Looking Back And Reflecting On 2011.
It truly is amazing how quickly time flies – it seems like just yesterday I was popping the chardonnay and toasting to 2011.
I wanted to take a few minutes and reflect on events that have taken place over the past 12 months or so. This is the time of year where one should be evaluating and analyzing the events that have taken place and dump certain projects…ramp up others and create new ideas and new visions going forward.
There were A LOT of major events that took place – both personally and professionally. In this post, I’ll be sharing some of the good as well as the ugly – I’m hoping that you’ll take a moment as well and write a comment and share some of the things that took place in your world.
I’ll begin by discussing some of the highlights of 2011 and accomplishments that I’m really proud of – then I’ll discuss some of the “not so pretty” things that took place.
1. The creation of Winning Marketing Solutions, LLC. This is the single, biggest event that’s taken place in my professional life since 2003 or so. I had to escape my “comfort zone” and make some life changing decisions. It was time for me to step up. By no means was this an easy choice. I left an extremely successful business partnership that was in place for 8+ years. This is something I had been pondering for several months. For growth to take place one needs to take a leap – that’s what I did. I have no regrets – it’s been a wild and crazy fun ride with a tremendous amount of self-discovery that’s taken place along the way.
2. I began heavily testing direct mail for lead generation in June of 2009 after not using snail mail much for the 2-3 prior years. 2011 was the year where I consinstently had mail pieces pulling positive results. Direct mail is not an easy game and it takes a fairly hefty testing budget so you can be putting mail on the street weekly or at least a couple of times a month. As with anything, more tests = faster results. This is now one of the “staples” for consistent & quality leads for WMS. A long the way, I had my teeth kicked in quite a few times and lost tens of thousands of dollars before getting it to where it’s at now – consistently profitable. The mission for this entire testing process was to be able to share what’s working and what isn’t in the direct mail world with clients. In one of our advanced training classes I shared the exact process I use from top to bottom back in October, 2011. You’ll see me continuing to share this with students 2-3 times a year going forward.
Personally, I believe direct mail will be one of the big frontiers for lead generation as well as customer acquisition and selling higher tier products going forward. The concept is nothing new, but I strayed away from it for a few years because “the gettin’ was good” with online sources. As the online world changed, I needed to adjust and modify my approach.
3. Completely restructured the affiliate program for our digital product line. This was a monstrous project that took about 3 months to complete – and then another month for testing and tweaking. Currently, we have 3 digital products that comprise the newly restructured Partner Program – How To Become A Recruiting Machine, Lead Tsunami and Endless Leads. I moved these products to the Nanacast platform to increase the amount of flexibility and professionalism associated with the program. Now, partners can get their swipe emails, banners and other marketing materials directly in their admin area. It’s a pretty slick system – from a value standpoint, I couldn’t beat it. I shopped the market extensively and almost went with Infusionsoft, but after speaking with a handful of companies that use it – I realized that from a technology standpoint, I’d need to spend a boat load of moolah with custom programming and would need to hire someone for the setup process as well as adjusting it periodicically to meet the needs of WMS.
With Nanacast, I can now also payout any commissions that I want to – currently, the payout for each product is 100%. At some point this will likely be increased. My goal is not to compete with other affiliate programs – it’s to CRUSH them by providing superior products and a commission structure that’s second to none for those wishing to share it.
4. One of the areas I’m most proud of is my growth and development. Not just in my business life but also my personal world as well. By nature I’m a big time workaholic – this year was the first time for me ever as an adult to really take a step back and assess this area of my life. What are little things for most (coaching Jaiden’s soccer team, taking weekend family trips, working very little on the weekends, etc) are a big deal for me and have been challenging for me to do in the past. I’ve realigned my priorities – yeah, I still put in 60+ hours a week because I have fun and love what I do, but I’ve made family time more of a priority.
I think we’ve taken more trips to the lake, the desert for motorcyle action, up north, etc. this year than in all of the prior 3 combined.
My knowledge from a marketing stand point has also ballooned in 2011. I’ve learned to create more complex marketing systems and funnels than ever before – yet break them down at the same time to be simple that anyone can implement and understand the “what” and “why” behind what they’re doing.
oK, so I’ve addressed a few of the things I’m proud of that have taken place this year, now let’s switch gears and talk about some things that didn’t go my way…
THE NOT SO PRETTY OF 2011.
1. Here comes a bit of a rant…and something that’s effected everyone in our community. The biggest issue the home based business community as a whole experienced during 2011 was a lot of the traffic “holes” that we’ve been relying on have essentially vanished.
Google Adwords – done, it’s not coming back to our community.
FaceBook Ads – for the most part it’s done. Yeah, you can still drive traffic to a fan page, but the game has drastically changed. It’s more and more challenging to drive prospects to a traditional squeeze page. You’ll need a wide and deep marketing funnel and a superb skill set. It’s no longer a place to advertise and promote for rookies or people just getting started. As bid prices steadily increase you’ll need to have a model that can support a higher priced lead and reduced conversions.
The traffic costs and bid prices are also increasing at more than 40% a year. Sound familiar? Think Adwords, 2005 and beyond.
Bring your “A Game” if you plan on playing with Facebook Ads.
2. Another broader observation on our community as a whole…It’s now more important than ever to step up your game, increase your level of productivity, improve your marketing and study current direct response marketing techniques. Just a few years ago someone could literally put together pillars of a marketing campaign in a day or two and begin seeing results. Now, with more and more niche markets being penetrated and competition becoming more fierce as more are vying for the same “eyeballs”, it’s a different world.
This is impacting all of us on two sides of the equation – the buyer side and the marketing side. Consumers are no longer spending “at will”. They’re (and have been over the past 2-3 years) tightening their belts – they’re looking for more value, they’re doing more research (even on smaller ticket items) and they’re making more educated decisions. This is a good thing. However, unfortunately, those impacted most by this shift is people new(er) to the world of network marketing, the IM community and newer business owners as a whole, regardless of the industry. The bottom line here is that it takes more work, more prospects, better products and superior marketing than it has in the past.
The new economy is here to stay – embrace it and make the appropriate adjustments with your business to thrive in this environment.
I’m not out to scare anyone with this message – the purpose of this post is to share the good and the bad, as I see things. I’m not here to sugar coat anything and If I downplay major shifts like this – I’m only doing you a huge disservice.
3. On a business note, I haven’t provided near the quantity of content and information for students that I’ve been hoping to and typically do. I’ve been so focused with the launch of WMS, restructuring things and testing. Shame on me – big time. Yes, we have our weekly and monthly training calls as well as quite a few content rich reports, videos, etc in the main Members Only Area, but in prior years I had done at least 1 or two monthly “off the cuff” training videos or content rich calls to share cool content…just because.
I’ve dropped the ball here and I will be rectifying it with more content, providing more value and just sharing more cool stuff that will help you in your business adventures.
4. Sadly, I’m 15 pounds heavier right now than I was this time last year. Time to put away the Twinkies and Oreo cookies. Nothing that a few months of healthy eating and making good choices can’t correct.
These are a few of the things that negatively impacted me this year.
What are some of the good and the bad with your 2011 and what will you be focusing on during 2012?
All the best,
Terry Duff
P.S. I’d really like to hear some of the things you experienced during 2011. Let us know some of the accomplishments you’re proud of – let us know some of the things that didn’t go over too well also.
