One of the secrets of my success has been testing a lot of ideas. I actually want more ideas to test every day.
And the progress of your business is dictated by whether you land on a series of good ideas or bad ones. A series of bad ideas can almost bury your businenss.
I’ll give you a few examples:
• The idea to sell a service instead of coaching at the beginning of this year was a genius idea. It’s responsible for 80-90% of this year’s revenue.
• The idea in May to remove 2 calls in the sales process, and make it 1 optional call with the option to buy directly from the website following a guru recommended on thefastlane was a terrible idea. Reduced the pipeline by 30-40%, with no added advantages. Gurus lie — they come on podcasts and the media, and tell you outright lies, and claim revenue numbers and sales processes that don’t actually work in reality.
• The idea that every month is the same, and not considering monthly fluctuations made us lose 30% of customers in July-August which is a naturally slow period of the year.
• The idea to introduce additional services to improve results, reduce client workload, and raise prices/margins in August was a genius idea.
• The idea to reintroduce 2 sales calls, and have a structured pitch before closing was another genius idea, doubled closing rate.
• The idea to create an AI app for LinkedIn content writing was a genius idea — it’s been extensively used by our writers since creation to speed up the process.
• The recent idea to create an app to help someone analyze their LinkedIn Profile and provide a report with specific recommendations to turn their profile into a landing page — not sure if it’s a good or bad idea yet since I just released it on Christmas Eve, but may be the key to booking a ton more meetings by giving upfront value. Now in a recent thread I was against giving value for nothing, but… if that value costs you nothing, that changes my mindset. We’ll see once it gets tested if giving value upfront works or not. Who knows what will happen? My mind is hypnotized now, and I think it’s a genius idea that will revolutionize client acquisition… but maybe it won’t.
And there are more ideas…
• How about using a contact form vs a book a meeting link, and as soon as someone submits the contact form, give them a call and do the first 15min meeting like that?!
F*ck, I have no clue if this is a good idea or a bad one. But some people online say “well, people may not be willing to book a meeting yet, but they want to find out more, a contact form works better for them”.
Who knows?!
There are many many other ideas that I’ve tested that didnt have much of an impact one way or another. For example, I spent about $5K on ads this year, with virtually 0 success across FB/Google. I haven’t found a winning concept. I tried many sort of ads, paid @Andy Black for a consultation, followed a guru’s approach recommended by Andy and so on. Nothing worked on that front for me.
So good ideas, bad ideas, and ideas that don’t really move the needle one way or another…
But the point here is that your business is the result of a series of new ideas that you choose to implement. Implement a series of good ideas, you get growth and great results. Implement a series of bad ideas, you can almost bankrupt your business.
I’m really quick at implementing ideas. Usually a few days, max 1 week. For example, creating the LinkedIn Content Writing app — 1,5 weeks, working day and night, including learning what had to be learned to do it.
But it’s hard. You never know if an idea is good or not before trying it. And if you happen to land on a series of bad ideas that brings down your business and can even bankrupt you. Even in the more positive case, you can waste DAYS building something useless.
But… risk or not, ideas are the key to growth. That’s why I always tell people if you have a good idea that you want tested that could help my business, give it to me and I’ll implement it and test it for you and share the results.
And the progress of your business is dictated by whether you land on a series of good ideas or bad ones. A series of bad ideas can almost bury your businenss.
I’ll give you a few examples:
• The idea to sell a service instead of coaching at the beginning of this year was a genius idea. It’s responsible for 80-90% of this year’s revenue.
• The idea in May to remove 2 calls in the sales process, and make it 1 optional call with the option to buy directly from the website following a guru recommended on thefastlane was a terrible idea. Reduced the pipeline by 30-40%, with no added advantages. Gurus lie — they come on podcasts and the media, and tell you outright lies, and claim revenue numbers and sales processes that don’t actually work in reality.
• The idea that every month is the same, and not considering monthly fluctuations made us lose 30% of customers in July-August which is a naturally slow period of the year.
• The idea to introduce additional services to improve results, reduce client workload, and raise prices/margins in August was a genius idea.
• The idea to reintroduce 2 sales calls, and have a structured pitch before closing was another genius idea, doubled closing rate.
• The idea to create an AI app for LinkedIn content writing was a genius idea — it’s been extensively used by our writers since creation to speed up the process.
• The recent idea to create an app to help someone analyze their LinkedIn Profile and provide a report with specific recommendations to turn their profile into a landing page — not sure if it’s a good or bad idea yet since I just released it on Christmas Eve, but may be the key to booking a ton more meetings by giving upfront value. Now in a recent thread I was against giving value for nothing, but… if that value costs you nothing, that changes my mindset. We’ll see once it gets tested if giving value upfront works or not. Who knows what will happen? My mind is hypnotized now, and I think it’s a genius idea that will revolutionize client acquisition… but maybe it won’t.
And there are more ideas…
• How about using a contact form vs a book a meeting link, and as soon as someone submits the contact form, give them a call and do the first 15min meeting like that?!
F*ck, I have no clue if this is a good idea or a bad one. But some people online say “well, people may not be willing to book a meeting yet, but they want to find out more, a contact form works better for them”.
Who knows?!
There are many many other ideas that I’ve tested that didnt have much of an impact one way or another. For example, I spent about $5K on ads this year, with virtually 0 success across FB/Google. I haven’t found a winning concept. I tried many sort of ads, paid @Andy Black for a consultation, followed a guru’s approach recommended by Andy and so on. Nothing worked on that front for me.
So good ideas, bad ideas, and ideas that don’t really move the needle one way or another…
But the point here is that your business is the result of a series of new ideas that you choose to implement. Implement a series of good ideas, you get growth and great results. Implement a series of bad ideas, you can almost bankrupt your business.
I’m really quick at implementing ideas. Usually a few days, max 1 week. For example, creating the LinkedIn Content Writing app — 1,5 weeks, working day and night, including learning what had to be learned to do it.
But it’s hard. You never know if an idea is good or not before trying it. And if you happen to land on a series of bad ideas that brings down your business and can even bankrupt you. Even in the more positive case, you can waste DAYS building something useless.
But… risk or not, ideas are the key to growth. That’s why I always tell people if you have a good idea that you want tested that could help my business, give it to me and I’ll implement it and test it for you and share the results.
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