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Mar 25, 2021

If something’s not working in your business, tactics are the first place a lot of entrepreneurs look. As in, if you tweak a headline, get more views, or change a button color, you’ll make more sales. 

 

If you’ve got your fundamentals in place, tactics like those might make a difference. If you don’t, focusing on tactics like those is like putting new hubcaps on a car that has no engine. New hubcaps won’t make the car run.

 

In addition to wasting time and money, the tactics-only approach can add unnecessary and overwhelming layers of complication to your business, especially if you haven’t mastered the three fundamentals this week’s guest, Tim Fitzpatrick of Rialto Media, is going to share with you in his 3-Point Marketing Method to simplify and scale your business.

 

Tim’s start in entrepreneurship came from partnering in a wholesale distribution company, where Tim and his team grew the company 60% in nine years before selling it. In that time, Tim learned exactly how critical the fundamentals are to success in business. Tune in to hear how Tim’s 3-Point Marketing Method can help you both simplify and scale your business.

 

There’s Always Another Whizzbang

One of the top mistakes Tim sees business owners make is focusing on tactics when they don’t have the fundamentals in place. Tactics like “weird tricks” to get your emails opened, headline tweaks, the latest social media platform, and so on, may be a lot sexier to talk about, but here’s the problem: Focusing on tactics without your fundamentals in place is like building a house by putting up walls and windows before the foundation’s been poured. It just doesn’t work. Tune in to hear what you need to have in place before tweaks and tactics are of any use to you.

They’re The Hero, You’re The Guide

It’s not enough just to have a product. It’s got to be something people want, and that they KNOW they want. To show a prospect how your offer or product can help them, Tim advocates a storytelling framework where you position your prospect as the hero, and your business as the guide. Show them how your product or service helps them win, and how working with you is the key to making that win happen. Tune in to hear how this framework not only helps you sell more, but also helps you avoid getting so cute and clever that you confuse instead of convince.

Succeed At Planning By Keeping Things Simple

Most people are aware they need a plan--for their marketing, their business, their email strategy, and so on. But when it comes to actually creating the plan, a lot of people freeze, or move forward without one anyway. The most common reason Tim sees this happen is a false belief your plan needs to be long-term and complicated. Not the case! Tune in to hear Tim’s simple 90-day plan framework, along with his take on why 90-day plans are superior to year-long plans.

Product Not Selling? Trace It Back

Dean and his wife own a cosmetics ecommerce company that features top of the line makeup brushes. For nearly two years their makeup brush sales were less than expected, and they couldn’t understand why more people didn’t want them. Turns out the problem wasn’t with the products, it was with one of the three fundamentals Tim talks about in this episode. Tune in to hear which fundamental Dean and his wife traced the problem back to, and how doing so skyrocketed sales.

Why Tactics Without Fundamentals Are Expensive

Let’s say you’re paying an SEO expert $2,000 a month to drive traffic to your site, and this expert gets you 100,000 views a month. Impressive, right? On the surface you might think so. But if none of those views are leading to opt-ins and sales, can you really call it a success? Vanity metric “results” like these are just one possible danger of focusing on tactics when your fundamentals aren’t in place. Tactics like views, likes, and headline tweaks will not fix targeting the wrong people or a product no one wants.

 

Outline of This Episode

  • The marketing mistake holding you back [4:00]
  • Lessons from an artificial jellyfish tank [9:33]
  • Why cute and clever = confusing [17:10]
  • 90 days, six steps [22:01]
  • The cause of most marketing problems [29:03]
  • Math major to marketing consultant [32:02]
  • Berkshire Hathaway business lesson [40:01]

Resources & People Mentioned

Music for “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

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