EP37: Strategic Decision Making

You made it back for another impactful podcast/blog post.

Glad to have you here.

Last week I mentioned that I am playing the long game.

Specifically, how I want to do business is not and never has been about getting immediate results.

Weird, right?

Maybe…

Maybe not…

In a typical business [whether online or offline], to get immediate results, you have to get people to respond immediately (or sooner), like right now.

This may involve the use of FAKE scarcity, or time-limited promotions, and a lot of times, the use of both.

I don’t like FAKE scarcity.

Do you?

We see it all the time … buy this thing [insert your thing] … TODAY … right now … at this very low, never to be seen or heard of price … ever again.

And/Or

If you close this page “this offer will no longer be available”. If you do come back later, all you will see is the normal [inflated] price of “X-Dollars” [much more than most everyone is willing to pay].

It drives me bat-shit-crazy.

Fake scarcity has only one intention – ONE – to get a quick sale.

That is because the marketers – do not have a relationship with the reader, customer, subscriber, and are afraid that if the person does not purchase, immediately, they will never buy.

This is inferior, old-school marketing, that needs to go away.

My opinion entirely!

And if it is YOUR way of marketing and you can get it to work for you, then I’m OK with that.

We can still be friends ... 😉

I just KNOW that there is a better way!

Most online entrepreneurs look at business a bit differently.

They believe you need to get a lot of leads, quickly, and keep doing that as much as possible, because they think marketing is just a numbers game.

The more leads you have = the more money you will make.

They even put a number to a lead, thinking it will determine how much money a business can expect to make every month. For them, everything starts with a number.

This is what most marketers strive to accomplish.

Each email subscriber is worth $1 per month

Ie, [for demonstration purposes] you can make $10,000 a month from a list of 10,000 subscribers.

Take that figure with a grain of salt. Or maybe a pound.

Here’s what it would take to pull that $10,000 a month off. Let’s first break it down by week. You have to earn $2,500 from your list of 10,000 each week.

[Don’t forget this is before taxes and expenses]

With an average click-through rate of 3.5% (according to MailChimp), you’d get 350 clicks coming to your landing page/product page.

With a 2% conversion rate (that’s average), you’ll get 7 orders. To make your $2,500 that week, you’d need to make $357.14 off of each order.

You would need to do that each and every week. 52 weeks a year. Forever!

If you think you’re hot stuff and can beat the averages, consider this: You get a 5% click-through rate, resulting in 500 clicks to the landing page. You get a 3% conversion rate, resulting in 15 orders. You still need to make $166.66 profit from each order to make your $2,500 goal.

Very, very few people actually pull off the $1 per subscriber per month goal. And if they do, the vast majority of them do it once, and then never again.

Do not expect to make $1 per subscriber per month.

Just trying to be real here.

So, is there another way to go about making money online?

There is!

Like I said earlier, “There is a better way!”

Instead, you should start thinking about your business, like it is a REAL business.

Real businesses, stay in business by serving customers.

PERIOD!

So what does “Serving Customers” really mean?

Does it mean:

- Providing Products they asked for?

- Providing them with good to know information?

- Giving away SECRETS no one else knows?

YES!

YES!

YES!

For me…

I am in the people business.

I’m concerned with what my customer wants, and I strive to give it to them. We're talking about REAL people with REAL problems.

My definition of a customer is anyone that purchases something. What they pay is NOT always financially. Some customers pay with their time and attention. They are treated just like any other paying customer. They are treated with respect.

By understanding what your customer wants. Not what YOU think they want. Not your best guess. Instead, you are giving them what they REALLY want, and in doing so, you will develop a relationship that is second to none.

That is what I want, and I’m pretty sure it is what you want as well.

Once you start listening to your customers, opportunities open up for you. Opportunities that marketers who only send out emails to their list to sell them things every week or two would never understand.

They would not understand, because it takes [hard] work to build and run a real [successful] business. (Anyone can run an unsuccessful business)

It takes a lot of strategic planning to make a business successful.

Don’t get me wrong.

There are a LOT of entrepreneurs out there making good money, just sending out emails, trying to get a product, course, or membership sold.

But to do it they are mostly abusing their list and losing a lot of them because of it. Their unsubscribe rates [attrition or churn rates], are huge.

Campaign Monitor says that the typical churn rate for subscription services is between 6-8%. But for an email subscriber churn rate, recent studies have shown that around half of an email list will churn within the first year.

Half!

That is HUGE!

This means, no matter how large their list is, they [always] need a lot of NEW emails every day to replace what is being lost.

Most NEW marketers could never keep up with this kind of marketing. It costs too much.

And frankly, most people just don’t like being sold to.

Do you?

Thankfully…

There is a better way.

And that better way is all about how you treat the people who are giving you their attention.

They are on your list or reading your post or your landing page for a reason.

They entered your world for a reason.

Do you remember why they are there?

I hope so.

You must have a relationship with them.

A good relationship!

I think that this would be a good topic for us to discuss next week.

What do we do with the PEOPLE on our list?

How do we turn our email list into a profit-generating asset that wants to hang around for the long term?

Come back next week as we dive into this subject, and more.

Until next week, keep safe, stay healthy, and be happy.

Take care and be well.

James "Digging Deep & Going Long" Brown

P.S. - In the event, you DO find that once an episode has been produced and posted, that YOU really would like more information, just let me know. Use the Podcast Questions link, click on the link here. Or you can just leave a voice message here.