Brian Basilico — November 14, 2018 — November 14, 2018
I want to talk about the big lie that limits your business growth. People are always looking for the magic bullet, the easy button, something simple that they could do that’s going to change the course of their business. The lie people tell themselves is, “If I could just….“. People ask themselves this question all the time. If I could just get more likes on my Facebook page, if I could just create a viral post, if I could learn that one technique, then my business will explode.
There are tons of people out there trying to sell you the quick fix, the Easy Button, that one thing! I’ve seen it all the time: “Hey, I’ve got this technique that, if you follow what I’m doing, you’re going to get tons of $ 5,000 and $ 15,000 leads from LinkedIn and you’re going to get rich quick!” I hate to tell you, but the only person that really gets rich is the guy selling the formula because there’s a lot more to it than just that.
The Secret of Success
I’ve been spending time lately relistening to the book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” by Dale Carnegie. Even though it’s a really old book, it’s timeless in its information. One of the quotes that really sticks out to me inside of this book is from Henry Ford and he says, “If there’s any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as your own.” But the lie we keep telling ourselves is “If I could just….” There are a ton of people out there willing to sell you that quick fix or what may be a solution, it comes in the form of snake oil.
You’ve surely heard of the snake oil salesman. The snake oil is the thing that’s going to fix everything for you, right? Diet pills are a perfect example of this. “You don’t have to exercise or eat healthy. Just take a pill and boom, you’re going to lose weight!” Right? Does it sound like, “Hey, if you only join Weight Watchers or one of these other clubs, we’ll show you how to do it!” It also gets into those secret strategies that people come up with that if you do that one thing, you’re going to see incredible results, but that’s a myth.
The Myth, The Man, The System
That myth is that you’re only one step away from success, when in reality you’re actually maybe a thousand failures away from success. Some of the biggest success stories in history have been people that have failed over and over and over.
- Think of Einstein, who was actually told in school he would never amount to anything.
- Think of Edison, who failed over a thousand times making the light bulb before he finally figured it out.
- Think of Steve Jobs who was literally fired from his own company and had to go back and claim it before he saw true success in iPhones and other Apple products.
The Social Media Myth
There’s also that same myth on the side of social media, and the myth is if you get fans and create engagements like likes, comments, and shares, all of a sudden your business is going to explode, but that’s a myth. What a lot of people do is they fall for that myth.
As a matter of fact, Facebook often messages you, “Hey, this post is doing better than anything else. Promote it, or boost it.” That is one of the worst things that you could do because basically what you’re doing is you’re sending people back into a black hole. Facebook will not show your business posts in a newsfeed unless you pay for ads.
What they mean when they say boost a post, or promote a post, is that you’re going to get more people back to your page and more likes. What you’re getting is a whole bunch of people to like something that they’re never going to see, and so the only way to keep it going is to keep paying for it, and that’s how it works.
It’s very rare that you can do cold ads inside of Facebook and see great results because you really have to get people to know, like, and trust you first before those ads are going to work. A lot of times you have to create a combination of things: an awareness campaign, and a sales campaign. That big truth that Henry Ford said that the secret is seeing things from other people’s point of view and from your own and melding the two.
Motivation
If you want just that one thing, you can have it, but here’s the deal: it’s a longterm play. What I mean by that is you first have to understand what motivates people to make a change. You have to look at things from their perspective.
Solve The Problem
The second thing you have to do is you have to build a product or service that solves their need or problem, and you have to do it better than anybody else. Then you have to build a story around that. Next, and this is one part that a lot of people miss, is you have to create some kind of awareness around that. People need to know that it exists. They aren’t just going to all of a sudden buy it because they see it. It’s rare that that happens. There’s usually something and it takes time that people become aware of your product, become aware of your solution and after what’s been known as seven touches in the advertising business, it may take seven, it could take 70, could take 7,000, you don’t know, but you have to spend time creating awareness.
Selling Me Softly
You can use a soft sell to test it out, but you can’t just go right from somebody not even knowing you, to hitting them between the eyes with “Buy My Crap.” I suggest you test sell versus hard sell, to see what messages start to resonate with people. It’s tempting to dive right into selling, but creating awareness first can increase future conversions and provide long term success.
Stay Relevant
Then finally, you want to make sure that you’re staying in front of people. You can’t just do this and just fall off the face of the earth. If you want longterm success, you have to be in the long-term game and that means doing things like creating content, building awareness campaigns, doing some sample test ads and keep trying all of these different techniques.
Blogging, podcasting, graphics and social media posts, should focus on educating, informing, and staying top of mind with your audience.
Keep Learning
It’s not “If I could just…”, it’s “What can I…” What can I do? What can I learn? What can I see from this data that I’m gathering? Mistakes can be crippling or blessings, depending on how you look at it. Use mistakes to your benefit as lessons to help you figure out what DOES NOT work, so you can get to what DOES work faster! Keep that in mind as you’re moving forward.
Final Thoughts
Let me leave you with some final thoughts. First, be patient, be diligent and keep working on it.
Keep trying because failure a lot of time is more relevant than the successes. What you learn from your mistakes can often lead to the ultimate success. Again, think of what happened with Edison.
Next, invest in yourself and your business. There are four places that you can put your money. Number one, under a bed, number two, in a bank, number three, you can bet it in. Number four, you can build it.
Nobody’s ever gotten rich by putting money under a bed. As a matter of fact, it loses value with inflation over time. You can put it in a bank and get a small return. You could bet it and try to double it really quickly, or you can invest your money. Invest it in yourself. Learn some new skills, learn some techniques, and it’s not going to be that one technique. It’s going to be multiple things. It’s going to be how to write great copy, or maybe you need to invest in somebody else to do it for you, but investment offers you the best return.
Then finally, have a plan. Learn from your mistakes and stay flexible. The truth lies in the data from the successes and the failures you have along the way so plan it out, lather, rinse and repeat.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas or questions about showing the concepts presented. Have you had to overcome any of the presented concepts? What worked and what did not live up to expectations? Do you have any ideas or advice you could share?
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