The Harsh #Truth

This is massive. It’s been building for weeks.

It might be your biggest Online Business QnA ever.

In this week’s Question and Answer, I reveal the harsh truth about…

  •     Buying ‘likes’ on Facebook
  •     Selling “motivation”
  •     Outsourcing
  •     Youtube marketing
  •     ONE trait that all successful people share
  •     Where there is real opportunity in the sales market
  •     The BEST book if you are looking to change careers
  •     Two other must-read books
  •     Plus a lot more.

Enjoy the #truth.

Question: How does someone with tons of sales experience decide what online business would make the most sense? I want to do something that helps people but other than motivational advice, I’m at a loss. – Tony Lopez

Answer:
Tony – Motivational advice doesn’t sell. But teaching people sales skills is incredibly valuable and needed.

Question: Been able to grow my fan page to 5k fans in just 9 days with like ads for about .10 cents per like. Been able to get some subscribers by pinning a post with my squeeze page link on it, but need to start focusing on getting more people off of there and into my funnel.

Any tips to get more people off of facebook to my squeeze?  Was thinking of just doing a promoted post with link to squeeze but it gets very easy to overspend since likes, picture views..etc also count as “clicks”. Thoughts?

Was also thinking of just taking my same successful “like” ads and do new clicks to website ads to my squeeze. –  Danavir Sarria

Answer:
Danavir – Just stop. Complete waste of time. You need to focus on getting customers, not likes. Focus on selling. Not chasing free garbage “Likes” on FB. That’s a fool’s errand.

Question: Craig is there a tip on how to turn FB fans to customers though? I could use the tip too. – Seo Kelleher

Answer:
Kelleher – Yes. Stop trying. It’s one of the most ineffective and inefficient uses of your time. Focus on writing better copy and buying FB ads to the offer and making that work at 50% break even or better. Then sell them more value on the backend and get your customer value up so that you break even. Quit being a FB fan/social media sucker.

Question: Hi Craig. Id like to improve really my conditioning by summer. I take kung fu classes 3-4 times a week and sometimes also do cardio for around 30 mins almost every day. Id like to start doing some thing like t25 or tutbulence training. How should I go about integrating it, should I alternate days doing that and kung fu or is it more beneficial to do several consecutive days, or do it nearly every day and continue my kung fu schedule as normal. Also what’s the most I should work out in a single week? Thanks so much!! – Dan Fishman

Answer:
Dan – Stop the cardio. It’s useless.

Use the www.HomeWorkoutRevolution.com program 4x’s per week after Kung Fu Training. Have 3 days per week where all you do is stretching and mobility, and walking or light biking.

(Sorry, couldn’t resist throwing in some Harsh #Truth exercise advice.)

Question: If you’re looking to implement something new for your business…. say YouTube marketing… Would you 1) buy the course and study the materials and learn how to do it so that you can delegate it 2) buy the course and study so that you can understand what you need to do but find someone else to implement 3) you don’t look at any courses but find someone that can do this for you (this assumes that you have some money avail to hire someone but not perhaps hire the foremost expert) OR .. neither (if neither how do you approach it) – Cris Chico

Answer:
Cris – First step is to be absolutely sure that this new course of action is not just fool’s gold. In the meantime, #1 is the best approach – in theory.

Question: I’ve been working in the same industry/company for five years. Sales are soft and motivation is low. It gets me thinking that it might be time to move on. Can you guide me to resources that might help me determine whether it is time to switch gears? – Mark Aumen

Answer:
Mark – You need to be more specific about what you are looking for. The best advice I have for you right now is Cal Newport’s book, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You”.

Question: What books are you reading now, Craig? – Scott Colby

Answer:
Scott – None, I’m doing a Facebook QnA right now.

Boom…

But seriously…
 
1) Ready Fire Aim [I’m always reading this]<= Must read
2) Tao Te Ching
3) Canadian Personal Finance for Dummies
4) How Will You Measure Your Life <= Must read
5) and I just finished “Car Guys and Bean Counters” by Bob Lutz. It’s an interesting history of General Motors.

Question: Do you outsource? If so, what do you outsource and what do you keep in house? – Lukas Resheske

Answer:
Lukas – Very little. We do almost everything in our Early to Rise offices these days. We believe that everyone should be under the same roof, much like Marissa Mayer at Yahoo.

But when I first got started, Tom Venuto gave me an excellent referral to my web designer – www.ConsultMatt.com – that I used for 7 years until I sold Turbulence Training to Early to Rise and we consolidated all of our websites.

Question: What is the one thing that you have found successful people share? The one big thing? – Nina Vucetic

Answer:
Nina – It’s well documented that grit/perseverance is shared by almost all successful people. It really is the dedication to working brutally hard and often long. The end.

Question: How do you successfully allocate adequate time for a sick family member (my grandmother) while still finding time for your own life, job, wife etc. I find myself giving all the free time I have to try and help my grandma and other facets of my life are getting affected. It’s just a very tough point in my life Craig and I’m sure you don’t have the absolutely right answer but wanted any kind of input from you or your readers if possible. Thanks. – Bikram Walia

Answer:
Walia – This is a period of your life that requires sacrifice. It might be less sleep, it might be less of your own personal projects. Something’s gotta give. You do your best, you stick to your vision, and keep on pushing on. If you have a chance, watch this video here – www.AnewAmericanDream.com

Q: Craig, my online business idea is to help people stop the madness of yo-yo weight loss. I estimate that I have gained and lost around 257 lbs over the past 20 years… hence I’m and expert on both losing and gaining fat. There is certainly a market for this message, I suppose the devil will be in finding these people. How might I drill down from people who want to stop yo-yoing?
 
Answer:
You can start by Google-ing the phrase “how to stop yo-yo dieting”. What comes up? Look around at those offers. But really, that search market is small. It’s going to be tough for that to be the front end of the business.

Your best customer is going to be women in their 40’s, just like every other fat loss program, and those woman want a NEW way to lose fat.

The question is:

“Is ‘stop yo-yo dieting’ a better hook than simply ‘lose weight using this new unique system’?”
I doubt it would be.

A secret new way to lose fat will WIN every time.

People probably care less about stopping yo-yo dieting than they do about losing weight…they’ll figure out the yo-yo stuff later…

…right now they just want to lose weight.

But feel free to prove me wrong.

You must enter the conversation in the mind of the customer.

Do not force your idea on the market…

…instead, you must deliver what the market wants.

And that’s the cold, hard #truth.

Fortunately…

You can handle the #truth,

Craig Ballantyne

There aren’t going to be many easy days, so Man-Up. Enjoy the challenge. Now more than ever good people like you need to be working hard and bringing your solutions and services to the world. Keep on pushing on and never, ever give up on what is important to you.