Time to read: 4 minutes 15 seconds
When people don't know the next step they need to take, they 'shut down' ever so briefly. They stall. They put off.
Because it's at this point that they need to make a decision.
Do they figure it out for themselves or do they seek clarification and ask for help?
It's why your ads need a clear Call to Action (CTA) - you literally tell your prospect what action to take next and why taking this action now is a good idea for them.
Without a clear and strong CTA, your prospect starts to weigh up the effort of figuring out the next step themselves vs simply moving on with their life.
And, unless you've created an incredible desire for what you're offering, most people would much rather spend their time doing something else - anything else - than figuring out what they need to do next.
Another way to look at it
It's not just in your ads where having a clear 'next step' is necessary; it's universally important.
- Sending emails to clients? What do they need to do after they read the email - be clear and direct. You'll find email communication suddenly becomes useful. You'll have clarity over tasks and expectations.
- On a sales call? What can they expect now and what do they need to do if they're interested?
- Wrote a blog post? What should they do with the info they just read? Do you want them to subscribe? Or do you want them to follow you on social media? Or leave a comment? Tell them what you want them to do!
- Making plans? Too often we'll create quarterly, yearly, even 5-year plans which end up going nowhere. It's not for lack of motivation, but in my experience, it's because we often don't know the right next step.
With plans, we're 'mapping out' what we want our future to look like.
Which is great, but, there's one big problem here: if you've mapped out a plan presumably taking you somewhere you've never been before... likely involving tasks you've never done before... you won't know what your next step is at all.
And this is where you stall. You start second-guessing yourself. You get lost in 'research'.
This is the reason so many people stall in their businesses. They want to follow a plan, but they don't actually know the next step to take to make it happen.
Help, right when you need it
It's why I hire people to help me in areas I'm unfamiliar with:
- taxes and reporting
- legal advice and contracts
- graphic design
- deep integration using APIs and webhooks
- process automation
- deep data analysis
- ... and so on
I use their expertise to help me understand the next action I need to take. I get the help right when I need it most.
It ensures I don't stall because of a lack of clarity. I accelerate my growth. It's like a compression of time.
Which is why I think it's important to let you know about the 3 main ways in which I can help you - so you don't stall trying to figure out what your next step is in growing your business.
Because if you've spent some time trying to figure out any of this stuff by yourself - you've likely discovered it seems like a bottomless pit; a wormhole.
That's what I'm here to help you with.
3 ways I can help you avoid stalling
- Advisory Services
Roughly half of my work is helping businesses create realistic plans for their growth and then executing them based on my 9 Revenue Raisers System. We email frequently and some meet with me weekly for an hour to discuss progress and then set tasks for the week ahead.
These clients have an average revenue of $1.2 million a year, but there are also pre-revenue start-ups and clients from $80,000 to $14 million using these advisory services too. This starts at just $950/month and I haven't had one client yet to recoup their investment after following my 'next steps'.
- Email Marketing Automation
The following quarter of my work involves email marketing automation. This is becoming more popular now that many businesses are realising how much leverage a well-executed automation system can give them at a nominal cost. Based on your goals, we create email sequences and automations to drive sales and referrals, most of which is done automatically. This starts at $950/month.
One client last month made $139,196.15 from two email sequences I wrote. And, considering it was an evergreen sales sequence set to launch quarterly, there's no reason why that shouldn't equal to around half a million in additional revenue each year.
Another client with a list of just 2,100 people is making over $3,500 in direct sales with every email we're sending out. The more emails we send, the more money she makes each day.
- Copywriting
The remainder of my work is copywriting projects. Writing sales pages for launches, direct mail for lead gen, advertorials to pre-sell and persuade, and so on. I write sales copy following the direct response school of marketing, which means I focus on getting leads and making sales for you - bottom line results.
This is priced on a project by project bases; I think my rates are reasonable for my level of experience (I've sold millions directly from my copy).
What to do now
So, having said all this, if you want to see real progress in your business - and avoid 'stalling' because you don't know the right 'next step' - all you need to do is:
- reply to this email explaining what your goal is
- and which of these 3 options you'd like more information about
Then I'll personally get back to you and see if I think I can help you.
There's no obligation or risk in asking - I'm just here to help.
