Ever read one of those articles about a startup that blows up?
Once the millions of venture funding pour in, the excesses start, things go downhill until there is nothing left to do but blow the last money on an all or nothing Superbowl ad.
The details vary a little from story to story, but I’m always shaking my head in disbelief.
What were the people in charge thinking? Are they dumb or just stupid?
But when I’m honest I don’t think they’re either. It’s just the combination of inexperience and a large amount of money that gets the best of them.
I know I’ve been guilty of this in my own projects.
I also see it all the time with the inquiries I get through my contact form.
New ecommerce entrepreneurs get in touch to potentially work together on the marketing of their online store. Sure, their site isn’t up yet, but a custom theme is being developed and everything should be up and running soon.
But you can’t hire me at that stage. I won’t let you.
That’s because you’re still in Discovery Mode.
Discovery Mode
If you haven’t launched yet, or your store makes less than a $1,000/month in revenue, you’re still in Discovery Mode.
You’re trying to match all of the ideas you had before you launching with the realities of the marketplace:
- You had the perfect buyer profiled. But it turns out that that person only existed in your imagination.
- You were going to use Pinterest to drive traffic. But now that you’re actually pinning like crazy, getting a visitor back to your store is harder than you thought.
It’s obvious that you’re struggling. So why can’t you hire me to fix it for you?
In Discovery Mode, you need to watch your money like a hawk.
And if you’re scrappy, there is no room for $1000 strategic plans. Especially because you don’t have any guarantees or even vague clues how or if you’re ever going to make that money back.
Always Forward
So what can you do?
You need to figure it out.
You need to figure out what’s most important right know to get your online store closer to that first or 10th sale.
Search for a blog post on the thing you’re trying to do. Apply every single last word of it. Try some variations that weren’t in the blog post.
Put some money into Facebook ads. See what kind of messages and images gets clicks. What do these visitors do on your site?
Hang out on the live chat of your website and start talking to every single visitor that lands on your site. Help hem, get them on the phone, talk to them.
Reach out to media sites in your niche. Explore what it will take to get featured on their site. What can you do for them to get them on your side?
Start watching what your competitors are doing. Steal and modify their approaches.
Like Bryan says in the video above, most of the things you’ll try will fail and will result in exactly $0 extra revenue.
But if you try enough things you will stumble onto something that offers a glimmer of hope. You discover something that works. Something that allows you to build and get to the next level.
Now you’re ready for the next stage. Maybe it’s enroll in a course to get beter. Or maybe you bring in outside help.
And because you know what you need and what you can expect, your money will be a lot better spent as a result of it.
Your turn
Now I want to know what you need to figure out.
Let me know in the comment section below, we’ll all hold you accountable 🙂
