I’m going to continue relating social media marketing to farming this week. (If you missed last week’s article, you may read it by clicking here.)
You’ve found your audience, nurtured it, and it’s produced an abundant crop. Congratulations! You’ve taken the first step to success.
The challenge is that this type of success is short term. How long can you keep planting (selling) the same crops (products and services) in the same soil (audience)?
I don’t know about you, but I choose to be successful over long periods of time—not years but decades.
So how do you stay successful for decades?
Successful farmers know that if they plant the same crop year after year in the same fields, they will deplete the nutrients in the soil. Knowing this, they rotate crops to avoid wearing out the soil.
Marketers who only have one item to sell will soon wear out their audience much like the farmers who fail to rotate crops will wear out their soil. As you sell the same product to the same people month after month, your customers eventually will tire of you and move on.
As they do, your land erodes, and you need to purchase more. Just as land is expensive, so are new customers.
For long-term success you need more than one item to sell. If you have a properly designed sales process with the right pricing and offers, you may make a profit on your first sale to a customer, but the real money comes when they buy more than once.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to spend money and work hard only to break even or make a small profit. It’s my goal to do better than that—much better.
To be successful in building a business that lasts for decades, you need to have multiple products to sell, and you need to have a process to move people from the first product they buy from you to the next and the next and the next.
If you’re just getting started, offer one or two products or services. Work with them and keep your eyes open for what other products or services you can create and sell that your audience wants and needs. You probably have more to sell than you realize.
If you pay attention you’ll find that ideas for new products will come to you in unlikely places.
One tip is to write them down. Have a piece of paper or a place on your phone where you can record the idea. You can evaluate it later.
I find that if it really fits in with what I’m trying to do, all I have to do is look at it and my energy and excitement grow, and I start implementing it. If it doesn’t fit, all kinds of roadblocks appear, and it takes massive amounts of energy to get it off the ground.
Then take this new product you’ve developed and offer it to your audience. Do they like it? Do they purchase it?
If so, great—run with it and add it to your list of core items. If not, go back to idea generation and try the next one.
Over time you’ll have a list of core items you sell that bring you a steady flow of income, and you’ll have enough products to keep your audience happy.
Go Social Experts can help you develop your business plan so you can continue to grow your sales and profits. Schedule a Complimentary Discovery Call with Brian by clicking here to see if Go Social can help you reach your business goals faster.
Have a great week!