Keep Away From Bad Neighborhoods
Did your parents ever tell you to keep away from bad neighborhoods when you were little?
I'm sure they did - after all, if you are in a bad neighborhood chances are that you are a lot more likely to get hurt than you would be if you were in good neighborhood.
The same thing applies online!
If you promote products that aren't trustworthy, then you lose your creditbility.
Sure you may make a few dollars...but that's it.
The people who bought bad items based on your recommendation will probably never trust you again, so even though you made money from them once, that's the end of the line.
If you promote products that you honestly believe in, and you make sure that you promote useful, credible products, that deliver what they promise, then the your subscribers will continue to have faith in you, and will listen to your recommendations.
You also don't have to worry about the them telling other people not to listen to you because you promote horrible products.
You also need to keep yourself out of bad neighborhoods, by making sure that you deliver what you promise on your website.
I'm currently in a situation where I joined a membership community, admittedly, for a lark, because while I thought the community was a good idea, I knew that I don't meet the requirements for the community.
I filled out the application anyways, to see what would happen, and I was approved, and paid my money.
It's been months now, and we haven't begun to get half the things that were promoted on the sign up letter.
What's worse, is that the things we are getting are being phased out, because the owner of the group thinks it will be easier to do things differently.
It is definitely a smart decision to take stock of your business, and even your life, and weed out things that aren't working for you, but if you have dozens of members who have signed up for a year long group, you can't just take their money and run, and phase out the group because it isn't convenient for you.
If you don't live up to your promises then you are going to wind up in a "bad neighborhood" and people are going to steer clear of you, and avoid doing business with you.
And it's not just going to be you that is hurting.
People who are partnering with you will also be affected by this.
After all, they are actively promoting your product, and they see first hand whether you overdeliver, or under deliver on your promises.
If you are interested in making money for the long haul, then when you make a commitment to your customers, newsletter subscribers, blog readers, forum members, or even to other members of communities that you are a part of, you need to be able to deliver on your promises for the length of your promise.
If that's just for the length of time it takes someone to read a blog entry, or download an ebook thats fine, but if you promise them forum access to you and your trusted advisors, plus monthly exclusive content for a year, then you need to be able to deliver that.
When you start out that first month without the promised content, then you know it's going to be harder for you to get caught up, and you know your customers have already lost some of the faith they had in you - even if they aren't willing to admit it.
Life does happen, and sometimes that will get in the way.
Some people will be understanding if something happens and you can't keep ongoing commitments for a certain amount of time, if you let them know what's going on.
You don't have to go into detail if you're not comfortable with that, usually a simple "I'm having some personal problems right now, and I'm going to be unable to ...., but things should be back on track next month," should suffice.
If you have someone who can answer questions or perform some of the duties while you are unavailable that's even better, just point everyone towards them.
Things change, and you may decide that you can't continue to commit to long term promised you've made.
Then you simply must explain what's going on, try to do something that will help your customers, and above all respond to them when they ask you questions or express their concerns.
Best Wishes For a Prosperous Business,
Sarah
I'm sure they did - after all, if you are in a bad neighborhood chances are that you are a lot more likely to get hurt than you would be if you were in good neighborhood.
The same thing applies online!
If you promote products that aren't trustworthy, then you lose your creditbility.
Sure you may make a few dollars...but that's it.
The people who bought bad items based on your recommendation will probably never trust you again, so even though you made money from them once, that's the end of the line.
If you promote products that you honestly believe in, and you make sure that you promote useful, credible products, that deliver what they promise, then the your subscribers will continue to have faith in you, and will listen to your recommendations.
You also don't have to worry about the them telling other people not to listen to you because you promote horrible products.
You also need to keep yourself out of bad neighborhoods, by making sure that you deliver what you promise on your website.
I'm currently in a situation where I joined a membership community, admittedly, for a lark, because while I thought the community was a good idea, I knew that I don't meet the requirements for the community.
I filled out the application anyways, to see what would happen, and I was approved, and paid my money.
It's been months now, and we haven't begun to get half the things that were promoted on the sign up letter.
What's worse, is that the things we are getting are being phased out, because the owner of the group thinks it will be easier to do things differently.
It is definitely a smart decision to take stock of your business, and even your life, and weed out things that aren't working for you, but if you have dozens of members who have signed up for a year long group, you can't just take their money and run, and phase out the group because it isn't convenient for you.
If you don't live up to your promises then you are going to wind up in a "bad neighborhood" and people are going to steer clear of you, and avoid doing business with you.
And it's not just going to be you that is hurting.
People who are partnering with you will also be affected by this.
After all, they are actively promoting your product, and they see first hand whether you overdeliver, or under deliver on your promises.
If you are interested in making money for the long haul, then when you make a commitment to your customers, newsletter subscribers, blog readers, forum members, or even to other members of communities that you are a part of, you need to be able to deliver on your promises for the length of your promise.
If that's just for the length of time it takes someone to read a blog entry, or download an ebook thats fine, but if you promise them forum access to you and your trusted advisors, plus monthly exclusive content for a year, then you need to be able to deliver that.
When you start out that first month without the promised content, then you know it's going to be harder for you to get caught up, and you know your customers have already lost some of the faith they had in you - even if they aren't willing to admit it.
Life does happen, and sometimes that will get in the way.
Some people will be understanding if something happens and you can't keep ongoing commitments for a certain amount of time, if you let them know what's going on.
You don't have to go into detail if you're not comfortable with that, usually a simple "I'm having some personal problems right now, and I'm going to be unable to ...., but things should be back on track next month," should suffice.
If you have someone who can answer questions or perform some of the duties while you are unavailable that's even better, just point everyone towards them.
Things change, and you may decide that you can't continue to commit to long term promised you've made.
Then you simply must explain what's going on, try to do something that will help your customers, and above all respond to them when they ask you questions or express their concerns.
Best Wishes For a Prosperous Business,
Sarah
Labels: bad neighborhoods, business advice
posted by Sarah at
11:52 AM
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