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Firing customers? That seems a very foreign concept to most business owners who are desperately trying to find new customers and new business.

However not firing problem customers is likely costing you huge amounts of time, money and aggravation.

You’ve likely heard that old business cliché, “the customer is always right.” I’m not too sure who originally came up with that, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t mean that you should behave like a doormat to your customers or anyone else for that matter.

Unlike red wine, problem clients don’t get better with time. So let's look at exactly why they're bad for business and how they affect your business goals.

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

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Customers With Legitimate Problems

But first a clarification. I’m not talking about customers who have a legitimate cause for complaint. Customers who have a genuine complaint are valuable intelligence assets. It’s often these sort of customers that can help you uncover weaknesses in your business.

They may even reveal something that was causing you to lose business without you knowing because other unhappy customers didn’t complain – they simply stopped buying from you.

Fixing legitimate complaints from customers can strengthen your relationship with them and makes your business more robust.

A customer who sees you responding to, and resolving their genuine complaint is far more likely to buy from you again and recommend you to others. They feel validated, respected and taken seriously.

What are Problem Customers

Let’s define problem customers. For whatever reason there’s a percentage of the population who is never happy. They’re always whining, dissatisfied and feeling like everyone is out to take advantage of them.

You could shower them with gold and provide your product or service for free and they’ll find something to complain about. These people are like a cancer sucking the life out of you and your business. I suggest you cut them loose as quickly as possible.

I have without exception, across multiple businesses and industries, found that it’s the low value, price-sensitive customers who complain the most, waste huge amounts of your time and who always need to be chased for payment.

The high-value customers who are the most profitable tend to pay on time, treat you with respect and value your services.

It seems counterintuitive but it’s been proved true in every business I’ve ever been involved with.

I suggest that every 12 months or so as part of your house-keeping activities, you fire these low value, problem clients.

Three Reasons Why You Need To Fire Problem Customers

While there are many reasons why you need to fire problems customers, we're focusing on the top three.

1. It Makes Financial Sense

As business owners we often get faked out by thinking as long as we keep the gross sales numbers high, there’s bound to be enough net left over to make it all worthwhile.

However, if you ran a true profit and loss statement on these problem clients, which took into account all the time you spend chasing and appeasing them, you’d find very often that you make very little, if any, real profit on them.

In fact most of them would likely result in a net loss when taking into account the low value they bring coupled with the time and energy needed to deal with them.

2. You'll Lose Out On Lucrative Business Opportunities

Another reason you should immediately fire low-value customers is because apart from sucking up your financial resources, they are also causing you to lose out on opportunities.

Firing problem customers gives you more time to spend on acquiring high quality, high-value customers.

With the squeaky wheels taking up all your time and energy, it’s often the high value, respectful customers who suffer a lack of attention.

Firing them gives you the time needed to show more love to your existing top 20%, high-value customers.

This builds loyalty and can very quickly result in an increase in sales to these existing high-value customers that far outweighs any loss of sales that resulted in firing problem customers.

Another beneficial side effect of firing problem customers is that it creates scarcity without being disingenuous. It sends a message that you only have a limited supply. With limited supply, people have to play by your rules and pay accordingly.

3. Problem Customers are Emotionally Taxing

Problem customers are often the ones that make your life miserable.

Business should be fun. If you allow someone to suck the fun out of it, then you’re losing out on one of the major benefits of running your own business.

If it’s no longer fun, no amount of money can compensate for being miserable. If it’s no longer fun you’re likely not doing it right.

And this goes back to building out your marketing plan.  

• Which customers do you love working with?
• Which customers are profitable?

Having a clear picture in your mind of who you want to work with can ensure that you cut the losses early. Or better yet, you identify bad prospects and can avoid them entirely.

Start Reviewing Your Customer List

Take time out periodically to review which customers are causing you the most pain in your business. Then channel Donald Trump and deliver them the news they deserve.

You’ll feel like a huge weight has been taken off your shoulders and you’ll have renewed energy to focus on high-value customers.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy our article on Building Business Systems. It will help you skyrocket your sales and attract investors.

When I ask business owners who their target market is, many tend to respond with “everyone.” The translation is no one.

In their zeal to acquire as many customers as possible, many business owners try to serve the widest market possible.

This is a huge mistake.

By narrowing down their target market, many business owners fear that they will be missing out on potential customers.

Their reasoning is that if they go for the widest market possible, then they have a better chance of acquiring more customers.

This is a typical marketing newbie mistake.

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my new 1-Page Marketing Plan Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

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What Is A Niche?

Before going any further let’s define what a business niche is.

A niche is a tightly defined portion of a sub-category. For example, think of the health and beauty category. This is a very wide category. A beauty salon can offer a wide variety of services including tanning, waxing, facials, massage, cellulite treatment and much more.

If, for example, we take one of these sub-categories – let’s say cellulite treatment, this could be our niche. However, we could tighten it up even further by focusing on cellulite treatment for women who’ve just had a baby. This is a tightly defined niche.

An Inch Wide And A Mile Deep

Now you may be thinking why on earth would we want to limit our market so much.

Here’s why.

Firstly by targeting a tight niche our message can be highly targeted. This results in far superior conversion rates and it grabs the attention of your market.

If you’re a woman who’s just had a baby and are concerned about cellulite, would an ad targeting this specific problem grab your interest? Most certainly.

How about if the ad was a general ad for a beauty salon which reeled off a long list of services, one of which was cellulite treatment? Likely it would get missed in the clutter.

That’s the secret sauce. As mentioned in our previous article on emotional direct response copywriting – we want to enter the conversation going on in the mind of our prospect.

Doing so is practically impossible if you are targeting a wide audience with a vague or general message.

A new mother with a cellulite problem will have a very different conversation going on in her mind than a single woman wanting to look a little more tanned.

Targeting a tight niche allows you to become a big fish in a small pond.

It allows you to dominate a category or geography in a way that is impossible by being general.

The type of niches that you want to go after are “an inch wide and a mile deep.”

An inch wide meaning it is a very highly targeted subsection of a category. A mile deep meaning there a lot of people looking for a solution to that specific problem.

Once you dominate one niche, you can expand your business by finding another profitable and highly targeted niche, then dominate that one also.

Now you can have all the advantages of being highly targeted without limiting the potential size of your business.

The Cost Of Customer Acquisition

Another massive advantage of targeting a niche is that your marketing becomes much cheaper.

Targeted advertising ends up being much cheaper than mass marketing because there is a lot less waste.

Going back to our previous example, instead of having a general beauty salon ad in the classifieds, you would have your cellulite ad in “New Mother Magazine.”

Your cost per lead will drop dramatically because your message to market match is much better and hence your conversion rate will be much higher than if you had a general message in your ad.

Your advertising cost would also be lower because your target market is smaller.

The entire goal of your ad is for your prospect to say, “hey that’s for me.”

Being all things to all people is unlikely to have the same reaction.

Making Price Irrelevant

If you had just suffered a heart attack, would you prefer to be treated by a general doctor or a heart specialist? Of course you’d choose the specialist.

Now if you had a consultation with the heart specialist, would you expect them to charge you more than a general doctor? Of course.

Your bill with the specialist would likely be much higher than with your general practitioner, yet you’re not shopping on price.

How did price suddenly become irrelevant?

That is the beauty of serving a niche. Whether you do heart surgery or offer cellulite treatment, you can now charge far more for your services than by being a generalist.

You’re perceived differently by your prospects and customers. A specialist is sought after, rather than shopped on price. A specialist is much more highly respected than a jack of all trades. A specialist is paid handsomely to solve a specific problem for their target market.

So figure out the one thing your market wants a solution to, something that they’ll pay you handsomely for. Then enter the conversation they’re having in their mind, preferably something they go to bed worrying about and wake up thinking about.

Do this and your results will dramatically improve.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy our article on What is Direct Response Marketing? As a small business owner, it’s the smarter way to market your business.

The 97% are expecting to get by doing as little as possible. They then wonder why they are in the situation they are in.

Entrepreneurs are different. They take on responsibility and risk that most are simply unwilling to take on.

Walk away from the 97% crowd.

Don’t use their excuses, don’t read what they read, don’t talk like they talk.

The 97% do only enough to take away whatever pain they are currently feeling and not one bit more. Their goal is to get through the day rather than get from the day.

The 97% are waiting for the government or their employer or someone or something else to give them their “break.” Their victim mentality has sown the seeds of their future failures.

Every top performer I know takes charge of their own life and takes control of their circumstances.

To get control of our circumstances we must first acknowledge personal responsibility for being where we are. The 97% are unwilling to do this.

Walk away from the 97%.

The 97% pursue activities that are tension relieving rather than activities that are goal achieving.

They subscribe to “Murphy’s Law” – that if something can go wrong, it probably will and they’re always looking for someone or something to blame for their problems.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.  – Mark Twain

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my new 1-Page Marketing Plan Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

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‍‍Understanding The 97%

While we want to do everything humanly possible to ensure we aren’t part of the 97%, as entrepreneurs we do still need to understand them, how they behave, and what they think.

As a marketer, your job is to enter the conversation already in the mind of your prospect.

If you ask most people why they haven’t achieved success, some of the most common responses include:

• The economy
• The government
• Taxes are too high
• Poor upbringing or parenting
• Unsupportive family or friends
• No time
• No money
• No opportunity
• Lack of skills or education
• Unfair boss
• Etc. etc. The economy

There’s just one thing wrong with this list – they aren’t on it!

Here are the results of a national survey which was conducted by one of the major newspapers on “cost of living pressure” also known as spending too much and earning too little. You can see how few people blame themselves for their current circumstances.

According to the Journal of Safety Research (Williams, 2003), 74% of Americans believe they are above-average drivers, while only 1% believe they are below average.

And it’s the same with accepting blame. How many times have you heard a child say, “It’s not my fault.”

And as adults, people are much the same. Most of us don’t believe we are in the wrong.

So what can you do with this knowledge? Well, whatever you do, don’t blame your prospects for the position they are in.

If we’re going to enter the conversation already going on in their mind, our sales and marketing message needs to take into account these existing thought processes – no matter how foreign they are from our own.

The Enemy In Common

A great way of leveraging the “it’s not my fault” mentality is what’s known as “the enemy in common”.

Take something relevant from your prospect’s blame list, side with them and tie it into a solution you have to offer. Here’s a sample headline that an accountant could use:

“Free Report Reveals How To Reclaim Your Hard Earned Cash From The Greedy Tax Man”

This is a great way of bonding with your prospect while offering them a solution to the source of the problem they blame.

You see, by using a common enemy, you connect with the prospect, and you’re seen as the savior against a foe – in this case the government.

Plus, it really rattles their cage. It enters the conversation already going on in their mind and stirs up the emotions that are already there just below the surface.

It’s a great way to break through the clutter and get your prospect’s attention.

So while you must walk away from the 97% to be successful, you can’t lose touch with how they think if you’re going to be a successful marketer.

Recently I was listening to an interview with Denis Waitley. The interviewer asked him what advice he would give someone to turn their life around and point them in the right direction. Denis answered with the following anecdote:

“I had a UPS delivery guy tell me he always wanted to be a rock star, so I asked him, ‘Where are you singing now?’ He said, ‘Nowhere, I’m driving this truck and I have two children.’ I told him, ‘No, let me tell you this: whatever you want to do, you must be doing now because there isn’t a single person who wants to be in a profession who isn’t already in it. So if you want to speak, you need to speak all the time—at lunches, Rotary, women’s organizations, everywhere, every time, and tape every one. Then one day you’ll get an audition tape where everything will work right, but you must be doing now what you want to be doing, or you’ll always be living on Someday Isle, and it’ll be on layaway.’”

Common goals people aspire to include writing a book, getting fit, starting a business, learning a musical instrument, learning a language, getting good at public speaking.

Denis asked the UPS delivery guy who wanted to be a rock star an excellent question, “Where are you singing now?”

This is a legitimate question because everyone who is currently at the top of their game was once at the bottom. Everyone who is now in the top 2% of what they do, was once in the bottom 2%.

Starting at the bottom is ok. Never starting is not OK.

The stars are never going to line up. Your unfair boss, your negative relatives, your lack of funds, your lack of time, your lack of knowledge, your lack of perfect health are never going to suddenly change and give you the “big break” you might think you need.

The UPS delivery guy is never going to one day find himself instantly transformed into a rock star. If his dream is to come true, he needs to start singing somewhere.

You just need to start. Start somewhere. Start at the bottom but start.

And let’s face it without the struggle and the disappointment and difficulty on the way, you can’t really call it a success. We cheer the self-made millionaire or billionaire who went from rags to riches and overcame great odds to be successful. But we feel a little differently about the heir who just had it all handed to them on a silver platter, don’t we?

The late great Jim Rohn puts it well:

“Let’s say you put a football under your arm and we followed you out to the nearest football stadium and you walk across the goal line. Would we cheer and call it a touchdown? The answer is no. It’s not a touchdown until you’ve faced the 300-pounders who want to smash your face in the turf. If you can muscle by them and dance by the secondary and cross the goal line with the football under your arm, now we all cheer, call it a touchdown and maybe you won the championship. But not without the contest.”

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my new 1-Page Marketing Plan Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

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The 10,000 Hour Rule

In Malcolm Gladwell’s brilliant book Outliers, he repeatedly talks about the 10,000-hour rule, proposing that the key to success in any field is largely a matter of practicing for around 10,000 hours.

One of the examples he gives is of The Beatles who performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time.

By the time they returned to England from Hamburg, Germany, they sounded like no one else and this made them a huge “overnight success.” However without the 10,000 hours practice, we likely would never have heard of them.

Most people are intimidated by a commitment as huge as 10,000 hours – and without a doubt it is a huge undertaking. But here’s the thing – regardless of what you decide to do, the 10,000 hours are going to pass. How are you going to use yours?

Getting Your Music Out

Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Former palliative care worker, Bronnie Ware, documented the top 5 regrets of those on their deathbed. The most common regret of all was how many dreams they had let go unfulfilled.

Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

While 10,000 hours is a difficult sacrifice to make, in contrast with dying with your “music”, your best, still in you, it seems like a small price to pay.

I often wonder how many people like Steve Jobs, Einstein, or Bono, the world has missed out on, because the person had the skill and the natural aptitude but not the courage or determination to get their “music” out and see themselves through 10,000 hours of practice.

How many talents have gone to waste because the person didn’t even start on their dream?

It often takes a near miss for people to become conscious of their mortality. That need not be you. Near misses sometimes never come and if they do they often hurt a lot!

What could you do to become more conscious of time and start on your dream today? Where could you be “singing”?

What is a unique selling proposition and why is it important to your business? You know you’re marketing your business as a commodity when prospects start the conversation by asking you about price.

Positioning yourself as a commodity and being shopped on price alone is a terrible position for a small business owner to be in. It’s soul crushing and this race to the bottom is bound to end in tears.

The answer is to develop a unique selling proposition (USP). ‍

What Is A Unique Selling Proposition?

A USP is something that positions you differently. It forces prospects to make an apples-to-oranges comparison when comparing you with your competitor.

If they can do an apples-to-apples comparison of you and your competitors it'll come down to price and you’re toast.

Why? Because there’s always someone willing to sell cheaper than you.

That's why I'm going to show you how exactly to come up with a unique selling proposition that sets you apart from customers and attracts the attention of the right lead. Let's dive in.

‍

How Do I Come Up With A Unique Selling Proposition?

Fact. Very few if any businesses or products are truly unique.

So a common question I get is, “If there’s nothing unique about my business, how do I develop a USP?”

There’s no quick and simple answer to that question but here are a few ideas.

Step 1: Get Into The Mind Of Your Prospect.

Firstly, to come up with a unique selling proposition you want to get into the mind of your prospect.

‍What do they really want?

• It’s rarely the thing you are selling.
• It’s usually the result of the thing you are selling. The difference may seem subtle but it’s huge.

For example, someone buying a $50 watch is buying something very different from a person buying a $50,000 watch.

In the latter case they are likely buying status, luxury and exclusivity. Sure, they want it to tell the time just like the buyer of the $50 watch. But that’s unlikely to be their core motivation.

Step 2: What Is The Result Your Prospects Want.

So to get into the mind of the prospect, we need to discover what result they are actually buying.

Understand this first, then craft your unique selling proposition based on the result your prospects want to achieve.

For example, if you’re a printer, you’re a commodity business. You want to get out of the commodity business as quickly as possible.

I don’t mean get out of the industry. You need to change how you position yourself.

Stop selling business cards, letterheads and printing.

Start asking open-ended questions such as:

• Why are you coming to a printer?
• What is it that you want to achieve?

The prospect doesn’t want business cards and letterheads. They want what they think business cards and letterheads are going to do for their business.

So you could sit down with them and say, “What are you trying to accomplish? Let’s do a printing audit and evaluate all of the things you’re trying to use printing for."

By taking them through the process, you can charge them to do a printing audit. Then if they end up hiring you to do their printing, you can apply that consulting fee towards printing.

This way you’re no longer viewed as a printer anymore. You’re now viewed as an advisor that’s serving their needs.

‍

An Outrageous Guarantee = Unique Selling Proposition

Another great strategy for creating a unique selling proposition is to offer an outrageous guarantee. One which completely reverses the risk of the transaction.

To be truly unique when using this technique you must avoid the vague crap that everyone says. So stop saying satisfaction guaranteed, service quality, dependability.

You need a very specific guarantee to address the fear or uncertainty that the prospect has about the transaction.

For example if you’re in the pest control business you’re customers want to know:

1. The pests won’t come back.
2. The technician won’t leave their house dirty.
3. You won’t poison their family with chemicals

Example Of An Outrageous Guarantee.

So your outrageous guarantee could be something like this:

“We guarantee to rid your home of ants forever, without the use of toxic chemicals. All while leaving your home in the same clean and tidy condition we found it. If you aren’t delighted with the service provided, we insist that you tell us and we’ll refund double your money back.”

Compare that to a weak, vague guarantee like, “satisfaction guaranteed”. That's not a unique selling proposition. It's a turn off.

Does an outrageous guarantee like the one above entail risk for the pest control service provider? Sure, if they do a crappy job.

But under these circumstances they’re likely to have to give the customer a refund anyway. It may even be a legal requirement.

Tell Them What You Do In Your Guarantee.

Here’s the other thing about guarantees. If you’re an ethical operator, you're already offering a guarantee but aren’t using it to your advantage in your marketing. This goes back to having your marketing plan, your blueprint for success.

So why not make a point of talking about something you’re already doing.

Most people are honest and won’t abuse guarantees if they’ve received the service they were promised.

Even after accounting for the few people who do abuse them, you’ll be far ahead. Because a strong guarantee will attract more customers than a weak and vague one.

A strong, results-oriented guarantee will also drive you to deliver a great customer experience. This alone ensures that it’s worthwhile to have a strong guarantee.

Your customers have their own fears. You want to name their fears and guarantee against them in your marketing. This gives your business an overwhelming advantage over your competitors.

‍

Pricing Strategy (Not A Unique Selling Proposition)

I’m sometimes asked, “can’t lowest price be my unique selling proposition (USP)?”

Sure it can, but can you absolutely guarantee that everything you sell will be priced lower than all your competitors including the behemoths like Costco and Walmart? Unlikely.

So a USP that says “lowest prices on some things, some of the time” is not quite so compelling.

The fact is if you’re a small or medium business, you’re unlikely to beat the big discounters at the lowest price game.

Truth be told, you probably don’t want to. By charging higher prices you attract a better quality client. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, you get far less grief from high-end customers than you do from low-end customers. I’ve seen and experienced this in multiple businesses across multiple industries.

Resist the urge to discount. Here's why. Instead, increase the value of your offering.

• Bundle in bonuses.
• Add services.
• Customize the solution.

These are all way you can offer genuine value to your customer and cost you very little. It also helps you create that apples-to-oranges comparison that gets you out of the commodity game.

‍

Next Steps

Don’t hate the player, hate the game. So, as hard as it may be to resist, don’t play the commodity/price game.

Develop your USP, deliver on it and make those you deal with play your game, on your terms.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy our article on Building Business Systems.  It will help you to skyrocket your sales, and attract investors.

Simplifying concepts and processes is an art form, one which pays huge dividends. By reducing or removing complexity, you create clarity and focus.

Almost no other field has so much nonsense and complexity associated with it as selling does.

There’s no real “trick” to it. We don’t need any voodoo or magic to sell our products and services. When you strip the sales process down to its core, it basically comes down to this simple 3 step formula:

• Here’s what I’ve got
• Here’s what it will do for you
• Here’s what I want you to do next

The point of all your sales and marketing efforts should be to communicate these three points in the clearest and most compelling way possible to your chosen target market.

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my new 1-Page Marketing Plan Course I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

Tell Me More

‍‍It's Not About You

Many people never get past step 1 in their sales process. They try to shout the loudest about themselves and their product or service just like vendors in a crowded market:

“We’ve got tomatoes, we’ve got tomatoes,” “We’ve got the best tomatoes, we’ve got the best tomatoes,” “We’ve got the cheapest tomatoes, we’ve got the cheapest tomatoes.”

You get the idea.

Shouting loud to get attention is a strategy, but in a crowded market where everyone is shouting about their wares, it’s difficult and expensive to get noticed.

Telling people who you are and what you’ve got is the first step. But what your prospects want to know most is what it’s going to do for THEM.

Communicating this clearly and concisely is an art form and a vital step in the sales process.

Paint a picture of the result they’ll get from the product or service you offer and how it will take them from pain to pleasure.

Include a Call to Action

It’s incredible the number of salespeople and marketers who stop at step two and never actually ask for the sale. Often they are uncomfortable about what feels like being pushy.

I certainly don’t advocate doing the hard sell but there’s a fundamental truth – people want to be led. And part of your role as a salesperson or trusted advisor is to provide that leadership.

A call to action provides your prospect with a logical final step and answers the question, “so what now?”

By omitting a call to action, you’re setting up an easy sale for your competitor after you’ve done the hard work of educating your prospect about what you offer and what it will do for them. Ouch.

Make sure your sales presentations and your marketing copy have a strong call to action.

Have a Good Offer - It's Vital

Some people think marketing is a substitute for a good offer. And sure you can fool a few people with tricky marketing or sales puffery, but you’ll have mediocre success in the long run.

Properly structuring your offer is a critical success factor. This is often where most beginners fall over. They don’t structure their offer properly and then they don’t market to the right people.

They’re either selling the wrong stuff altogether, or they’re putting the right stuff in front of the wrong people, or the wrong stuff in front of the right people.

For an offer to work effectively, there needs to be a well thought out match between message and market.

Keeping this simple three-step process in mind will help you maximize the yield of your selling effort and identify any holes in your current sales or marketing material.

Happy selling!

Do you struggle with shiny object syndrome?

Like a magpie drawn to shiny objects, you’re easily attracted and distracted by every new and exciting marketing opportunity.

You’d be crazy not to join TikTok. With over 2.5 billion in consumer spending in 2021, it’s a no-brainer. Right? SEO - gotta have it. LinkedIn - why not. Podcasting - never hurts. PPC - sounds like a plan.

But everyone knows that success requires focused attention. When you get caught up with each new fad and shiny object you lose your focus and become overwhelmed. And overwhelm leads to paralysis by analysis and inaction. Or worse, mediocrity.

So what’s the answer?

The simple answer is you need to unplug and get back to basics. But first, let’s look at what is shiny object syndrome?

What Is Shiny Object Syndrome?

Let me ask you this, are you easily dazzled by new trends and media opportunities? Do you pride yourself on being the first to adopt a new digital tactic? Or do you tend to add to your digital marketing arsenal because some ‘expert’ said you should? That’s shiny object syndrome.

It’s chasing the next big tactic, trend or ‘shiny object’ in online marketing without questioning why.

• Why would this be good for your business?
• Is it going to help you reach your customers more effectively?
• Are your customers even active on these digital outlets?

Sadly, it happens to good business owners worldwide. Every day a startup, entrepreneur or small business owner makes the mistake of signing up for another shiny object.

First, it was Facebook, then Twitter. Nowadays, its Instagram and TikTok.

You don’t need to be active on every digital platform. It won’t help you remain relevant. It’ll just cost you time and money better spent elsewhere.

How To Know You Suffer From Shiny Object Syndrome

So what are the signs that you might be addicted to chasing shiny objects?

1. You've got hundreds of business ideas, many of which you're trying to launch simultaneously.
2. You get excited by chasing a new project without seeing it to completion. I'm particularly bad at this. It's why I hired a team. They'll look at the viability of an idea before hitting play.
3. You're always chasing the next tactic or next course, next guru.
4. You never stop to check and see if your next business project (shiny object) fits your strategy.

Here's how to stop chasing shiny objects.

How To Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome

How do you stop the madness? Overcoming shiny object syndrome comes down to knowing your target audience. It’s not about being able to rattle off their age, location, and how many kids they have.

It’s knowing their habits, which social media channels they’re active on, and what influences their purchasing decisions.

For example, we’ve been plugging away at Instagram for a little over 18 months now with very little success. So we did an experiment. We sent my subscriber list an email promoting my Facebook page and one promoting the Instagram one.

Facebook received over 1,000 new followers from that email. Instagram got less than 150. So I know I’m wasting my time posting on Instagram.

So before trying to be the first to utilize a new platform think about this:

• What is the goal? Why am I investing time into this platform?
• What am I employing it to do?
• Who am I trying to attract?
• What is my message?
• What do I want to get out of my followers?

Often it comes down to time management. Unless you have a team, as entrepreneurs, you don’t have time to be active on or create unique content for the different platforms. And you’re certainly not going to thrive.

Here’s what I suggest you do instead:

Step 1: Do Your Research

Speak to your customers. This could be a survey, via email or jumping on to your help desk. Ask if they’re active on a particular social media channel.

Step 2: Check out your competitors

If they’re doing well and aren’t using a particular marketing tactic, chances are you shouldn’t either.

Step 3: Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Upfront

What numbers do you need to track? Then monitor the performance of these media. Use Google Analytics to track where your leads are coming from. You’ll quickly see if what you’re doing is working.

But remember, if you haven’t mapped out your marketing plan, you won't get the results you want or need. That’s how you overcome shiny object syndrome.

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my new 1-Page Marketing Plan Course I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

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Forget Shiny Tactics, Focus on Media You Own

As entrepreneurs, it’s easy to look at a competitor’s business which is thriving and blame your town or industry for your lack of success.

The grass on the other side seems greener and it’s seductive. But is it?

If there is anyone else in your town, industry, or type of business that is doing well, it’s unlikely that moving to greener pastures will solve your problems.

You are most likely the problem.

Russell Conwell’s classic speech Acres of Diamonds includes the anecdote of a man who wanted to find diamonds so badly that he sold his property and went off in a futile search for them. Meanwhile, the new owner of his home discovered that a rich diamond mine was located right there on the property that he had sold.

The message is to dig in your backyard. You have a home advantage. You know the terrain, what works, and what doesn’t. You have contacts and know-how.

You don’t need to travel to a distant land to be successful. Chances are, if you haven’t had success in your backyard, you'd only replicate the same results elsewhere.

And you’re not alone. Many entrepreneurs experience shiny object syndrome chasing. So they chase shiny objects time and time again hoping for high rewards.

The truth is, you can have the best talent and the right motivation, but if your business audience isn't mining a particular media (shiny object), your marketing will always fail.

How To Thrive

According to a quote by Anthony Greenbank in The Book of Survival, “To live through an impossible situation, you don’t need the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of a Hercules, or the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do."

Knowing what to do will eliminate 99% of your procrastination.

Procrastination is not laziness. I know for a fact that some of the most hardworking people suffer from procrastination.

Many times procrastination is a problem associated with not having a clear idea of what to do next. When you’re not clear on exactly what to do next and how to do it, your brain turns to mush and procrastination ensues.

Procrastination is your brain’s way of giving you something you know how to do as substitute, e.g., check your email, comment on Facebook, have a coffee, etc.

I know of only one way to achieve anything:

1. Learn
2. Do

Complex stuff eh?

Here’s the thing. You’ll never achieve what you want to do perfectly on the first go. If by some miracle you do, it’s just pure luck. Just as learning to ride a bike involves falling and losing balance a few times, so does achieving anything worthwhile.

Waiting until it’s all perfect or until you have all the information is a losing strategy. Remember 80% out the door is better than 100% in the drawer.

Strategy vs Shiny Object

A strategy is a principle, it’s simple and timeless. A shiny object is a technique or tactic. It’s subject to constant change.

As entrepreneurs, you want to learn principles first and then add techniques.

Techniques are the place that most shiny new objects and distractions come from. While it’s true you do need techniques to accomplish your goals, if you first haven’t learned the principles, the techniques will only distract you.

Take selling as an example. You can use the Internet, social media, mobile marketing, etc. to sell your products – these are all modern techniques.

However, the reasons people buy are the same as they were two thousand years ago and will be the same in two thousand years from now. These are principles that are timeless.

If you start with techniques, you’ll waste a lot of time and money and get distracted as the next new thing comes along.

Getting back to basics, truly understanding where you’re going and why you’re going there is the key to clarity and getting unstuck.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy our article, What is Direct Response Marketing? As a small business owner, it’s the smarter way to market your business.

Impulses, we all have them. But how often do you give in to yours? Generally there's a reason why.

Someone gave you an offer that was too good to pass up. A brand happened to serve you the right content at the right time, and if you didn't take advantage of it then, chances are you'd not get another opportunity like it.

That's direct response marketing. It's a type of marketing strategy that compels a high-quality prospect to take immediate action and opt into the advertiser’s offer.

• It educates instead of selling.
• It costs very little to produce.
• And the results are measurable, making it ideal for small businesses.

Here’s everything you need to implement an effective direct response marketing campaign—what it is, why it works, and which businesses will benefit from it. Click to jump ahead:

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Marketing Your Small Business - Why Use Direct Response?

The purpose of direct response marketing is to evoke an immediate response in your target audience. The people most likely to buy your product or service.

It uses emotive copy that connects with your prospect on a deeper more meaningful level, and a clear call to action compelling them to take action. It could be

• Opting into your email list (you'll need a CRM. I prefer Ontraport but ActiveCampaign is also a great one.)
• Picking up the phone and calling for more information
• Placing an order
• Filling in a form
• Visiting your website
• Trialing your product
• Downloading cornerstone content (a framework, free book, report, how-to guide)
• Taking your survey.

The point is you capture their details then and there. Unlike traditional advertising, with direct response, you don't have to rely on the prospect to remember to reach out to your business.

So why does this strategy benefit your business?

What are the Benefits of Response Marketing?

Direct response marketing is the ultimate marketing strategy for small business owners because you can't afford to invest in branding.

Branding is expensive. We're talking multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns. For most small businesses, that's probably your entire budget for the next five years.

You need leads fast. And as Hubspot's Not Another State of Marketing report finds that 70% of small businesses struggle with lead generation, direct response delivers the goods.

Here are six benefits of direct response marketing.

1. Lead generation. But not just any lead. High-value leads. People who just need a little personalization and reassurance they're making the right decision, and bam, they're sold.
2. A sense of urgency. Provided your offer is compelling, most prospects will throw caution to the wind and take action. The result — is a faster response rate. No sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.
3. Cost-savings. Because your marketing campaign is targeted, your upfront advertising costs are cheaper. You're not trying to reach a broad audience. So you'll spend less on unqualified leads.
4. It’s trackable. Whether you use direct marketing, social media, Google Ads, or landing pages, direct response is trackable. You can see exactly how many impressions your content received and converted. All you need to do is continue the conversation.
5. It opens a direct line of conversation with high-priority leads. Every single one of those people who opt-in due to your direct response ad are warm leads. They've given you permission to email them. Your goal is to deliver value, build a relationship and move them along your sales funnel until they're ready to buy.
6. It delivers measurable results. You can track how much money you invested into your campaign, how many leads you received, which channels performed well, and how many people converted. TV advertising and radio spots can't give you the same granular insight. They can't give you definitive results.

So what media can you use to implement your direct response marketing campaign?

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6 Effective Channels For Successful Direct Response Marketing

There are several response marketing channels that you can use to run an effective direct response advertising campaign. Ideally, you want to use a mix of online and offline marketing techniques.

Here are six examples of direct response campaigns.

1. Direct Marketing

Direct mail or snail mail is an excellent lead generation tactic. Think about. How many emails do you get from brands each day? Your inbox is bombarded with spammy marketing. It's easy to delete.

Now direct mail is exciting. It's something different that can help to build a positive brand image and start a conversation with potential customers.

You can use direct mail to implement a referral program. For example, include a voucher with a clear CTA for prospects. It could be a discount on their next purchase when they refer a friend. So using direct mail as part of your direct marketing strategy is a powerful example of reaching your target audience through response marketing.

Learn how to ask for a referral using direct mail here.

2. Email Marketing

Another great way to reach potential customers is by creating an email direct response campaign.

For example, you could create a limited time offer that lets subscribers access a course or event for free. You'd include a CTA button in your email that directs your prospects to a landing page where they can sign up for a free trial.

This type of marketing works because it delivers value before a sale. And let's be honest, customers love getting free stuff.

3. Digital Marketing

All of your direct response marketing campaigns need to include digital marketing tactics for example search engine marketing (SEM), banner advertising, and video marketing.

You could create a direct response campaign that answers the questions your audience are typing into Google. For example, if you know your customers frequently ask how to build a remote team you could create a blog that details exactly how to find the right talent, what tools they'll need, pricing strategies, and much more.

In the blog, you'd include a clear CTA that directs a customer to book a free hour consult. So make sure it's part of your direct response marketing strategy.

Here's another example. It earns Google's Featured Snippet. Not only is the blog helping it's ideal target audience, but the backlinks from these podcasts can improve their domain ranking and drive more traffic. So it's a win-win situation.

4. Social Media Marketing

Pretty much every business uses social media and most have a Facebook account. So why not use Facebook ads to target potential customers.

For example, you could create a direct response Facebook ad that offers your audience a free nutritional plan to help them feel good, look great, and drop inches quickly.

All they need to do is like your page and refer a friend.

It's direct, includes a clear CTA, drives prospects to take action, builds your audience and if you nurture new prospects you'll get more sales and brand evangelists. So don't discount social media as a successful direct response marketing tactic.

5. TV, Podcasting, And Radio

We've all seen those television commercials where if you buy now they'll throw in a bunch of extra add-ons. This type of response marketing has been used for years. But with podcasting, your brand now has a captured audience.

You can choose a highly specific podcast show and tailor your direct response marketing campaigns to their customers' unique needs. So make sure to include broadcast in your marketing campaign.

So these response marketing strategies work to build brand awareness, generate qualified leads, make more sales, and grow your customer base. Now that you know how to reach your audience, let's break down the essentials of direct response advertising.

6. Referral Programs

While you can't bank on word-of-mouth marketing to grow your business, it is one of the most effective direct response marketing strategies.

Why? Because people trust referrals from friends and family.

‍Referral programs build brand awareness and increase customer loyalty.

Let's use Fiverr's referral program as an example. For customers that refer a friend, the friend receives a 10% discount off their first purchase, and you could earn up to $100 as well.

So for job hunters, it's a great opportunity to make additional money.

What Is Direct Response Advertising?

Most brand advertising focus on name recognition. Direct response advertising, in comparison, focus on acquiring leads. The purpose of a direct response advert is to evoke an immediate response.

While every direct response advertisement includes a call-to-action, the point is not to sell.

It’s about getting people who are interested in what you do to raise their hand and say I want to know more. These leads go into a follow-up database (or sales funnel). From here it’s up to you to deliver value and position yourself as an authority. To gain their trust and build a relationship.

If you use direct response advertising to drive leads to landing pages, it's vital you've set up your sales funnel for each of your buyer personas. To learn more about how to master sales funnels click here.

Now let's take a look at the characteristics of direct response advertising.

8 Characteristics Of A Direct Response Advert

So what makes a successful direct response advertisement? There are eight key characteristics or techniques. They are:

1. Direct response marketing is trackable

When someone responds, you know which ad and which media generated the response.

This is in direct contrast to mass media or “brand” marketing. No one will ever know what ad compelled you to buy that can of Coke.

What’s more pressing is you track your ads. A survey by Blue Corona Media revealed less than 30% of small businesses use website analytics or call tracking. 18% admit to not tracking anything.

What gets measured, gets managed. You can’t improve your numbers if you don’t track and measure the results.

2. Direct response is measurable

With direct response marketing, you know which ads received a response and how many sales you got from each one. As a result, you can measure the effectiveness of each ad.

Now you can drop or change ads that aren't performing.

So measuring, managing and improving your key marketing numbers will impact the result.

3. Direct response ads use compelling headlines & sales copy

Direct response marketing has a compelling message of strong interest to your chosen prospects.

It uses attention-grabbing headlines with persuasive sales copy that is “salesmanship in print.”

Often the ad looks more like an editorial than an advertisement (hence making it at least three times more likely to get read).

Use the 7-Step Messaging Template to create marketing messages that connect with and convert your customers.

4. Direct response targets a specific audience or niche

It's served to prospects within specific verticals, geographic zones, or niche markets. The ad aims to appeal to a narrow target market. Your goal should be to become a big fish in a small pond.

If you need help identifying your niche audience follow this 8-step process.

5. Direct response marketing makes a specific offer

Usually, the ad makes a specific value-packed offer. It does not sell. Instead, the ad aims to get the prospect to take the next action, such as requesting a free report.

The offer focuses on the prospect rather than on the advertiser. It talks about the prospect’s interests, desires, fears, and frustrations.

By contrast, branding has a one size fits all marketing message. It also focuses on the advertiser.

6. Direct response ads demand a response

A direct response advert always has a “call to action.” It compels the prospect to do something specific.

It also includes a means of response and “capture” of these responses.

Interested, high probability prospects have easy ways to respond. It could be via a regular phone number, a free recorded message line, a website, a fax back form, a reply card or coupons.

When the prospect responds, it captures the person’s contact information. You can now contact them whenever you choose.

7. Direct response delivers a Multi-step, short-term follow-up

In exchange for capturing the prospect’s details, it offers valuable education and information on the prospect’s problem.

It includes a second “irresistible offer,” which ties into whatever next step you want them to take. For example, this could be calling to schedule an appointment or coming into the showroom or store.

Then it makes a series of follow-up “touches” via different media such as mail, e-mail, fax, and cellphone. Often there is a time or quantity limit on the offer.

8. Maintenance follow-up of unconverted leads

There are many reasons why people don't respond immediately. They may not have the money, or they may not need your services now.

There is value in this bank of slow-to-mature prospects. Make sure they continue hearing from you once to several times a month.

For example, let’s look at this LinkedIn Marketing Solutions (LMS) ad.

• As a promoted post on LinkedIn, LMS can track how many times the ad was served to prospects and who clicked on it.
• It uses an enticing headline and compelling copy. It shares the stories of six successful lead generation campaigns. If you want to drive real business results, you'll read it.
• It makes a specific offer. It will show you how to build a sophisticated lead generation strategy on LinkedIn.
• It includes a call-to-action. Learn more.
• On clicking the link you can read the article. A pop-up asks if you’d like to subscribe to the blog. You have to input your email address to subscribe to the blog. See their multi-step, follow-up form below.

Why Response Marketing Is Money At A Discount

Direct response marketing is an ethical way of selling. It’s focused on the specific problems of the prospect. And aims to solve these problems with education and particular solutions. It is also the only real way for a small business to reach the consciousness of a prospect affordably.

Your marketing system must deliver profitable results. You have to know what a customer is worth to you. Then you need to decide what you are reasonably willing to invest in acquiring one. Only then should you build systems that work within that limit.

Direct response marketing is accountable. Because it's focused on ROI, it's the responsible way to run marketing for a small business.

If I sold $10 bills for $2 each, how many would you buy?

The name of the game with direct response marketing is ‘money at a discount,’ e.g., $2 into advertising to get $10 out in the way of profits from sales. When you turn your ads into direct response ads, they become lead generating tools rather than name recognition tools.

Small Business Marketing Resources

I wrote the 1-Page Marketing Plan because I’d been that business owner struggling to figure out how to win at the marketing game.

I’d spent thousands of dollars on bad advertising that didn’t bring in leads or make a sale. It took me ten years to crack marketing my business, and that was ten years too long.

I wanted to give business owners a blueprint for success. It would be something they could use to build a strategic marketing plan and propel their business growth.

The book is an implementation breakthrough. It will show you how to create and implement a sophisticated direct response marketing plan for your business.

Use these resources to develop a response marketing campaign that gets results.

If you want to learn how to write better, click here.

Get Started With Response Marketing

Whether you're a marketing agency, or a small business owner, you need to master direct response marketing. It's the best way to target online consumers and get them to take action. Use it correctly and you'll substantially increase conversions.

Plus, there's no risk when using direct response. Just make sure your campaign and marketing offer is compelling. Direct response won't work if you don't have a good product-to-market fit.

So get on the phone with your customer. Add a chatbot to your website and find out what your consumers' challenges are because that's how you'll craft direct response adverts and campaigns that get results.

Now that you know how to attract the right lead. You need to build a lead nurturing email campaign that moves them along the buyer's journey until they're ready to convert to a customer.

‍If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy our article on Building Business Systems. It will help you to skyrocket your sales, and attract investors.

As business owners, we want to have a very high probability of success when creating and launching a new product or service.

Product creation is expensive and risky. A flop hurts. If it’s big enough, it can even kill the business.

Despite this, the product release process by most businesses is haphazard at best. Often it looks something like this:

• They design a product or service they THINK their market will buy.
• Time, money, and resources were spent creating the product or service.
• They add marketing to try to convince people to buy the product they’ve created.

Many business owners fool themselves into thinking that if their product is excellent, the market will buy.

While “build it and they will come” makes a great movie plot, it’s a terrible business strategy. One which comes with a high degree of failure. History is littered with technically excellent products that failed. A few examples include Betamax, The Newton, and LaserDisc to name just a few.‍

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my new 1-Page Marketing Plan Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

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The Purpose Of A Good Product

Before launching a product or service, ask yourself, "When does a prospect find out how good my product or service is?"

The answer of course is – when they buy.

If they don’t buy, they’ll never know how good your products or services are. As Thomas Watson from IBM famously said: “Nothing happens until a sale is made.”

Therefore we need to clearly understand an important concept: a good product is a customer retention tool.

If we give customers a great product or service experience, they’ll buy more from us, they’ll refer other people to us, and build up the brand through positive word of mouth.

However, before customer retention, we need to think about customer acquisition, AKA marketing.

All the most successful entrepreneurs always start with marketing. Specifically, market testing and measuring.

Fail Cheap, Fail Often Prior To A Launch

If you want to successfully launch a product, you need to understand that the market doesn’t care about your preferences, tastes, or opinions.

Adding marketing after the fact and trying to convince people to buy what you already have is difficult and expensive.

As entrepreneurs we want to turn the tables in our favor and have a high degree of success from the beginning.

Instead of adding marketing after the product has already been created, we want to reverse the product creation process and start with market testing.

As entrepreneurs, we want to find a hungry market and give them exactly what they want. We want to shoot fish in a barrel.

We want to sell someone something they already desperately want rather than trying to convince them to buy something they are lukewarm on.

If you're going to launch a product, then the Internet is your friend. It's quick, easy, and cheap to test and measure demand.

The Internet helps us know with a high degree of certainty what kind of demand a product or service might have.

Google Adwords, the largest and most sophisticated pay-per-click (PPC) engine. It can help you test if your product or service idea is likely to fly or die within a few days. And for only a few hundred dollars – BEFORE you spend time and money on product creation.

To Launch A Product You Need To Test it First

Here’s how the product testing process works.

1. You set up a simple landing page which has a “Buy Now” button at the bottom.
2. If someone clicks the “Buy Now” button, you take them to a second page with pricing, shipping and basic contact fields to fill out. This could be an email address and phone number.
3. If the visitor fills these out and presses “continue with order,” you take them to a third page. It tells them the product is currently out of stock. Explain that you'll contact them as soon as you have it available.

Your entire goal is to test how many clicks you got to your landing page. Then you want to test how many of those clicks would have converted to sales had the product been available.

From this basic information, you can decide whether there is true demand. And also whether it's worthwhile investing in the product creation process.

Now you can kill any ideas that aren't converting and go ahead with a high probability of success on ideas that did convert well.

This way you can fail often and cheap rather than betting the farm and going down in a blaze of glory.

Before a product Launch Survey Your Customers

Some people aren’t comfortable with the type of real-world test mentioned above.

A softer alternative is to survey your customers to check for demand. But this has to be structured very carefully. Why?

Because people will often give positive feedback to a product idea but when asked to shell out their hard-earned cash, their positivity often turns into excuses.

Start Testing the Feasibility Of Your Product

So before you launch a product on the market perform a real-world test. It's a great way of testing for true demand.

Regardless, the point is to test and measure for demand BEFORE the investment in product creation.

This is one of the best ways to achieve a very high probability of success when releasing a new product and is the best-kept secret of successful entrepreneurs.

Do you want to learn how to build a business process that improves productivity and efficiency? We break down how to build a process here.