Throughout this course it might seem like I don’t like hard selling and that isn’t technically true. While I don’t like to hard sell there are times when it makes perfect sense to.
For example, if I’m launching a new offer and it has some time-based part of it that can only be had if you purchase before the deadline, then it makes sense to let people know straight up about it.
Or if it’s the last day that an offer is available I’ll send two emails that are hard selling emails.
It’s not that hard selling is bad. In fact, at some point it’s expected by your audience. The problem is when the default is hard selling.
If I go 2 months providing amazing value (that is still soft selling) and then spend 3 days hard selling then my audience won’t mind. But that dynamic changes if I spend every week hard selling.
Permission to Hard Sell
A couple of lessons back I talked about the New Year’s Day offer that I did. I asked people if they wanted to hear more about it and a number of people did (120).
That’s 120 people giving me permission to hard sell them. There is no reason to feel bad or believe you’re providing a bad experience if people are actively telling you that it’s okay to hard sell to them.
The problem that the traditional funnel has is that it assumes by simply signing up for your mailing list, that means people are giving you permission to always hard sell them.
That Time I Quit
A couple of years back I gave it all up. I shut down my businesses because they didn’t make me feel good.
I had fallen into a pattern of continuous hard selling and it sucked. Why did this happen?
I stopped bringing in new people to the cattle chute. We talked about this before but we didn’t talk about the domino effect that happens over time.
Because I stopped bringing in new people that meant I had to get the most out of the list people that I did have.
This where things go south.
Let’s say I needed to make $5,000 a month (random example) to keep a roof over my head. I would spend a little bit of time thinking about a new offer and then hard sell it to my audience.
I might make $7,000 which is good, but the problem is that now I have to not only deliver the offer, but figure out how to make $3,000 more for next month.
So guess what?
I would hard sell something else.
But this time only make $3,000 which is great because it covered me, but what do you think happens the next month?
People are tired of you only showing up to hard sell them so they stop paying attention to your emails. The next month I might make $500 if I’m lucky.
Eventually, everyone tunes out and that was the point where I gave it up because I didn’t feel good. It had nothing to do with the money. It was the fact that I felt like shit and I didn’t want to be perceived as the person that was always selling.
Most people who try to build an online business don’t even get to this point because they don’t want to sell at all and then those that do know they have to sell can find themselves falling into the same pattern as me.
That Time I Came Back
When I decided to come back and help people build online businesses I knew I had to take a different approach to keep my sanity.
I need a system that allowed me to always be in front of my audience while generating revenue. I need multiple pieces of content to work for me 24/7 so I would only have to focus on a couple of things.
We go over this in The Pocket Course, but let’s look at it again. I work backward so that I have a foundation for people to explore.
That’s why I started with The Pocket Course. I don’t remember how long it took me to completely, but it was less than a week which is important. I didn’t want to spend weeks working on something and not spend time creating social media content.
If you feel something is going to take you a while it’s important to balance that out by still getting out in front of your audience.
With The Pocket Course created I went straight to social media. I didn’t even have a way to join my mailing list! That sounds crazy so why did I do that?
Because I wanted the The Pocket Course book version to be the opt-in, but that would take me time to put together and again, I didn’t want to wait to start building up a relationship with my audience.
So while I began posting on social media I also worked behind the scenes on the book and emails. The course was all that I needed for now because for those people that wanted to dive deeper, they had a resource.
Don’t get me wrong, in a perfect world I’d have everything set up before getting people to the site, but I don’t live in a perfect world.
I have 3 kids and get to live with ADHD. So instead of perfect I go with optimal.
But now there is a clear system that you can see.
- Social media
- Site content
I know by simply listing it like this it all looks basic but the big point is this.
All of this sells.
That’s what is important to understand. Just because it’s not hard selling that doesn’t mean that every piece of content that you create isn’t contributing to a sale at some point.
No piece of content has to do the heavy lifting. I don’t have to hope that my social media converts. I don’t have to hope it’s my emails. I don’t have to hope that I finally get SEO traffic.
Because everything works together, I just need to make sure the system sells.
Trust the World You’re Building
I don’t know what piece of content is going to push someone to buy. But I do know that it’s rarely one single piece that convinces. It’s usually the combination of a lot of pieces of content.
And yes, there is always one final piece that pushes someone over the edge, but by that time it’s less of a push and more of a slight nudge.
You have to trust that the world that you’re building is appealing for your people and it should be if you’re going out of your way to help them.
You might look at this site and think it was all meticulously planned but it wasn’t. The only thing that I knew I wanted to do was create The Pocket Course and have The Business in a Box Service.
I didn’t know I was going to create this course but after interacting with my audience it felt like another piece that needed to be added to this world.
Am I worried about how it performs? Not at all. I believe it’s helpful and that’s enough.
The worst thing that could happen is that nobody goes through it, but that’s the worst thing. It’s still a piece of the world that I’m building so there is value in that.
And now that it’s here, it can be here forever unless I change my strategy a bit.
Which allows me to go back to focusing on social media.
It’s like every once in a while I’ll build a giant monument for people to enjoy and then I go back to handing out amazing little booklets.
Every once in a while someone decides to buy a guided tour and I’m happy.
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