Archive | September, 2020

Zhuang Zi was a brilliant philosopher who lived in ancient China. He had many abilities and all the rulers would seek him out for his wise advice. One of them, King Wei, sent his workers out to Zhuang Zi’s home to invite him to come to Wei’s court and be his chief counselor at the palace. They found him there fishing by the river bank.

Seeing how poor he was and the meagre lifestyle that he led, they thought Zhuang Zi would jump at the chance for status and financial reward. Yet when they gave him their proposal, he replied with a parable:

“Once upon a time there was a sacred turtle, which was happy living his life in the mud. Yet, because he was sacred, the king’s men found him, took him to the royal palace, killed him and used his shell to foresee the future. Now tell me, would that turtle prefer to have given up his life to be honored at the palace, or would he rather be alive and enjoying himself in the mud?”

The men replied that they believed the turtle would be happier in the mud.

Zhuang Zi smiled and replied, “And so you have my answer to your request. Go home and let me be a happy turtle here in the mud.”

Often, we become Internet Marketers because of financial reward and status. We see a potential life for ourselves that will bring us great success. We can get easily bewitched by advancement, fame, and reward and even often neglect what is truly important.

We can become enthralled by our trade that we often waste our most precious resource, time, to get what we want. We tell ourselves that we need more, that it is for our families and our closest loved ones and that in the long run, it will all be worth it.

This may be true. However, there is just one thing I want you to remember and that’ to not forget while you are spending those hours on the laptop or in cafes or traveling away from home, why you are even building this business in the first place.

Don’t forget to spend time with your family. Don’t forget to kiss your children goodnight. And don’t allocate all of your time without compromise to the business because whilst we can spend many hours and many extra miles getting successful, we must simply keep in mind that taking some regular quality time out to remind your loved ones that this is for them – is worth it all.

I’ve seen many highly successful entrepreneurs lose their family in the process of building their fortune. Don’t become one of them.

You must spend some down time enjoying quality “in the mud” too.

You don’t have to stay in the mud long, but take a dip every so often to keep it real and authentic. Take time for yourself too.

I’m talking to you consistent and brave workers, who devote much of their time online to the great cause of success – just don’t forget the moments that really matter as well.

The true secret to success is balancing all the important areas of your life so they continue to grow throughout your lifetime.

During school, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a pretty smart student and had gotten through the other questions quite easily, until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?” I imagined this to be some kind of joke.

But when I thought about it, I realized I had seen the cleaning woman many times. She was short, dark haired and in her 60’s, but how would I know her name? I didn’t.

I handed in my paper, and just left the last question blank. Just before I left I asked the teacher if the last question would count towards our grade. “Absolutely,” said the professor.

“No matter what career you choose in life, you will meet many people. All are important. They deserve your attention and care, even if just by a smile and greeting.”

I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Clara.

Online, it is not as easy to obtain first names as it is in person but at least we have a better way to store them when our memories fail.

The professor was right, in fact, as it turns out, our names are so important to us that hearing them lights up entirely different part of our brain than any other words, scientists tell us.

Using your customer’s name makes them like you more, also using your own name makes the interaction feel more personal, too.

For example, who would you rather get an email from, “John” or “The Support Team”?

Personal names make a shopping experience much more enjoyable as does hanging out with people who know your name in real life, it just feels more respectful, more engaging and friendly.

Firstly, when sending emails, avoid the lazy trap of ‘Dear Customer’. Use their first name every time.

If customers call you, try and use their name in the first sentence as an instant rapport builder. This is especially helpful in calming an irate customer down quite quickly by seeming more authentic and familiar.

For some of you, when booking a callback, arranging a meeting or getting people to leave their names and numbers, ensure you have their names written in your diary on that date and any other bits of information you can get in that first interaction.

Then when you recall accurately the words of the last conversation you had with them or ask them a more familiar question using their name, you’ll instantly make the customer feel like you know them and so they relax with you.

Another trick of the name remembering trade is to create stories or rhymes in your head associated with the person’s name you want to remember and genuinely try to use it when you bump into them. It’s a great way to build connections and friends in person that may one day be useful to your company or idea, on or offline.

People like their name being used, and it will be a boost to your business and relationships in general if you make the effort to use them every chance you get.

I recently asked a group of marketers this question: “When you send an email to your list, what’s your #1 goal?” The answers I received were revealing.

Some of the answers I got were…

– To get readers to open it
– To get readers to READ it
– To give some useful info
– To build rapport
– To sell a product

Those are all good answers…

But they’re also all WRONG answers.

Of course you want them to open the email, read the email, build some rapport, maybe give some useful info, but none of these are your primary objective.

So what is?

To get the CLICK.

That’s it.

Everything else is simply in support of that #1 goal, getting them to click the link you send to them.

Ideally, you want to train your list to click your links like (pardon me here) mind-numb robots.

You want them to click automatically – without thinking – because it’s what they always do when they open your emails.

You don’t need to sell the product – the sales page or video you send them to should do that for you.

You don’t need to tell them everything about the blog post you’re sending them to – the post will do that for you.

Your job is simply to get the click.

So how can you improve your click-through rate?

1. Give great information. People will like you and TRUST you if you give them great info that helps them. Clicking the link is just a natural extension of that.

2. Show them the ‘what’ but not the ‘how.’ You might give them a really useful tip on what drives super targeted traffic, but to learn how to do it they need to click the link. And yes, that link goes to a product you want them to buy. You haven’t sold the product in the email, but you have sold them on the method. The product is simply an easy shortcut to using that method to get the result.

3. Don’t always send them to sales letters; send them to fun stuff, too. Show them your blog posts, your videos and even other people’s stuff now and then. Did you see a video on YouTube that taught you something really valuable or made you laugh out loud? Try sharing it with your list. Remember, you want to get them in the habit of automatically clicking your links. And giving them rewards when they do, like useful information or a good laugh, will teach them to do just that.

4. Now and then surprise them with a free product. Your email tells them a method to list build using Facebook. Then you send them to a link that will give them 5 more list building methods. And when they click the link, they see a very short sales page offering the product for FREE. How much do you think they love you right now? And what are the odds they will click more of your links in the future, just in case there’s another free product on the other side?

Of course, your list and your niche may call for slightly different methods. But bottom line, your primary, number one goal of email marketing is ALWAYS to get the click.

Because the more trained your list is to click, the more money you will make in the long run.