Cheat Codes for a Small Business

How to punch above your weight as a small software or infoproducts entrepreneur.

I presented this at Baconbiz 2016.

Transcript

1. A DARK CONFESSION
4. IN BUSINESS, I’M ALLOWED TO CHEAT.
5. CHEAT CODES FOR YOUR SMALL BUSINESS PATRICK MCKENZIE
6. BOARD MEETING KALZUMEUS SOFTWARE
7. SCENE: A LARGE ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE STARTUP “WE NEED A CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY” ▸ Email marketing team ▸ 3 members ▸ Marketo license ($10,000 per month) ▸ Content team ▸ 3 members ▸ Engineering support ▸ 1 member ▸ Marketing management
8. 500 VISITS / POST
9. 6 POSTS / MONTH
10. CUTEST PUPPIES
11. ςΩετ
12. ςΩετ
13. ▸ Publishing >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Waiting until perfect ▸ Multiple platforms but you don’t have to be everywhere ▸ Static website ▸ Email list ▸ Blog technology but publish essays ▸ Podcast or video (totally optional but they can work) ςΩετ CHEAT CODES FOR CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
14. THIS LOOKS LIKE A WHOLE LOT OF WORK. (Let’s peek behind the curtain.)
15. DEVELOPING A PROCESS OPTIMIZED TOWARDS SHIPPING MORE WHAT’S REQUIRED TO SEND? ▸ Text of email ▸ Design ▸ Calls to action ▸ Archive page ▸ Push the send button
16. ▸ Send more email than you’re comfortable which. ▸ Watch for what works — engagement and, ideally, conversions. ▸ Take the best emails, edit to remove references to time and add CTA, add to autoresponder. ▸ Your newest users get your best writing automatically. BETTER, FASTER, AT HIGHER VOLUME THAN A TEAM OF PROFESSIONALS SPECIFIC CHEAT CODE FOR EMAIL
17. BETTER, FASTER, AT HIGHER VOLUME THAN A TEAM OF PROFESSIONALS MARKETING VIRTUOUS CYCLE ▸ Post a blog post, get more emails. ▸ Post an email, get more emails. ▸ Do a podcast, get more emails. ▸ Don’t be shy about re-using or repurposing themes or content.
18. SEPARATING CONTENT AND PRESENTATION IMPROVES VALUE OF YOUR CONTENT PORTFOLIO AS TIME GOES ON.
19. 2 MILLION WORDS
20. 2 MILLION WORDS I get 90% of the economic benefits from 2% of them. Start there first.
22. MAXIMIZING THE VALUE OF WHAT YOU MAKE ▸ Direct almost all of your efforts to platforms you control. ▸ Separate the content and the process / technology, so that process / technology improvements incrementally increase the value of your back catalog. ▸ Double down on what works. ▸ Triple down on what works. ▸ You’re still not doing enough of that. 99.98% of your market has no ideas that you’ve “done it before.”
23. MOST OF THE WORLD CAN’T USE EXCEL 0R ANY API CHEAT CODE FOR DEVELOPERS
24. A PRACTICAL EXAMPLE EXPEDITED SSL (MANAGED RENEWALS / INSTALLS FOR CERTS) ▸ Identify a business need of your target customer ▸ “I need to not have my SSL certs expire w/o knowing.” ▸ Build a tool which addresses that need succinctly ▸ Paste in domains; we’ll tell you when they expire ▸ Snap into your marketing empire ▸ Give us your email/phone and we’ll send you reminders
25. TOOLS PREDATE SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS! NOT A DEVELOPER?
26. I JUST DON’T HAVE IT IN ME TO BE CREATIVE TODAY UNREASONABLY EFFECTIVE ONE-DAY DEV PROJECTS ▸ Integrate any of the following with your application ▸ Trello: instant, arbitrary, low-friction work queues ▸ Slack: incredible insight into “pulse” of business ▸ Email: tag customers w/ lots of stuff, figure out emails later ▸ House ads: given cookie w/ opaque ID, post to API, get desired ad ▸ Automatic post-sale upsells ▸ Annual billing for SaaS ▸ Next higher plan for people at 80% of quota ▸ Cross-sells for info products
27. THE AUTO- RECRUITER
28. CHARGE MORE
29. I LOVE TALKING TO PEOPLE JUST LIKE YOU ▸ @patio11 or patrick@kalzumeus.com ▸ You should really be on my email list: https:// training.kalzumeus.com ▸ bit.ly/baconcheats for my slides (pssst if you ever do a presentation swap slides or related commentary for email addresses)
30. FRANZ APOSTOL IN MEMORIAM
31. FUNDING FOR THIS PROGRAM MADE POSSIBLE BY THE INTERNET PHOTO CREDITS ▸ Big Jigsaw: Alan Levine, by CC: https://flic.kr/p/mDYE ▸ Unfinished Jigsaw: a2gemma, by CC: https://flic.kr/p/ wTUmk ▸ The Thinker: Sharyn Morrow, by CC: https://flic.kr/p/ qoK2g3 ▸ Franz Apostol: Keith Perhac