[Note: This is part 2 of a planned 4 part series on my move, etc. confessions <--for more.]
I didn’t want to sell infoproducts. Lame, usually. Sometimes worse.
This isn’t to say that there isn’t good stuff out there. A precious few are worth it.
99.5%, at minimum are a waste of money.
Because I said it before: you either can’t be stopped or can’t be helped.
I didn’t have the stomach or heart for it. I coasted in school, and I didn’t believe that I had the knowledge to impart on people (however, I’m wickedly efficient at producing a mediocre result with next to no effort).
I didn’t want to coach, because telling grown up Realtors “this is Facebook,” couldn’t possibly have a shelf life. That was beyond obvious, and we didn’t need an Extra Normal to tell us that.
So, when Chris Pearson dropped Thesis it was like a godsend. I could get a talented designer to whip up a few nice ways of doing things. I was able to make make some modifications to their photoshop files, and sell websites.
Thesis was a fantastic start, a framework and a community in one package. You had a ton of options for typography, column widths and the rest of it. For 2008 or 2009 when it dropped, it was spectacularly good.
One of the best things was that Thesis respected designers. That means that clients could make changes but it was hard to break it.
The road had been paved before me. Infomarketers, the National Association of Realtors and Business week pitched people on blogging. Everyone – from a plumber to a lawyer wanted a blog.
My work was done, more or less. IT was easy to close people. Active Rain had gathered them up and made it easy enough to find new folks. It even published their phone numbers.
I made this video, put it on a page. Wrote/distributed some inflammatory posts.
The sales part. “$800 gets you a custom WordPress site and a year’s worth of hosting”.
Most people understood. It wasn’t an unlimited everything site, but it was functional and useful. I supplemented it with training calls that were basically a way to consolidate support requests. I learned a little, and I helped some people.
Largely, though I was indifferent to my clients, late paying my vendors and about 3 beats behind. I kept things afloat through hustle, but I had the Groupon problem ((1)).
I’m telling you this because it’s a fact. I’m not beating myself up or feeling any particular bad way.
I’m telling you this because I believe this: when someone has made a living or a business, it’s a duty to only do your best for them. There may be times when your best isn’t good enough. But not doing your best is not the option.
I sold a lot of these sites because others had stoked demand. I was riding a wave I saw coming, and I was one of the first with my surfboard. Via Tim, I had some clients that were always ready to buy. And, I’m a hustler, and I’m good at doing novel things to get customers.
Here’s the problem. I alluded to it in the last post.
Nice People Don’t All Have To Blog
Remember: 2007-2009 were tough years. The economy, the whole of it was different then. People had expectations that each year would be a little nicer than the one before it.
People either can’t be stopped, or they won’t be helped.
There’s not a ton of middle ground. I had, largely, the people in the latter category. Well meaning, earnest people with rotary club businesses. Friendly people that cared about helping. People that were just hayseed hicks that didn’t know any better.
They had no business blogging. Not because they weren’t great people, but because they had nothing to say. They wouldn’t do the work that it took to create original thought or commentary on their industries. They’d follow instructions, and regurgitate nonsense in a step-by-step manner.
They didn’t gravitate towards connecting online.
My dad was a community college comp teacher. Somehow, without meaning to, I made myself into one. I was editing crap posts about crap businesses. Indeed it was a great time to buy – or sell- a home. Or to plan your 401k. Or whatever.
I had a couple hundred sales made, and they were all writing obvious crap.
I didn’t want to do the Derek Halpern style teaching, nor did I want to spend the time to execute on that level.
So, I did the best I could and was profoundly lucky that my clients were mostly nice people.
Your Blog Will Not Fix Adult Failure Spiral
Most of them. A few people – were in a bad spot. Problems come with being in a bad spot.
A lot of my clients – because of my price point – were at the end of their rope. They scrounged $800 of blood money, of next month’s light bill to pay me.
The blog was to be a hail mary. People believed that with just a few hours of work one time, they’d have an eruption of prestige and traffic. Arbitrage. That off the shelf products would yield prestige and more.
They were failing because the had become addicts, th ey had caused problems for themselves((2)). A blog wasn’t going to fix it. Nor was any type of info-marketing tool. They believed themselves to have been victims of cruel fate. Nothing could help.
There is not a single trick, hack or kludge. There is no magic bullet.
They weren’t appropriate customers. But, who was I to blow against the wind? I started seeing the signals and giving people stronger and stronger warnings. That didn’t help my sales efforts.
I was in a deeply flawed business- that’s a fact, and I didn’t want to do what it took to fix it. I didn’t have the patience. At the core of my being, I’m a hunter. I can’t chain myself to a desk and force myself to be something I’m not.
I started preemptively refunding people that were a teensy bit testy. That didn’t help.
I wasn’t good enough to get to serve higher end companies, and it is way harder to claw out $800 at a time – when only $300 or so was profit – than it was to do it in another way.
I was not going to – ever – fix the world or have the business. Mediocrity is contagion, and I was broke and scared most of the time. I couldn’t see past the next morphine hit to figure out what to do next.
.:.
There are lots of things I don’t understand.
I was not in the amazing business. I was a Toshiba computer that you buy from Best Buy. Nobody is emotionally connected to that, there’s no magic involved.
First – how can you sustain being mediocre? How can you live in a way where you’re currently in a mediocre business that’s measurement is units, not “Awesomes?”
How can you be in a business that’s not shooting to be the best in its market? I can see a local Realtor wanting to be the best in a tightly defined market (their contacts, their rotary club).
How can you not realize that every job that exists today is 3 years from complete obsolescence?
How can you make something that’s just OK? Intentionally?
If you’re not in pursuit of being the best on the planet, to transcend your limitations and push for something more, the cognitive dissonance will wreck you. You’ll burn out, you’ll have testy discussions and you’ll wreck yourself. Pursuing excellence is exciting.
—
((1)) The groupon problem is where you have to sell the future to pay for the past and you’re always a beat behind and doing volume without profitable. Read here for details.
((2)) Money Drunk, Money Sober by Julia Cameron is a fantastic book for this issue.
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