This is part 3 in the 5-part series on the main ‘activities’ you should devote your time to when building an online business.

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.

Today’s topic is going to be super-popular (;-)

Hyper Growth Activity #3: Make some darn sales!

If you’re the kind of person who avoids ‘sales’ and ‘being salesy’ at all cost, well

• you’re not alone (apparently, about 10% of the population find sales ‘natural’ … weirdos;-)
• the ‘at all cost’-part is costing you a LOT!

it’s so very easy to ‘build the perfect site’ (“and then they will come“), …

… draft the perfect webinar …

… strategize the ideal ‘funnel’ …

… or even design the perfect flyer (and then only display it on your OWN bar-counter – see Part 1 of the series!)

Fact is:

(especially in the beginning), until you have designed, tested and implemented predictable, repeatable marketing & sales-SYSTEMS, you need to go out and actively ‘sell’.

If you want some inspiration, check out this BBC article ‘from working class boy to $1BN business’ – and look out for the ‘get loan for car, and then …’-part!

That article also contains a great quote:

It wasn’t really about building a business – that comes with time and maturity. But the crash brought that along. It was a good learning curve.

And that’s precisely what I’m trying to give you here:

the notion that the sooner you start building a business (instead of chasing the next big fix) the sooner you have something robust and predictable.

So, back to activity #3 – ‘selling’, here are a few ideas:

Make it your business to spend a little bit of time every day:

• mailing/sending out an offer. (no, not a convoluted “hey, sign up to my list, and then, and then, and then …“, but a straight: “here’s something of value, if it’s for you, please give me some $” )
• arrange a joint-venture (with the objective of the stuff in brackets in the previous line;-)
• set up a webinar (with, well, you get the idea)
• send out some cold emails (see the BBC article, THAT right there is why I’m really recommending cold emails in Part 1 of the series! Because it works!) (especially in B2B people don’t want to wade through endless ‘warm-up and nurturing campaigns’. Get to the point, will ya!)
• etc…

Easy? Most likely not.

Worthwhile? Absolutely!

But perhaps that’s just me

Cheers

Veit

as you may or may not know, towards the end of May next year, the so-called GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) comes into effect in the EU.

However, it applies to ANYONE selling into the EU … and that includes pretty much all online/Internet marketers.

So, straight from their FAQ http://www.eugdpr.org/gdpr-faqs.html

the ‘scary’ one:

What are the penalties for non-compliance?

Organizations can be fined up to 4% of annual global turnover for breaching GDPR or €20 Million.

This is the maximum fine that can be imposed for the most serious infringements e.g.not having sufficient customer consent to process data or violating the core of Privacy by Design concepts.

There is a tiered approach to fines e.g. a company can be fined 2% for not having their records in order (article 28), not notifying the supervising authority and data subject about a breach or not conducting impact assessment.

It is important to note that these rules apply to both controllers and processors — meaning ‘clouds’ will not be exempt from GDPR enforcement.

Regarding the first part (the 4%): that applies to the entire company-structure.

So if you think: “not to worry, this one company that might be affected is only a small thing under my umbrella brand” … think again:

GLOBAL turnover of the ENTIRE company!

As you can see, they explicitly mention ‘not having sufficient customer consent to process data’.

Here’s where this gets scary:

look at the last paragraph I mentioned:

if you store customer information in e.g. Aweber, and they get hacked … YOU are responsible!

It is YOUR responsibility to CHECK up-front (and keep checking on a regular basis) that (in this example) Aweber are GDPR-compliant (they’re not, just checked, see below)

Now it gets even scarier:

even if you can prove that Aweber messed up and YOU checked in on them on a regular basis … it’s still the 4% of YOUR company that’s on the line (or €20 Million, whichever is the greatest).

You can then TRY to reclaim that from Aweber, but that’s YOUR job. YOU/YOUR company foots the bill to begin with.

in case you’re wondering: I attended a seminar on just that topic last Thursday, great presentation by a lawyer who specializes in just this thing.

The big take-away from this was:

obviously, the scary stuff from above.

But, probably more importantly:

Data Protection (at least for those selling into the EU) is now a PROCESS!

It’s an ongoing effort, and in order to be compliant, you will have to prove that you have systems in place!

If you don’t … that’ll be 2% or €20 Million … whichever is the greatest.

Just to scare you some more:

just had a chat with Aweber … and they think they’re safe because they US-EU Safe Harbour agreement (self-)certified.

They’re NOT safe:

https://iapp.org/resources/article/safe-harbor-and-gdpr-action-plan/

(read the Price Waterhouse Cooper article at the top)

how’s that for a lighthearted start to the week?;-)

Cheers

Veit

PS: if you’d like to sign up to my new “Drip”-list, you can do so here:

here’s a nice lil’ case-study illustrating a major mistake many people make when selling or copywriting:

it’s about not backing things up with ‘proof’ of some sort.

The example in this video shows you why/how:

[UPDATE] About a day into the ‘launch’

Here are the current stats – and they ain’t pretty:

Here’s why I’m pointing this out:

it’s not meant to be nasty, or high-horsey, or anything like that, but instead to highlight 3 very important points:

1. there’s a ton of rubbish being taught out there (in this case Murat fell for the “hey, just get some PLR/Whitelabel/Codecanyon dev-right material, rebrand it, and launch it, and you’ll make $bazillions”. In most cases – like this, that $bazillions part won’t happen)
2. Launches are inherently a rubbish model to use – especially when you get started.
   They work just fine for Apple etc because they already have a massive fan-base, and they already know exactly what people WANT (so they can give it to them, as in: they know exactly HOW to give it to them),…
   But if you’re an unknown, and you’re marketing a product where it’s an unknown HOW to market that product to whom (or if anybody even wants it), then the odds of “$bazillions” once again, is very slim.
3. The main ‘mechanism’ by which the 2 previous points work (and are sold to you) is using pressure cooker tactics: it’s all about urgency, scarcity etc. And that sucks, (for me) mainly from an ethical point of view, but also from a business perspective:
   1. it constantly adds to the ‘marketing noise’ (because everybody is shouting, you need to be shouting louder) – and that’s INEVITABLY driving the whole process/approach into a dead-end (want proof? Look at where the WarriorForum went. The JVZoo-world is on a similar trajectory right now)
   2. a ‘pressure’-based launch model is a churn-and-burn model: you do everything to get a buyer through the door, no matter what. And that more often than not leaves a bad taste in people’s mouth. Not good for building Know-Like-and-Trust, and definitely NOT the basis for building a long-term, mutually beneficial business-relationship where you keep getting paid for continually solving people’s problems.

To return to Murat and his launch:

I reckon (this is based purely on what I’m observing, I don’t know Murat, haven’t done any business with him before) that Murat was in the typical position of “wanting to earn $ online” and not knowing  where/how/in what form/whom to he could provide value to. (as in: he was clueless)

And when you are ‘clueless’ … ANYTHING (and I mean literally ANYTHING) that says “with my method you can earn $ online” WILL look appealing to your brain (your brain’s main mission is to filter IN the information you are looking for, and filter OUT the information that’s not relevant to you at this point).

And when you’re looking for a general objective like “make $ online” … that’s precisely what your brain will highlight with a big fluorescent marker pen.

And, as Murat (probably) didn’t have any basis for making an informed decision … the idea of just relabelling something and relaunching it seemed like a plausible thing to do.

(and thus he wasted time, energy and money setting it all up … for very little to no reward whatsoever)

if you find yourself in the same boat as Murat (not exactly sure where/how/in what form/whom you could provide value to (and get paid for it)), then you’ll like my upcoming

“Pick Your Path” Course

Which

1. helps you pick the online business model that suits your personality style, your strengths and your background best
2. is free, and best of all:
3. is given to you without any pressure cooker tactics whatsoever;-)

if you’re interested, have a look here

(in my email I suggested there would be an email signup form. Well, I got busy and created the first module of the course, and you can access it by creating your account on the next page)

That’s disgusting

she exclaimed!

And changed my life forever.

“She” was Katrin, an ex-girlfriend of mine (we were still friends – still are), and I’d come to visit her at her parents home in Jever in Germany.

And because Jever is where they brew a fantastic beer, she’d taken me on a guided tour.

We’d just arrived, had a few minutes to spare, and were waiting outside with a few other people.

One of them was a teenage-boy, about the same age as us, 16 or 17.

And just as we’re about to be let in, he does the ‘snot-gurgle’ (I can’t find the technical term for it, but I hope it’s descriptive enough. The act of, well, gurgling, and then spitting it all out with a loud cracking noise)

Truly disgusting.

Just as Katrin had said. (well, more like “EXCLAIMED!!!” in all-caps and with 3 exclamation marks. For everyone to hear;-)

And it changed my life forever, because much to my embarrassment, I have to admit that my stupid male teenage-brain thought that doing the snot-gurgle probably wasn’t such a bad idea and that I might just copy it.

Fortunately that thought process took a fraction longer than Katrin’s public shaming of both the other teenager and all my future impulses to be disgusting (especially in the presence of a lady), so I never did. (gurgle that is)

Here’s the thing:

based on observing 4 of them here at home, I can tell you that your average teenager spends a significant amount of time in front of a mirror every day.

Later on today, I’m taking one of them to the hairdresser (when I was a lad, mum had a sauce-pan and a pair of clippers for that job)

and when the hair is done, there’s plenty of ‘product’ in it.

Then there’s the clothing. And shoes. (Imelda would be jealous…)

and accessories.

and having the ‘right’ kind of school-bag

etc, etc, etc.

Boy do they look and smell good.

And yet, NONE of that matters – all that time, that effort and money wasted … when you snot-gurgle.

Snot-gurgling is a FUNDAMENTAL Flaw!

Change that, and EVERYTHING changes.

But as long as you do something your ‘prospect’ doesn’t like (or finds disgusting), no matter how hard you try, they will not look at you (best case scenario) – or shame you in public (worst-case scenario).

And that, right there is what I mean when I say:

Please, (PLEASE), focus on the FUNDAMENTALS!

No amount of shiny shit added to a terrible offer is going to make that offer appealing.

And yet, that’s precisely what 99% of the population (of marketers) are doing:

they focus on ‘making things looks good’ … whilst ignoring the fact that their TOM (traffic-to-offer-match) is truly awful.

As in:

your prospective traffic thinks your offer is the equivalent of a snot-gurgle.

I know, we all want shortcuts, quick wins and as little energy expended as possible.

it’s natural, it’s even hardwired into our brains.

so, when I keep saying: “oh, btw, if you want to ‘win’ online, focus on the fundamentals, not the shortcuts“, more likely than not, your brain is telling you: “nah, ignore that, I’m hardwired to want the shortcut“.

and every time your brain does that and makes you reach for yet another piece of ‘shiny product’ …

… just remind it of the story of a teenage boy, whose life was changed in one single public shaming;-)

Cheers

Veit

PS: Figuring out TOM? Simple: TEST plenty of ideas, avoid the trap of ‘feedback-myopia’, and do plenty of segmentation and surveying. The market is going to tell you what it finds appealing (and what it doesn’t!)

Just had a look at a product called “DocuPanda” …

… and it’s a fabulous case-study on how NOT to do it – it really highlights 2 MAJOR marketing snafus:

1. confusing WANT and NEED
2. getting TOM (traffic to offer match) completely wrong (market-research myopia)​​

here it is, in all its snafu-glory: