Everything I share in this 10 Commandments of Web Marketing for Business Success series is experience based wisdom – insights from the University of Hard Knocks (UHK) aka LIFE – and NOT textbook theory.
Far from being something I picked up from ANY textbook or classroom, it’s something I conceived by applying myself diligently to thinking about and intelligently, analyzing failures and successes I experienced over years of marketing my multidisciplinary range of products and services.
Then I distilled those experiences into a system that I could put to use practically, to solve the problem of finding prospects or potential clients/customers and making them buyers.
Let me begin by stating an important fact you need to keep in mind, if you want to succeed in winning profitable paying clients using MY Web Marketing System.
You may be doing your marketing, but it may not immediately give you the kind of results you want.
Then again, even when it is giving you the results you want, it may not continue to do so indefinitely, Typically, you may get to a point when it suddenly stops doing so as well as it used to, or even stops doing so completely – for a time.
As you can imagine, this would feel like a total disaster happening in your business life and you would wonder to yourself saying “I thought I had this all worked out before?”
The truth is sometimes the lessons we need to learn are not given to us at once.
Sometimes we need to learn in phases. Success happens in levels or to put it differently, there are different levels of success.
You may be at a certain level of success, and assume you’re home free or made, when in reality there are still other lessons you need to learn. By the time those lessons become necessary; some people wrongly assume that it’s something entirely negative.
The wrong mental attitude they’ve adopted makes them think they’re subfreezing needlessly.
But the truth is that such an experience will often be an opportunity for growth.
It will equip you to deal with adversity mentally.
So your success in marketing is unlikely to simply be continuous and uninterrupted. Nothing in life is ever that way.
What is more likely to happen is that you will experience what are called PEAKS and TROUGHS in your marketing.
The PEAKS are the periods when you rise high and you achieve and things are going well.
But there will always be TROUGHS in the life of an entrepreneur. Those are the down times you have. But those down times usually will come because there is something you don’t yet know, that you need to know to add to the body of knowledge, skills and abilities you have.
So you need to maintain a Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) during those periods when things are slow, when things are not looking good, because those are the periods when the lessons are there to be harvested.
It is very important to have the right mindset towards your marketing, so that you can make the most of the experiences you are going to have, because nothing is ever going to happen in a straight line.
In life, you cannot avoid adversity. Instead it is how you respond to adversity that determines how you succeed in the long run.
So, you need to make adversity your friend. Embrace it. Jim Rohn said “Adversity forces the human spirit to grow”.
I agree.
I’m a product of adversity – and every day I remain a student of adversity, learning continually.
It’s NOT easy, and it can be very psychologically an emotionally challenging, BUT I have found that I always emerge wiser and stronger afterwards – and that makes it worthwhile!
Now, here’s why I had to give the above admonition as a preamble…
It’s because if you do not have mental attitude described above, it will be near impossible for you to achieve the kind of authentic success I will now go on to describe, based on a recent true story, about the use of my Web Marketing System (WMS) to attract and win over buyers.
Late last year – specifically, on the 27th Nov. 2018 (2 months ago today) – I got an email from a Cameroonian gentleman based in Ghana, regarding my Excel-VB Poultry Farm Manager Pre-Built Custom Automated Workbook software Application.
As he stated in the email screenshot below, he was looking to purchase the app in preparation for a Poultry Layer Farm Business Start-up in Ghana.
Now, he’d gotten my email address (tayo at tksola dot com) from the demonstration video I’d published in my YouTube channel, announcing the PFM app to potential buyers searching for solutions of that kind.
Members of my Web Marketing for CEOs club will recall I’ve mentioned several times, the need to create promotional materials that include what is called a Call To Action – CTA.
There MUST be a purpose to your marketing. Your CTA will be used to effect that purpose.
Be it videos, audios or written materials/resources, you must ensure your message ends with a specific request, offer or invitation to the target audience that comes into contact with it. Something they have to do that will draw them into your sales process – resulting in a “Sales Lead”.
In my videos, I usually recommend at the end that the viewer interested in knowing more send me an email via tayo at tksola dot com or that s/he call me on either +234-803-302-1263 (in Nigeria) or +229-66-122-136 (in Benin Republic).
This was what led the Farm CEO to send me the email he did.
In response, I told him to call me on my Nigeria line, so I could ask him a few questions (see email screenshot below).
I make this request as a strategy to screen out potential time wasters.
Put in place a screening system to help you make effective use of your time.
My experiences have taught me that some people (especially out here) can be mischievous. Some people may just call to chat you up for the sake of it, just to see what you will say.
I used to call people at my own expense in the past. But after I discovered that a growing number of those I was having to respond to were just curious, I realized I needed to modify my strategy.
Then in Nigeria, there are people who habitually engage in the silly practice of flashing – they call your line, let it right briefly, then end the call, so that YOU feel drawn to call back.
I used to do such call backs, but soon learned it was not worth my while. So I stopped and focused on identifying serious prospects by requesting they call me.
Since 2013, I’ve had enquirers call me, as a prerequisite for getting a response from me. I estimate that I close over 70% of sales opportunities that come to me through this process.
It actually makes them see that I take myself seriously, and that boosts my credibility + makes them come to me believing I can really help them.
My argument is this:
The products I sell are not very expensive, but they are not dirt cheap either. If you’re unwilling to spend the little amount that would enable you speak with me for 1 to 3 minutes on phone, I don’t see any reason why I should believe you are a serious potential buyer for my products that cost MANY times more!
Back to the Ghana based prospect:
When he got my email asking him to call me, he replied that he would and did so about a day later.
I still recall that I was visiting my parents in their home when the call came in. Less than 5 minutes later, we were done. He’d given me the answers to my questions and had asked me how much the app cost.
In responding, I offered to make him a time limited discount offer.
He however declined, noting that he was still looking around, trying to make up his mind, and that he could not make any concrete buying decision until January 2019.
I encouraged him to take his time and we ended the call.
By this time, in line with my recommended best practice for Web Marketing, I had 2 important items of information from him, which equipped me to safely and cost-effectively follow up with him:
a. His Mobile Number:
This I plugged into my Phone Contacts and used to find him on WhatsApp
b. His Email Address:
This I added to my General Contacts who I periodically forward copies of my published newsletter
As you can see, there is a method to my Web Marketing “madness” 
My approach helped me check and confirm reasonably, that the prospect was to be taken seriously. Then I stored the 2 key contact details I would need to take him/her to the next level in MY sales process, and proceeded to WAIT for ideas to come to me.
As the year approached its end, I sent out newsletter broadcasts via WhatsApp and email.
One carried the download link to an Excel-VB Greeting Card Workbook that I’d adapted from a source version downloaded from the web.
I’d embellished the workbook with code that got it to do more, plus a floating form featuring my photo, logo and clickable command buttons – including one that opened an offer page for discounted signup for membership of my MS Excel Heaven VB Programming Club.
Just before the year ended, I sent all my past enquirers a GIFT PDF copy of the 4,000 word Case Study I got paid 2,500 Euros to write, by a European Union Funded NGO based in Holland. There was also an offer of a special MP3 audio podcast series.
All of these were sent out using a clear no-strings-attached approach.
Recepients knew they were not being pressured to respond to anything, even as they took ownership of the FREE gif
[TIP] It is instructive to note, at this point, that I kept sending out my broadcasts, regardless of whether or not I got any responses. This is critical to successful selling. Marketing is the life blood of any business and it MUST happen continously, for the best chances of sales leads generation to be had.
I did some thinking, early in the New Year, and decided to send out a special FLASH PROMO offer of my Feed Formulation Bundle at 50% off with a deadline that expired midnight of the same day.
Why?
Because I knew most of those on my mailing list were Farm CEOs, or those aspiring, who had yet to purchase my Feed Formulation products.
Sometimes people tend to be ready at different times, to take up specific kinds of offers. Timing matters, in making offers.
When I sent out my offer, I got some responses – and was NOT surprised.
One of them was from the gentleman in Ghana…
The screenshots that follow below are self-explanatory, and show how I was able to successfully close THAT sale to him, using Guaranty Trust Bank’s Money Transfer (GTMT).
Another Selling Opportunity Opened Up…
In an interesting turn of events (which I’d actually thought could occur) he came back – see screenshot below – while still expecting his payment to reach me, to ask about the PFM app which he had originally reached out to me for!
You see, I’d offered him a different product (Ration Formulator software etc), which has a lower price tag, at a discount, to get my foot in the door, with the intention to them up sell the actual product he’d indicated interest t in to him.
Not surprisingly, he asked about THAT other product – the PFM – on his own.
This request from him gave me legitimate reason to then make him another offer, this time for the PFM.
Do you see now, why it always pays to keep an open and flexible mindset when marketing?
Never be too rigid in presenting your offers. Learn to watch the prospective buyer’s “body language” when you communicate with him/her. You can do this even when you are NOT physically with them. How they respond when you speak on phone, or even what they say in email replies or WhatsApp/Messenger chats can give you insights into how to get them to buy!
I’ve honed my selling instincts and skills in this regard for years and it has helped me get total strangers convinced enough to send me money from in and out of Africa, without EVER meeting me in person.
So this system I use, and recommend to you, works – if you know how to use it.
As a member of my club, the FREE coaching tutorials I publish (like this 10 Commandment Series) will reveal what you need to know. And you will be FREE to reach out to me for help in putting it to use.
The first step is for you to ensure you have a solution that your target audience wants and which they will consider worthwhile AFTER you deliver it to them.
This latter point (making sure they are HAPPY they bought from you) is critical to your building long term relationships with buyers: It which will guarantee opportunities for REPEAT sales to them in the long term.
Let me know if you have questions or require clarification on how to use the ideas I have shared in this piece.
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Get the MP3 Audio Podcast Version Of This Commandment
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Text “YES Bonus Audio 1” to +234-803-302-1263 and I will send you the download link for the MP3 version of the above Bonus Commandment.
