This may be preventing your success

14 replies
This is part of a blog posting that I thought I'd share. It just may help someone. --

One of the most overlooked pitfalls preventing success in business is selfishness.

In our attempt to attract customers and revenue, we talk about SEO, Fresh Content, CPA, PPC, How scammers ruin it for everyone, taking action, taking a leap of faith, focus and list building. What we neglect to mention is the need to rein in our selfish motivations.

I'm not talking about Law of Attraction or Karma. This is much more basic and concrete: You can't know what or how to market to your customer if you're only thinking about what you want.

The knee jerk advice given to new entrepreneurs is to "Provide Value " but sadly this overused catch phrase holds no more weight than "Close cover before striking." Good advice that has been marginalized.

To help stay my own course, I always keep something Zig Ziegler said at the forefront of my efforts: "You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want."

Which makes sense because if you're always thinking about what you want, it becomes even more difficult to conceptualize where and how to start providing real value to anyone else.

Success in business requires more than a keyword search and a well-developed SEO page. You have to understand the reasoning behind the search. You can't accomplish this if you don't understand WHY people need what you're selling. What they hope to gain by making the purchase.

If a half million people search for acne treatment, do you think they want to read 300 words about what a pustule looks like? Heck no, they probably have a few of them already and know very well what it looks like. In fact, they probably don't even care what it is. What they want to know is how to get rid of it. The condition hurts, it's embarrassing and they may have a big date, meeting or class reunion.

Wait a minute! Do you even know who you're talking to? A 15 year old pubescent boy sees acne though a different lens than a 35 year old woman with PCOS.

The selfish marketer, simply orders 15 articles with the keyword phrase acne treatment, hoping to fish something out. A good marketer ensures that the articles provide solutions be they homeopathic, coping mechanisms or product suggestions. An excellent marketer not only speaks to the problem but speaks to the person.

So I ask again, what is it your customer wants? Are you unselfish enough to find out?
Your success in business depends on it.
#preventing #success
  • Profile picture of the author Daystar11
    Originally Posted by Halcyon View Post

    To help stay my own course, I always keep something Zig Ziegler said at the forefront of my efforts: "You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want."
    This is excellent advice, and this quote of Zig Ziglar is a favorite of mine. In fact, I have a series, on tape, and this segment is on one of the tapes- I can hear his very distinctive and motivating voice now, saying this. It is burned into my memory.

    I do believe that internalizing this concept, and then putting it into action, is critical to success- not only in marketing, but in life in general.
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  • Profile picture of the author icegin
    Excellent post. Being able to understand what people want and why they want it is very important, and trying to market to people exclusively from a seller's perspective will only get you so far.
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  • Profile picture of the author ahbittersweet8
    Great one. Everyone's been a customer before, so it should really be a no brainer. But sometimes product creators are too caught up in cashing-in that they completely forgotten the core values of meeting the needs of customers. Never forget where you come from... we are all customers after all
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  • Profile picture of the author Absolute Logo
    Really cool article. Thanks a lot for taking the time to not only write this, but share it as well
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    • Profile picture of the author Srdjan
      Halcyon great one!

      I am asking myself a question for a very long time: what is the best way and technique to obtain exact information of the people's needs, and the way they can be helped most efficient. In my opinion, that is the core of the entire IM.

      Any thoughts about that?

      Best regards
      Srdjan
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      • Profile picture of the author Halcyon
        Originally Posted by Srdjan View Post

        Halcyon great one!

        I am asking myself a question for a very long time: what is the best way and technique to obtain exact information of the people's needs, and the way they can be helped most efficient. In my opinion, that is the core of the entire IM.

        Any thoughts about that?

        Best regards
        Srdjan
        It's been said that people have two reasons for doing (or not doing) something - the reason they tell you and the real reason.

        I wish there was a push button method to discover people's hidden motivations but the only thing to do is ask, listen, ask again and observe.

        Assume you're conducting niche research on a forum.

        Out of fear of looking stupid or saying the wrong thing some people will remain silent under unbearable confusion rather than ask a question publicly. So posts with high views can be more valuable than those with high comment numbers.

        Rather than offer a dissenting opinion, many folks will publicly follow the herd while privately doing something else. So you can't rely solely on what is written or said, observe what people do.

        For example, you'd be hard pressed to find people who'd admit publicly to liking Britney Spears, yet she sold over 30 million units. This isn't to speak on whether she's talented or not, only to illustrate the vast chasm between what people do and what they say. Surely someone was buying these CDs and they weren't all teenagers.

        This is why selfish motivations have to be left at the door. You're unable to get to the meat of someone else's motivations if you're trying to rush back to what you want to happen.
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        • Profile picture of the author Srdjan
          Hello Halcyon,
          You are absolutely right when said, that people publicly say something, and behind do something else, very often opposite!

          In IM, what authority site means? In all honesty, putting 20 articles, you ordered "over the counter" and Voilà - you are the authority in the certain field. This is according to many gurus.

          On a contrary, it is the process. It takes months, if not years, depending of niche, to master it and become true authority.

          Best regards
          Srdjan
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  • Profile picture of the author GeraldNitram
    Originally Posted by Halcyon View Post

    The selfish marketer, simply orders 15 articles with the keyword phrase acne treatment, hoping to fish something out. A good marketer ensures that the articles provide solutions be they homeopathic, coping mechanisms or product suggestions. An excellent market not only speaks to the problem but speaks to the person.
    This is the dagger right here. There are marketers out there that just "create" articles for the sake of the links and not communicating with the people. I've replied to a blog about link building, and I think it will be appropriate for this paragraph from your post. I said that if they're going to use blog commenting as a link building strategy for their company, they should think of actually communicating first rather than thinking of the link building opportunities that the blog can give them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anton Nadilo
    The fundamental problem I see is that most internet marketers (and especially some the top ones) are egotistical idiots driven by the bright lights and status they feel there success has brought upon them.

    Delivering value is secondary to them and intgerity and honesty trail a poor cousins to fame and fortune - it's all about the money honey for these types.

    Internet Marketing should be first and foremost about providing a world of information through integrity and a passionate desire to deliver quality information.

    Help millions and the millions will flow. However, unfortunately lying and cheating people out of millions is often a fast and easy road to riches for those that chose this path.

    LISTEN UP.....to those IM marketers whose products I have purchased that have failed to deliver on your promises - remember karma is a bitch!
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  • Profile picture of the author automedix1
    this is excellent advice. your post has helped me a lot. If you don't know your target market; you need to.
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  • Profile picture of the author NicoleBeckett
    Halcyon, you're so right. Too many marketers get caught up in links, SERP's, and email open rates that they never actually think about who's buying their products, who's reading their emails, and who's counting on them to answer their questions and solve their problems. People buy from people they trust - not necessarily the site with the most links, the highest SERP, or the best email open rate.

    At the end of the day, it's your target audience that's going to determine whether you succeed or fail. Sure, it's nice to have the spiders like you or to have a bunch of links pointing at you, but neither of those things pull out their credit cards and buys anything from you.
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  • Profile picture of the author DWaters
    Excellent post. Thanks for the reminder and the motivation. We need to keep in mind that it is not that content is king but Quality Content is King!
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  • Profile picture of the author Anton Nadilo
    Focus on......QUALITY. Plain and simple.

    Producte and deliver crap and you will get crap results...100 spun articles, junk posts on blogs and forums, spammy backlinks and you expect to make money like that....wake up son!!

    cheers

    Anton
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