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The sun rose up one more time. Glad to see it. Glad to have you here too. Todayâs Feature Story is about a philosophy any marketer or business owner can harness and should â the ability to suffer the trenches. After the Feature, weâre serving upâŚ
- The Knowledge Base (get Google-free traffic)
SelfHelp- Facts & Stats (WFH shopping boom)
- Get Hacking (A/B testing most forget about)
Now, letâs wade into the trenches with the most successful grinder in his field – ever.
Wondering What Makes a Business Successful?
I used to love watching football (until Alex Honnold showed how unimpressive other athletes are).
One thing I always wondered about was what made the legendary teams legendary.
Tracing the NFL back to its beginning, you canât say one team had any specific advantage over another. They all started at zero. But something made the Packers better and winners of the first two Super Bowls.
What was it?
Unlike todayâs gurus with easy fixes and âthat one thing that will explode your business,â Iâve no clue. Too many variables. But I will tell you what nobody wants to hear.
You Canât Go Wrong Working on the Little Things
Footballâs a game of inches. So is business. Little things add up to equal success or failure. Sometimes, they add up to a business that never quite finds success but never quite collapses either.
âThe little thingsâ arenât click-baity enough for 2024, though. But thatâs the only path that at least guarantees the odds favor you instead of opposing you.
Bill Belichick is the greatest football coach in history. Sure – without Tom Brady, he isnât. Same goes for Brady, despite him winning a Super Bowl without Belichick. Brady never gets a chance to develop into the best QB ever if not for his coach.
Without Belichick-built defenses that kept Patriots games close, the young version of Brady wouldâve been blitzed in blowouts, pounded, and wouldâve lost confidence like 95% of young NFL quarterbacks. Also, Brady got to see opposing defenses through the eyes of one of the best defensive minds in football historyâŚ
Those Insights Came from the Trenches
Bill Belichick didnât watch a 40-minute webinar on how to become a legendary coach. And he didnât learn ALL the Xs and Os in a week after being fired up by a Gary Vee rant.
Nope. Belichick began in the tedious trenches of a film room, working for free as an intern breaking down game film many decades ago. Even the most hardcore football fan wouldnât be able to stomach football plays on a loop for 14 hours a day.
All those hours this coach invested in staring at game film added up to him being as high-level an expert as one can become.
There was no:
- Mr. Beast template for him to follow
- Social media hack to 10x his knowledge
- Thought leader to enlighten him on something ânewâ
- Case study that convinced him to stick to one strategy
There was a trench for him to descend into. One filled with boredom, repetition, and a thousand insights that proved useless once put into action. That trench was also filled with wisdom that could be gained by no other means. Inch by inch.
Iâll stop there, though I could go on forever on the topic of what makes a person, team, or business successful. Itâs super-intriguing to me. All I know is there are tactics that help. Lady Luck plays her part too. But the path to success is rarely easy or glamorous and canât be mapped out.
More on this trench-work philosophy with The Education of a Coach.
Now, a way to hit list growth goals…
Easy Leads
Sign-up forms are easily avoided these days. So, collect leads the new-fashioned way. Smart Recognition collects leads from your anonymous traffic. Get a free 1:1 demo here.
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The Knowledge Base
â6 gurus spill beans on getting traffic without Google
Buy Now Pay Later survey (more rewards wanted)
đ4 direct mail tips for non-profits
Try easier with email campaigns
â ď¸Beware experts in general (& spot phony ones)
Apple Mail tabs coming
đ§ââď¸Deep focus: a how-to for peeps under work pressure (my solution: say ânoâ – out loud!)
9 IG video marketing tips (use #8 if nothing else)
đ§ Hiring boom for those with atypical brains
Popular but sucktastic resume advice
How ’bout some good AI news?
Self Help
Some great news out of the AI world. Finally, a reverse doomsday story.
This one has AI finding new paths to antibiotics instead of plotting mankindâs demise with only Sammy Altman surviving to reign over the bots. By the way, antibiotics are not as effective as they once were – a real problem (as talked about in Bill Brysonâs The Body).
Facts and Stats
- U.S. consumers: 59% live paycheck to paycheck. Worse for Generation Z at 64%. And 66% for Millennials (PYMNTS)
- 69.5% of advertising revenue will be informed by artificial intelligence this year (WSJ)
- Shop-on-the-clock: Online retail shopping running at a $375 billion annual rate above the 2015-2019 trend â the greatest increase came in regions with the most hybrid and remote workers (Mastercard)
Bonus: 2nd best way to reduce cart abandonment (without profit-killing discounts)? Answer is donât require an account sign-up (Stacked Marketer).
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Get Hacking
Have you A/B tested yourself into a stupor, figuring out why your abandoned cart rate is so high?
Cart abandonment isnât always due to shipping cost sticker shock, checkouts with too many steps, or mediocre copywriting. Those are legit problems.
But have you considered adding more payment options? Some people have specific payment preferences, like underwear preferences. Another possibility â your payment processor is glitchy, or its fraud-prevention settings are too strict, keeping legit shoppersâ payments from completing. Test those things to perhaps move the needle. (good payments resource)
If you know another big-brained marketer, share Inbox Hacking with them. Thanks for reading.
Shane McLendon, Copy Kingpin – Inbox Hacking
P.S. Human potential (little Ironman goes legend with bionic arm).
