RAJAVANYA SUBRAMANIYAN

Category: RDaily

  • Why I Prefer Learning From Mediocre Success Than Massive?

    Why I Prefer Learning From Mediocre Success Than Massive?

    Everyday we come across massively successful people on the internet – people “crushing” it in their business.

    Oh! look… someone just moved from six-figures to seven-figures.

    Did you hear about the marketing guru who quadrupled their revenue in 3 days? And her newbie student who has NEVER run a business before, went from zero to a million in just 3 months!

    Its all fancy stories, overnight successes and you-are-wasting-your-time-instead-of-this schemes. What I hate about these type of stories is that they undermine people getting mediocre successes.

    Its not front-page material if you go from 0 subscribers to 30 subscribers in a month. 1 subscriber per day is still an achievement. You’ve created something that has managed to attract 1 person per day digitally, to listen to what you have to say, without you having to be there physically. Isn’t that something?

    Anyways, I see stuff like this as nothing more than vanity on social media. People paying attention to the rare 0.001% of the world.

    There are a few caveats with paying attention to people like them

    • They are just an illusion – Its just a page or an instagram profile with a condensed view of the most successful moments of their life. What about every boring day of their history? Their failures before? You would be surprised to see what happens behind the scenes. And no photos/blog posts/case studies have been written about their mediocre days. I remember a successful person once said – “My overnight success took me 8 years”.
    • They just make you feel bad – “Comparison is the thief of joy”. Nuff said.
    • They seem so far from where we are right now – They all started from scratch, sure. But capturing details of their current successes and ignoring countless days of their past where nothing happened isn’t helping us feel like its achievable. I’d feel more achievable looking at someone who makes $1000-$10000 per month online than our “Seven-figure Shannon” who preaches me without empathy.
    • They are way too perfect – Look at their fancy photoshoots, expensive looking websites, high paid teams. Unless we have all those, we can’t be as successful. Right? (Well let us just stop and think about how they got all the money to spend for their photo/videographers, web design agencies and their employees)

    These are the reasons why I love what I am about to share with you

    How about a page full of people (230+ as of writing this) who all have just made their first $1000 online?

    I loved going through it. So many insights. So much inspiration.

    Some of them made me go – “People pay for this? Really?”

    Some made me go – “How is this website even generating sales?” or “This is some really bad copywriting”

    They are so imperfect.

    And I love that.

    Here’s the link to a page full of mediocre successes

    P.S. Sorry for pulling a Mark Manson today. Wasn’t my intention.

  • Time Saving Thrive Architect Tip For ‘From Scratch’ Designers

    Time Saving Thrive Architect Tip For ‘From Scratch’ Designers

    Do you design pages in Thrive Architect from scratch?

    Then I bet you hate this moment.

    I’m talking about the moment when you finally finish designing, and when you test it in mobile everything looks messy. A major thing that bothers people when they test in mobile is that everything touches edge-to-edge of the screen. It looks soo ugly and broken.

    I realised a small tip could save you lot of time mobile optimizing.

    How do we prevent this?

    1. Never have any element that is not inside a background section (ref screenshot below). Its simply good practice to have a parent container for your content. Beware of not putting everything in a single background section. Especially for long form sales pages (if you make any of those).I recommend a background section to be maximum of 1-2 screen scrolls in height. If that was confusing, let me try rephrasing that – If your page is long, make sure each background section within isn’t too tall/long. What I mean by too tall/long is a background section cannot be more than 2 times your screen height.
    2. Every background section must have 15 to 30 px padding on left and right side (ref screenshot below). This has to be set in the beginning, while on normal desktop mode. Keep the padding amount same on both sides obviously. Now this will apply to mobile mode automatically and most elements on the page will look good by default as they won’t touch edge-to-edge on mobile screens.

    Hope this helped you Thrive Architect users out there. Let me know if you liked tips like this and if this helped. I have picked lot of time saving mini lessons like this over the last 3 years and would be glad to share if you’re interested.

  • GaryVee Vs Seth Godin

    GaryVee Vs Seth Godin

    I found this the right time when I was looking into ideas for today’s post. By this, I mean a video of GaryVee interviewing Seth Godin on Youtube. Before I give you the link to the video, a small introduction to how I discovered GaryVee.

    I came across GaryVee a few months ago.

    He was everywhere on my facebook feed ads and so I saw one of his videos on Youtube.

    Within the first 5 minutes of seeing him, deep in my gut, I could feel the cringe-at-first-sight. I couldn’t stand him. I despised everything about the style of the videos, his body language, his mannerisms etc. To me, he is simply a man-child. Even if he makes billions that opinion won’t change.

    I even have a work-in-progress new homepage where I included his name. I haven’t published the page yet. (screenshot below)

     

    But…

    While I avoid him like a rattlesnake, I don’t hate him. I don’t think his success is wrong or bad. I don’t hate his followers/fans.

    You might be thinking why or how? Perhaps I am bullshitting to appear diplomatic and nice.

    I really respect him for having the courage to be (the obnoxious) himself, building a massive audience and all those products. I respect him for putting himself out there and taking a strong stance on what he believes. I might not (and definitely will not) agree with his beliefs and perceptions.

    That is okay.

    Will I work with clients who are ardent followers of him or his belief? NO.

    I stay away from the hustling culture. I think people who want to look at life just as a struggle/competition need some Vipassana Meditation or therapy.

    For instance, when a client uses the word ‘winner’ on the initial call, I know it wouldn’t work out. I know I am being judgemental and I often try not to be. But hey I have been doing this long enough to start seeing patterns and… the pattern is the pattern. Btw have you watched Maniac on Netflix yet, its psychological genius?

    What’s the point here

    It is easy to be diplomatic and politically correct and have no personality. But only when you add some personality to your service/brand/website/business the *magic* happens. It makes a stronger connection than just some consumer-producer relationship. It creates fans (and haters alike). Think Steve Jobs and his global “against the status quo” appeal. Bill Burr might think he is an exaggeration, but he was in line with Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Teresa and all those kind of people for the tech world.

    And it is hard when you start out. Perhaps you don’t care about any of this and just want your sales to go up. Perhaps this exact thinking is what is preventing that.

    Action Step

    1. Write down 20 adjectives about your business/service/brand. Eg. Happy, Useful, Scientific, Luxurious, Balanced, Enthusiastic, Friendly.
    2. Cut down the list to just 5 of words which you absolutely value and cannot lose.

    This is the starting point for your brand attributes. You can start focusing extremely on these words and ignore every other word/values. You design should reflect this, your words, tone in emails and marketing material. And it will attract people who exactly value these. (and your future employees/partners alike)

    As promised here is the link to the video interview between GaryVee and Seth Godin.

    Also I lookup to Seth Godin like a wise teacher.

  • Single Vs Double Opt-In

    Single Vs Double Opt-In

    People always ask this question and there are a thousands answers around the web. So how do you decide between single vs double opt-in for your newsletter signups?

    My default rule is to always go for double opt-in. I’m a big believer of quality over quantity. Double opt-in ensures high quality readers who really want to be on your list. It validates that your lead magnet is high quality too. Higher % open and click rates, engaged readers and finally and most importantly – lower spam. This means the people who don’t like your material, don’t spoil it for the ones who do.

    That being said there are few cases there you might want to consider single opt-in.

    • After the readers have had good engagement with your product/service/brand. Like during a e-commerce checkout, donation payment. Its okay to simply make them check a box to opt-in for newsletter.
    • If for some reason you cannot provide a lead magnet or compelling reason to get on the newsletter while convincing them to double opt-in. But you feel they will convert over emails. Ideally I would ask you to find your best performing email and use that as the lead magnet or public material to connect and build trust.
    • If you are a email marketing advanced master ninja samurai rockstar janitor, who is looking to squeeze the maximum revenue for your business, go for single opt-in. Ultimately single opt-in does mean higher/faster growth (as it includes people who would have double-opted along with the ones who single-opted). But its not for beginners/intermediates.

    So for me, double opt-in is also used as a yard stick to measure if what we are doing is working. A method to validate the quality of our lead magnet and the copy written.

    If you connect and build trust properly, no matter what, people will find a way to get on your list – Me.

    Related Thrive Leads Tip

    Many people who use double opt-in find it convenient to use this option. I am talking about the post opt-in confirmation action  called success notification.

    • Don’t use this, most people don’t see it
    • Instead use the switch state option

    Thrive themes usually gets stuff like this right, but this isn’t one of them. Check screenshots which explain the recommended step of using switch state.

     

     

  • Discover The Foundations of A Conversion Focused Website

    Discover The Foundations of A Conversion Focused Website

    I often get this feeling. The feeling that many people think – “conversion focused websites and landing pages are about a bunch of secret surface level magic tricks”. But the foundations of a conversion focused website is what really matters.

    For example, tricks like

    • A secret ordering of elements on the page that will mind-control your visitor and make them click the buy button
    • Perhaps copywriting secrets and use of certain words
    • Magic button colours that are going to dramatically change your opt-in rate

    And there is definitely some truth to this. These type of optimisations can increase your sales / conversions.

    But this increase conversions ≠ create conversions.

    Huh? Read that again. Increase does not equal create.

    IF

    • Its your first funnel.
    • The funnel hasn’t made any sales yet.
    • Funnel does attract email signups, but no one seems to even open the second emails.

    Then none of these magic tricks will solve your problem. The problem is deeper. The problem is at the foundational level. And all the above examples are surface level tricks.

    Somethings can be overlooked by anyone. In case of the button example, if you don’t have enough contrast between rest of the page and your call to action, the conversion will be lower. It can seem like common sense. But when we are too into it, it can be hard to get an outside perspective. So any colour which distinctly stands out is better, even if its ugly.

    So coming to the foundational problem I mentioned. What could be some of them

    • Not enough research
      • About target persona
      • About segments in the market
    • Assuming wrongly about what the customer wants (not needs)
    • Trying to appeal to too many segments of people
    • Complicated messaging, which makes the visitors think and burn unwanted calories.

    I am going to expand on these points a little bit

    Research

    Clients who have been successful have always, always, always spent time talking, researching their audience. They speak to real people, many of them and seek out patterns, common pains etc. Or they research online – through Skype calls, questionnaires, surveys. Some research also happens on forums, facebook groups, comments on amazon books (Ramit Sethi’s tip) and even youtube comments. They research their competition and its buyers. And oh, if you don’t have competition 90% of times its not a good sign apparently. Over the years this advice has made sense. And it also means that people have no idea what your new service or product even means, so a lot of time has to be spent educating them.

    But even if you have no competition, if you focus on your target audience problems, aspirations, dreams and hopes and show how your no-competition service/product can help it, they will buy. Never assume your audience can make the connection between their wants/pains and how your business can solve it for them. They ≠ You. You need to explicitly convey that.

    Wrong Assumptions

    There is a difference between what people need and what they want. They know what they want. They don’t know what they need. If you give them what they need, they won’t buy. Often times many product makers might seem like they are lying in their marketing, but they are simply showing that they understand what their audience needs.

    For instance Sarah from Introverted Alpha talks all about introverted men finding relationships, girlfriend, sex. And she reports saying she is extremely successful on Ramit’s student showcase. A journey with her begins with her demonstrating extreme empathy towards what “introverted” men think about themselves.

    But only by showing she understands them, and establishing trust, she can begin to help them. If she starts her pitch saying “Introvert is just a label and its not a real thing” and follows with perfectly logical arguments. People would simply leave as they would feel she doesn’t know what she is talking about or doesn’t understand them. Therefore, can’t help them.

    Broad Appeal

    If you try to please too many segments of people, you will end of pleasing no one. Every great brand has fans and haters. A recent client even went to the extent of saying they have a love-hate map of who they would be hated by.

    Complicated Messaging

    To make this clear, if you cannot convey your uniqueness with value in 1-2 sentences its going to cost you sales. The book that opened the pandoras box in this aspect was StoryBrand by Donald Miller. (affiliate link)

    I highly recommend the book. Thanks to Rafal Tomal and a recent client for the recommendation/nudge.

    Another free lesson I recommend

  • Fakexperience

    Fakexperience

    I’m going to take a wild guess and say most of us fit into this group. I haven’t named this group yet. But I can describe it.

    Its the group of people who read, read and read. We don’t just read.

    But after reading we feel like we are suddenly better than what we were before.

    And that feeds our EGO (a fake construct that we cling on to feel better). Suddenly without even trying anything new, we “feel” like we know a lot. We know how the world works, how product development works, how to build a business, how to market, how to sell. All of this without actually trying any of it.

    This kept being a cycle in my life. It still is, but hopefully isn’t as frequent.

    What we don’t realise is that this EGO, this feeling of “Now-I-am-better-that-I-have-read-a-million-articles” is what is preventing us from becoming successful. Isn’t that crazy? Am I saying more knowledge is making us unsuccessful? Isn’t reading going to help us from making mistakes that others did?

    Perhaps, it isn’t black and white. But I know the moment we ‘feel’ better just by reading, its a bad sign.

    Because we evaluate ourselves NOT on how much we’ve learnt from our own experiences. But from reading/taking courses etc which perhaps is a heavily filtered version of other people’s experiences. And without even putting the knowledge into action.

    This is a downward spiralling trap. Also the more we feel better about reading a lot, the harder it becomes to accept the reality.

    Reality that we haven’t done anything that actually counts.

    Also once you climb this fake EGO mountain, you cannot move forward in life unless you fall. And the fall is HARD. We don’t want to fall, so we procrastinate from taking action, we lie to ourselves about why we don’t take action. Its way more comfortable than facing reality.

    But its only after the fall, comes real progress. You accept the reality that you haven’t done anything and have no experience. The feeling of experience from reading is all fake. Its hard to come to terms with this.

    But only then we are able to take action. Or only if we push ourselves to take action, this “Fakexperience” breaks.

    This is why I recently made a resolution. I will always check myself whether I’m talking from experience or hear-say-read knowledge. And use the appropriate words. This helps me keep the ego under control. Also I don’t get attached to everything I read. Its just stuff I read. Has no meaning until I put it into action and see if it works for me.

    Action point: Keep a note of all your actual accomplishments – things you made, designed, created and what amount of them were useful to others, added joy to their lives, removed their pains, that others were willing to pay for. This helps avoid two extremes – a feeling of I haven’t accomplished anything and a feeling of I know everything. Again this cannot include courses you’ve finished, unless it involved doing something in the real world.

    This isn’t me “preaching”. Just sharing my insights hoping to connect with few of you and perhaps help avoid this trap. Or maybe its just a mental note to myself to be vigilant about falling into it myself again… and again.