I hosted our end of year Xmas party last night for an intimate group of about 20 people at our office in Prahran, Melbourne and found myself in the middle of a conversation about all the shiny new tools on the internet that help you build landing pages, opt-in forms, marketing funnels, email templates, viral contests and the list went on and on and on.
I chimed in and suggested that instead of being distracted by all the new shiny tools, we should unsubscribe from everyone's list and focus all efforts on shipping our own products.
There are two points I want to make here:
You Must Set up Shop in Order to Attract Customers
What I mean by this is that there are hundred of millions of customers are all over the internet looking to spend money on product. If you do not have a product for sale and you don't have a mechanism to receive your customer's money in exchange for that product then your business is not going to grow.
So finish your product (whatever it is and whatever version of it you are working on right now) and publish it online along with a simple way for customers to buy it. Whether that's as simple as a Paypal button or as sophisticated as something like SamCart or WooCommerce is up to you.
Just use whatever solution is the easiest and quickest to get going. Don't worry about fancy shipping or tax rates or any of that stuff. You can always deal with those problems later once you have too many customers to do it manually. Get it done in the next 24 hours – no excuses.
Every product and tool you see for sale online has these two basics covered. They are available to review and research and learn about and they have a mechanism for collecting your money.
Trust That Whatever You Need to Know You Can Find
Manage every single mailing list you are on using Unroll.me and have them all delivered to your inbox in one daily digest – or better still – unsubscribe from all of them. The only reason people email you on a regular basis is because they have a product they want you to buy. Yes, they will deliver valuable insights and great information into your inbox (which you don't need right now) but let's be clear. All email marketers have a product they want you to buy.
Trust that if you need to find any information to solve any problem in your business you can find it online or call someone you know to help. If you get completely stuck, just ask Dan Norris – he knows almost everything there is to know about starting and launching a successful business and he is always very willing to help. Hope you don't mind me dropping you in the hot seat Dan 🙂
Love to hear how you're avoiding distraction and shipping. Let me know in the comments.
So true. The fear of missing out is a killer.
I think it was Syed Balkhi that talks about “just in time learning” where you find the answer you need when you need them and not beforehand.
It’s a great concept and definitely useful in this digital marketing space where things are changing so frequently.
Great post Troy this definitely motivates me to keep focused. Cheers!
Thanks for stopping by Simon.
I love the just in time learning concept, that’s gold.
Good point. I came across a local meetup for Just In Time user documentation writing. I got snowed in so didn’t attend, but it’s a really cool concept for start-ups like ours that need to be agile. Just made a new hire and am testing out Just In Time training. December is always my month for unsubscribing from everything and Just In Time learning will definitely make me a little more trigger happy on the unsubscribe button.
I’ve learned a lot this year and one of the most important thing was take a step back and get things in order. Having methods in place that WP Elevation taught me has taken me from unorganised chaos to being able to bring new customers on with an amazing process that rocks!
Thanks again for all your help and advice this year very much appreciated!
Thanks for the kind words Steve.
that’s funny, I was at the same party and I didn’t hear anything about that – too much champagne I guess… hic… oh dear (but seriously, thanks Troy for a great breakup and great year)
Thanks for being such a great member of our community Robin.
Knowing nothing in the computer world (I barely knew how to start a computer), I brought up on line my first site with WP three years ago (commentbiendormir.org). While building up the site: lots of instances where I had my head between my two hands, I also had to convince Bluehost/WP to install a database for me, they did. At that time, they were very little support (tutorials etc). I managed to bring my site on line. But I clearly remember almost giving up on WP several times. A little voice was maybe telling me that WP is for pros or more talented people than myself.
When inviting an experienced web developer at home in order to build a second site, this time a business one, he convinced me to take Wix as a host and editor, since he found WP just too complex to work with.
I must admit having fun discovering and working with Wix to build that second site ; database, basic menu already in place, drag and drop everywhere and about 50 apps available. Let’s not forget the endless number of templates and a Newsletter structure ready for use. It is like if Wix was made up for “people with very poor computer capabilities or easiness” which I am part of I think.
Of course, Wix is lacking with SEO, but I managed to support it with a compatible Yoast version and Google tracking is available. As for my business site, I do not really need to be SEO at the moment, as I am developing a monthly Newsletter with a small subscription fee attached to it. That business site is just a base in order to edit and send my Newsletter
I do not think I will be going back to WP. No fun and too many headaches. However, I do appreciate your various information and articles. Let’s keep in touch then.
Benoit from Québec Canada
A french little beaver!
Yes, I remember that conversation 🙂
Whilst I am happy to say that over the course of the year I have gotten a lot better at blocking out the marketing “noise”, unsubscribing from most list and not falling for checking out every new tool, I still have a ways to go on getting products out there quickly.
This conversation was a great reminder (kick in the pants?) that an imperfect product that is actually available for sale has much greater earning potential than an awesome product that is still “in development”. Time to knuckle down and complete our membership site!
BTW – thanks for an awesome night, and all of your help throughout the year 🙂
WOW!!! I just went through and unsubscribed to 200 mailing list! No wonder I was running out of space LMAO!!!
Awesome Domonique.
Does that include unsubscribing from your list too? ?
This is sound advice, though. I’ve been unsubscribing as I go.
Sometimes my reasons for remaining on a list have nothing to do with my personal need for the information they share. I’ve been building my own email swipe file from several of those lists for a while (a product some people will sell you). So remaining on a few lists comes in handy, but for a different reason.
Thanks for stopping by Grace – yes only stay on my list if you are getting value from my emails 🙂 Watching how others do it is also a good reason – clever.
Hi Troy,
I often find myself subscribing to lists that are awesome, but then later just find the experience of receiving their emails jarring and distracting. It’s out of sync with my workflow. So, after reading Tim Ferris’ 4-Hour Work Week, I unsubscribed from all lists and, as you say, trust that I can find stuff when I need it.
Glad to read that I’m not the only one who has this approach.
That said, I do want more people on my list haha!
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