, as I did with Guest Post Secrets, is even better…it introduces scarcity and encourages them to buy right away.

Sometimes, the simplest changes to make can also be the most effective. Are you going to change your site based on the data shown here? Let me know in the comments!

Recommended Reading:

• How I Turned My Mediocre Website into a Million-Dollar Business. Can a terrible website actually make you a million dollars?
• This Simple Exercise Could Double Your Business. I show you a simple exercise to do to brainstorm how to squeeze more profitability from your existing clients.
• Become a Guest Post Secrets affiliate. Have a blog where you help others learn how to write or blog? Offer the #1 guest posting product out there! Guest Post Secrets has rave reviews and an incredibly low refund rate. Click here to find out more information about becoming an affiliate.

I attend a lot of marketing meetings and conferences, and listen in to many conversations entrepreneurs have. And it struck me that the conversation we were having varied significantly from the conversation most beginning entrepreneurs have in one significant way…

Beginning entrepreneurs talk about their idea, but successful entrepreneurs focus on conversion.

What Makes A Successful Business?

Most people have a fundamental misconception of what makes a successful business. We assume it’s the idea that makes a business successful. This then becomes a big stumbling block…we assume we aren’t creative enough to come up with a “great idea”, or that our idea isn’t “good enough” because someone else is already doing the same thing.

This is one of the main causes of people not even getting started with their business. But the reality is that most people who have made over a million dollars in business have done it with a pretty mundane business. Many wealthy people are running businesses in areas we assume we can’t compete in, like dry cleaning, plumbing, or high-end web hosting!

The reality is, if you know how to consistently turn potential customers into customers, you can enter even a crowded industry and succeed. New ideas are often far harder to sell than starting a business in an existing industry and making it better than the current businesses in that industry.

Here’s a good litmus test to see whether you’re going to have an easier time converting visitors to your business into customers: Do you have to educate your potential customers on why they need your type of business?

If you answered “yes” to that question, you have a tougher road ahead of you.

My Own Tough Road

I’ll share an example from my own past. Once I sold my business, I had to become financially literate–fast! I bought a whole shelf full of books on personal finance. I signed up to and read at least 20 different personal finance blogs. I started tracking my expenses down to the penny, redid all of my investments, and began to disentangle myself from all my Stuff.

That wasn’t an easy transition, and I wanted to help others get through it, too. So I set up a conference called WealthCamp in San Francisco. I invited some top personal finance speakers and had the conference participants set the agenda for the afternoon.

What I wasn’t prepared for was that most people just don’t have any interest in actively learning about money! (Sad, but true.) I remember clearly asking one friend of mine why she wasn’t coming, and she said “I don’t care about wealth.” Most of my “friends” didn’t even bother to show up, and though we had a great group of 35 people who did register and attend, as well as a sponsor, I still personally lost nearly $5,000 putting on the conference.

I was not happy about the outcome. I still deeply feel that our country needs personal finance education. But with many people turning their noses up at anything involving even the word “wealth”, what can we do?

Later on, I learned that there’s basically one way to sell “wealth” products and services, and that is by promoting the lifestyle that you may achieve once you become wealthy. If I would have called the conference something about “Lifestyle” and promoted it as a way to quit your job and do what you love (via financial independence and learning about money!) it probably would have been quite popular. But making the conference about money itself was a misstep.

Successful entrepreneurs understand their customers’ true wants, needs, and desires. They use those to consistently convert potential customers into buyers. They rarely compete on price–instead, they use marketing to tap into the deeper desires of all of us (love, freedom, peace, health) and sell from that level.

What Are You Selling?

So…what are you selling?

Are you selling coaching…or your customer’s ticket to inner peace?

Are you selling personal finance advice…or your customer’s chance to provide for their family and have more freedom?

Are you selling personal training…or a unique opportunity for your customer to finally achieve the great body and amazing health, vitality, and energy they’ve always desired?

Are you selling plumbing services…or a painless way for your customers to spend more time with their families and look better in the eyes of their peers?

It doesn’t matter what you’re selling on the surface, and it doesn’t matter how good your idea is or how much you think the world needs it. If you can’t tap into a deep human desire and then convert potential customers into customers based on that, you won’t have much success. Successful entrepreneurs know this.

By the way, if you would like to see this in action, watch a beer commercial or a Coca-Cola commercial. Coca-Cola uses nostalgia heavily in its advertisements–equating drinking a Coke with your childhood or memories of better days in the past. Beer ads use a “lifestyle” premise–they equate drinking beer with having fun, getting the girl, and being the “funny guy” or the life of the party. You can do something similar, no matter what your own business is.

How do you plan to “go deeper” and convert more potential customers into customers? Let me know in the comments.

• There Is No “Savior”. Many people expect that they will be “discovered” by a “savior” and then–then!–everything will be set for them. Find out why this is dangerous.
• How to Read People’s Minds (And Then Create the Product They Most Desire) Two methods by which you can (almost) read your potential customers’ minds.
• How Do All Those “Idiots” Make So Much Money? Does it drive you nuts that some idiot with a terrible product seems to be constantly making sales, when you know your product is better? What’s the difference between you and that “idiot”?

Let me explain. You see, I go to a lot of networking events…and I meet a whole lot of people. Unfortunately, 99% of those people are completely forgettable. That’s a problem, because when you go to a networking event, you really want it to be profitable for you. But how can it be profitable when no one remembers who you are and what you do?

The 30-second “elevator pitch” is an art. It’s designed to get people to ask you more information about your business or about you. It’s designed for you to quickly be able to whittle down the room into potential customers and everyone else, and focus your energy on scoring a customer or two–thus making your time spent at the networking event insanely profitable.

Here’s a quick peek into the art of crafting your 30-second pitch and quickly turning yourself into one of the most memorable people in the room.

Rule #1: Never Start with “I”.

Here’s a trade secret that many public speakers use: Never open with “I”. This especially applies if you go to an event where the organizer asks everyone to stand up and introduce themselves. Let’s face it, after 20 people mumbling about their businesses, the room is half asleep. Your mission? To snap them out of their trances and get them listening.

When introducing yourself to a group of more than 10 people, especially if you’re not the first person to do an introduction, always start with a question. Your goal is twofold: 1) Get people to pay attention. 2) Quickly figure out who your potential customers are.

To pull this off, you have to know some of the deepest desires of your potential customers. (Hint: Their deepest desire isn’t to get life coaching. So scratch out “Who’s interested in being coached?” as a question!)

I start out with a simple question: “How many of you are interested in getting more traffic to your website?” And then–as a cue–I raise my right hand and look closely at everyone else in the room.

You’ll notice some reactions when you do this. Some people will grin and raise their hands. Others will slowly raise their hands as they come out of their trance. Others, already lost to their Blackberry addictions, will not be paying attention to you.

Then comes the fun part: Ask a second question–an analog to the first. If I spot someone on a Blackberry, for instance, I may say this: “Okay, how many of you are NOT interested in getting traffic to their website?” Some smart alecks may raise their hands. (That’s a win! You’ve identified people who aren’t potential customers.) As I ask it–and raise my hand on cue again–I’ll stare hard at the Crackberry addict. This has the effect of turning the whole audience on him.

Guess what? 99% of the time, the Blackberry goes in his pocket and he looks up sheepishly. Congratulations! You now have the rapt attention of the entire room.

Rule #2: The Three “Must-Have” Elements of Your Pitch

Your 30-second pitch needs to contain these elements:

1. Compelling value
2. Social proof
3. A call to action

Sounds kind of like writing a sales letter, doesn’t it? I concede that 30-second pitches may be even more difficult. You have to quickly identify your business’s most compelling value proposition and present it.

Here’s my pitch (remember, this is after you’ve asked the first question and then the second, opposite question):

“Great! Thank you. My name is Erica Douglass and I run a popular business blog. I also run a service called Whoosh Traffic that helps you get more traffic to your website. I started Whoosh Traffic after using my own service to rank my blog #1 in Google for the keyphrase how to make money blogging. If you would like to get more traffic to your website, please come find me. I’m happy to talk to you more about it!”

Now, I’ll show it to you again, with the social proof highlighted in red and the call to action highlighted in blue:

“Great! Thank you. My name is Erica Douglass and I run a popular business blog. I also run a service called Whoosh Traffic that helps you get more traffic to your website. I started this business after using my own service to rank my blog #1 in Google for the keyphrase how to make money blogging. If you would like to get more traffic to your website, please come find me. I’m happy to talk to you more about it!”

Rule #3: Hone Your Pitch by Watching Audience Reactions

As I say my pitch, I watch the audience. I’m looking for a reaction–and I’m most interested in surprise reactions, as they mean the person is listening and is more likely to remember me.

The best reaction is when someone asks “How did you do that?”, “How does that work?” or “Can you do that for me?” That’s the verbal equivalent of an opt-in. If you give a 30-second pitch and people come up to you afterward, you have achieved the desired effect.

Quality matters more than quantity. If your best customers are hairdressers who are working part-time and want to work full-time, say that! Don’t be afraid to narrow down a room of 50+ people to just one potential customer…especially if you offer a high-value service.

I’ve tweaked several elements of my pitch. I tested several different versions of the social proof element (different keywords I rank well for with my blog) before settling on showing that I’m ranked #1 for how to make money blogging. The most common reaction I get is “Wow! That’s a popular keyword!” I’ve actually used Whoosh Traffic to rank well for keywords with more search volume, but this keyword is more well-recognized and gets a better reaction when I say it.

I also changed “a blog about starting and growing your own business” to “a popular business blog” recently. The word “popular” generates more interest.

A key of changing your elevator pitch is watching people’s facial expressions carefully as you speak it. With practice, you will learn to tell exactly which words or phrases tune them out. Practice every word of your pitch, and tweak constantly. Try new things. You have very little to lose and a whole lot to gain.

By designing your elevator pitch first with two questions, then using the three elements above, you will be far more memorable. In fact, I went to three marketing/business conferences recently, and at each of the three conferences I had someone follow up with me asking about Whoosh Traffic. (Imagine–not even having to follow up with 50 people after the event who ask you, “Who are you, again?”)

In each case, we signed a new customer–effortlessly! All three customers are “heavy hitters”, too; in fact, those three customers alone plus their referrals may mean $8,000/month or more of income for Whoosh Traffic.

That’s the power of a great pitch. Please–use my template. It works for me; it will work for just about anyone. It will definitely make your next networking event a lot more exciting…and profitable!

Want to drive more traffic to your site? Check out Whoosh Traffic, and feel free to email me (erica AT erica dot biz) if you’re interested in using our service and have a question.

Recommended Reading:

• How to Read a Person Like a Book. I don’t have any natural ability to read facial cues, and used to find it difficult to understand what people were communicating with body language. This book turned it into a system for me and made understanding people a lot easier. If you’re a “systems thinker” like me and have a hard time reading people, pick this book up. It will be well worth it.
• Are Your Business Cards Still Stuck In The 1990′s? Your business cards need to be more memorable, too. Here’s how I changed mine so I get a lot more followups.
• How I Tripled My Blog’s Traffic in Two Months. This is a great post from early 2008, when I was just getting started with my blog. In it, I show how I jump-started my blog’s popularity.

Ever heard this before? If you have, your startup may be barking up the wrong tree.

That’s exactly what I heard when I formed my last startup, Best Blogs. My target audience was bloggers who wanted to discover, connect and compete with other bloggers in their niche. We had three ways to monetize the site, and an exact match domain for a Google search that gets thousands of exact queries per month. I’d hired a programmer to build out the site, which was starting to look pretty good.

But it was the feedback that stymied me. Every time I’d talk to other bloggers about it, they would say “Sure, I’d be happy to take a look at it once you’re ready for users.” But what got me was that it wasn’t a need for them. It was dawning on me that the trickiest part of the site would be getting users to stick around. The biggest battle we would face was against indifference.

Indifference vs. Passion

This, honestly, wasn’t a problem I had faced before. When I set up my web hosting company back in 2001, I quickly learned that people fell into three groups:

1. I already have a web hosting company I’m happy with. (About 20%)
2. I need a new web hosting company. My last/current company…[insert horror story here] (30%)
3. I have no idea how web hosting works. I’d have to ask my “tech person” that. (50%)

I developed built-in responses to the three groups. My response to the first group was “Thank you for your time.” I’d even ask which company they were hosted with, and check out that company’s website to see if there were any elements I could incorporate into my own pitch.

#2 was easy, too. “Hey, maybe I can help.” Followed by asking them what happened and what type of hosting they were looking for. Often, I’d offer to have our staff migrate their site to our service, and they would sign a contract pretty quickly.

#3 was straightforward: I would ask who their tech person was and ask their permission to contact that person. Sometimes their tech person ran his or her own hosting company, so that was a dead end, but often that person ran a web design consultancy or another company that didn’t want to deal with hosting, so I’d pitch them. They fell back into a similar pattern, with most saying they were happy with their current hosting company but some looking for a new company. I pitched the second group and we closed some of them.

What I didn’t notice was anyone who just didn’t care. Most people had an opinion about web hosting and other web hosting companies. I encouraged them to talk it out and would often calmly sit and listen for 15-20 minutes without mentioning our company at all. And the more impassioned they got–especially if it was hatred of their current web hosting company–the easier it was to get them to sign the contract and move over to us…even if I hadn’t said a word about my own business!

We became the “good guys”; the “heroes”…the salvation to their bad situation. That bitter emotion they had helped me close a whole lot of sales. (And, of course, we followed up by keeping our promises and having good customer support!)

Dissatisfied Customers = Opportunity

In an industry where there is a constant churn of dissatisfied customers, there is a huge opportunity to become the “good guys”. It may be challenging to acquire new customers, but once you prove your worth–often by going above and beyond–you get very “sticky”, valuable customers.

The most dangerous type of business to start is one where people just don’t care. They could take or leave your business–it doesn’t matter to them. It’s not life-saving or helping their business grow or helping them make a change they really need to make.

That’s exactly where I ended up with Best Blogs. There were people who were interested, but it just wasn’t an “I need this!” situation. The emotion, the passion just wasn’t there.

In the meantime, I was promoting Profit Instruments on this blog. One part of Profit Instruments, buried in Module 4, changed my life–and I say that in no uncertain terms.

The module, called “Promotion”, mentioned a little-known way to get your site to rank higher in the search engines by creating profiles on websites and linking those profiles back to your site. At first, it sounded weird to me. But I figured I had nothing to lose, so I used one of my other sites (on a different IP address than erica.biz, in case Google was looking for these types of links) and hired an outsourcer via oDesk to build links to it.

It took a few weeks to take effect, but I watched in amazement as my site rose steadily in the ranks, eventually beating several huge authority blogs and taking the #2 spot for a competitive keyword on Google. (#1 is still held down by Problogger!)

I wasn’t done testing, but I was ready to plow some real money into this. I hired a full-time worker in the Philippines to do this for some of my other sites. Those sites rose steadily, too.

In the meantime, I was tearing through every search engine optimization book and blog I could find. My first “Internet job” was actually with a search engine optimization firm back in 1997, but obviously things had changed in the past 13 years. I read the entire original document on how Sergey Brin and Larry Page created Google. I bought a whole bunch of ebooks and subscribed to several SEO blogs.

What I found out is that Google can’t penalize you for backlinks (links from other sites on the Internet) because they are, by definition, on other sites. If Google penalized a site for “creating backlinks too fast” or creating too many backlinks, you could simply carpet-bomb your competitors’ sites with backlinks from sleazy sites and their sites’ rankings would drop.

That’s not how it works. In fact, if you tried this, you would only be helping your competitors!

As soon as I realized how well this worked, I committed to building a company around it and helping other people achieve the same rankings for their websites.

A Night and Day Difference

Once I mentioned what we were doing at Whoosh Traffic–helping small business owners, particularly local business owners, get more traffic to their websites–the reaction was notably different than the reaction I received about Best Blogs. People emailed me and asked to be part of our private beta. They were really interested in the service. I asked for feedback about a couple of different price points and got a lot of feedback that our initial price was too low!

The most important thing was that people were excited about the possibility of Whoosh Traffic. We’re helping small business owners get more traffic to their websites. What’s not to love?

As the feedback grew, I got even more excited about developing Whoosh. Next week, we launch into our private beta and start to get real customer feedback. I haven’t been this excited since I sold my hosting company!

Instead of building a tool very few people wanted, and no one needed, my developer and I are now building a tool that a lot of people want and a whole bunch of small businesses need. It’s a night and day difference.

Are you in the process of figuring out which idea you want to turn into a business? I suggest looking for a market that has a pain point. Don’t just build something that references all the cool buzzwords–build something that has people saying, with passion, “Where has your company been all my life? I really could have used you a few years ago!”

Recommended Reading:

• How I Turned My Mediocre Website Into A Million-Dollar Business. Can a terrible website actually make you a million dollars?
• Here’s How to Become Rich: Deliver value. Change the world. “What does everybody want? To be more successful! Then why is every hosting provider talking about gigabytes and megabits?”
• Beat the Big Corporations by Delivering the Best Customer Experience. Are you making this incredibly common business/startup mistake?

Set up a referral program for your business and
turn it into a “referral machine”.

In this post, I’ll show you a few ways you can put a referral program in place so your customers can easily refer others to help your business grow. Putting this plan into action may increase your sales by 100% or more, so make this a priority.

A Sign Flipper Lights the Way

I recently saw a sign flipper advertising outside of Chipotle, where I was eating lunch. He was advertising a free eyebrow wax at a place called European Wax Center across the parking lot from Chipotle.

A few weeks later, when I needed my eyebrows waxed, I called European Wax Center. They asked me, “How did you hear about us?” and I mentioned the sign flipper. I confirmed that there were no restrictions on the free wax and booked my appointment.

Yesterday, I went in for my free eyebrow wax. When I came in, they had me sign a healthcare form (the standard “give us your information and release us from liability” that all doctors’ offices have.) I put my email address on the form, not thinking much of it.

Priming Your Customers for the Referral

The wax process went perfectly fine. In the room where I was getting my wax, there were three framed posters, each advertising European Wax Center’s wax program and their referral program.

At the end of my wax, the lady at the checkout counter asked me how everything went. When I said “It was fine”, she asked me if I’d like to sign up for a program where you buy 9 waxes and get 3 free.

Interestingly, the program is buy 9, get 2 free, but if you sign up on your first visit, you get 3 free. When I declined that offer, she asked me when I would like to schedule my next appointment. I declined this too, citing the fact that I might be moving soon.

An example of one of the cards (front and back) at the front of European Wax Center.

In front of her, there were several cards I could take to refer a friend, sign up for the buy 10, get 3 free program, or even sign up for a year of unlimited waxing (!).

Follow Up with Email

When I got home, I was surprised to see two emails in my inbox. One asked me to refer friends and gave me a link to click on so I could give my friends a coupon for a free wax. When I clicked on the link, I was taken to a website that automatically opened my email client with a pre-written email offering my friends a free wax…and a custom referral link that would credit my account $5 for every person I referred.

The other email contained a coupon for 50% off my next wax.

Your Priority: Provide Excellent Service First

Why am I telling you all this? It’s to point out where your business can improve its chances of getting referrals from customers…dramatically.

First things first: Your business has to provide excellent service. My wax was good and future waxes were competitively priced. The technician was friendly and enjoyed working there (I asked her how she liked it–she said she liked it because she wanted to do waxing all day and most day spas don’t get enough waxing business to enable her to do that.) The store was clean and the posters and postcards were well-designed.

Those are the basics. If you don’t have a good product, you won’t get referral business.

From then, it’s really about how many times you “touch” the customer and ask them to refer others. You’re not beating people over the head with it–in fact, you’re rewarding them for being loyal and referring their friends. Although it may seem like they were hitting me over the head with it based on my story above, they built this on an overall good experience, so I wasn’t bothered.

Let’s look at how many times I heard about their referral program:

1. Cards in the front near the receptionist (see example at the top of this post).
2. Posters in the room.
3. Email afterward with built-in referral link that I could send to my friends.

#3 is particularly important to do the right way. I hate the systems that force you to enter the email addresses of everyone you want to refer. Why put this pressure on your customer? As the customer, I’d much prefer a link that I can Tweet out, post on Facebook, and perhaps blog, and let the people who are interested sign up themselves.

The best option is to offer both, as European Wax Center’s system did: Give the person an email that’s pre-filled with their link, and also give them the link (with buttons to Tweet it or Facebook it.)

Rewarding Your Customers for Giving You Repeat Business

And then, the loyalty program. This was mentioned four times to me: the cards, the posters, the email afterward, and also by the person at the front counter. She also did something clever (that is clearly part of their employee training): she didn’t ask me if I wanted to set up another appointment. She said, quite deliberately, “When would you like to set up your next appointment?” She didn’t give me a chance to say “No”.

Most customers default to “No.” “Would you like to…?” “No.” But if you don’t give them a way to easily say no–and make the assumption that they want to come back–they are more likely to come back. This should be part of your employee training if you have employees on the “front line” with customers and you rely on customers to continue saying “yes” to you.

Is This Totally Awkward?

Does this all seem just a little bit uncomfortable to you? Would you feel weird changing your language to get customers to say “yes”, or framing posters advertising your referral program? If it feels weird, understand that your own fears are hurting your business. Your fears are that your customers may not like you, but it’s likely the case that your customers will refer more customers if you institute some or all of these policies.

And while there may be a few people who don’t appreciate your referral program, remember there will always be those who don’t appreciate what you do. It’s better to have more happy customers, and this is a great way to do it.

By and large, your fears of offending, hurting, or scaring your customers are inside your head. Get through those by instituting the policies and refining as you go based on customer feedback. You have a whole lot more to gain if you offer these programs than if you don’t.

How do you help your customers refer others? What types of referral program work (and don’t work) for you? Let me know in the comments!

This is a great question. Many bloggers–myself included–run promotions for both our own and other products on a regular basis. Some blogs are heavily promotional, with an affiliate link in nearly every post, whereas other bloggers make their money mostly through advertising and only rarely include affiliate links in their posts.

First, let’s look at things from a blogger’s perspective. Then, I’ll give you a few metrics to help you decide which marketers to follow online.

From a blogger’s perspective, affiliate revenue is often the only way to make a full-time income from a blog. My blog, as ranked by Alexa, is in the top 0.1% of all websites by traffic. Yet, as you’ve seen from my revenue numbers, I only make about $83/month from placing Google ads on my site.

So, for 99.99% of bloggers and website owners, ad revenue isn’t enough to even cover expenses, let alone provide a full-time income.

Enter affiliate marketing.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

With affiliate marketing, you get paid when you refer someone who buys something. With ads, you get paid every time someone clicks on the ad. Referring someone who buys something is often a better deal all around: the affiliate gets paid more; the product owner only has to pay when a sale is made; and the customer gets a product that he or she will hopefully love.

There are all kinds of affiliate programs: big ones like Amazon pay 4-8% for any product purchased through their site, and thousands of other ones pay out for anything from web hosting to ebooks to coaching programs. Pretty much anything you can think of that is sold online has some sort of affiliate program.

The reason affiliate programs are so popular on blogs is that the commissions on big products can add up fast. Often, information products that sell from anywhere from $200 to $2,000 or more pay out a whopping 50%–and that doesn’t include bonuses. If you’ve seen Internet marketing websites promoting big $2,000 products from well-known names like Jeff Walker or Eben Pagan, they’re getting paid more than $1,000 per sale!

There isn’t anything inherently bad about affiliate marketing. It allows website owners and bloggers to make a full-time income online without having to drive millions of visitors to their websites every month. And it drives a whole lot of sales for publishers, manufacturers, and service companies.

But affiliate marketing does have its dark side. Take my most recent income numbers, for example. I made a list of the top affiliates for Profit Instruments, and immediately my email inbox got pounded by other marketers looking for me to promote their “make money online” products.

The Big Problem with Affiliate Marketing

Right on the heels of a successful promotion, you suddenly become aware of how much money there is to be made. This is where most marketers lose their integrity. I’ve seen it time and time again. Someone gets a nice list going of thousands of people who really listen to his or her advice. The list owner promotes a good product. All of a sudden, 5 figures of income rolls in.

Unfortunately, that income is mostly one-time income. Next month, the list owner starts back over at 0. So what does he or she do? Promote again, of course! And since he’s been inundated with new offers, it’s easy to promote something in the same niche. Rinse and repeat.

The problem with constant promotion is it “burns your list.” People who were used to receiving good content suddenly get hammered with sales pitches. So they stop opening your emails. And now you, as the affiliate marketer/list owner, are in a race. You have to constantly find more people to join your list so you can continue your sales pitches and make more money.

Internet Marketing’s Dirty Secret

Here is the Internet marketing world’s dirty secret: Replicable success is hard. A one-time success–selling something and making 5 or 6 figures–is easier than doing it repeatedly. Most marketers only see dollar signs and don’t have any clue how to build a relationship with their list. And building a relationship with your list–delivering good content again and again, without constantly asking for the sale–is difficult.

The relationship you have with your list is the cornerstone of building a successful business. As a blogger, it’s about learning to say “no” 99 times out of 100 to people who ask you to promote a product. It’s about giving up some money now in order to build the relationship down the road. And if you want to know why most Internet marketers, over time, don’t make it, this is why: They go for the quick buck over the relationship.

Finding the Genuine Marketers

So, to go back to Richard’s question: How do you tell when someone is all about making money vs. truly helping someone? You have to look at the persona they project. When you opt in to their email list, what sort of emails do you get from them on a regular basis? What percentage of the emails that you receive from them contain nothing but a sales pitch? If it’s 80% or more, I suggest unsubscribing from that list.

Yes, what I just said may annoy some Internet marketers. But if the list owner doesn’t take the time to write real content, deliver free teleseminars or webinars to help you, and if every email is a sales pitch, where is the value? You might as well be subscribed to an email list of the latest Google ads. Unsubscribe from those lists. Let’s collectively raise the bar on who we allow to sell products to us.

A good marketer acts as a filter between his or her audience and the product pushers. He turns down most products people ask him to promote. She promotes only the best products–those she truly believes will help her audience. And his emails to you are mostly good, thoughtful content.

There are thousands of bloggers and marketers who fit this profile. A majority of their content is helpful. Some of their content has sales pitches, but the sales pitches show a true interest in the product, not a copy-and-paste “XYZ made 20 zillion dollars and you can too…by tomorrow!” sort of pitch. They don’t promote every “big” launch. In general, they put relationships over sales–without forgetting that sales is what puts food on the table.

These are the people I encourage you to do business with.

Your Challenge for Today

Your challenge for today: If you’re subscribed to any email lists where you haven’t received any real content in months–just sales pitches–I encourage you to unsubscribe. Yes, even if you like the product or person. Raise the bar on who you do business with. Your credit card will thank you.

And if you’re a marketer: Today is the day you should write some real content, or shoot a video, that has NO sales pitch whatsoever. Maybe you can take the time to publicly answer a reader’s question, or share a quick tip you’ve learned that you know will help your list. Tell your list “Thank you” and let your readers know that you honor them. Your readers will appreciate you that much more.

Recommended Reading:

• Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook. Looking to get started with affiliate marketing? Rosalind’s book is the definitive guide. (I’ll be doing a full review soon.) Check it out now!
• How Do All Those “Idiots” Make So Much Money? Does it drive you nuts that some idiot with a terrible product seems to be constantly making sales, when you know your product is better? What’s the difference between you and that “idiot”?
• 20 Scam-Free Ways to Make Money Online Fast. My huge list of real ways to make money online.