How to pass the point of no return

June 16, 2009 By

I recently visited Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, where I watched a movie in the new Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon theater. Yep, it’s actually named that. I’m even linking to it to prove it’s true.

Anyway, in a filmed introduction to his eponymous theater, Mr. Nimoy himself said something like “The event horizon is right here, it means the place that something is happening.” And I thought to myself, “Oh come on, Mr. Spock should have a better understanding of what event horizon really means.”

According to astronomers, the event horizon is the invisible boundary surrounding a black hole, the boundary beyond which gravity is so powerful that even light can’t escape. It’s more or less synonymous with point of no return, which is the farthest you can go and come back safely.

Aviators, for instance, calculate their point of no return based roughly on how far they can travel on half their fuel (the other half gets them back home), also factoring in wind speed and other conditions.

And what about us small-business owners and internet entrepreneurs? I happen to believe that most of us face our own points of no return on a regular basis. In the old days when you had to do things like raise capital and invest in infrastructure to start a business, it was more visible: When you spent all the money, it was gone, and there wasn’t a second chance.

Today, when you can start a blog for free, sell digital products with a few clicks of your mouse, and broadcast to the world in real-time, we don’t have some of those physical markers of “going into business” (or for that matter, “going out of business”).

So we get to make them up. We get to decide, yes, I’m really doing this. I’m going to create something, market it, find people who need what I’m selling. I’m going to think of myself as more than an unemployed freelancer, more than a work-at-home mom. I’m a real, live business owner with a real, live business.

That’s the first major point of no return.

But even after we decide, for ourselves, that we’re charting a new path, we face decisions every day that are miniature event horizons. Which marketing plan do we choose? What do we name our product? Who do we hire to coach us or advise us? When is the launch date? What’s next?

And that can get daunting, and even discouraging. So much to do. Such a full calendar. So much fear that the path we’re choosing will become a dead end.

As I was considering this predicament, synchronicity struck: I happened on a Twitter conversation that went like this:

I tweeted that I was loving this conversation, that I was thinking of doing a blog post on the topic. And Imran tweeted back to me to encourage me, and then followed up asking me if I’d done it yet! Which I chose to view as a cue to actually do it (instead of putting it off to next week as I was thinking of doing).

See? Right there: Point of no return. I’m about to reach it right now, as soon as I hit the “publish” button on this post. If you’re reading this, I’ve passed it. I can’t go back to the stage where I was waffling about what idea to post on the blog, and which week I should write about which topic, and would anybody read anything I write anyway?

And I love being past that stage, utterly unable to return. Sure, there will be future opportunities for waffling and worrying. And I’ll do my share. I may even whine about it here on the blog (it’s my blog, and I’ll cry if I want to…but sometimes I’ll sing!).

But each time I take action — whether it’s posting, tweeting, connecting with a colleague or client, sending an email, launching a product — I’m passing another one of those points of no return. Because face it, as Imran so wisely pointed out, those points are going to show up whether we want them to or not. Whether we’re ready or not. So why not face them consciously, make a decision, take a step, no matter how small?

What step can you take today to take you further along a conscious path? What heart-centered way can you use technology to smooth the path for you? Mine will be hitting the “publish” button (and responding to comments and tweets). Care to leave a comment to share your journey? Hitting the “submit” button on the comment form is a point of no return — I invite you to step across your own event horizon!

Filed Under: Heart-Centered Tech Tips Tagged With: ,

How to avoid Upsell Hell

June 9, 2009 By

How NOT to upsell (and by the way, my car DIDN’T explode)

This week’s post is more marketing-focused, and it contains a recommendation for a product I recently purchased. There, you’ve been warned.

You might already know that I believe technology is just a tool that we use to connect, and marketing is one of the ways we make those connections. Learning to upsell honorably is an important enough marketing topic that I thought it deserved a post of its own.

So here’s the anecdote of the week: I spent part of my Friday afternoon at an EZ Lube. I saw the banner advertising $21.95 oil changes and it occurred to me that I (well, my car) could use one. I had two $20 bills in my wallet, so I’d even have enough left over for a few groceries.

Except that I landed in Upsell Hell the minute my car was captive. Here’s a sample:

EZ Lube Guy: We’re ready to change out your oil, ma’am. Your brake fluid and transmission fluid are fine, but our computer shows that the last time you had your intake system cleaned was in ’07. So you’re overdue for that. We could take care of that for you right now if you’d like.
Me: Well, I’d rather just get the oil changed.

EZLG, undeterred: Also I see that it’s been awhile since you’ve flushed out the radiator, and your power steering fluid is at the end of its life. And when was the last time you had your tires rotated?

Me: Um, I’m not sure. I’d have to check my maintenance records at home. Maybe you could just print out a list of recommendations for me?

EZLG: Well, we could take care of everything on this list right now, since you’re already here. It would only be $308.95.

Me, gagging at the triple digits: Uh. I’d like to just stick with the oil change today.

EZLG: And I could give you the manager’s 15% discount plus we could apply a VIP coupon which would bring your total down to $264. And your gas mileage will improve and you’ll be helping the environment by cleaning your engine.

Me: Well, I have somewhere to be in half an hour, and I really just wanted to get the oil changed.

EZLG: OK, sure, I understand. You might be able to get away with not cleaning the intake system right now, although we really recommend that after every third oil change. So if we take that off that brings us down to $209.

…and about three or four repetitions later, I had finally convinced the guy that I really just wanted an oil change. Although I’m kind of rankled that after all that, he still got me to pay an extra $16 for “high-mileage oil.” So I paid $37.50 for what I had planned to pay $21.95 for, and I felt completely slimed. Plus I didn’t have enough left over to buy groceries.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Here are just a few things I think these guys did wrong in trying to upsell me:

  1. The upsell was disproportional to the original sale. I planned to spend $22 and they generously offered to let me pay them $308. Whoa! Maybe if they’d started with the “high-mileage oil” idea and stuck with that, I might have been happy to be upsold by $16.
  2. They used scare tactics. Like that I was “overdue” for certain services, which was dangerous by implication,  and also I’d be trashing Mother Nature if I continued to drive around in a car that hadn’t had its fuel intake system cleaned.
  3. They didn’t take no for an answer. This is what really convinced me that they weren’t acting in my best interest (trying to help a customer) but simply following a script that attempted to get the most money out of me. That’s the opposite of building trust.

People, do not do this to your customers.

How to upsell and keep your soul intact

There are ethical ways of upselling that actually aim to help your customers, not merely squeeze more bucks out of them. An upsell, by definition, happens when you’ve already sold something. Do you really want to mess up that success by alienating someone who’s demonstrated that they’re willing to pay you?

No, of course you don’t. But how do you make an upsell offer without acting like a sleazebag?

I don’t have the answer. But Dave and Naomi do. Their latest collaboration is called Upsell 101, and it’s genius. I bought it last week, and so far I love it.

Yes, that’s an affiliate link you see there. I only recommend products I own and love, and believe would be helpful to my readers.

By “so far,” I mean that I’ve listened to the 78-minute audio, in which Naomi and Dave are their typical witty selves as they discuss 11 ways to offer upsells without being pushy. And I’ve admired the fact that the product has an easy-to-use web page as a starting point, which lets you get to all the goodies quickly instead of poking through a folder of cryptically-named stuff.

And best of all, I have filled out a bunch of worksheets, baby! You may have bought audio products before. If you’re super-organized, you may have even taken notes as you listened. But then what? What happens to the great a-ha moments you have as you’re listening?

I have plenty of audio recordings that I’ve listened to, gone “wow, I should really put this into action,” and then somehow never followed up. Fortunately Dave and Naomi have put together a series of worksheets that distill the tips they cover in the audio class, and they even give you two different formats (PDFs and Word docs), so you can edit the worksheets to fit your business.

I haven’t owned Upsell 101 long enough to have tested how well the ideas work for my business. But you can bet that my pile of worksheets will motivate me to put some ideas into action, and I’ll report back here when I have some results.

The one thing I wish had gotten a bit more airplay in the audio is the fact that when you’re selling an information product (ebook, digital audio, or anything that can be delivered via download), any scarcity you create is artificial. I’ve always personally felt uncomfortable with the idea of selling a limited quantity of an information product (as Dave correctly notes in the audio, “Dude, it’s a PDF, you can make as many copies as you want”), or even selling the exact same product to different people at different prices (because it just feels unfair somehow).

This discomfort of mine isn’t about anything that’s said in the audio — I definitely think Dave and Naomi are the opposite of sleazy internet marketers. It probably has more to do with my unique spot on the Kosher-Non-Kosher Marketing Continuum, which I totally accept is my issue, not theirs (for instance, I can see that I’m automatically equating “artificial” with “bad” which is an assumption I could look at more closely, maybe in a future post).

One final tip: You might want to join Dave’s Advance Discount List if you like his stuff and want to be able to get it in advance, for a discount. Yep, the list is exactly what he says it is.

And what about the “technology” part of this Heart-Centered Technology Tip? I’d just like to point out that the technology we use to do our upselling can be as simple as adding a line to a thank-you email, and as complex as setting up a customized autoresponder series for each product. So once again, it’s about what you do with the technology rather than the technology itself.

Filed Under: Heart-Centered Tech Tips, Real-Life Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Congratulations, you are already a social media maven!

June 2, 2009 By

I’ve been thinking a lot about social media recently. It’s a huge buzzword, and I’ve gotten a lot of questions from My Right People about what it means, how to do it, and what to expect.

The kicker was a guy I met at an actual physical networking thing last week asked me “Have you been able to monetize Twitter?”

(Monetize being the buzzword I most deeply detest, with the possible exception of… well, no, there’s no buzzword I detest quite so much. Don’t get me wrong — he was quite a nice guy; he just asked a question that happened to push a couple of my buttons.)

People are clearly anxious about this whole Social Media beast. It must be complicated, right? It must require you to learn new, confusing tasks, or change your monetization strategy (blech), or at the very least do a whole lot of research, right? And since everyone else is already doing it (or has hired a Social Media Consultant to tell them how to do it or do it for them), you’re way behind, which means that in the ultra-fast Internet-enabled world, you’re already last week’s cat food, right?

(“Last week’s cat food.” I just made that up right now. I am so funny sometimes that even I can’t stand myself. But I digress.)

No, no, no!

Social media requires no such anxiety, nor does it mandate increasing (or shifting) your budget or rewriting your business plan. No!

Here’s the point of this post: You are already engaging in social media.

This is a Heart-Centered Tech Tip because I really want this message to be comforting, possibly even anxiety-reducing. And to do that, I don’t want to tell you you’re all wrong about social media (that wouldn’t feel comforting at all, I’m guessing) or that you need to learn something new (hello, anxiety!).

I just want to take your hand for a minute and help you meet yourself where you are, and only then gently suggest that you take another baby step forward.

With me so far?

OK, good. Because if you are, you are either a) reading this post on my blog, b) reading this post as an email message, or c) reading this post in your RSS reader.

And all three of those activities totally count as social media. (In fact, my opinion is that the majority of the internet counts as social media, and that’s why I’m so insistent that you’re already hip-deep in it.)

All right, so you’re already “doing” social media. Um, what next?

Well, what’s next is definitely not “monetization.” It’s connection. And when you take a baby step to reach out to other internet users, you build and deepen that connection. And from that web of connections will come new ideas, new friends, new challenges to your limiting beliefs, new jokes (having fun is important, dammit!), and maybe possibly even new ways to make a living.

So let’s take a baby step. You’re here with me on the blog (if you’re reading this via email or RSS, head over to the actual blog post), so why not leave a comment? It’s pretty easy. I promise not to laugh at you. I’ll even give you a topic: What internet buzzword irritates you the most? You can even pick “monetize” if you want, but I’d love to hear some others.

Your comment doesn’t have to be lengthy, profound, or backed up with statistics. Just a baby step. I’ll even respond. And that’s what completes the social circle — I’ve posted something, you’ve responded, and I’m engaging in dialogue with you. Even if it’s a short dialogue, we’ve connected. Bingo! Social media!

If you want to take a slightly bigger step (and you have an account on Twitter or Facebook or somewhere similar), do leave a comment, and then tweet (or post on your Wall or whatever) something like this:

I’m reading and commenting on @wendycholbi’s post on annoying Internet buzzwords. What’s YOUR favorite? http://bit.ly/2Qid61

In fact, you can just copy and paste the exact text above into Twitter, your Facebook status, or pretty much anywhere else (yes, that weird-looking web address will actually work — because Twitter limits tweets to 140 characters, special services have been invented to provide short URLs).

See what you just did? You joined the conversation, and then you told your Twitter followers what you were doing — and in so doing, invited them to join in with you. I’ll respond to and acknowledge any of you who tweet about this post, by the way, just as I’ll respond to those who comment on this post. I love being part of the conversation!

The amazing part? By joining (or starting) even one conversation, you are “doing” more social media than most people. In an Ittybiz post by Johnny B. Truant that’s ostensibly about the psychology of marketing, I found this gem:

“…the online content that you actually see (tweets, blog posts and comments, forum posts, whatever) is produced by a very small percentage of the people actually online. Most people lurk, the whole thing working like a theater with only a handful of actors onstage.”

Truth be told, I’m mostly a lurker myself. I read far more than I comment, and whole days will go by without a tweet or Facebook update from me. I’m figuring out for myself how much time I want to spend actively engaging vs. exploring and reading. And so can you.

So join me, won’t you, on the journey to social media mavenhood? It can only happen one comment, one tweet, one conversation at a time.

Filed Under: Heart-Centered Tech Tips Tagged With: , , ,

It’s not about technology, it’s about connection

December 23, 2008 By

Okay, so I was pretty much going to flake out (again!!) on posting this week. Because this is basically the Worst. Tuesday. Ever. I won’t go into details on my particular personal drama except to say that I’m just swimming (drowning) in a black lake of fear, grief, loneliness and general hopelessness.

And writing a perky tech tip just seemed so completely pointless in that context, you know? Right now, if I papered over my pain and told you that keyboard shortcuts could change your life, or pasted on a fake grin and did a cheerleading routine for Firefox, it would increase my blog post total by one, but it wouldn’t be a heart-centered act.

Here’s the thing: Being heart-centered isn’t always sweetness and light. Staying centered in a heart that is broken, squashed, or ripped to smithereens — there’s a challenge. I have yet to see the keyboard shortcut that can fix that problem.

So here’s what I’m doing. I’m connecting with you. Yes, you. You’re out there in your RSS readers and inboxes and surfing the web, and I’m making an emotional connection with you, even though I can’t see you, hear you, or touch you. If you’re still reading, let me just say that I’m so incredibly grateful for each of you.

Technology makes this connection possible, but the connection is not about technology. It’s about the fact that you and I are both humans, capable of feeling joy, connection, and, yes, pain. (Sorry, spambots and search-engine robots; you’re not part of this particular web).

This web of connection is why blogs work. Blogs aren’t about the whizbang plugins or the spiffy search-engine optimization (though these can certainly enhance the interaction). Blogs are about connecting readers, posters, and commenters. The web of connection is why Twitter works. Twitter connects people in near-real-time, allowing spontaneous conversations between people thousands of miles apart.

So today, I’m not asking for your business, or for a donation, or for a referral, or for a testimonial. I’m asking you to take a moment and feel this connection between you and me. You don’t have to do anything to make it real, or cement it, or commemorate it; it exists right now as surely as you’re reading this. Acknowledging that connection may seem simple, but it’s profound. And trust that I’m feeling it too; that even in the depths of my despair I can sense that web of connection out there, in here.

Just feel it with me for a moment. Can you? I can. I do.

To take the web a step further, consider extending a new connection to someone else, online or off. Follow someone new on Twitter (or sign up for a Twitter account), write a new blog post, comment on someone else’s blog, friend someone on Facebook.

This week’s heart of the matter: How can you let (not make!) technology connect you with someone today? Even if that technology is an old friend like the phone? Even if it’s writing a letter? Or sending a text message? A little smiley face can go a long way.

Filed Under: Heart-Centered Tech Tips Tagged With: , ,
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