🎯 Work Smart Wednesday - July 31, 2024
"Did my bestselling book turn out to be a financial failure?", 6 steps to closing a sales call, and a quote from a Wharton professor
Work Smart Wednesday
👋 Hey there!
Here is your weekly dose of Work Smart Wednesday
In these emails I will share with you 3 things to help you work smarter.
⚠️ SIGNIFICANT CHANGE ⚠️
I am switching email frequency to every two weeks to allow people more time to actually implement the things mentioned here in Work Smart Wednesday. As I have mentioned before, knowledge is only useful if it creates change. Don’t just read this email, implement the lessons to create positive change in your life and business.
1. 📖 "Did my bestselling book turn out to be a financial failure?"
This short article from business influencer Tiago Forte was super insightful. He includes some behind-the-scenes numbers (such as his customer lifetime value, “CLV”) and nice graphs, but some of the biggest takeaways for me were found between the lines.
A few things really stood out to me:
He seemed to have tried to solve the wrong problem
His CLV is low, only $720 per customer. For context, my average CLV currently sits at $46,545. We are in similar niches.
He explicitly stated his aim for the book was to make more money (via a loss leader strategy) by bringing in more customers. His efforts were likely better spent on increasing his CLV and getting more from each customer. The original strategy was flawed.
He already had a large customer base and strong reputation, he had (and still has) a real opportunity to significantly grow his revenue and profit by focusing on his existing customers and extending their value. It is much easier, and much more profitable, to sell to an existing customer than to try and get a new customer.
Extending CLV links back to one of my favourite questions for every business owner: what happens next?
Simply knowing what the customer is meant to do next is an extremely powerful way to increase their happiness and increase your profit. Anticipate customer needs.
His data analysis seemed flawed
He only took into account the difference in his growth from the date of the book’s publication, he didn’t factor in the trajectory beforehand. It is difficult for him to conclude that the book truly accelerated the growth of his channels.
He seems to lack external counsel
I believe that all of his problems with the book would have been easily prevented if he had some kind of outside counsel - an experienced friend, a business coach, or even his own team feeling comfortable to talk to him.
Experience would have questioned whether he needed more customers, or more from each customer. He himself points out that in hindsight it seemed obvious that he shouldn't kill his core offer while his audience growth skyrockets because it WAS obvious that he shouldn't do that. The problem is often that it is hard to see things clearly when you are so close to them.
You need to make sure the people around you are comfortable to challenge you, and to highlight potential blind spots. His team should have flagged the mistake, they may have flagged it and been ignored.
Any kind of external counsel could have made this glaring mistake obvious to him. He lacked the external counsel he needed. This one mistake cost him $3,000,000 and it was easily avoidable.
Be like Tiago Forte in that you admit mistakes and analyse performance, but, equally, learn from his mistakes here. Get external counsel, analyse data fully, focus efforts on identifying which problem to fix. Fix the right problem, not any problem.
P.s. I know my client, Denis, from Weekend Publisher will likely be screaming out that Tiago should never have expected to make real money from one book. Most profitability in books comes from creating a series. Tiago seems to have noticed that extending CLV, and extending the book series, is more profitable when he said in the article that his second book was almost pure profit, but unfortunately he doesn't seem to have internalised that lesson yet!
P.p.s. This post actually comes to you thanks to one of my new clients, Kenny, who you saw in some short videos in Work Smart Wednesday last week. I checked out his substack, and he linked to this article. Thanks for the recommendation, Kenny!
2. 6️⃣ 6 steps to closing a sales call
This is a truly excellent guide for first time closers, and a good refresher for seasoned pros. It covers the fundamentals
My favourite snippet from the article:
“Your job isn’t to “make them buy.” Your role is to empower them to make a buying decision and to get clear on their next steps—whatever that may be.”
Many people hate selling because they are doing it wrong. They try to convince people to buy. I like to approach things slightly differently.
I don’t try to sell anything, I simply listen to people’s problems then give them my honest advice on what they should do to solve those problems.
Sometimes it is that they should work with me because I truly believe I am the best option to help them, other times I point them in the direction of a different solution I think they’re better suited for. Either way, we both win.
I am there simply to help a client to become aware of what their options are, to give them clarity, to give them the confidence required to take whatever next step they need, to act in service of the client.
The 6 steps mentioned:
Step into your high-vibe self
Channel your best coffee talk
Lean in and listen
Share your offers
Get to a clear yes or no
Celebrate and honour
🔚 Last Chance 🔚 Deadline 23:59 on July 31
Final call to sign up for my Profitable Proposals Programme. I will work with you 1:1 to create a kickass ‘no-brainer’ offer for your coaching, consulting, or agency business that will have your customers begging to pay you.
If you don’t add an additional $5,000 per month to your business ($60,000 per year) then I will work with you for free until we achieve that result.
More details here, get your questions answered here.
3. 💡 Quote I'm pondering
"We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem." – Russell L. Ackoff
Stanford last week, Wharton this week. Both with a similar takeaway, in my opinion. This quote ties in to my comments last week on getting your offer right, as well as both points this week.
I believe Forte’s primary mistake was that he spent his time solving the wrong problem, he optimsied for more buyers rather than extending their customer lifetime value.
The most common closing mistake I see from people is that they fail to address the customer’s emotions, or their deeper concern. The offer doesn’t only need to make sense logically, it needs to feel right. That is the problem that often needs solving.
I truly believe that one of the most important things we can do is to spend time to identify what the root causes are, what the objectives are, to identify the right problems to work on. Direction is more important than speed.
🔚 Last chance to get this month’s resource for referrals - you can earn my template “Easy Offers Summary Table” for referring somebody to Work Smart Wednesday before 2359 on July 31.
🎁 Receive rewards for referring your friends 🎁
📩 A genius table to clearly define, outline, and improve your offers. This template is not sold anywhere, and is only normally available to those that work with me 1:1. I rotate these templates monthly. This template is only available in July.
That's it! I can't wait to hear what you think. What did you find most useful? What do you want more or less of? Reply to this email now and let me know
Also, if you have anything interesting to share, I want to know about it😊
Have a great week,
John
P.S. Did someone forward this to you? Subscribe here
P.P.S. Thank you for trusting me with your time. If these emails ever turn into a burden, I encourage you to unsubscribe. I strive to provide real value and I am here to help you to make the most of your time
👋 Want to work together?
When you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:
🔍 Clarity Call - We will discuss your situation and create a step-by-step action plan together so you know exactly what you need to do next for maximum impact
🧩 Are we a good fit together? - See whether you and I are a good fit together by answering this short quiz. You will immediately see whether or not we are a good fit, and receive a personalised answer for what the next best step will be for you based on your answers.
Enjoyed this issue of Work Smart Wednesday?
Refer a friend to sign up and earn valuable rewards