#14 Taking Advantage of Opportunities 16 Sep 2018 8:51 PM (6 years ago)
On this episode I travel down to Sydney for the Sydney Retail Festival and share with you one huge lesson about how to take advantage of the opportunities sitting right in front of you.
On this episode:
- Why the event is not the opportunity!
- The power of engagement and a simple "hello".
- Why showing up is not enough.
- How a million dollar opportunity came out of simply doing the basics.
- How an entitlement attitude will kill your chances of success.
Resources:
#13 The Consultants Curse 20 Aug 2018 7:34 PM (6 years ago)
If you feel like you're ready for a breakthrough in your business... but... just can't seem to put the final pieces in place, then you might be jinxed by The Consultants Curse.
This is a challenge I've personally suffered from. It slows your growth. Puts you in a bad light with potential clients. And can cost you years in wasted opportunity if you don't identify and overcome it.
This episode we're going deep into what exactly The Consultants Curse is, and how you can not only avoid it's grasp, but profit from it.
In this episode:
- The Consultants Curse explained.
- My story of how I recently fell victim to this profit-killing plague.
- What a Russian piano teacher taught me about how to avoid the curse.
- How to take advantage of The Consultants Curse to bring huge windfalls for your clients.
- A simple 4-step process to shake off this jinx and create a breakthrough in your business.
Resources:
#12 Lessons learned from half my life consulting – Part 2 25 Apr 2017 10:55 PM (7 years ago)
I started my first consulting business -- Devil Website Development -- way back in 1998, just before my 18th birthday. And I recently turned 36 years old, which means I've now spent half my life in the consulting industry!
I thought this would be a great opportunity to talk about some of the lessons I've learned along the way about what it takes to be successful in this business.
This is part two of a two part series.
In this episode:
- How learning to surf is like starting a business... and... how to strategically approach your personal development to get results faster.
- What I learned from paying $10,000 to my first mentor.
- The "Production Vs Consumption" ratio you should be aiming for.
- The one big thing I learned from a 12-month Jay Abraham coaching program.
- Two clients in the same market: one got zero results, the other saw results on day one. I reveal exactly why, and how you can get more of the right type of clients.
Plus more!
Ditch the civilian luxuries 10 Mar 2017 1:50 PM (8 years ago)
Civilians have the luxury of cruise control.
Turn up to work, put the hours in, go home...
... and like clockwork a pay check gets deposited in your bank account.
Performance tends to be a fuzzy grey area. And as long as you're somewhere in that area you're getting that check. At least until the next economic hiccup.
Entrepreneurs don't have such a luxury.
Putting the hours in isn't good enough. Your time has to count. Because if you don't focus on the right things you don't get paid.
Performance is everything.
It's do or die.
And most people can't hack it.
The thing is, just figuring out the "right" things to do can be a minefield. It's easy to get caught up in stuff that feels right... only to discover later it was busy work parading as the important. Repeat this cycle too many times and you can be in real trouble.
So how do you know if you're working on the right things?
Well, the simplest way is to look at your results.
If you've been doing the same things you've always done, and still getting the same results you've always gotten, then perhaps it's time for a change in your approach.
It took me a long time to learn this lesson.
I convinced myself I was making progress when really I was doing anything but facing the hard work of actually going out and getting clients...
Re-doing my website for the third time. (Still without any clients in the pipeline.)
Reading yet another book on HTML. (Even though I already knew more than enough.)
Getting sucked into online conversations. (With little hope of them turning into business.)
Dreaming and talking about the future. (But doing little today to make it a reality.)
... in cruise control and wondering why the bank balance isn't moving in the right direction.
Anyway, it's kinda funny to think back to those times now, when you don't know what you don't know and the path forward is covered in a thick fog. A civilian in a cutthroat entrepreneurial world.
Ditch the civilian luxuries and make your time count.
Talk soon,
Kyle Tully
The “Sharknado” secret to business success 6 Mar 2017 5:49 PM (8 years ago)
On the weekend I watched one of my new favourite movies:
"Sharknado"
(Stick with me, I'm going somewhere with this.)
It's the story about a freak cyclone that hits Los Angeles, causing man-eating sharks to be scooped up in water spouts and flood the city with shark-infested water. It stars Ian Ziering (from "Beverly Hills 90210" fame) and Tara Reid (mostly famous for botched plastic surgery.)
What's not to like, right?
Anyway, here's why I bring it up:
See, when the movie first came out it got panned by the critics. (It has a brutal 3.3/10 rating on IMDB.) And it even made Rolling Stone's "Worst movies of 2013" list.
But guess what?
The movie quickly became a cult-hit.
One of those "so bad it's good" flicks where you can't stop yelling at the screen because of the ridiculousness of it all. And Twitter blew up with over 387,000 mentions, making "Sharknado" the top-trending term for hours.
In fact, it became so popular the fifth movie in the franchise is just about to be released.
Because as far as the "disaster horror comedy sci-fi shark" niche goes, they nailed it.
And while the movie only cost $2 million to make, it helped the studio behind it -- "The Asylum" -- grow from $5 million in 2009, to $19 million in 2013.
In an interview with Forbes, they shared their secret:
"Customers tell them exactly what they want in a film, how much they'll pay for it and when they'll need it--and The Asylum delivers. We've never been about what the artist wants, and I think that's the key to our success."
What does this have to do with you and your business?
Simple:
Know your niche.
Ignore the critics.
Ask your customers what they want.
Then give it to them.
Talk soon,
Kyle Tully
Is your DNA conspiring against you? 5 Mar 2017 5:49 PM (8 years ago)
Got a great question on one of our webinars the other day:
"I know you have several businesses, when did you decide that you can start an ecommerce vs. shiny object syndrome?"
Now, I'll be the first to admit I'm drawn to bright shiny objects just as much as anyone else.
We're hard-wired to want (and seek) novelty.
You see, scientists have discovered a "novelty center" in our brain. Brain activity lights up when we experience new things. And dopamine -- the "feel good" chemical -- is released. So the brain makes us feel good when we experience new things, which leads us to seek even more new things.
You buy a product and get excited. Soon the new becomes old. And off we go seeking new again.
And so the cycle goes.
Bright shiny object syndrome is literally in our DNA.
And it will be your undoing if you don't get it under control.
Because of this I'm always cautious about my motivations for getting involved in a new project.
But I do have a simple rule of thumb you can follow.
A single criteria to know if you should even consider starting another business.
Now I will warn you, just because you "pass" this test, doesn't necessarily mean starting another business is the best decision. There is a lot to be said for putting all your eggs in one basket and then watching that basket like a hawk.
But I'm just not wired that way.
And I'm willing to trade potential bigger financial rewards in the future for more variety and enjoyment in the present.
So, with that warning, here's my rule of thumb:
Don't start another business until your existing business is doing at least six figures in revenue.
In my experience, people bail waaaay too early on most projects, drawn by the bright shiny lights of another... where the grass is so much greener.
But guess what happens?
You inevitably find out the grass only looked greener because you weren't close enough to see all the weeds.
The "six-figure rule" is a simple way to keep you honest and make sure you've put everything into one opportunity before you get distracted by another.
Of course, it's not perfect, and there are certainly times when it makes sense to jump ship and launch something new.
But if you've got your fingers in five pies and no one is buying any of them maybe it's time to scale back and perfect the recipe for one pie first.
Talk soon,
Kyle Tully
The “leaky bucket” theory for getting clients 28 Feb 2017 2:18 PM (8 years ago)
Lemme tell you about my "leaky bucket" theory for getting clients.
See, every potential client you come across has holes in their marketing machine. Mistakes, missing pieces, and inefficiencies in the system that are causing them to leak profits.
A leaky bucket.
And you know what? In many cases we're talking thousands -- sometimes tens of thousands -- of dollars slipping through their fingers each and every month.
A bleeding wound.
For example, some of the leaky buckets I've seen lately:
Website without a lead capture device.
Email list not being mailed regularly.
Phone leads not being followed up quickly.
Salesletter with a weak headline and confusing order form.
Adwords campaign driving traffic to a non-existent landing page.
Website that doesn't work on mobile.
The list goes on.
And many people have two (or more) of these leaks at the same time. Can you begin to imagine how much opportunity is being wasted? It boggles the mind.
Anyway, the leaky bucket theory for getting clients says simply:
Offer to fix the leaky bucket first, before you try to sell the whole enchilada.
You see, these holes are usually quick and easy to fix. The value to the company is often dramatic. And results come in days or weeks rather than months.
So when you show them just how much the leak is costing them, and make an irresistible offer to stop the bleeding, the sale practically makes itself.
And guess what?
Now you've shown you can deliver.
You've put money back in their pocket.
And you're in prime position to sell a high value package.
Talk soon,
Kyle Tully
You can’t scale zero 27 Feb 2017 8:47 PM (8 years ago)
Recently I was having a conversation with one of our new Insiders members.
We were talking about strategies he could use to quickly grow his newly launched conversion rate optimisation business.
I suggested he try my guerrilla outbound marketing approach.
(Guerrilla outbound marketing is a specific way of doing cold emails I've found extremely effective to open conversations with potential prospects and get clients in as little as a few days.
It has worked well for us, as well as many of the other students I've shared it with, including another CRO business.
"But I don't want to tie myself to the marketing and only get clients one at a time," he said. "I want something that is going to scale."
I asked how many clients he currently has...
None.
OK. First let's get one thing straight: Right now your ONLY job is sales and marketing. Like it or not you are tied to marketing. No one else is going to go out and get clients for you.
But here's the other problem:
You can't scale zero.
Listen, everyone wants to do things that scale. But when you're just starting out there are lots of things that need to be done that don't necessarily scale...
- Figuring out exactly who your ideal clients are and creating your customer avatar.
- Discovering their hot buttons, pain points, and objections.
- Learning how to sell to them and developing your sales process.
- Building relationships and becoming a trusted advisor.
- Creating scripts, processes, content, and resources etc.
And guess what else rarely scales?
- How you get your first couple of clients!
You see, at this stage you don't even know what you don't know.
You're learning and making everything up as you go along. So it's better to hustle and consistently land a couple of clients each month while you nut out all these details than chase fantasies of automated push-button scalable systems.
Even big companies that now seem to have infinitely scalable customer-getting systems -- guys like Microsoft, Stripe, and Airbnb -- all started by hustling and reaching out to individual prospects.
Once you're off the ground and you've got cash flow coming in then you can step back and take what you've learned to build a more scalable system.
But right now your biggest bang for buck will come from going out and hunting.
Talk soon,
Kyle Tully
P.S. Guerrilla outbound marketing is actually extremely scalable. I modelled our system off a company that used it to grow to over $100 million 😉
The Illusion of Knowledge 26 Feb 2017 2:54 PM (8 years ago)
Early on in my copywriting career, before I had cemented the confidence to consistently charge big fees up-front, I did a number of pay-for-performance deals.
I would only get paid if a salesletter I wrote made money.
One of these deals was for a 9% gross royalty -- I'd get 9% of everything we made once the cost of the promotion was paid for.
The client had a great product, was in a hot market, and I was quietly confident the project was going to be a big winner.
So we shook on the deal and I sent him my copywriting questionnaire -- which covers all the essential research questions you need to answer to write a winning salesletter.
A couple of days later he sends me back the completed form, and unlike most clients, he has done an awesome job. Every question is answered thoroughly.
I'm thinking this will make my job of writing the letter a piece of cake.
So I go away for two or three weeks and write the letter.
It's some of my best work so far.
We launch the campaign...
And it BOMBS!
I'm expecting a flood of sales and there's barely a trickle.
In the end he only made a few sales -- not enough to cover the cost of the promotion -- and so for my weeks of hard work I made nothing. Zilch. Zero.
What happened?
I'm a big believer that you learn more from your failures than your successes. So I do a deep-dive campaign analysis trying to figure out what went wrong. And what I discover changes my marketing forever.
It's what I call:
The Illusion of Knowledge.
You see, the client thought he knew his market inside and out.
He confidently filled out my research questionnaire without a doubt in his mind.
(And me being naive didn't think to question his answers.)
But it turns out he didn't know his market at all!
He was waaaay off about who the ideal buyer was, about what their pain points where, and about the real reasons for them buying.
The project was dead in the water before I even wrote a word.
As it turns out, it's a very common tendency for us to mistake surface knowledge for deep understanding.
We hear an objection from one person and think everyone has the same thought.
We speak to a couple of people in a market and believe they represent everyone.
We project our own thoughts and feelings onto our potential clients.
And so, because we assume we already know the answers, rather than doing the work to get real knowledge, we simply fill in the blanks with our surface level understanding.
And the results can be devastating.
Fight the temptation to answer hard questions with easy answers.
Put the research time in.
Don't assume. Don't guess. Do the work.
Talk soon,
Kyle Tully
Creating offers that convert 26 Feb 2017 2:52 PM (8 years ago)
Yesterday we were talking about accountability for results.
And how ultimately, results are the ONLY thing your clients care about.
It was this realisation that lead me to figure out how to consistently create offers that convert.
It has nothing to do with writing amazing copy.
Nothing to do with how many bonuses you offer.
Nothing to do with discounts, urgency, or scarcity.
(Although all of those things can certainly bump response!)
Here's the big secret:
Give people what they really want.
Pretty simple, huh?
Here's what that means for a digital marketing consultant:
Create standalone packages that can generate real tangible results without relying on other inputs.
That's a bit to take in so let's chunk it down and unpack exactly what it means.
Standalone packages means when they buy a service package from us it "stands alone" and they don't need to buy anything else to get results.
Generate real tangible results means it delivers exactly what the client actually needs and wants.
Without relying on other inputs means our packages don't need anyone else to do anything. It's not a half solution that requires someone else to do something before it will work. It's a 100% solution to their problem.
Here's how this looks for our Adwords agency:
Our packages include everything the client needs to generate leads online...
- Market research.
- Keyword research.
- Campaign setup.
- Funnel design.
- Landing page.
- Email followup.
- Phone tracking.
- CRM setup/integration.
- Campaign management.
- Split testing.
- Dashboards & active reporting.
We also setup Google My Business and even assist with phone scripts, offer creation, strategy, and whatever else they need to make our core service -- Adwords management -- successful.
The result?
Our offer becomes irresistible:
Give me $X and I'll turnkey a system that brings you Y leads.
Talk soon,
Kyle Tully