I know, I know… you’re all saying “I’ll take that problem”, right?
But as a site starts to grow “fat on the land”, a strange phenomenon develops I call “making money in spite of yourself”.
What does that mean and why is it a problem?
Spend some time examining the most successful sites in any market and you’ll notice something very interesting… the more successful they become, the more opportunities they ignore.
You see, when you’re just barely breaking even or losing money, you’ll fight for every improvement you can find (or you’ll just drop out of the game). Which means, until you cross into the black you’ll desperately do things like …
- Try More Granular Service (providing entire sites or at least landing pages about “COQ10 Side Effects” instead of just “COQ10″, for example)
- Follow Up More Aggressively
- Split Test Front End Ads
- Develop Back End Services
- Do Surveys
- Do Telegroups to actually TALK to prospects and customers
- Get Copywriting Critiques
- Multivariate Tests
- Segment their market
- Work their AdWords account (process the search query and content placement reports, for example)…
… and anything else you can think of to improve your system.
But once you start to reach your financial goals, you start to slack.
In fact, this is built into the entrepreneurial fantasy in and of itself, because what we all seem to want most is to get electrons flowing around the internet and into our bank account while we sit on the beach in Fiji eating ding dongs.
Unfortunately, while you’re enjoying your ding dongs, there’s a dozen other guys (or gals) sweating to make it into the black, and they’ll look for anyplace you’re vulnerable, and ruthlessly fight you for every inch of territory, until you wake up and have to start fighting again.
UNLESS…
Unless you’re aware of the danger and you build such an overwhelmingly strong system that any marketer in their right mind would stay away… and those who don’t know any better will get crushed quickly. (Which is yet another reason why I’m always teaching people to clean up in Hoboken, Queens, and Staten Island instead of Viet Nam).
But even then, you probably can’t let your PPC system “just sit” for years without attention. (Or your SEO system, for that matter).
A search marketing site is a naturally deteriorating asset. (Kind of like your health… if you’re not actively making it better, it’s getting worse. It’s just the way life is.)
- As an example on the TINY end of the spectrum, I left my guinea pigs and rabbits sites up more or less untouched and untended for 6 years now. They’re still in the black only because I built such a ridiculously strong system to start with. (Someone would have to be crazy to build 58 follow ups complete with audios, hundreds of pictures, etc, just to sell a $9.99 ebook). But profits HAVE steadily deteriorated and are now just a few hundred dollars per niche each month.
- As an example on the GIGANTIC end of the spectrum, my partner spends as much as a quarter million dollars PER MONTH of his own money in Adwords (for another business I own no part of, unfortunately!). At a recent meeting he said “Glenn, I would NEVER just let the account sit for a month… my competitors would decimate my positions”
A search marketing site is a naturally deteriorating asset… you’re either working it to make it better or it’s gonna get worse.
What does this mean for building wealth?
It means you go into this game with the knowledge that you’re building a living, breathing entity which requires care…
It means you as soon as you get to the top or anywhere near it, you put people in place to keep you there. (Jim Rohn said “don’t rest too long or the weeds will take the garden”)…
And with a plan for taking at least some of the money your site generates OUT of your business to feed your life while the sun shines…
And an exit plan for engineering a BIG PAY DAY in the long run!
It also means you put aside any bullshit “set and forget” fantasies you’ve been fed and get down to the real work of building your business and engineering your life.
(I’m definitely up on a soap box today)
Dr. G 
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
That bullshit of “make money while you sleep” was used to sell Corey Rudl’s course and although the course was very good, the mentality that was created for me was very bad, until I realized what you say with my own experience.
The only way to build a more or less set and forget system is through a highly leveraged system that is extremely difficult to compete without leverage.
Evolutionary theory calls it the Red Queen Affect from Alice in Wonderland. You have to run as fast as you can to stay in the same place. The frogs evolve stickier tongues, the flies evolve more slippery wings. Net result is the same number of flies and frogs battling it out even though everything has changed. No rest for the wicked. Kinda depressing when you think about it.
But there is the another positive side of the coin. When you fight a lot to get a profitable website, profits will be much more durable because everyone else will have to do it also, but that is only useful if you choose an evergreen niche and technology does not make it much more easier to do what you once did (which is unlikely).
Making money online is like any other business. You need to spend time
and effort to maintain it, always looking out for new ideas and implement them
to get ahead of other players.
Always improve yourself, your website, your business.
As the sayings goes: The only constant is change!
If you dont change, you shouldnt be in business….
Glen,
I cannot emphasize enough how TRUE this post is!
This is a bold statement, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it was one of your BEST ones yet, and something rarely – if ever talked about.
Man, when I was in major debt for years due to my Internet Marketing education and ventures, I can’t tell you how much blood, sweat, and tears I spent clawing for every improvement. 24-48 hour straight workdays were not uncommon. I would fall asleep at my desk just to awake and slug through it harder. Music pounding, bloodshot eyes, fierce tenacity.
If my competitors had any idea how brutally I was tearing apart their sales funnels, analyzing their keywords, SEO, PPC, and other marketing efforts, they would shutter. Fight! Fight! Fight!
Fast forward. My residual income is covering all of my overhead and lifestyle and the pressure is finally off. This post is a GREAT reminder to never let up. Pedal to the metal baby. It’s fine to catch your breath every once in a while, but to truly DOMINATE and stay king of the mountain, you gotta keep slugging – or have others underneath you who are doing it for you. Pride comes before the fall, but so does idleness. Countless empires have fallen because they became “fat cats” and the hungrier, more cunning empires surrounding them toppled them.
Suffice it to say, this post is being printed and pasted somewhere I can see it every day. I love the adventure of the battle, even when at the top. There’s still more land to conquer.
As Perry Marshall would say, “Carpe Diem”,
Tyson
Hi Glen,
What you say is absolutely correct. I’ve observed it with my clients. As soon as they become successful they stop doing the things that made them successful in the first place. Then they wonder why they slip back and start having problems.
It was the same when I was out on the road selling. Collegues would work hard at creating propsects and customers and as soon as they got some business in they’d stop and sit back. This lead to the inevitabe feast and famine as they ran out of customers and then frantically worked to create some more. Crazy.
Once you do get in the black and turning over there are options I know of and they are;
1. Keep building it yourself because it’s your specific field of expertise and your still enjoying it.
2. Consider hiring staff or services to keep that site running and building
3. Take as much profit out of it as you can whilst any other competitors catch up then let it die,
OR
4. This is my favouite, after a period of time profiting and generating evidence of that, sell the site and the product or a segment of the site as a mini-business for 10 to 12 x the monthly profit value of that site then reinvest or stick that money under the bed for a rainy day!
For example if a mini-business like ‘arthritis relief’ grows from 100-1000 usd profit per month and stays there for 3 years, but then begins to decline over time becasue of neglect and new competition, wouldnt that be a good time to cash in just before the gradual decline and sell it off to someone who really wants to spend time maintaining and growing an ‘arthritis relief business.
Off topic:
I recently moved from my house to my sister\’s house (divorce). Once at my sister\’s house, I checked a keyword (among several) to check it\’s placement organically. The site I was looking for was no where. All the 1st page results where completely different than those at my house (one hour away). At my house, the 1st page results had mostly product/service sites. At my sister\’s house, they were all research and info sites. My sister is a school teacher and does not buy on-line. I do buy on-line.
I was not logged into any Google account and cookies were clean. I figured a Google dance or a change in algorithm. On a whim, I took my computer with me to get some stuff at the old house. Plugged it up and the old results were back on page one. Returning to my sister\’s house an hour later, they were gone again, replaced with research and info sites. Strange.
I have a \’friend\’, (not really a friend, but I am being cagey to not get anyone in trouble), who is related to a highly placed Google employee who as a rule doesn\’t talk about his work, even to his wife, sort of very CIA/NSA ish. Lol. Apparently he had a few drinks New Years at my freind\’s house and told him that Google was now tracking personality \’avatars\’ or profiles by IP and returning results based of the greatest use of a profile by that IP. That would explain my experience perfectly! He went on to say that Google was using your wife\’s 37 personalities as their model in avatar building. The reason they are able to do this is the vast amount of computing power Hadoop has given them and that this would return the best results for the main household user of Search and take Google to another level.
The downside for organic SEO people is if they do NOT build avatars of their most likely Hyper-Responsive customers, they cannot optimize for results because according to this Google employee, Google is now starting to employ 37 different algorithms at the same time and using a different one for each IP based on the personality that IP\’s main user has and returning results for them only (and anyone sharing their personality type). Optimizing for one personality may very well de-optimize for another.
I figure if anyone has any inside track on the reality of this, it would be you. (Of course I would expect Google to deny any of this, but have had 1st hand experience with it. Should be reasonably easy to repeat my experience… just take your computer to a person\’s house that you know would fall into a different profile, use their IP and see if the results are the same as they are at home. Only draw back is this is apparently in \’test markets\’ only as of right now.)
Anyway, I found this an interesting extension of what businesses have been doing for years in personality targeting and the fact this guy knew exactly who your wife was and her work including her 37 personalities that as far as I know were offered on-line for less than a week to your HR Club only?
Not sure how this may eventually effect what order paid ads are shown to different client or how that would effect the current pay model. Perhaps cost more to rank higher in an \’unlikely to click\’ personality\’s search?
Thoughts?
Mark
PS-when I mention my experience and subsequent conversation with this \’friend\’ about his relative\’s comments, people think I am nuts. Lol.
Hi Mark, that certainly is intriguing!
I don’t have any inside knowledge to this effect, nor would I expect Google to let us know about it. (It certainly HAS been made public though, and widely circulated)
Notwithstanding the above, I’m sure Sharon would be happy to help them if they’ve got any questions (as would I), so please feel free to let your friend know
I can tell you for certain though that Google DOES consider geographic location (in addition to practically everything else they can get their hands on) when serving their results.
G
Mark has made some great points. The results I see on my home system are completely different than the one’s I see at my j.o.b. where I often research tech solutions for the servers I support.
I’ve heard it mentioned before that Google is attempting to pigeon hole the results shown based on past searches and as a marketer, that could create some intriguing complications. I also notice that I have a tough time getting US based results (Canada here) in some of my searches even though I specify Google.com as opposed to Google.ca
On a campaign level, if I target the US and do not include Canada, it can be iffy as to whether I would see my own ads in a search. If I include Canada, it is generally not a problem.
The train of thought that some have given in regards to Google is that they are attempting to give the searcher a better experience by showing results that may be more relevant in light of that person’s past searches. If this is the case, specific targeting and knowing the vocabulary of the intended audience is going to be the most critical item to focus on.
It would be interesting to know if anyone else has had a similar experience.
I have known (and used to my advantage) the geographic differences as well as a signed in personal search option, but had not even considered them tracking profiles by IP, Your wife should be proud, though if they are using her 37 profiles, they ought to pay her! Lol.
Thanks