Leverage Your Weaknesses
I have often been teased for being brainy and intellectualizing personal problems. I tend to think more than feel. I rationalize more than empathize. I am INTP.
I have never gone so far as to try to hide my smarts but I certainly have often seen it as a weakness instead of a strength. Like it’s something to be managed instead of something to be exploited.
This week in Quiet Power Strategy™: The Program, our clients completed Quiet Power Inventories. These begin with understanding your Onlyness. Onlyness is a concept from Nilofer Merchant’s book, 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era, and she uses it to talk about the unique angle that each of us bring to the work that we do.
From my perspective, Onlyness also applies to brands–it’s a big part of where they draw their Quiet Power from. The most memorable brands get really good at using what makes them unique to deliver additional value to their customers. And this often means focusing on what has become a perceived weakness and turning it into a genuine asset.
Instead of hiding what could be the butt of jokes, great brands put it out in the open. They exploit it.
Merchant writes in a recent post:
Your brand is the exhaust created by the engine of your life. It is a by-product of what happens as you share what you are creating, and with whom you are creating.
So if your engine is running on something–no matter how quirky it might be–and that’s not a key piece of what you’re putting out into the world, what’s representing you, what’s acting as a channel for the value you’re creating, you’re missing a big opportunity.
Don’t try to engineer a brand. Reverse-engineer a brand (click to tweet!) that supports your unique way of creating value.
My brand leverages my habit of intellectualizing and rationalizing. It sets my brand apart from brands that leverage fun & glamor or spirituality & poeticism. But its these unique strengths that allow each of these brands to deliver more value than they would if they were traveling down the middle of the road. And they are each things that could be perceived as weaknesses if not blatantly built into the very core of each business.
There’s a perception that there are certain “right” ways to create a brand or build the persona of your business. Whether you’ve bought into an image that ultra-professional, glam, corporate, spiritual, new age, or quirky, if the image of your business doesn’t spring from what you’re bringing to the table through your business’s unique skills, strengths, and passions, the resulting disconnect can drain you dry. Financially and energetically.
Your Onlyness helps you build a business model that really works. It informs your sales copy, your company culture, and your sales process. But, bottom line, it helps you & your business do what it does best.
As I mentioned earlier, often that thing that businesses are trying to hide, manage, or battle is the key to infusing Onlyness into their brand, business model, and sales process. It’s the thing they assume is keeping them from doing more, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Stop fighting it, start leveraging it.
If you’ve be struggling with how to manage a certain aspect of your personality or something that your business doesn’t do as well as you think it should, what would happen if you decided to highlight it? Harness it?
If you have a particular weakness that’s been nagging you for awhile, my friend & client Bridget Pilloud does this for a living. She helped me recast my social anxiety as a strength–which I’ve sense incorporated into my work in a big way.
Pains Points vs. Pleasure Points
“Pain points” are a key way we get people to pay attention to us as marketers. But when was the last time you spent time or energy developing “pleasure points?”
Pain points serve a purpose. They allow us as product designers to focus on needs and opportunities. They allow us as marketers to grab a prospect’s attention. They allow us as leaders & visionaries to show we can empathize with our prospect’s current situation.
Pain points have often been used to manipulate or shame. But they don’t have to be. And your marketing, sales, and product development will suffer if you don’t spend time identifying and communicating that you understand your customers’ pain points.
Pleasure points, on the other hand, are an underutilized reversal of the this old standby. Sure, you see plenty of “Make More Money,” “10lbs Thinner,” and “More Inner Peace Now” sprinkled around. But is this really painting the picture of pleasure that your prospects are looking for?
Pleasure points are a key way to get attention from your Most Valued Customers, especially in the You Economy, especially in a “saturated” market. And we’re all in the You Economy and most of us are in saturated markets. So how do you pin down your customers’ most important pleasure points?
Often, I ask my clients, “What does that look like?” or “What does that mean for your customer?”
Pleasure points are all about painting the full picture of success. Click to tweet! When you’re 10lbs thinner, you might get to shop at a trendier store for clothes that are a different size. When you’ve got more inner peace, it might look like a cleaner house or a less frazzled schedule.
But it’s also about searching for the deeper meaning of success. When you’re 10lbs thinner, you might be more inclined rekindle the fire in your romance or go looking for romance in the first place. It might mean that you spend less time at the doctor’s and more time in the great outdoors.
Just as Danielle LaPorte talks about using core desires as metrics of success, we can use pleasure points to name those desires, paint a vivid picture of them, and dive further into what those desires mean for our prospects so that we can help them create the “success” they’re after through using our product or service.
The key here is specificity. You’re not aiming to paint a Rothko. You want to aim for something more like photorealism. You must get clear on your customers’ core desires, the unique circumstances those lead to, and what deeper meaning those circumstances hold for your customer.
Sales is a Numbers Game: Are You Adding to the Number That Counts?
Every day I hear about failed launches or sales droughts and I want to help. But, most often, these “failures” are the result of lax lead generation and capture.
The biggest misstep I see in microbusiness is making email list-building a secondary priority. There is nothing more crucial to the success of your business than a list of engaged, qualified, and interested prospects.
This is true whether your business is based on a customized services or whether your business is offering more leveraged solutions through programs or applications. It’s true whether you’re creating work on a commission basis or whether your products are sold to wholesale clients.
Unless you have a multimillion dollar advertising budget, you need to prioritize getting email addresses from great prospects.
Every business needs a prospect list and the best (and most trustworthy) prospect list you have at your disposal is the list of people who have deigned to give you their email addresses.
List building is important because sales is a numbers game.
Let’s do the math:
I recently completed a launch of a high-end group coaching program. I offered it first to a group of 130 on an interest list and then opened it to my main list, which at the time was approximately 5600 subscribers strong.
We registered 3 from the original interest list. That’s a 2.3% conversion rate on the list. Pretty good.
The other 12 registrations came from the main list. That’s a .2% conversion rate. While it looks abysmal, it’s actually pretty good, too.
The interest list averaged over a 50% open rate on the promotional emails. That’s pretty par for the course when it comes to people who opt in to learn about something specific. Since the change in Gmail inboxes, I’ve been averaging approximately a 29% open rate for emails to my general list.
Think about that. On the best performing email to the interest list, 88 people learned the program was open and 62 people click through to the offer. An offer like this isn’t likely to get better than a 1% conversion rate. That means I could expect about .6 people to register based on the interest group alone!
For the main list, the main direct sales email had a 30% open rate and a 4.1% click thru rate. That means 232 people saw the offer that day. So I could expect another 2.3 registrations.
Great, I’m up to almost 3 whole people!
In the end, we had 15 registrations on this program. We generated about $40,000 in revenue. So, clearly, I had more than almost 3. But the point is simply: with a list of 5,600 prospects, an engaged readership, and solid conversion, I just filled this program. I’m incredibly pleased with the results and the position we’ll be in when the program launches again in February.
But it could have gone very differently.
For another example, when I launched The Art of Growth in January, my announcement email received just over a 40% open rate and a click rate of almost 11%. That means that, from my list, 537 people saw the offer that day. I sold 48 copies on the first day and 134 total over the next 3 weeks. That was a 2.6% conversion rate based on the list size. Though, that also included social media traffic.
You will likely find people who have rocked 100 conversions on a 1,000 person list. Or filled their client roster with a list of 200. And that’s fantastic. But if you’re looking for the ease & scalability of a solid launch, I think you need to count on a different numbers game.
You should figure on 40% open rate, a 10% click rate, and a 2% conversion rate on your offer for an engaged email list. Which means to get 20 sales, you need to drive 1,000 views of the offer, over the course of several emails from a list of several thousand. And, frankly, that’s optimistic.
For a lower priced, highly targeted offer, you might get a better conversion rate. For a higher priced offer, you’ll need more.
These are the kinds of numbers I use with clients to help them set sales goals. But it’s more important to set list-building goals before the sales cycle starts. If you really want to get 20 sales, how many people do you have to have on your list? 500? 1000? More?
I know, this all might be very depressing to those who are just starting out, those who feel like list-building is akin to dental work, and those who just feel like it should be working by now.
I get it. But please don’t be depressed, take action. Re-prioritize. Set goals. And do it now. Don’t wait any longer or pretend you can half-ass this. Because you can’t.
Now, what I’m not saying is that everyone needs to build a 10,000 or 50,000 subscriber list. On the contrary, I believe you need to build a list that is appropriate to the type of business you run.
If you run a business focused on volume, where selling more means making more money and working less, you need to grow as big of a list as possible that is also focused, engaged, and ready to buy.
But if you run a business that is geared to 1:1 service, customized solutions, or commissioned work, you need to grow a list that supports one sale at a time, understanding that your kind of clients don’t necessarily jump when you “launch.” You’ll use your list to nurture leads and keep them warm until both of you are ready to work together.
Either way, a constant focus in any business is lead generation, ahem, list-building. Click to tweet!
And when I mentioned to Stephanie that I was working on this post, she asked me to address the question of “stalled” list growth. I think this is something every business will encounter. Things are going along swimmingly, maybe you’ve let success lull you into a dream world where everything is just “easy” now… and then you realize you don’t have any prospects. And your list is no bigger than the last time you made an offer.
So how do you jump-start your list growth? How do you attract new leads after a fallow period?
Of course, these answers work for jump-starting the start of a list, as well.
1) Attract the right people.
Consider the direction you’re taking your business. Are you looking for more of the same? (The answer may be “yes, please!” It’s not a trick question.) Are you moving from 1:1 services to scaled offers? Are you looking to shift the perception of your brand? Focus on a product you’ve been working on? Honing in on a new market segment?
Trust me, you don’t want anyone & everyone on your list. Even if your goal is scale, it just doesn’t make sense. Having the “wrong” people on your list skews your data, undermines your understanding of what your customers need from your business, and misdirects your marketing. Yes, the “wrong” people will unsubscribe. But if you’re too busy trying to please them, the “right” people will unsubscribe first.
If you’re using an incentive to attract prospects to your list, make sure that incentive is something people who want (and need) to pay for your services actually want. Taking that idea quite literally, I updated my own email list incentive 2 months ago to The Perspective Map. It’s actually the tool that my clients & I use most often, with the greatest impact, in our work together. Since I want more of the same clients, offering this tool as an optin incentive makes a lot of sense.
Since I introduced The Perspective Map as my incentive in July, I’ve added over 650 subscribers to my list. I know those people are the right people because the landing page for the Map is designed with their specific problems, specific goals, and specific perspective in mind. It’s kind of the point of the whole thing, really…
That means that when I re-launched my coaching program last month, I knew that 650 had not seen that offer. In addition to people who had been considering it from May, I could count on a certain percentage of new people being interested. The Perspective Map was designed to make the most impact on business owners who were right for this offer, too.
2) Get focused.
At this point, I hope you can see just how important list-building is to your business. Even if your goal isn’t volume, if instead you’re aiming for a steady stream of leads for more 1:1 or specialized services, list-building ensures that you can spend less time and energy on sales.
So is the focus of your website building your list? Do you have a way to focus traffic from interviews, media appearances, and in-person gigs onto your list? Is your call-to-action focused on the story that is growing your business?
No, I didn’t think so.
It takes surprisingly little to redirect the focus of your activities onto list-building. You just need to make the intention to do so.
Start by creating a landing page for your optin form. This is a page that’s one & only focus is getting people on your list. Whether you’re espousing the benefits of receiving your weekly emails or sharing what your prospects will learn in your free optin incentive, this page is designed to “sell” your list. It’s like a sales page where the only cost is an email address.
Therefore, it has a similar format. In a recent podcast with Derek Halpern, Mike Del Ponte shared a great framework for any sales letter. You can use this as a cheat sheet for creating this kind of page. He breaks it down into 4 P’s: Promise, Picture, Proof, Pitch.
Check out my email list landing page and you’ll see this basic framework in action. The Promise is in the headline; I suggest that you really can know exactly what your customers are thinking. I describe the Picture from both the before and the after side of things through a series of bullet points. I offer the proof that this is my “go-to tool,” that my work has been featured in a number of high-profile publications, and that a very satisfied customer had something super nice to say about it. And finally, the Pitch is the call-to-action in the optin form.
But I don’t stop at the landing page, the main “action area” of my website is a graphic that advertises my list. All of my bios have been rewritten to direct people here. And it’s the first thing I talk about when I get a chance to tell people where to find more of my ideas when I do an interview.
You might need to refocus the main action of your site on list-building by moving your optin form from the footer to the header or creating a feature area between your logo and the main content. But there is almost no good reason why making a big play for a prospects email address isn’t the best thing you can do.
3) Pay for leads.
Who pays for advertising in the age of social media?
I do.
I’m busy. I don’t like to work all day. I haven’t had the itch to do much in terms of guest posting, telesummits, or even networking lately. So I’ve been driving traffic to my email list landing page through paid advertising.
In the past, I’ve advertised (always free incentives, never paid products) on blogs that fit the audience I’m aiming to attract. But lately, I’ve been buying advertising at Facebook. First, to build up my new Facebook page (I’m late to the party). And second, to gain exposure for my email list incentive.
A hearty portion of the 650 subscribers I’ve added in the last eight weeks has been through this paid campaign.
There’s little point in paying for leads if you don’t have “Attract the right people,” and “Get focused,” down first. But once you do, paying for leads can free up your time, boost your list growth, and bring in the kind of prospects you need to keep your revenue streams humming.
It should also be noted that advertising and social media can work hand in hand. By making sure my optin incentive speaks to my Most Valued Customer and that it’s free training they’re going to want to talk about, I ensure a bigger return on investment through word-of-mouth. I also work in social sharing (like Click to Tweet) to the product page for my incentive.
Bonus: 4) Stick to one thing.
One of the best things you can do for keeping that list growing, getting people to talk about it, and continuing to get open & click rates that drive sales is to stick with one thing per email.
Often, marketers try to jam too much stuff into each email. That decreases the frequency with which they’re willing to send emails, de-incentivizes them toward list-building, and reduces the relative value of each email to their readers. That’s a recipe for disaster, my friends.
When my clients and students switch to one-thing-per-email, they are more excited about emailing their prospects, more focused on building their list, and their readers are happier with each email. And that’s a recipe for success.
As you might have noticed if you’re a subscriber, I send out each & every one of my blog posts as the main focus of the vast majority of my emails. Most of the time it’s the full text of the article and sometimes it’s a teaser or special intro with a link to the article. But the focus is always the article.
I often add a promotional block beneath the article for a workshop, a teleseminar, a program, or a product. I think of those as “reminders,” not the core of my sales process.
When I’m ready to really sell something, I send out a dedicated email.
As an aside, another problem I see with “failed” launches is that the business owner never sent dedicated sales emails to their prospects. You can’t expect to sell if no one knows you have something for sale.
What will you do today?
I trust I’ve made the case for making list-building one of your chief priorities. It’s time to stop saying it’s on your list and time to start doing something about it.
What will you do today to jumpstart your list growth? Tell me in the comments.
Why Good Ideas are the Best Investment You Can Make
I live and work in the oldest permanent settlement West of the Rocky Mountains, Astoria, Oregon. The only chain store downtown is JCPenney and it’s housed right alongside independent shops in the kind of facade typical to the downtowns of the West.
My typical day starts with an hour or two of work at Street 14 Coffee, owned by my good friends Jennifer & Micha Cameron-Lattek. After a few hours in my home office, I might move on to the brewery–the 10th fastest growing brewery in the country–where my boyfriend works. Inevitably, my day includes a brisk walk through downtown and alongside the Columbia River. It often ends at Astoria Coffee House & Bistro–whose $3 taco night on Thursdays is not to be missed.
My friends and I often discuss the state of business in Astoria today. It’s booming. It’s diverse. And it’s fun. But that doesn’t mean that every business that opens shop in downtown Astoria will succeed. Many will not. And what almost always predicts the success or failure of a new business is capital.
Businesses that fail in Astoria are undercapitalized.
In a brick & mortar business, undercapitalization is predominantly a money problem. There’s not enough money to invest in initial layout and design so fixtures are cheap-looking or equipment isn’t top notch. There isn’t enough money to fund the owner’s salary let along good help so the shop is often closed or the people who work there are untrained and uninterested in the success of the business. There’s not enough money to properly reach new customers so the website remains unfinished, the Facebook page unloved, and email marketing just a pipe dream.
It takes a lot of capital to start a business, even in a town where life is relatively cheap and business is booming.
Capital has long been the biggest barrier to entry for entrepreneurship. If you didn’t have money, know people with money, or have access to other forms of real capital (land, equipment, oompa loompas), you likely couldn’t start a business no matter how good your ideas.
I also find that undercapitalization is a problem in the world of microbusiness, only, in this world, it’s not money that is the chief problem.
In the You Economy, capital looks different. No longer is it money in the bank or your name on a deed of land; ideas are capital.
Recently, a server at a restaurant I frequent asked me if I had a job or if I just drag my laptop around to different breweries to look busy. Obviously, the answer is the latter.
I jest.
I explained that what I do is help people who are interested in growing businesses that, instead of filling up office buildings full of staff and equipment, will deliver a regular dividend on their ideas.
To put it another way:
I help people get a bigger return on investment for their ideas.
Because it’s the idea that’s the capital.
And I only work with businesses that are properly capitalized in that department.
So what do I mean when I say that I believe there’s an undercapitalization problem in the world of microbusiness?
I mean that all too often I see businesses following someone else’s model, vying for a piece of an already established idea pie, instead of investing their own ideas.
That is not to say that you need a big idea to have a properly capitalized microbusiness. It doesn’t mean that you need to have the secret sauce for disrupting the existing market and turning an industry on its head.
No, when I see this form of capital paying the highest returns it comes from obsession, a learning mindset, and a willingness to take big risks. It manifests through social media, guerrilla networking, and clandestine projects. It springs forth through clever marketing campaigns, on-target email updates, and why-hasn’t-someone-thought-of-that-before products.
Have you ever noticed that the people who are truly succeeding in microbusiness aren’t the people who have followed some pre-ordained system? Set their websites up just so? Or doing things by the book?
The people who are truly succeeding are investing their idea capital.
They’re taking big risks, doing things against the grain. They’re obsessed with exploring new angles and charting new territory.
Take a look at Erin Giles and her End Sex Trafficking project. This is one monstrous idea. Last year she published a book by raising $10,000, this year she’s working directly with organizations who are creating change on this front. And she’s recruited top talent in the idea industry and produced creative products that support her vision.
Your idea doesn’t have to “world changing” in the traditional sense, however.
Last year, I interviewed Stephanie Alford about her first 5-figure month as a yarn-dyer. Over the last few months, Stephanie has messaged me to let me know–multiple times–when she’s cracked 5-figure days. I would attribute this to her unceasing ability to turn very simple ideas, like her mini-skein club, into capital. And once she has an idea, she turns on her creative engine to continue to produce ideas that fuel her initial investment.
Had Stephanie done everything she could to “optimize her Etsy shop” or had Erin ventured down the typical solopreneurial service path, neither would be featured in top publications, bringing more revenue than they had dreamed, or earning the praise of their colleagues and customers.
There is a fine line between learning the how-to of something and defaulting to someone else’s best practices.
In the end, your ideas are the capital that makes your business work. Click to tweet!
Don’t be frustrated when ideas come fast & furious. Use them. Take risks. Experiment. Obsess. Learn what turns you on. Learn what turns your customers on. Venture into new territory. Dare to be disagreeable.
And, by all means, don’t worry about doing things the right way.
Find people who will support your crazy ideas–your obsession, your learning, your risk-taking–and help you turn that capital into a strong investment in your future.
New Opportunities Spring from Expansive Brand Vision: You Economy Case Study
Megan Cain, founder of The Creative Vegetable Gardener
At the end of 10ThousandFeet, I feel excited about my business and the future instead of being overwhelmed and stressed out.
The biggest shift for me came in realizing that I was spending a lot of time focusing on the technical information around gardening and not enough time painting the bigger picture of what it means to have a beautiful garden in your life. For me and most of my customers gardening is so much more than just growing food.
I have begun to shift some of my writing to focus on exploring some of the deeper benefits and meaning of gardening. My first post definitely resonated with my readers because I received several enthusiastic emails asking me to write more about the topic.
I am also changing my website to add more language and photos that reflect the new tagline Tara helped me come up with, “your garden should feed you, body and soul.” I am excited about this new direction! I am clearer about where I want to go and what I need to do to get there after taking 10ThousandFeet.
Find out more about Megan and the gardens she designs at creativevegetablegardener.com.
Ana Ramos, founder of air illustration & design
One of the most important shifts for me was to start to understand the power of team building. Before that, I was very untrained in asking for help and seeing the possibilities when it came to broadening my offers through partnerships with other experts.
With a fresh understanding of team building and strategic partnerships, I saw how I could accept a larger project from an old client, a project that will be a huge contribution towards reaching my chief initiative for the year.
But I learned many more things, like how to streamline my efforts and manage clients’ expectations: I used to react to clients’ requests and work overtime and now I am able to plan and schedule in advance, reducing stress.
And today I felt I reached a huge milestone when I rewrote my Embroidery Club sales page. Now I understand why you say it’s fun.
As she builds her team and expands her vision, she’s be able to do so from a place of strength and purpose, bringing on those who complement her artistic vision instead of competing with or diluting it.
Find out more about Ana Ramos and air illustration & design.
Building a Business on Your Strengths: You Economy Case Study
Christine Thatcher, founder & creative director of Christine Marie Studio
I used to refer to myself as a freelance web designer. I was the one always working hard on what’s right in front of me, without time to think about to what and where I wanted to be 6 months from now. Tara’s reference to “getting out in front of my business” hooked me.
Having been a “freelancer” off and on the last 20 years, I wasn’t sure if this was possible. I’d never achieved it.
Now, on the other side of 10ThousandFeet, I’m beginning to experience it. During the course of the mastermind:
- I rebranded my business under a name I liked better.
- I have created a business model that works for me. I no longer feel compelled to do things a certain way, just because everyone else does.
- The Customer Perspective Process™ helped me get inside my client’s head and understand what she’s thinking and feeling. I’ve tailored my offerings to be more relevant to what she needs.
- I wrote an “about” story that feels true to me. As a result, I’ve gotten several notes of encouragement from potential strategic partners and booked a new client who identified with my story. (Understand that I used to stare at the screen for days, trying to write about myself and it never felt “right”. Tara and Brigette’s formula made it an almost effortless process and I did it in one evening.)
- I recognized where I could leverage my time further, created a job description and hired a second administrative team member.
- I’m looking forward to implementing referral and communication strategies, many of which came directly out of coaching calls with Tara and Brigitte.
I now say that I own a web design studio. I have a legit business with dedicated team, I am no longer an overworked freelancer. By shifting my perspective and delegating away what I don’t enjoy, I have more energy for the parts I really love and where I can make the biggest impact. I’m working less, more-focused hours, designing for clients that inspire me.
I’m grateful for the effort that went into creating a mastermind packed so full of value, tools and lessons relevant to my business right now.
For Christine, leverage isn’t so much about “passive” income but income that is based on her working at the highest levels of mastery and finding others to do the work that drains her. And in the end, that creates a much better experience for her clients.
Find out more about Christine & the beautiful websites she designs at christinemariestudio.com.
Natasha Vorompiova, founder of Systems Rock
I am eternally grateful to 10ThousandFeet–to Brigitte and Tara.
When I first started my online business, I got hooked on buying one online program after another, trying to fill the huge gaps in my knowledge of how to grow it. Then I got completely overwhelmed and torn between all the contradictory advice.
It was so frustrating to have this amazing vision but to be stuck in this giant gap between where my business was and where I wanted it to be.
I felt so inadequate. . .especially because I’m a systems person! I create systems for my clients every day. Why, then, couldn’t I get my own business together?!
When Brigitte mentioned that she and Tara were accepting applications for 10ThousandFeet, I was immediately intrigued.
After three months in the course, I emerged with an even more precise sense of where I wanted my business to be heading. Even better, I learned exactly how to make my vision a reality.
Having gone through Tara’s Customer Perspective Process,™ I learned precisely whom I need to be targeting, with what messages and what kind of offering will help them get to their goals faster. With Tara’s help I mapped out the plan of action and with Brigitte’s guidance, an outreach strategy.
I’ve never felt so grounded and in control. The painful tension between all that conflicting advice has dissolved, and information overload is a thing of the past.
There is so much ease when you’re running a business in this way! I feel so inspired as I take each and every step to transforming my vision into a reality.
That said, offering those more leveraged offers means that she can position her 1:1 service at a higher level, attracting clients that excite and challenge her, pushing her further & further into her realm of mastery.
Find out more about Natasha and systematizing your business at systemsrock.com.