It appears that we are moving toward a more sophisticated
economy. About a year ago I watched a fascinating
expose on how our education system MUST change.
It appears that we have been graduating from schools that are based on
the Industrial Revolution production mindset.
The speech was given by Sir Ken Robinson, a man that was described as a “world-renowned
education and creativity expert”.
The premise of his speech was that basically, our education
system was built to fuel factories with more warm bodies. We had a factory driven, industry based
economy and it was the civic duty of our leaders, government, and citizens to
perpetuate it.
(If you are wondering why I am starting down this road
instead of jumping right into the subject matter outlined in the title of this
post, please stay with me. I always want
to tell you why you should do a thing before you go out and do it.)
Our Industrial Based
Thinking Sucks
Anyway, we went to school, went from one class to another in
lines, and with kids that were the same age as we were, and we were
programmed. Follow the rules, do what
you’re told, sit at your desk, keep up or be left out, and DON”T BE
DIFFERENT!!!
In the ‘60’s rebellion kicked in. The “in” thing was dropping out and letting
your hair hang down. However, most of it
was rather pointless. As a matter of
fact, some people could objectively look at the 60’s rebellion and call it
another form of conformity, but that’s getting too deep.
Hence, the Industrial Revolution conditioning stuck and the
education and labor system that we have become used to is still in place
today.
To see the video by Sir Ken Robinson on our industrial
revolution school system click here:
The reason why I’m bringing this up is because our brains
seem to think along the same business model/economic lines. We still look at doing business the same way
we were always trained:
Draw people to our site, try to sell them something, move on
to another victim…er…customer or client, contact your previous prospects, try
to upsell them something more expensive, and leave never to return. (Except
when you want to sell them something else.)
People are
catching on. They know when you
are merely looking at them like a piece of raw meat that you can suck the life
from.
Undercover Boss - The
Bad Side of Things
The trouble with this business model is that there is a very
high burn out rate, mainly because you’re just churning out CRAP. Even if you finally
make a lot of money getting people to buy into your scheme, you’ll still have
to fight like the dickens to keep replenishing your clients and prospects.
And what kind of entrepreneur will you become as a result of
this?
A perfect example of this was on a 2015 episode of the TV
show, Undercover Boss. Without going
into too much detail, the show highlighted a seminar/real estate tycoon that
was obviously a charlatan.
He bragged about himself so much, you wouldn't believe it. He announced that if he died he’d want to be reincarnated as himself, because he was the “&%$#*” luckiest man on earth. His claims were that he made about 40 million or so and was getting richer every day. He charged attendees of his real estate seminar $43,000 per seat, for a 2 day session.
He bragged about himself so much, you wouldn't believe it. He announced that if he died he’d want to be reincarnated as himself, because he was the “&%$#*” luckiest man on earth. His claims were that he made about 40 million or so and was getting richer every day. He charged attendees of his real estate seminar $43,000 per seat, for a 2 day session.
You should have seen the poor, deceived people he was
fleecing. Some of them looked like they
were living out of their cars. Some
admitted that they were running up their credit cards to feed the beast.
(Not only that, but as the show was running, I was following
the comments of people on Twitter about this show, and you wouldn't believe how
hated this man was, especially by women.
The comments ran on and on and NOBODY had anything nice to say about him
or his business.)
It was sad.
One of the reasons it was so sad, is because ANYONE COULD
HAVE GIVEN THOSE POOR PEOPLE THE EXACT SAME REAL ESTATE INVESTING INFORMATION
FROM AMAZON USED BOOKS FOR LESS THAN $20.00!!!! Actually, the information from
the books would have been better than the info they would have gotten from HIS
seminar. I guarantee it.
Why Am I Telling You
This?
The reason I’m telling you all of this is because, your
mindset has got to change!
Gone are the days of merely taking people’s money and
forgetting about them. If you are just
in this for the fast in and out, just be aware that people are becoming attuned
to the fact that they are getting fleeced.
It’s little wonder why the term “Internet Marketing Guru” is now considered
to be a negative term and the gurus are doing their best to distance themselves
from that moniker.
People want to feel like they know you and they want to feel
that they are a part of something. They‘re
sick and tired of being thought of as nothing more than a consumer that’s there
to line somebody’s pocket with money.
Consider a Facebook ad that looks like this:
 |
| Actual ad from Facebook- (URL removed). Apparently they were using Shutterstock’s pics without even paying. |
Do you really think that anyone is going to feel connected
to this, much less believe it?
The reason why I’m telling you this is because you are going
to have to give, connect, respond, enrich, enliven, educate and HELP people if
you really want true success. And when
you do sell them something, your product should be the best it can possibly
be.
You don’t want to cut any corners, and when you do sell somebody your wares or services, you’ll want to be extremely concerned that it is doing every single thing you said it would.
You don’t want to cut any corners, and when you do sell somebody your wares or services, you’ll want to be extremely concerned that it is doing every single thing you said it would.
Hey, here’s a new
concept: After the sale, follow up and
ask your customers how it’s working.
Generating Content –
It’s Not Expensive to Give This Away
This brings me around to the subject matter at hand,
generating content ideas. The cheapest
way for you to help people out and educate them about what you do, is to give
them excellent, mind-blowing content.
Here are a few ideas
to help you get started:
- Cruise forums that are specific to your niche and read the questions that people are asking. If you keep seeing the same question asked over and over again an excellent, FREE, well-written article will be something they’ll benefit from.
- If you have a list of people that have already purchased your products or services, ask them questions about what they thought the product lacked or helped them with the most. This will give you fertile ground for subjects you can write about. Make sure that you send this information out to people on your lists.
- Sit down and brainstorm a list of benefits that your product or service gives, as well as a list of problems that it solves. Remember the color or size of your product isn't usually a benefit it’s a feature. Benefits are things that your product will do for you.
- Go on Amazon or eBay and look at products and services similar to yours. What benefits do you see vendors talking about the most? (NOTE: If you are rendering services, look at the books related to your services that are being sold. Use the “Look Inside” feature of Amazon and look at the table of contents. There’s loads of ideas you can write about there.)
Also, look at the comments sections of the products and see
what people are complaining about the most.
That‘s pure gold for content creation.
Make a List and Create Your Programming
Once you have gone through these content generating ideas,
use a calendar and make a schedule of the subjects you’ll be talking about on
your blog, podcast or website. Since I’ve
already written a post about this, I won’t bore you by repeating myself, you
can read it here:
I hope you find this message enlightening and it has helped
you in some way. If you’d like to fire
some ideas or comments at me please feel free to do so.
Send them to:
Send them to:
To Your Success!
Mark “Elmo” Ellis
"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your
Back!"
(859) 797-9560
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