Nobody really cares

I’ve recently come to the realisation that people don’t really care about you and they don’t care about your opinion. It sounds so sad, and some people won’t agree with me, but let me explain why I’m saying this.

Two main things have led me to write this post. Firstly, I’ve been reading “How to Win Friends and Influence People“, which, by the way, is a freakin’ awesome book, grab yourself a copy! It’s basically about understanding some basic and seemingly obvious things about the way people behave, things that most people acknowledge but don’t really implement. Small but important things such as smiling at people, remembering their name and listening intently. It’s a bit cheesy at times but good old Mr Carnegie knows how to drive a point home. Some great tips you can apply to your business in there as well! Anyway, I digress.

Secondly, I recently read a post on Copyblogger called “Why Nobody Cares About Your Content (And What to do About it)“.

The basic premise of the book and the post on Copyblogger is that people only want what is in THEIR BEST INTERESTS.

If you want people to get to know you, you’ve got to earn the right! Yeah, sounds unfair, but it’s true! People want to know what you can do for them, not what you can do for yourself.

I’m not in the habit of moaning without providing a solution. So what can you do!?

The answer is simple:

“Adding value” is one of those annoying marketing “buzz words”, but it’s so important for every business. From an Internet Marketing perspective, some of the biggest and most successful “gurus” are the guys that give away the most high quality stuff for free.

Let me give you an example of a couple of guys in the blogging space that have got this down to a fine art:

Michael Dunlop “Incomediary.com“, “Retireat21.com“

Danny & Peter “FirepoleMarketing.com“

Both of the guys above give away great content that they could easily charge for. They each get so many visitors because they are constantly finding ways to add value to people. If you read their posts, your pretty much guaranteed to learn something. These are the guys making money as well, something that most of us aim to do eventually through our blogs.

The more value you add to someone, the more interested they will become in who you are.

Put yourself in your reader’s position, would they want to read your stuff? Rants and stuff are cool now and again, but the main basis of any blog, or indeed any business, should be adding value. How are you adding value? How are you helping the people that read your blog? If you want to rant, then at least try and offer a feasible and practical solution to whatever you’re complaining about.

If you’re not adding value, you’ll struggle to keep your head above water.

I’m going to make some of my next few posts “value-adding” posts, and see what response I get.

So in a nutshell, put your reader first, not yourself. If you want to grow your blog and your readership, concentrate on adding value to people. The rest will come. You begin to establish yourself as an expert, and when you do release a product, you’ve already earned the credibility through your “expert” and value-adding blog posts.

Please leave me some “feedback” below. If you don’t agree that’s cool, pop a comment in explaining your reasons  .

Is your business focussing on the right things?

Many problems in life, not just in business, arise from incorrect focus. This may sound obvious but its true. Even if your business is focussing on the things it should be, the amount of focus on each aspect may be wrong. For example, you may focus much more on your customers than you do on your business, and your employees or business development may suffer as a result. Below is a very “Covey-esque” Venn diagram, showing what I think that a business should focus on. Obviously these are not the only things it should focus on, but are very important aspects nonetheless. My “expert” light blue shading shows the point of intersection between the three circles.

1. Customers – Yeah, most people would put this at the top of the list. The truth is, customers are just one part of your business, and focussing too much on them may mean your business or your product suffers. A point to note: just because you like something, it doesn’t mean that your customers will! That’s why thorough market research is vital to the continual growth of your business.

2. The Market – You need to look at what your competitors are doing. However, sometimes by focussing too much on the market you want to follow all the trends that are happening. Although every business needs to be adaptable (particularly if it’s online), your product has got to have something unique about it, or it’s only price you can compete on! This will make things particularly difficult if the Industry or niche in which you want to sell has high barriers to entry. In my experience, I’ve found that it’s rarely good to follow the herd. Excessive focus on the market can be very distracting and unproductive.

3. Last but BY NO MEANS least, your business. No one with a poor business model makes money. However, people usually focus far too much on their customers/the market, or focus far too much on their business. It’s striking a balance between being responsive to the market and to your customers, whilst focussing on your business so that you can grow it and make it (highly) profitable.

I just wrote this post to prompt you to check what you are focussing on in your business. If you’re not making money is it because you have an incorrect focus in one of these areas? There’s no hard and fast rule, and every business is different. Just check that you are focussing on all of these factors in your business life. Try changing your focus and recording the results. If you’re not making money then what have you got to lose? Just a thought.

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An interview with Peter Vogolpoulos from FirepoleMarketing.com

I’ve just finished an excellent interview with Peter Vogopoulos, the other half of the great team over at “FirepoleMarketing.com“. Peter is a marketing strategist, business coach and certified Guerilla Marketing Coach who does a great deal of work with local businesses. Peter is also a seminar leader, sought after speaker on marketing and small business, and is a faculty lecturer of entrepreneurship at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University, one of the top business universities in Canada.

Peter and Danny are both great guys with an amazing knowledge of the fundamentals of business. Most importantly, they are humble and down-to-earth guys. We share much common ground on our ideas about starting a business and the “Make Money Online” Industry. It was brilliant to speak to Peter today, I learnt a great deal from the Interview, and I hope that you guys will too. If you feel that you need help with your business, speak to these guys today, they are very friendly, helpful and approachable.

Peter and Danny have brought out The Firepole Marketing Audio Coaching Program. As far as I’m concerned, this is a MUST for anyone starting out in business. This program allows you to develop an understanding from the very basics up to advanced business and marketing strategy. I don’t endorse many products, but I’ve made an exception for this one, the content is AMAZING! (The guys very kindly let me check out some of the program). “Here’s my affiliate link to the Program“. I really wish I’d had access to this when I started out last year, it would have saved me a great deal of time and money, and I’m sure it would have MADE me money as well! The price is very reasonable, considering you are getting weeks’ of coaching and consultancy from the two guys.

Back to the interview! You can click the link below to listen. It’s about 25 minutes long, Peter gives some awesome tips and pointers for starting out in business. I have found Danny and Peter an absolute pleasure to speak to. I hope to work with them at some point in the near future, and wish them every success in the future. They are definitely people to keep your eye on this year. “Check out their blog here”

“You can listen to the interview here“(You may need to turn your speakers up!  )

I hope that you enjoy it, please leave me some feedback below!

P.S. If you liked this post or any of my other posts, please “subscribe to my email newsletter”  

What I've learnt this week

I’ve decided to start doing these “what I learnt this week” posts, I’ve never seen it done although I’m sure there are several people doing it somewhere in the blogging space. This isn’t one of those silly commercial blog posts, these are real lessons that I’ve learnt that will be of  value to some of the people that read this. I love to give credit where its due, so I will (usually) acknowledge the person who taught me the lesson. This week I’ve kind of summarised the points from the interview I did with Danny Iny and the interview I did with Ryan Critchett. I’ve included any other lessons I’ve learnt in here as well.

Let’s jump straight in!

1. Nothing is Push Button Money, heck I knew this, just wanted to reiterate the point! Something that I discussed with Danny Iny and Ryan Critchett. There is no easy solution. If someone makes $30k a month are they going to sell you their secrets for $37!? NO! There’s no substitute for hard work!

2. People are far more important than figures - its better to get 50 regular visitors per month than 500 visitors who visit once and never return. Don’t just look at statistics, these are real people! If you’ve got loads of unique visits to your blog but they are not returning, what are you doing wrong? Not posting often enough? Posting too often and quality is suffering? Danny and I discussed this inthe interview.

3.  Just because someone has a smaller presence than the “gurus”, never immediately choose the “gurus”. This is also something I discussed with Danny and Ryan. As Ryan said, sometimes the guru’s may merely represent a marketing message, and as Danny said, it is easier for them to close sales vs a person with a comparatively small online presence. A guru already has the money, the status and the reputation, but this doesn’t always mean that they will bring out the best products. Just look at Danny Iny, he may not be as well-known as some of the guru’s, but his product, knowledge and content is second to none! I truly learnt so much from our interview.

4. The importance of engaging with your blog readers - This was something that I talked about with Danny. To be honest, for the unique visitors I’m getting, I should be getting more blog comments, its something that I’ll be working on. It’s vital to engage with your readers.

5. Mathematical models work in theory, but not always in reality. - Danny said this when he was talking about viral content. If you share content with three people, it doesn’t automatically go viral. Maybe one out of three people will share your content, and none of their friends will. If you don’t give people incentives to share, unless your content is uber-cool they probably won’t share it. It’s like when I see some “guru’s” say “Well, you only need ten opt-ins per day to make $3,000 per month.” If you’re not getting one opt-in per day, how can you suddenly get 10, that’s like 300 per month! How many people do you know that get 300 opt-ins per month on ANYTHING!? If you break anything down enough, you can make it sound easy in theory. Did I tell you about the new Ferrari? It’s only 50 dollars a day (FOR TEN YEARS!)

6. Have your own opinion on things - Ryan and I discussed this, it’s important to have your own style and opinion, be yourself when you blog. Trying to be someone else will only backfire on you one way or another.

7. People love honesty – It’s better to be honest, have fun and have some personality! Don’t take yourself too seriously! Yeah, not everyone will agree with everything you have to say, and that’s cool. Remember, you can always be honest without being offensive (well, nearly always!)

8. Be wary of changing your strategies! - Something else that Danny and I discussed at length. Alot of people starting out in business have the “shiny beacon” syndrome, always trying to find the next best thing. In the wise words of Danny: ” You’ve got to just pick one strategy and stick to it, to the point where you can track and measure what’s working. Be very hesitant to change strategy before you have reached this point.” It is important to be both consistent and persistent in whatever you do. Stick to one thing and see it through. If it doesn’t work, then try something else, just be sure to give it enough of a shot.

9. Track your data - Ryan puts heavy emphasis on tracking data. I think that it’s a very intelligent approach. How can you know the outcome of something and if it has been successful if you haven’t tracked and analysed the results, and maybe compared it to other tests?

10. Never record Skype calls with Camtasia Studio! - Enough Said!

My Interview with Danny (FirepoleMarketing.com)

My Interview with Ryan (iMarketinghacked.com, RyanCritchett.com)