What used to work in online marketing for generating leads and building a business doesn’t anymore.
Some tough love coming. Stop here if you can’t handle the truth.
Did I just say that?!
Yes. Yes, I did.
Here’s how I know this is true and why it’s a really good thing.
Consumers these days are too smart for trickery.
We don’t fall for the shiny objects like we used to.
We don’t buy into the conflated marketing promises and claims of yesteryear that boiled down to the following:
If you simply do what I tell you in this video/ebook/course/blog post/program that I’m going to offer you for a limited time only because I know this will change your life forever…you too can be stupid rich, successful, and famous like me.
Ha.
Those days are gone. Forever.
Believing one course or ebook holds the magical answer to achieving massive online marketing and business success?
It’s ludicrous when you think about it.
And yet…
The Early Days of Online Marketing
In the early days of online marketing I and plenty of others like me, who saw the potential of the internet for building a business that would support our families, naively and with a lot of hope downloaded and bought our share of products and programs.
Like so many others just like me, I signed up for live events, flew to the other side of the country, stayed in hotels, ate shitty, overpriced food, sat in uncomfortable ballroom seats and listened to people pontificate from stage about why they and their unique program were so great because I, too, wanted to grow my business.
In all fairness, I learned at least one valuable lesson from every event I attended. (Sometimes that lesson was never to trust the person who put it on again.) I met new people, had decent conversations, saw a new part of the country, and made new friends.
I even invested in high-end mastermind programs that did indeed deliver on their promises — and then some.
This online business journey hasn’t been all for naught.
Still…
The amount of broken dreams online and internet gold rush roadkill is staggering. I’ve read articles about good people taking out second mortgages on their homes to run ads on Facebook and lost it all.
No leads.
No sales.
Nothing but a useless funnel and another monthly payment they can’t afford.
Not Hating on the Internet
Now, let’s be clear here. I’m not hating on the internet. The internet offers plenty of opportunities to build a rewarding and sustainable business without being sleazy or grounded in smarmy marketing tactics and disappointing products.
There are good people running legitimate businesses online (I count myself among them.) I know plenty of people who are doing it, people who offer a genuine product or service that helps customers solve problems, achieve a goal, move from point A to point B.
The cream always rises to the top and that’s as true in online marketing as it is anywhere else.
Where we find ourselves today as we head into the third decade of the 21st century is at what I call the Wizard of Oz point in online marketing. The dust has settled and Dorothy is exposing the man behind the curtain for who and what he really is.
No more illusions. No more smoke and mirrors and fear tactics to bend people to his will.
The formula to win in business — online and off — remains as it always has: show up for your customers, offer them a legitimate and viable solution to a problem they want to solve, commit to delivering it consistently and compassionately, and enjoy the hell out of it because you love what you do.
That’s it!
Make Your Business Useful
At the end of the day, good people who sell useful, relevant products and services will never have a problem building a business. It’s the nature of the way things work.
Is it easy? Hell no. Just ask some of the big names you admire how easy building their brand and business has been. I guarantee Oprah and Sir Richard Branson and Gary Vee and Blake Shelton will say it wasn’t — not by a long shot.
But in the same breath they will add, Damn, was it ever worth every scratch, bruise, doubt, and worry. Because ultimately, the ride they’ve been on — bumpy as it’s been — beats the alternative every day of the week and twice on Tuesday.
