Good to Great

Right now I’m squished into a tiny airplane seat on my way to Mexico City. In the empty seat next to me, I’ve got a copy of Good To Great, one of the best business books I’ve ever read.

Good To Great looks at 11 companies that were way more successful than their competitors for 15 years or more. The book is all about what they did differently from most companies.

Because Good To Great is based on actual data and real-world results instead of theory, it says new and interesting stuff. (Not the same old bullshit you get from other business books.)

And because Good To Great is based on real-world results instead of theory, you know that its new and interesting stuff is actually worth listening to.

Here’s my favorite lesson from Good To Great. A lot of the companies in the book lost their entire business model, and they had to scramble to figure out what they should sell.

One of the companies, Pitney Bowes, lost its government-granted monopoly on postage machines. Another, realized it couldn’t compete with the big paper manufacturers, so it sold off its paper business (its biggest cash cow at the time).

How did they decide what businesses to get into? They all used the same 3 criteria. If you’re deciding what sort of offers you should sell, these 3 criteria might help you:

1.     What can you be the best in the world at?

The 11 companies in Good To Great realized that if they couldn’t the #1 or #2 player in a market, they should exit that market. (And today this is commonly accepted by all of corporate America.)

So for example, if you’re not Coca-Cola or Pepsi, and you don’t think you can beat Coca-Cola or Pepsi, don’t make soda.

What if you’re not the best in the world at what you do? Then niche down until you are the best in the world.

So for example, if you want to make soda, don’t make cheap coke. Make one really good high-end soda that’s unlike anything that Coca-Cola or Pepsi makes.

Or if you want to be a business coach, you probably won’t be the best business coach in the world. But maybe you can be the best in the world at teaching Christian mothers to start freelancing from home, or teaching shy, awkward software entrepreneurs to market themselves.

And you don’t have to be the best in the world right now. You just have to see a realistic path to becoming the best in the world.

Once you’re the best in the world, the right customers will find you.

2.     What are you passionate about?

The companies in Good To Great all sold something that their employees actually cared about.

This is kind of important for corporations, but it’s super important when you run your own coaching biz. If you don’t love what you do, then you’ll look forward to quitting instead of giving 100% every day.

You’ll burn out way faster, and your clients will see that you’re half-assing it.

So pick something you love doing.

3.     What makes you money?

Each one of the 11 companies in Good To Great obsessed over optimizing one specific metric.

For Walgreens, it was profit per customer visit. When somebody walked into Walgreens, Walgreens asked, how do we get them to spend as much money as possible? (That’s why they started selling stuff like snacks, instead of just filling people’s prescriptions.)

For Gillette, it was profit per customer. So they made high-quality razor blades and then tried to sell as many of them as they could.

What metric should your business focus on?

Maybe it’s profit per paying customer. This is a good metric to focus on if you're trying to upsell more stuff. When someone buys one of your programs, how often can you sell them something higher-ticket down the road?

Or maybe it’s profit per audience member. When someone discovers you and gets into your orbit, how good are you at closing them and turning them into a paying customer?

Maybe it’s not a profit based metric at all. YouTube’s metric was watch time. They obsessed over figuring out ways to get people to spend more time watching YouTube, even at the cost of stuff like views and even revenue.

The right metric for your business is gonna depend on who your audience is and what your business model is. Your job is to figure out what it is, then work your butt off to grow it.

I talk with a lot of coaches. The #1 thing that makes them money is creating content. The more content they make, the more their audience grows to trust them, and the more sales they make.

The #2 thing that makes them money is sending marketing emails. The more times they ask for the sale, the more sales they make.

If you want to create more content and send more emails, and you don’t have the time to do it yourself, check this out:

theoseeds.com/brandvoice

My coach retired

Once upon a time I spent $2,500 — BY FAR the most money I had ever spent — to hire a copy coach.

It was worth it. The month after I did it I had my first ever $10K month.

Last week he sent an email out to his list, saying he’s retiring from coaching copywriters and sharing a bunch of stuff he learned along the way.

Here’s the most interesting thing he said. It was usually pretty obvious what his students needed to do. They needed to get better at writing copy, or they needed to get better at talking to their clients, or whatever.

So he would tell them what they needed to do. They would ignore that advice, and keep making the same exact mistakes over and over again. And he would want to slam his head into a wall.

He decided to take a different approach. He stopped just telling people what they needed to do.

Instead, he would try his best to steer them in that direction, and help them figure it on their own.

(Turns out, when you do that, people are way more likely to actually learn something.)

You can’t learn any hard skills without going through the trial and error yourself. You can’t learn to ride a bike without getting on a bicycle and riding. You can’t learn a foreign language without actually talking to people. And you can’t learn business skills by just reading books or listening to your coaches.

Coaches can nudge you down the right path. But they can’t upload their secret recipes into your brain. You have to figure out your own secret recipe.

So with your students — don’t think in terms of showing people your secret recipe.

(You should still MARKET yourself as showing people your secret recipe, if that’s what your audience thinks they want. I’m not telling you to sabotage your sales. But understand: your product is not a secret recipe. Your product is personal growth.)

Think in terms of where your audience is, and what they’re ready to hear right now. And think about how to get them to the next step.

(Maybe that’s something you were ready to hear. Or maybe it’s something you’ll figure out on your own, down the road.)

No offer this week, because a) I’m exhausted and b) I’m taking some time off work right now.

If you enjoyed this email, feel free to forward it to someone else who you think would enjoy it.

And if you are that someone who got this email forwarded to you, and you want more emails like this in your inbox, click here:

https://www.theoseeds.com/emails

Even more cats

A month and a half ago I sent you an email with the subject line “Cats”.

You guys loved that email. It had my highest open rate ever.

So last week I sent you an email with the subject line “More Cats”. You guys loved that email too!

One of my former copy coaches, Ning Li, says that part of every marketer’s job is to find their “customer crack”.

Once you figure out something your audience likes — their “crack” — just give it to them over and over again.

I guess I’ve found your crack. You love cats!

Don’t worry — I’m not gonna turn this list into a cat email list. It’s not just gonna be all cats all the time. I am gonna keep giving you marketing tips.

(Although the next time I have a cat story I WILL write an email about it.)

Here’s your marketing tip for today. What are your top performing pieces of content?

Look at your Instagram. What got the most likes?

Look at your YouTube. What got the most views?

Look at your blog posts. What got the most clicks?

Look at your emails. What got the most opens?

Make MORE content like that, until it stops working.

If you don’t have any top-performing content yet, how can you figure out what your audience will like?

There are a few ways.

You can do them in 10 minutes. They’re easy.

That’s one of the things I’m writing about in my new mini-book. Next week you’ll be able to get a copy for $7.

You’ll also learn a bunch more of my email marketing tactics and strategies that have made my clients 7 figures.

So stay tuned.

-Theo