More Eyes Won't Fix a Business People Don't Care About
Hey Reader,
I’ve been working with a business owner recently who wants to bring in more customers.
At first, the solution seemed pretty straightforward: run ads, get more people to the website, and turn that extra traffic into sales.
But before spending money to send more people there, there was a more important question to answer:
Is the website already doing a good job of turning visitors into customers?
That’s something I’ve seen a lot throughout my career. Businesses have come to me thinking they needed Facebook ads, more social media, more website traffic, or more leads. And sometimes that was exactly what they needed.
But other times, once I took a closer look at what was happening inside the business, it became clear that sending more people into the existing system wouldn’t fix the problem.
More traffic only helps if the business is doing a good job converting the traffic it already has and in some cases, never converted.
Sometimes the problem isn’t that not enough people are paying attention. It’s that the people who are paying attention aren’t buying.
What Happens After They Get There?
This is the part of marketing that I think gets missed, more often than you might think. The logical thought is, "Get the website up send the traffic and get rich."
Don't you wish it was that easy?
We spend a lot of time talking about how to get people to a website, but not nearly enough time looking at what happens once they’re there.
You can send 1,000 of the right people to a site and still get poor results if the message isn’t clear, the offer doesn’t connect, or there isn’t enough trust for someone to take the next step.
People need to understand what you do, why it matters to them, and why they should choose you, they need to trust you, be ready to buy, connect with you on a deeper level, feel like you are speaking directly to them, the list goes on.
Depending on what you sell, they may also need more time with your business before they’re ready to buy.
That’s the part traffic can’t fix on its own.
I can send more people to a website. But if the website, offer, or overall customer journey isn’t doing its job, more traffic usually just means more people leaving without buying.
The Hard Part: Getting People To Care
One of the hardest parts of building a business is remembering that we usually start from our own point of view.
We know what we want to sell. We understand the service, the program, or the product. We know how it works and why we believe it’s valuable.
The challenge is that the customer comes at it from a completely different perspective. They’re thinking about what they need, what they’re trying to solve, what they’ve already tried, and whether what you’re offering feels relevant to them.
Just because we create something doesn’t mean people will automatically care about it.
That’s why understanding the customer matters. You need to know what they’re trying to accomplish, where they’re getting stuck, how they describe the problem, and what they believe would make things better.
That understanding shapes your messaging, but it can also reveal bigger issues.
Sometimes the way you’re talking about the offer is the problem. Other times, the offer itself needs work. The pricing may be off. The packaging may be confusing. Or people may want the result you provide, but prefer a different way of getting there.
That’s part of building a business. You don’t necessarily have to change the goal, but you do have to be willing to change how you get there.
The Fastest Feedback Usually Isn't Digital
This is one reason I don’t think every new business needs to build a full online customer-acquisition system right away.
Advertising can be a great way to test an offer if you have the budget. You can get data quickly, see what people respond to, and make adjustments.
But that learning can get expensive.
If you’re paying $80 for a lead while you’re still trying to figure out whether the offer, message, or sales process works, you can burn through a lot of money before you have a clear answer.
Organic marketing has a different tradeoff. It costs less in ad spend, but it usually requires more time. People have to discover you, become familiar with your business, see enough from you to build trust, and eventually move from interested to ready to buy.
That process isn’t wrong, but it isn’t always the fastest way to figure out whether your offer is connecting.
For an early-stage business that needs customers and feedback, I often want the owner talking directly to potential buyers. Have real conversations. Make the offer. Pay attention to what people understand immediately and where they get confused.
Listen to the language they use when they describe what they want or what they’re struggling with. You can learn a lot from someone’s hesitation, questions, and reactions.
That may involve manual outreach, and I know that isn’t the part of marketing most people get excited about. It isn’t passive, and it doesn’t feel especially scalable.
But it gives you information quickly.
Instead of spending months creating content and wondering why it isn’t leading to sales, a few good conversations can tell you that your positioning is wrong, your offer needs to change, or you’ve been focusing on something your customer doesn’t care about nearly as much as you thought.
That kind of feedback is incredibly valuable early on.
Prove People Care Before You Scale
If you’re having trouble getting customers, more visibility may eventually help. But before putting more money or effort into getting seen, I’d want to know what happens when the right people are already exposed to the offer.
Are they interested? Are they buying? If not, what’s getting in the way?
That’s the first information you need. Talk to potential customers. Test different ways of explaining what you do. Pay attention to what gets a response and what doesn’t. Make changes based on what you learn and keep testing.
You may discover that the thing you thought customers wanted isn’t quite what they’re looking for. That’s useful information.
Most businesses don’t land on the right offer, message, and sales process immediately. They get there by paying attention to the market and making changes along the way.
Once you know people want the offer and you understand what helps the right customer say yes, then increasing traffic makes much more sense.
At that point, you’re no longer spending money just to find out whether something works.
You’re putting more people in front of something that has already shown signs that it can convert.That’s when scaling becomes a much better conversation..
Inside the Studio
I’ve been spending a lot of time inside the studio lately, working on Scale Clarity™ strategies for several clients.
If you missed the video I shared recently showing what a client actually receives through Scale Clarity, you can watch it here.
A few of those clients have now moved beyond the strategy work and asked me to help with implementation, too.
Once we’ve worked out where the business is going, what needs to change, and what the priorities are, the next question is usually how to put it all into place.
That’s what my project-based implementation sprints are for.
The work looks different depending on the business. Right now, I’m helping clients build marketing and revenue systems, document processes, create SOPs, develop programs, improve proposals and templates, produce newsletters and social content, create marketing materials, and set up workflows that are easier for a team or assistant to manage.
I also manage and optimize paid acquisition through Facebook and Google Ads. Recently, the CEO of a leadership company I’m working with told me I was the first person he had worked with, or even heard of, who had successfully used Facebook Ads to reach executives for leadership coaching and turn those campaigns into both leads and paying clients.
That was great to hear, especially because it reflects how I think about implementation. I don’t want to build something just to check it off a list. I want to see whether it works in the real business.
That often means staying involved after something launches, looking at the results, and making changes as we learn more. We may refine the messaging, improve the content, adjust a campaign, or build additional systems around something that is starting to work.
In other cases, the market response tells us we need to rethink part of the original plan. Scale Clarity™ gives us a clear direction. The implementation work turns that direction into something practical and makes sure it holds up once real customers start interacting with it.
Because every business comes in with a different goal, starting point, team, and set of resources, the work is different for every client.
Where do you want your business to go in the next 12 months?
Before deciding that your business needs more marketing, a new offer, a redesigned website, AI, a salesperson, or another tactic, it helps to get clear on where you’re actually trying to go.
Start with where you want the business to be 12 months from now and work backward from there.
The Business Goal Roadmap™ is a free assessment designed to help you look at where your business is today, where you want it to go, and what may need to happen in between.
There’s no opt-in required. You can simply download it and use it.
Business Goal Roadmap.pdf
|
Latest Podcasts
Ep 277 PEOPLE-FIRST LEADERSHIP IN THE AGE OF AI
In this episode of Thrive Radio, I talk with Duncan Brand, executive coach, leadership consultant, founder of Intrinsic Leader, and author of Mind the Gap, about leadership, workplace culture, emotional intelligence, and what it will take to build successful organizations in an AI-driven world.
In this podcast you will learn:
- Why good business strategies can fail because of leadership and culture.
- How to identify the gap between your company’s stated values and employees’ actual experience.
- The difference between being people-first and simply being employee-centric.
- Why AI may make emotional intelligence and human leadership more valuable.
- How a leader’s beliefs, values, purpose, and self-awareness influence an entire organization.
- Why culture isn’t an HR initiative, it’s an ongoing leadership practice.
- The three leadership capabilities Duncan believes CEOs need to develop for the next five years: self-awareness, trust-building, and comfort with uncertainty.
Ep 278 HOW TO TURN AND IDEA INTO AN PROFITABLE INVENTION
Brian Fried is an inventor, entrepreneur, author, and innovation expert who has spent more than 20 years helping inventors and entrepreneurs transform ideas into successful businesses. From appearing on QVC to launching the National Inventor Club and developing AI-powered tools for inventors, Brian has guided countless innovators through the journey of licensing, manufacturing, marketing, and bringing products to market. He’s also preparing to teach entrepreneurship and consumer discovery at the college level, continuing his mission to help others turn great ideas into reality.
In this podcast you will learn:
- How to determine whether an invention is worth pursuing before investing heavily in it
- The first steps to take when you think you have a million-dollar idea
- Why researching existing products and intellectual property should happen early
- How customer discovery can prevent costly product-development mistakes
- The differences between licensing an invention and manufacturing it yourself
- How to create a competitive advantage that makes your product harder to copy
- Where inventors commonly get stuck between having an idea and making money from it
- How AI can help inventors research, visualize, evaluate, and improve their ideas
- Why getting brutally honest customer feedback is more valuable than asking friends and family
- How one successful invention can become the foundation for a larger brand and business
To Your Success,
Aimee