I lost 70 Thousand in Advertising...

[spaxton1]

We all have stories. Here's mine:

8 Years ago I lost $77,310 dollars in advertising before I learned the fastlane. What happened? Simple; I followed the advice I learned in college about marketing and created what I thought was a winning marketing campaign.

The Advertising Breakdown:
$30,000 In Billboards (the Freeway kind)
$20,000 In Rush Hour Radio Ads (Radio plus road visual, oh boy!)
$7,500 In Newspaper Ads (Included sticky note ad on the front page of every newspaper! Yipee!)
$5,000 In 24 Hour Call Center (...1-800 number for my ads. Gotta have it!)
$4,500 In Window Decals & Stickers (...Free adversting-- I'm genious!!)
$3,200 In Car Wrap (...More Free adversting, right?)
$2,500 In Gold Embossed Folders (...for all the orders, right?)
$800 In Website Design (...everyone else was doing it. I want one too!)
$500 In Gold Printed Frisbees (...still not sure about this one, probably sounded fun. Frisbee anyone?)
$350 In Printed Table Skirts (...Hmm Sexy, and I know it.)
$250 In Custom Printed Pens (... come on, every successful business has these; no brainer!)
$200 In 4 Embroidered Polos (... gotta look good, and I did!)
$10 In Business Cards (... I'm so smart-- I saved $40 using vistaprint! AND they were double sided.)
+ Non Advertising Start-up Cost
$10,800 For Office Space (1 Reception, 2 Offices, 1 Conference Room)
$2,500 For Gold Letter Signage for the 1 Man Office (...look big to make it big!)
$4,500 For Office Furniture (Desks, and Chairs only)
$4,200 For Office Phones (I'm so smart-- I bought used off ebay)
$1,500 For Office Decorations (Trees and art work a must!)
$1,500 For Color Laser Printer (I'm super professional now!)
$1,500 For Projector and Audio (Not much of a conference room with out it, right?)
$300 For LCD Monitor (not to be fivolous I used my own PC! Wow I'm awesome.)

Total Spent on Advertising: $77,310
Total Spent on Office Space: $26,800
... that's over $100,000 for those keeping track.

Let's get to the good part... Results from my super awesome "college education" marketing campaign?

--wait for it--

--almost there--

--still waiting?--

Boom! $484 Dollars. Yep, that's right... my college education taught me how to spend $77,310 on an awesome marketing campaign that would generate a 2 whole sales. (1 @ $395 and the other at $89.)

I failed. Miserably. ... don't get me wrong. My college degree wasn't to blame, I was.

That's when it hit me. Why does anyone go to college? When was the last time you took a business or marketing class from a multi-millionaire? Probably never, I surely didn't. I spent 4 years learning about business from people that weren't in business. How stupid was that? ... well, the numbers don't lie.

I spent the next 3 years of my life learning how business really works; and it was freaking tough!! ...survived off Ramen noodles and few hours of sleep. I literally spent over 100 thousands dollars to learn the fastlane through the school of hard knocks. Had I read MJ's book in 2006 (not published yet)-- this whole fiasco might have been avoided (assuming I was wise enough to follow).

A couple weeks ago I picked up MJ's TFLM book. I was completely shocked! In fact, I couldn't put it down. I usually take a couple months to finish a book that size, but I finished MJ's book in 3 days. Finally, a book that actually shows the path to wealth.

We all make dumb mistakes, hopefully you can learn from some of mine. I wouldn't replace my "hard knock" lesson for anything. Someone once said "Good lessons cost money; Great lessons cost a lot!"

My Fastlane lesson cost me $104,110. ... but it made me who I am today.

You don't need money to make money. If so, I'd be screwed; because I blew all my start-up money on stupid stuff. After my massive advertising fail (yep all eggs in one basket) it took me 3 years to build back up before I actually started making a profit.

I love business! Nothing in this world (other than my family) is more rewarding to me than business. Where else can you make money while you sleep, vacation, and play with the family?

Today, I've built up several online brands that practically run themselves. I focus entirely on internet marketing and could retire today if I wanted. No, I'm not an affiliate marketer (no offense if you are). I build scaleable businesses and brands; one being fairly well known in the USA.

I've joined this forum because I've learned that success is multiplied when you network with other highly successful people. Hopefully I'll see you around the forum.

Please, don't settle and be a time trader. Life has too much to offer. I promise if you trust in yourself; you won't regret it. ... as the saying goes-- "If I can do it..."

 

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[spaxton1]

Can you tell us any valuable lessons you learned, what was different the second time around? Im assuming you kept things super light weight after that.... did you do a lot of spit testing through one traffic source, or test multiple traffic sources second time around? Traffic sources could be both offline and online. Thanks.

That's a great question. To answer I need to layout my mindset so you can see how my mindset changed.

They say "Go Big or Go Home!" ... unfortunately that has nothing to do with the money you spend. But for me I somehow thought that the more money I threw "into" (pronouced "taken from") the business the faster and bigger it would grow. Boy was I wrong.

I'm certain there is some dark cloud of mis-judgment you have to walk through to get from the sidewalk to the fastlane. While in the cloud your thoughts seem clear and sensible when in reality they are broken and based on a foggy undertanding of how business and wealth creation really work. Its no fault to the person walking through the fog-- its just a reality that you have to pass through before landing both feet on the fastlane.

You see money can make you wealthy. The common adage that it takes money to make money is based on some truths. But for some odd reason when people are walking through this cloud of mis-judgment they seem to grasp ahold of those ideals and think that the winning formula for success is tied to money. That somehow the more money you put "into" (pronounced "taken from") a business the more successful you will be. You can spot this even with posters on this forum.

... I just need 200K.
... where can I find an investor
... anyone want to partner
... what would you do with $10,000

We see this mindset in people all the time. When I see this I realize that people are doing their best to jump from the sidewalk to the fastlane but their judgment is skewed by that darn dark could of mis-judgment. For some people (including myself) that lesson is only learned after the pinch of failure is so strong you have to lay down from the overwhelming pain. Its my opinion that people have to either learn that lesson by empathizing with the pain from someone that's walked through the sidewalk cloud OR they can do it the hard way and walk through the cloud on their own. But fair warning; the second option while the most effective is also the most painful. Because trust me; that dark cloud of mis-judgment (Sidewalk cloud??) is sitting on top of a thorn bush with one path out, and it hurts. -- No pain no gain? Maybe.

There is no greater lesson to learn than the lesson of failure. All greats have failed. The key is how the rebound or persist.

So what changed in me? My diet. hehe... no seriously I should have bought stock in Ramen Noodles (too bad I had no money left). Yeah, my diet.. that was part of it. But the biggest change was that I hit rock bottom. Life sucked and I knew it. I felt let down by my "education." According to the books I set-up a marketing campaign that covered all the basis. In fact, I did such a good job at covering frequency (number of times seem by someone) that if I mentioned my company to anyone they would say-- oh yeah-- I've heard of you guys. (...a lot of good that did. Everyone heard of me but only 2 people cared enough to buy my product) According to the numbers-- if my product converted at the poorest conversion rates my business would have been a huge success. But it didn't convert at all. My product sucked.

The good news to all of that was that I finally crawled through the thorn patch and the dark cloud of mis-judgement was behind me. I'll tell you what, the smells and colors of truth are strong and clear when your sitting your butt on the fastlane looking back at the "Sidewalk Cloud of Misfortune." Looking at it buised and broken you can't help but think; "You clever bugger-- you got me this time, but not again." People that have walked through that cloud will probably agree with me... once you get close to the cloud of mis-judgment after walking through it once you will be overcome by the stench and turn back to the fastlane where the smells and colors are vivid and fresh. Rarely does one survive the cloud and walk back through it-- if so; the pain from your first walk through wasn't bad enough.

So back to the question... what changes once you sit bruised on broken looking back at the sidewalk? There is one simple change: Mindset.

Look you don't need money to grow a business. Sure, it can help; but it can also hurt. For me, it was the cost of tuition to hard knock university.

What was my big plan?

I had huge plans to take the company national. I intended to take an offline business and prove the market locally. Then, franchise and grow fast. The only problem was that my business model was broken. It didn't work. That's right all those pretty charts and graphs and number crunching were useless. They meant zero. They equaled zero. When the charts flatline; the business is dead.

I knew my business model was dead. But the business idea wasn't. I knew it had potential but needed to change into something different. I quickly went from a "offline" business to an "online business." I did it because I had no other choice. I needed to survive and that seemed like the best logical path. Plus I had one advantage-- I was sitting on the fastlane now and no longer was my judgment clouded by that stupid Sidewalk Cloud. Finally, I knew what didn't work. Which in my opinion is every bit as important as what does work. How can I know all the right choices if I don't know the wrong ones first?

If you look at my advertising dollars... you'll see that one of the lowest investments I made was into a website. Funny how the thing I valued the least turned into the thing that provided the most value.

I no longer had the luxury to rely on money to push my product. All I had left was the product. I had to learn how to make the product work for me. I had to learn how to create value. I had to learn to create something people actually wanted. But, that wasn't enough. A great product still needs marketing so I did everything I could to learn how internet marketing worked. I had to learn how algorithms worked. Eventually I gained skills that lead to more rapid growth. I learned how to master organic search results. I didn't need to test other traffic sources because the organic traffic was plentiful. Only later did I start to play around with other traffic, but that was well after I mastered organic traffic. I'm not a huge fan of paid traffic-- although it does have its place.

I started to look at the business as a resource to help people rather than just to help me make money. The mindset changed from how can I make money to how can I help more people. I started placing myself in the shoes of my customers. Magically it worked. ... and no it hasn't been all roses. There's still plenty of fart clouds lingering on the fastlane. They're a bit harder to see (unlike the dark cloud of mis-judgment)-- you just have to walk through them and hold your breath as much as you can. Soon you'll start moving fast enough on the fastlane that you don't notice the occasional fart cloud; you certainly don't stop to smell them. Eventually, its like sticking your head out of a moving car window on the freeway-- fart clouds are a non event.

 

[spaxton1]

How did I get the money to start the business?

I figured that question would get brought up eventually. I think its fair game, so why not just explain how I got the money in the first place.

If you're thinking I got a business loan; you're wrong.

If you're thinking I used credit cards; you're wrong.

If you're thinking I come from a rich family, you're wrong.

If you're thinking I partnered with someone, you're wrong.

If you thinking I robbed a bank or won the lottery, you're wrong.

The reality is that I worked my butt off to get that money.

Before the big fail of 2006 I had other businesses and other projects I was working on. But lets be honest they were all jobs disguised as a business. The seed money I got for the 2006 business came from hard work. At 22 I bought an old run down 4-plex rental property. Since I couldn't afford contractors I learned how to remodel myself. ... I learned lots of life lessons on that first 4-plex I remodeled.

Every day after work, I would work and work until the place was the best looking place in the neighborhood. Luckily, I bought and sold right. Flipping rental properties in todays market would be much more difficult. After everything was said and done I walked away from that deal with about 90K.

What I didn't tell you is that 1 week before closing on that deal I was laid off. Confident in myself I took the money and was determined to be an overnight success. I couldn't fail (at least that's what I thought). I thought the timing was ok because I had already been working for about 2 years on the business I planned to promote. I was on top of the world.

I no longer had the chains of a full-time job.
I had what felt like unlimited money.
I was living the dream for about 4 months. Then reality kicked me in the face, hard!

I can't tell you how many times I beat myself up over my blantant waste of money and resources. For 3 years I wasn't my best friend, but I knew I owed it to my wife to make things happen. How could I give up on myself if my own wife hadn't. Even though I was pissed at my poor decisions; I didn't stop because I knew I would be successful.

Honestly, putting this stuff out here is a humbling experience. My hopes are that it inspires someone to see that no matter what life hands you; you have the ability to rise above it. There's probably not one successfull person on this forum that hasn't experience some sort of self doubt or challenges-- its just a part of the process. ... what separates the winners from the losers is how the pick up the pieces.

 

[JasonR]

Great intro. Sounds like you have the steel balls to do what 99% of others won't do.

Testicular Fortitude...

 

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[spaxton1]

100k is the entry fee for the starter education
Most would never to pay for it
Congrats on your real education bill. And welcome. It should be a bit more fun here.
Z

Agreed on that. I was lucky to be in a position to pay the tuition. The school of hard knocks seems to have the highest fees; but best professors.

It goes to show you that the forces that condition us to take this path, have a tight grip on us. We are indoctrined with the notion that college is the path to all of our dreams without ever questioning it the process.

Funny enough... usually the people around us with the highest education are also the ones without money. Education doesn't equal money, nor does it equal education.

Much like the .com or housing bubbles I think the education market will have a bubble soon. Who knows how soon; but it will happen.

Welcome and thanks for your amazing testimony.

Thanks! Real life drama-- its what molds us into what we are.

When you have time, contribute what you know to the INSIDERS here on the forum. It's something I still struggle with (sharing what I know) mostly due to lack of time. But there's a few people here on the forum that helped me get to where I am today and I owe it to the forum to be one of those people as soon as I can.
Looking forward to having you on the forum!

+1 for the comment about affiliates. (Made me smile)

Sure, I think its vital the information flow both ways. I'm sure everyone here is an expert in some way or another and has value that can add to the community. My skills are mostly with SEO, Branding, Conversion Optimization, Software Development, and IM Marketing. Hopefully those skills can help a few people.

Great story you've shared I have never understood billboards unless just used for branding. It exposes the huge flaw I paying out for college degrees when those teaching have little to no real life experience in the field ... It's a scam!

I think billboards have their place, but overall they are a very difficult medium. Today when I drive down the road I can immediately tell if a billboard is a success or not. I'm not a fan of name recognition branding. If I were to run a billboard campaign again; I'm sure I could make it work-- but it would require a strong call to action. If you think about it... a billboard call to action has to be so effective that people either are willing to risk their life to buy now while driving OR so strong they actually remember it after they get out of the car.

In general, they work great for politicians, and events. Outside from those two-- you better know what you're doing.

----------

 

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[DeletedUser2]

100k is the entry fee for the starter education

Most would never to pay for it

Congrats on your real education bill. And welcome. It should be a bit more fun here.

Z

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Incredible intro ... not sure if an intro post has ever gone GOLD but this one has the DNA.

A big welcome to our little corner of the interwebs.

 

[PeeVee]

That's when it hit me. Why does anyone go to college? When was the last time you took a business or marketing class from a multi-millionaire? Probably never, I surely didn't. I spent 4 years learning about business from people that weren't in business. How stupid was that?

Welcome to this awesome community @spaxton.

It goes to show you that the forces that condition us to take this path, have a tight grip on us. We are indoctrined with the notion that college is the path to all of our dreams without ever questioning it the process.

 

[The-J]

I like this guy... he'll be a legend around here

 

[StartupsRFun]

Great post. A lot of people miss out on the key principles of adding value and providing something people actually want.

 

[throttleforward]

Personally, the idea of working for the man in a job is more scary that failing in business. I've seen too many people dedicate their lives to a company who later get laid off...

Agreed - happened to my wife the day we found out she was pregnant. Got the positive test result in the morning - we were elated for 2 hours, then she went into work and was told she was being laid off. Luckily she found another job, but not before 5 months of endless searching, interviewing, frustration, stress, etc.

Before that happened, building a business was something I was doing because I felt I could...sort of a "why not me" attitude. After the lay off experience, I felt emasculated. Some dude in some office I never met really f'ed with my life and my family. I was embarrassed that I alone was not able to provide solely for my wife and soon-to-be son.

It certainly motivated me to push the pedal harder and figure this stuff out. No more playing around, wasting time and money. I've definitely adopted the fail faster model, as well as the back to basics approach. I've tried to stop outsmarting myself and just simplify everything to "identify a real problem, as told to me by other people (even if I personally experience that problem, I want to hear it from others), then build a solution, then sell the solution, then start thinking about scale, money, time, etc. Everything done manually and painfully until I have enough customers to think about things like automation, etc."

 

[spaxton1]

Regarding going through your "school of hard knocks" and blowing through so much cash. I would think it made you more cautious and conservative thereafter. And if so, do you think it held you back from scaling quicker or not. Do you feel in any way that that experience of losing so much cash on your initial startup has been a detriment to your growth?

Ques: Did my experience (losing so much cash upfront) hold me back from scaling quicker?

ANS: No not really. Why? Because the money wasn't the key to scaling the business. The key was getting infront of my market. If you remember from my numbers above; I generated a whole 2 sales totaling $484. That money came from my local market. The plan was to prove the local market and then franchise the concept for quick growth.

I proved the product would sell. ... most would think the opposite. Instead of dwelling on the negative I looked at the positive. I did get the product to sell. If 2 people were willing to buy; then I knew millions would IF I could do a better job at reaching the right market AND improve the call to action/ product.

Original Plan: Prove the market locally and scale nationwide.

New Plan: Take the product nationwide and scale worldwide.

I knew if I could find a low cost way to duplicate the results (2 buyers per State) I could potentially generate $24,200 per month ($484 X 50 for each State) True, it wouldn't be a huge win (a wins a win)... but it would mean that my initial loss of $102,00 would turn into asset (education) rather than a liability (loss). ($290,400 per year)

Sure, I could have walked away and never looked back. But why? I proved my product would sell. ... it was now just a matter of fast scale. This is where the internet came to play. The internet is the great equalizer of wealth. What I thought would take a $70,000 marketing campaign could be done online for pennies.

My failure didn't hold me back from scaling quickly-- nope, it reared its ugly face and threw my butt on the fastlane where I had no choice but to step on the gas.

 

[cashis]

Most people would have given up after losing that much money. Great example to show perseverance ultimately pays off!

I'm glad you kept going and accomplished your goals.

Oh, and welcome to TFF!

 

[Lauryn]

Welcome and thanks for your amazing testimony.

 

[McCoyH]

No, I'm not an affiliate marketer (no offense if you are)

I'd like to offend you if you are.

 

[McCoyH]

Today, I've built up several online brands that practically run themselves. I focus entirely on internet marketing and could retire today if I wanted.

When you have time, contribute what you know to the INSIDERS here on the forum. It's something I still struggle with (sharing what I know) mostly due to lack of time. But there's a few people here on the forum that helped me get to where I am today and I owe it to the forum to be one of those people as soon as I can.

Looking forward to having you on the forum!

 

[spaxton1]

This is currently my greatest fear. I too was clear-eyed and confident that I knew what I was doing. I quit my job after saving a little money in order to work on the concept full time. It failed miserably (and to anyone with half a business brain, predictably). Luckily I got a job fairly quickly after throwing in the towel - but that fear that I'll charge headlong into another boneheaded business disaster is probably doing a lot to keep me back.

You won't. You know how I know? You're too smart. Sure, they'll be more failures but as long as you don't keep repeating them you will win. Fail fast, move on. Personally, the idea of working for the man in a job is more scary that failing in business. I've seen too many people dedicate their lives to a company who later get laid off...

What's more secure?

Option 1: Trading time working for a company controlled by someone else.

or

Option 2: Trading time building a company controlled by you.

Either option will require time and hardship; but one provides the biggest reward. I can't convince you to face your fears; but I can tell you that you won't regret it if you do.

 

[Arrabista]

Great intro.. welcome aboard..you will find kindred spirits here...

 

[million$$$smile]

Great intro.
Regarding going through your "school of hard knocks" and blowing through so much cash. I would think it made you more cautious and conservative thereafter. And if so, do you think it held you back from scaling quicker or not. Do you feel in any way that that experience of losing so much cash on your initial startup has been a detriment to your growth?

Also welcome to the forum!
Randall

 

[spaxton1]

Being in college myself, one of my main questions that I like to direct towards fastlaner's such as yourself is related to schooling. You had mentioned that what you learned in school was in a sense pointless, but what I'm curious to know is "Could you have done it without your 'formal' education?" I understand school for a lot of people was kind of a waste of time but in the long run, the experiences that they learned in school shaped who they are today; regardless of if they actually used what they learned.

Could I have done it without my formal education? Good question.

First, I don't regret my schooling. Second, it didn't help me much to get to where I am.

Sure, the ancient art history class is good if I travel the world... but it certainly didn't give me any skills to help me do that. Probably one of the best skills I learned in college was from being a radio dj. It was a fun class and I volunteered to DJ during the summer because it was fun. It taught me a little bit about marketing but nothing near what you learn from doing it in the real world.

College degrees are ego boosters in my opinion. Getting one shows you can stick to something and complete it. But, other than that they really aren't going to help you progress as a business owner. Ever noticed how every degree is catered to a job or career? Schools aren't really meant to get you on the fastlane-- that's something you have to do on your own.

I agree from my own experience. However, How to rank organically in top 10 results? You have me behind interested in this and I have been trying everything for months to do this with my site. Do you have any direct resources I can read to learn this?

SEO is a constant moving target. How to rank organically today can drastically change tomorrow. The reason you hear people preach content, content, content is probably because if you write enough content you will eventually get natural rankings. But that's kind of like investing in a business blindly and hoping it takes off. Content alone won't help you rank. Optimized content that is keyword based may help get some natural rankings; but that still requires the site to have some trust and authority.

Are there courses out there to learn SEO? Yes, tons of them. But the majority are outdated by the time they're created. There's a lot of garbage floating out there right now. Most of it is pushed propaganda by big G themselves. They've done a good job at scaring SEOs. I would highly discourage you from drinking the kool-aide that is found on most forums. If you're looking for a "quick and easy" way to rank you will have to find a time machine and go back to 2012 or earlier. Today's SEO has evolved and most of the seo tools that used to work no longer do.

I can't say for sure whether this is what Spaxton means - but the top 10 results show you HOW the sites there are ranking. Use tools such as Ahrefs to see what backlinks the site has and theoretically if you can improve on the top sites backlink profile you will outrank them. Of course there are other factors like age etc, but backlinks are the backbone of any ranking measurement.

Yes, that is basically what I meant, thanks.

Spaxton - do you mind if I ask if you go whitehat or mainly blackhat when you talk about SEO.

Technically if you are doing anything to influence search engines you are grey hat or black hat. People that claim they are whitehat are grey hat no matter how you spin it.

Black hat to me means you use extremely spammy techniques and mostly churn and burn. That's not my style.

You have to keep in mind, one of my businesses caters to SEO companies. They come to me to rank their clients sites. We HAVE to deliver results or their clients will stop using their service. Each company we service represents several customers. We do that by being smart aggressive. We have to balance results with quality. We also have to use systems that can be reversed in case a penalty or algo update hits. My approach to SEO is not much different than what big sites like WebMB or Geiko do. We have one SEO company we work with that generates over $300,000 worth of traffic per month (3.6 million per year) to their site alone. Here's a screenshot: http://screencast.com/t/oSEF0skscL3 SEO can be big business but to be a player in todays market you've got to have the right systems in place.

I wonder if anyone would be interested in a progress thread to demostrate the power of SEO? I might be up for a challenge like that. If I get enough people to reply with interest I would be willing to consider it. Let me know...

 

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[TedM]

There's probably not one successfull person on this forum that hasn't experience some sort of self doubt or challenges-- its just a part of the process. ... what separates the winners from the losers is how the pick up the pieces.

 

[CashFlow]

Agreed on that. I was lucky to be in a position to pay the tuition. The school of hard knocks seems to have the highest fees; but best professors.




Funny enough... usually the people around us with the highest education are also the ones without money. Education doesn't equal money, nor does it equal education.

Much like the .com or housing bubbles I think the education market will have a bubble soon. Who knows how soon; but it will happen.




Thanks! Real life drama-- its what molds us into what we are.




+1 for the comment about affiliates. (Made me smile)

Sure, I think its vital the information flow both ways. I'm sure everyone here is an expert in some way or another and has value that can add to the community. My skills are mostly with SEO, Branding, Conversion Optimization, Software Development, and IM Marketing. Hopefully those skills can help a few people.




I think billboards have their place, but overall they are a very difficult medium. Today when I drive down the road I can immediately tell if a billboard is a success or not. I'm not a fan of name recognition branding. If I were to run a billboard campaign again; I'm sure I could make it work-- but it would require a strong call to action. If you think about it... a billboard call to action has to be so effective that people either are willing to risk their life to buy now while driving OR so strong they actually remember it after they get out of the car.

In general, they work great for politicians, and events. Outside from those two-- you better know what you're doing.

----------

Thanks so much for sharing. I have to agree with you - I think college and the student loan debt issue is the next shoe to drop (bubble). I too went to college and stopped when my loans hit $56k.

I love what you said about getting a real education and how you would never get that from non-millionaire professors. So true.

I realized college didn't make sense and dropped out. Best move I ever made.

I think a great idea for the future of college campuses is to raise capital to rehab them into nursing homes/ elderly community living facilities. What do you think?

 

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[theBiz]

Hey spaxton1 great story. Many of us learn its almost like a bike... you have to fall off in order to learn how to ride most times, but hopefully you learn in the process.

Can you tell us any valuable lessons you learned, what was different the second time around? Im assuming you kept things super light weight after that.... did you do a lot of spit testing through one traffic source, or test multiple traffic sources second time around? Traffic sources could be both offline and online. Thanks.

 

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[Stubbers]

Great story you've shared I have never understood billboards unless just used for branding. It exposes the huge flaw I paying out for college degrees when those teaching have little to no real life experience in the field ... It's a scam!

 

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[dfontes1188]

Welcome and thank you for sharing your experience. I appreciate people who are humble and openly talk about their failures. I feel that I learn and take a lot more from that as opposed to listening to only the things people do right. You clearly have a ton of experience and it shows in your writing (it reminds of the copy writing books that I'm reading). I look forward to learning more from you.

 

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[McCoyH]

That's a great question. To answer I need to layout my mindset so you can see how my mindset changed.

They say "Go Big or Go Home!" ... unfortunately that has nothing to do with the money you spend. But for me I somehow thought that the more money I threw "into" (pronouced "taken from") the business the faster and bigger it would grow. Boy was I wrong.

I'm certain there is some dark cloud of mis-judgment you have to walk through to get from the sidewalk to the fastlane. While in the cloud your thoughts seem clear and sensible when in reality they are broken and based on a foggy undertanding of how business and wealth creation really work. Its no fault to the person walking through the fog-- its just a reality that you have to pass through before landing both feet on the fastlane.

You see money can make you wealthy. The common adage that it takes money to make money is based on some truths. But for some odd reason when people are walking through this cloud of mis-judgment they seem to grasp ahold of those ideals and think that the winning formula for success is tied to money. That somehow the more money you put "into" (pronounced "taken from") a business the more successful you will be. You can spot this even with posters on this forum.

... I just need 200K.
... where can I find an investor
... anyone want to partner
... what would you do with $10,000

We see this mindset in people all the time. When I see this I realize that people are doing their best to jump from the sidewalk to the fastlane but their judgment is skewed by that darn dark could of mis-judgment. For some people (including myself) that lesson is only learned after the pinch of failure is so strong you have to lay down from the overwhelming pain. Its my opinion that people have to either learn that lesson by empathizing with the pain from someone that's walked through the sidewalk cloud OR they can do it the hard way and walk through the cloud on their own. But fair warning; the second option while the most effective is also the most painful. Because trust me; that dark cloud of mis-judgment (Sidewalk cloud??) is sitting on top of a thorn bush with one path out, and it hurts. -- No pain no gain? Maybe.

There is no greater lesson to learn than the lesson of failure. All greats have failed. The key is how the rebound or persist.

So what changed in me? My diet. hehe... no seriously I should have bought stock in Ramen Noodles (too bad I had no money left). Yeah, my diet.. that was part of it. But the biggest change was that I hit rock bottom. Life sucked and I knew it. I felt let down by my "education." According to the books I set-up a marketing campaign that covered all the basis. In fact, I did such a good job at covering frequency (number of times seem by someone) that if I mentioned my company to anyone they would say-- oh yeah-- I've heard of you guys. (...a lot of good that did. Everyone heard of me but only 2 people cared enough to buy my product) According to the numbers-- if my product converted at the poorest conversion rates my business would have been a huge success. But it didn't convert at all. My product sucked.

The good news to all of that was that I finally crawled through the thorn patch and the dark cloud of mis-judgement was behind me. I'll tell you what, the smells and colors of truth are strong and clear when your sitting your butt on the fastlane looking back at the "Sidewalk Cloud of Misfortune." Looking at it buised and broken you can't help but think; "You clever bugger-- you got me this time, but not again." People that have walked through that cloud will probably agree with me... once you get close to the cloud of mis-judgment after walking through it once you will be overcome by the stench and turn back to the fastlane where the smells and colors are vivid and fresh. Rarely does one survive the cloud and walk back through it-- if so; the pain from your first walk through wasn't bad enough.

So back to the question... what changes once you sit bruised on broken looking back at the sidewalk? There is one simple change: Mindset.

Look you don't need money to grow a business. Sure, it can help; but it can also hurt. For me, it was the cost of tuition to hard knock university.

What was my big plan?

I had huge plans to take the company national. I intended to take an offline business and prove the market locally. Then, franchise and grow fast. The only problem was that my business model was broken. It didn't work. That's right all those pretty charts and graphs and number crunching were useless. They meant zero. They equaled zero. When the charts flatline; the business is dead.

I knew my business model was dead. But the business idea wasn't. I knew it had potential but needed to change into something different. I quickly went from a "offline" business to an "online business." I did it because I had no other choice. I needed to survive and that seemed like the best logical path. Plus I had one advantage-- I was sitting on the fastlane now and no longer was my judgment clouded by that stupid Sidewalk Cloud. Finally, I knew what didn't work. Which in my opinion is every bit as important as what does work. How can I know all the right choices if I don't know the wrong ones first?

If you look at my advertising dollars... you'll see that one of the lowest investments I made was into a website. Funny how the thing I valued the least turned into the thing that provided the most value.

I no longer had the luxury to rely on money to push my product. All I had left was the product. I had to learn how to make the product work for me. I had to learn how to create value. I had to learn to create something people actually wanted. But, that wasn't enough. A great product still needs marketing so I did everything I could to learn how internet marketing worked. I had to learn how algorithms worked. Eventually I gained skills that lead to more rapid growth. I learned how to master organic search results. I didn't need to test other traffic sources because the organic traffic was plentiful. Only later did I start to play around with other traffic, but that was well after I mastered organic traffic. I'm not a huge fan of paid traffic-- although it does have its place.

I started to look at the business as a resource to help people rather than just to help me make money. The mindset changed from how can I make money to how can I help more people. I started placing myself in the shoes of my customers. Magically it worked. ... and no it hasn't been all roses. There's still plenty of fart clouds lingering on the fastlane. They're a bit harder to see (unlike the dark cloud of mis-judgment)-- you just have to walk through them and hold your breath as much as you can. Soon you'll start moving fast enough on the fastlane that you don't notice the occasional fart cloud; you certainly don't stop to smell them. Eventually, its like sticking your head out of a moving car window on the freeway-- fart clouds are a non event.

Another great post. You're on fire!

 

[masaldana2]

GOLD! Welcomee

 

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[ManWithABeard]

damn epic intro, bro I'd so buy you a beer just for the epic story. Very inspring as well, love your mindset, that's the mindset I strive to have one day!

 

[spaxton1]

I am very interested in your SEO experience. I know you mentioned ranking high with any keyword. PLEASE SHARE. All I hear about SEO is blog more, create content. Yes I know, I know. Is this all there is too it?

I'll tell you a simple secret to SEO. But first... we need to address the comment about "All I hear about SEO is blog more, create content." If you hear that advice from someone; please respond to that person with the following:

1) Lace up your steel toed boots
2) Kick the person that told you to "Blog More" in the dingle berries as hard as you can
3) Wait for them to get up, repeat steps 2 and 3.

SEO is not content marketing. Content marketing is content marketing. SEO is the practice of ranking organically in the serps. Content may help; but has very little to do with it.

Wanna know the secret to SEO? ... regardless of what you hear (especially from big G and SEO Gurus), the serps don't lie. No matter what Google does they can't hide the top 10 results. Immediately following any algo update you have the key right in front of you. That tip right there can make anyone an SEO pro.

 

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[Sydants]

I agree from my own experience. However, How to rank organically in top 10 results? You have me behind interested in this and I have been trying everything for months to do this with my site. Do you have any direct resources I can read to learn this?

I can't say for sure whether this is what Spaxton means - but the top 10 results show you HOW the sites there are ranking. Use tools such as Ahrefs to see what backlinks the site has and theoretically if you can improve on the top sites backlink profile you will outrank them. Of course there are other factors like age etc, but backlinks are the backbone of any ranking measurement.

Spaxton - do you mind if I ask if you go whitehat or mainly blackhat when you talk about SEO.