Consistency is Key

Hi everyone!

Just to begin with, I’d like to explain why I chose the picture to the right here. Bearing in mind “Consistency is Key” I was looking for a picture of a key. Inspired, huh? 😉 But instead, one of the first pictures I came across was this one of a red “Help” key on a computer keyboard. For some reason, this stood out to me and the more I thought about it the more I decided that yes, it would be an appropriate picture to use. How come? Let’s get into the subject and find out…

Since I got started properly with this whole Internet marketing thing I have become a big fan of consistency. Yes, consistency is, indeed, key. If you’ve read any of my previous blog posts then you’ll likely have noticed that I’ve spoken about what I’ve noticed when my consistency has dropped. Just to reiterate: whenever I’ve slackened off, whether it be through my own doing or circumstances beyond my control, I’ve noticed that this has been reflected directly in my results. So having gone from setting aside a set time for regular forum and blog commenting to only doing it a bit here and there, I’ve noticed that my traffic results have been directly affected, from steadily climbing to doing a total about-turn and steadily declining until they’ve reached single figures again.

Over the last couple of days I’ve tried to pick up the pace again and resume my dedicated commenting approach. And, guess what? My traffic is steadily climbing again. In fact, yesterday it jumped right up to the previous peak amount! And what about those Slovenians? Well, I’ve checked alexa.com, literally just this minute, and it now seems that Slovenia isn’t the country where my site is most popular anymore, now it’s the U.S. I wonder who it will be next week?

So, back to our picture. When you were starting out, or if you’re starting out at the moment, how many times did you reach for the figurative “Help” key? Usually it’s when the results aren’t coming in as we’d like, we’re not sure if what we’re doing is working, we feel that what we’re doing is to mundane, etc. Am I right? So we reach for that figurative “Help” key and, more often than not, what happens? If we don’t give up entirely then we spot another ‘shiny object’, gravitate towards that, buy it and then focus on that…. for a time…. until something else comes along. Or perhaps we keep focused on our current goal, but we start to try doing other things in order to reach it, just becoming distracted and overwhelmed. Does any of this sound familiar? It’s certainly familiar to me! But I’ve managed to cleanse myself from the ‘shiny object’, WSO addiction. That way of doing things just doesn’t yield good results. If you want to spin your wheels and get nowhere fast then sure, it’s the way to go!

So sometimes we just need to take a step back and ask ourselves, “Am I really giving this my all? Is the product really at fault or am I allowing myself to be distracted or to procrastinate?” As I have said before, the methods I have been blogging about definitely work. No, they don’t currently give me massive results and no, I’m not receiving millions overnight, but then I don’t expect either of those scenarios. Rather, what I am seeing is that if I consistently apply these methods then I get the results. If I carry on consistently applying them I have no doubt that things will scale up and that my business will take off in the way that I want it to.

So stick at one or two things and do them well, rather than flitting from one thing to another and not really getting anything accomplished. Yes, CONSISTENCY is key and if you remain consistent then you will start to see the results.

The Golden Rule

Okay, so the closest thing I could find to represent a golden rule was a yellow tape measure! Oh well, do I get respect for trying? 😛

So then, what I want to highlight here is basically what it sounds like – the Golden Rule, or “treat others as you yourself would like to be treated”. Now, although I have made a couple of negative remarks about some of the behaviour I’ve witnessed on the Warrior Forum, on this occasion it is something else that has prompted this post.

Basically, I recently purchased a piece of software that hopefully will prove to be a useful tool for my business. Now, I noticed that a few affiliates were promoting this and each one was offering their own bonuses if you made the purchase through their link. So I chose a particular person, through whom I’ve purchased things before, made my purchase, sent a copy of my receipt as requested and……. nothing. So I waited for a couple of days until his next mailshot and in that e-mail he stated that all the bonuses had been sent out. Okay, I’d clearly been missed, for some reason. So I politely e-mailed him to ask for some assistance. Nothing. Not even an acknowledgement. A few days later I e-mailed again, this time to another of his e-mail addresses….. still nothing. So then I tried sending him a direct message on Twitter. Nope, that message was ignored too. Again I left it for a few days and e-mailed him again……. still nothing. Finally, I received another mailshot promoting another affiliate product and just found it too much to take to read his claims about being there for his subscribers, that he’s their friend, that he’ll do anything for them and if there’s any problem then all they had to do was e-mail him! So I sent him one last e-mail, explained that I would be unsubscribing from his list and that I would not be purchasing through any of his links again. Not that I got any reply….

Now, I hadn’t done anything wrong to this individual! For some unknown reason, I didn’t receive the promised bonuses and he just wasn’t prepared to so much as send me one message back to explain what the problem was. What annoys me is, not so much that I didn’t receive my bonuses, but that he promised something and didn’t deliver, he just ignored all my requests for help, he clearly feels that he can ignore his own ethos when it suits him and that I chose to purchase from him when, in hindsight, there are other people with whom I’ve been dealing for a long time and from whom I’d have rather have helped out by purchasing through their link.

So why am I telling you this? Although this experience annoyed me, that is not the reason for posting about it here. My reason is to emphasise an important point that’s VITAL for the survival of your business: apply the golden rule. If you promise something, then deliver. If it’s absolutely impossible to do so then let your customers know and the reasons why. Certainly don’t just ignore their requests for help. Don’t lie, don’t cheat and don’t treat your customers like idiots. Now all this may seem like common sense stuff, but there is an alarming number of people who seem to think that it’s okay to not deliver what they’ve advertised, to throw a hissy fit and start being abusive if a customer isn’t happy with what they’ve received, to be disrespectful and to belittle people if they have a difference of opinion or a legitimate concern and many, many more things.

If a ‘bricks and mortar’ business behaved in such a way then it would severely harm their reputation and, if not addressed and fixed, it could result in the business being short-lived, something that has been proven time and again. Your online business is no different. It is NOT a school playground, it is NOT a social media wall, it is NOT a street corner where you can just do back-handed deals and hard luck to anyone who doesn’t like it. This is your BUSINESS and you need to treat it as such.

Respect your visitors, subscribers and customers. Always deliver value. Always be honest and reliable. Always put the customer first, treating them how you would wish to be treated. Otherwise, you are headed for problems. On the other hand, look after your customers and they will look after you.

Updates

Well I pretty much covered my challenge updates in the first part of the post. I’m back to getting involved more on forums and blogs, striving to give value and it’s proving to be beneficial. I’ll be concentrating on getting myself well and truly back into it for the moment, but at the same time I’m considering trying something out in a few days. We’ll see how things go…

A couple of things I’ve added to my posts are the little ratings boxes that you can click on. Currently, they’re Albert Einstein, which made me chuckle so that’s why I picked those ones 😉 I can always change them to something else if necessary. But yes, please click away on them!

Also, I thought that some of you might like to hear about my latest blog posts ‘hot off the press’, so below here you’ll notice that there’s a box where you can input your e-mail so that you can receive updates as soon as my latest post is live. Your e-mail address is absolutely safe with me. I detest spam, illegal sharing of details and all that bad stuff, so I can assure you that you’ll never get any of that malarkey from me!

So when you’ve done with clicking on Mr Einstein, go ahead and get yourself on my priority updates list.

Thanks once again for everyone’s support, you rock! 😎

P. S. I’m about half way or so through creating my FREE beginners course! Although, I appear to have contracted a chest infection, so I’m coughing like mad which, of course, makes it difficult to create videos. Hopefully I’ll be back on track with that soon, but in the meantime I can get to work on the written part of it. Stay tuned….