I remember Dan Kennedy saying on one of his old tapes that giving out free advice (unless it’s like a lead generation material to build a list) is futile. I was reminded of this fact when recently seeing the Fury/Wilder fight uploaded (a fight that was something like 60$) to YouTube. In the comments were complaints about the poor audio quality, the view, and a few other things. This was a fight that they were getting for free and yet were complaining about it. This applies to most things in business.
The cheaper the customer the worse that they are. Going low price and free attracts the absolute bottom of the barrel that causes the most problems. In many cases the more that you charge someone the more they’ll value what you give them. It’s a bit ironic and something that many business owners never understand to their detriment. This is another factor that intrigued me about setting up a membership site and something that you should be using in your business.
Sorting Through The Chaff
Most people will not make good customers for a whole host of different reasons. Some because they have no need of what you offer, some because they are too broke and therefore not worth your time, and some because they’re just shitty people who you don’t want to be dealing with. That last group unfortunately makes up the majority of people. One great way to sort through these people is to make them pay for access to you in any shape or form. This could be something very simple on the front end such as paying shipping on a free book you’ll send to them as a lead generation device or buying a book from you on Amazon or paying for access to a website or subscription of some sort.
Coughing up cash (even a very nominal amount, I’m talking like 5$) does wonders for separating the wheat from the chaff and attracting the type of customers that you’ll actually want to have as customers. And frankly if someone isn’t going to cough up a nominal fee for access to you or your information in any form then they’re not worth it as a customer. And remember most people are not worth having as customers, no matter what your business is.
When They Show Up, Bill Them
Another concept I learned from Dan Kennedy. When someone wants your advice, time, or anything you send them the bill and when they pay it you provide them with what they wanted. And if they won’t do so then you don’t give them your time, information, or anything else. To have success in business you have to be willing to put your foot down and swing the ax so to speak. There is no place for niceness in business because just like in life that’ll just end with you getting taken advantage of. You have to let some heads roll from time to time to keep the masses in check.
When you let the swine into the palace all it does is drive away the people you wanted there in the first place. You have to be ruthless with your time and resources. Let the weak fall and perish it’s what they were created to do. Like I’ve said before most of humanity was created to be taken advantage of, used, discarded, and crushed. I don’t say this to be mean or because it’s what I want, I say it because it’s how the world actually works and has always worked. When you understand this you can act in accordance with it and therefore with reality, which always works to your favor.
Ruthless = Money
Ruthless equals success in life and this includes business. This obviously doesn’t mean beat up your top customers or anything like that but you do have to ruthlessly guard your time and value from those that are not worthy of it. And most people are not worthy of your time, effort, attention, or aid, for a lot of reasons. Keep the slobbering masses away from the gates. Pelt them with rocks and drive them back to wallow in their inferiority and worthlessness only allowing the worthy to come forward to have the privilege (yes privilege) of working with you and giving you money. So much of making money is a mental game. The better you play this the more money that you will make. You have to be a bit “arrogant” (or at least what the average person would call arrogant).
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it.
-Charles Sledge
