I’ve never been mugged before and I didn’t notice it this time until it was over.
I was in a dodgy part of town buying a sandwich on my way to meet a techy about business. I stopped at a petrol station to get some money from the ATM machine. I picked up a sandwich first then went to the machine and put in my card and my number.
As my cash came out a little bloke came approached me from the left and shoulder charged me.
At least I think he shoulder charged me. I’m pretty sure he didn’t trip and fall against me because I saw him change direction and lunge towards me.
He was quite a bit smaller than me though and he bounced off me.
I said ‘what??’
He mumbled something and went back to a waiting car containing two other men. At this point my brain clicked to ‘on’ and I realised what had happened. I got back in my car, locked the doors and drove off.
I think the moral is you can’t afford to be subtle if you’re a mugger.
And true to form, and to tie this post in with Internet Marketing, I’ve been guilty of ‘gentle mugging’ in the past.
I have a minisite in another niche – nothing to do with IM – and it’s basically a content site. I bought some REALLY good PLR and rewrote it and filled the minisite with the content. So I ended up with a very informative site within this particular niche which gets a lot of traffic.
The next step of course was to monetize it which I did with Ads that sort of looked like Google Ads but were ads for related Clickbank products netting me 50-75% of each sale but without the hassle that Adsense sometimes brings (an example of hassle would be that you can’t control which ads show and if the product is crap you get backlash from unhappy customers).
At least with my Clickbank products I could buy them and read them myself so I knew they were of a certain quality.
But I was making few sales.
To cut a long story short it took me AGES to realise that my ads were far too subtle, and I wasn’t telling people to go and buy the products.
So I changed the look of the page and put the affiliate links into the actual content itself, and removed the sidebar ads. I also told people, again in the content of the page, ‘Look – if you’re looking for a definitive guide for *****’ buy this book and gave them the link. I almost shoved it up their noses, I was THAT obvious.
And it worked.
And it still is.
So if you’re struggling to sell, whether it’s in the IM niche or whichever niche is your ‘thing’ then get bold, blunt and brassy.
Tell people to buy.
Don’t be embarrassed about it or ‘fanny about’ as a mate of mine is fond of saying, tell people to buy. Be proud of your products and wave them in front of your customers.
It works.
Unlike the prat who tried to relieve me of my wallet last week.
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Sorry to hear that Tony. I had a similar experience earlier on in the year, although in my case it was when I was a little drunk (so my reactions were not the best) and the guy took my phone. Makes you think.
Going back to IM, I know what you mean about being too subtle. I think it’s something I’m definitely guilty of, and I’ll try to be more ‘brash’ with my links from now on :). I think you have to find a balance though. The content needs to be top notch, and then you can get away with it.
As always, great post, and something to think about.
Dan
Hi Tony,
Glad you came out unscathed. I learnt recently never to leave my car door open even for a few seconds while running into a shop. Luckily, I came out in time and ‘bumped’ into the would-be thief.
What I now know is that in a nicer part of town, where there is a local store, there is a person living in the flat next door who spends at least some of his time looking down at the people parking their cars to go into the store, poised and ready to pounce if they don’t lock their car. Not so much an opportunist thief as a full-time one.
We all have choices in life and some choose a path that will keep them locked forever in the poorhouse. Stupid boy – what a waste of a brain.
Tony, the guy’s a fool.
He should have got your autograph and checked out out your blog and websites.
Hi Tony, sorry to hear about your incident – which town were you at becasue that way, we can all avoid it or locked our car doors if we ever go pass it and I guess we all live in a dangerous world.
I agree with what ‘The Rich Peasant’ said about the guy being a fool but then if he knew who you were, he wouldn’t be mugging at all. Instead he would be at home reading your guides and making money.
So, was the sandwich unaffected by this ordeal?
Great post, had a similar realistion with several of my sites… since I am now making the copy more ‘cheesy’ this has been tagged cheese project XYZ for several sites / sub-sections, slowly getting there and sales are on the up!
Cheers, Mark
Hey Tony,
I couldn’t agree more. It’s simply not enough to blandly state a host of obvious benefits (especially if you’re in a niche with a lot of competition), you need to pull people in to your sales messages and get them hooked.
People also want to be constantly “entertained” so it pays to be a little bit different and stand out with your messages… or as Tony so eloquently put it: “Don’t Fanny About!”
Great stuff!
James
Hi Tony,
We all have those moments when we know we should be paying attention but don’t, glad you did ‘come to’.
I’m want to do simple 5 page sites and simple blogs on non IM topics but with all the ‘Google slapping and punching’ messages, is it a waste of time to put up mini sites?
In the past, I did the big ‘authority’ sites, but they were a lot of work and I lost interest in them before they paid off. It was too time consuming, more like a job I hated than the little money machines I visioned when getting started.
About your spiders…could be worse. They could be cockroaches! We call them B-52 bombers because they also fly. Living in HI you invite them on vacations, take ’em for a walk, offer to give them a lift to the grocery store:)