Stop Gambling With Your Customers

“If you like to gam­ble, I tell you I’m your man. You win some, you lose some, it’s all the same to me.” — Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades”

I’m get­ting fed up.

It seems to me that prod­uct launches of late have less to do with sub­stance and strat­egy, and more to do with tricks and tac­tics. Blame it on the econ­omy. But I think we need to blame it on some­thing else. Some­thing more sinister.

In fact, have you not noticed that a grow­ing num­ber of mar­keters are urg­ing you to join their “club,” as if it’s some secret, back-​​of-​​the-​​room, clan­des­tine poker game?

Speak­ing of poker, busi­ness is some­what of a gam­ble. And admit­tedly, gam­bling can be prof­itable. Very prof­itable. After all, the more you gam­ble, the greater you win, right?

But do we really need to gam­ble with our customers?

What about the long-​​term? What about build­ing busi­nesses rather than just mak­ing money? What about invest­ing instead? What about invest­ing in your cus­tomers that can pay some­times 10 to 100 times more over the long run?

For exam­ple, some­one men­tioned a new pay-​​per-​​follower pro­gram on Twit­ter. (Ugh. How is that any dif­fer­ent than from spam­mers buy­ing bulk email lists?) I responded, and this pretty much sums up my phi­los­o­phy — it should be yours, too — with:

“I’d hate to treat my cus­tomers like pris­on­ers or prostitutes.”

Worse yet, I’d hate to see them lose. Because when you gam­ble, there’s always a win­ner and a loser. And if you’re the one who wins, then… Well, do the math.

But what irks me even more — and I started a firestorm of debate on Twit­ter because of my rant — is that every­one is pro­mot­ing the same prod­uct launch, often using the same gaw­daw­ful email copy, and often try­ing to out­com­pete each other with myr­iad bonuses.

With these “mega-​​launches,” my con­tention is so many peo­ple are pro­mot­ing the same thing, it’s sick­en­ing. Plus, this only dilutes their value. Less sig­nal, more noise. What­ever hap­pened to being unique, serv­ing your cus­tomers, and offer­ing qual­ity information?

Why am I say­ing all this?

This week my inbox got flooded with the same prod­uct launch emails. Bleeech! I’ve said this before, but my good friend Paul Myers said it best when he said: “Inter­net mar­keters are a bunch of inces­tu­ous can­ni­bals.” How true that has become.

Some mar­keters have even slipped in the “club” word in their pro­mo­tional mes­sages of late, as if it’s some inside joke that only its mem­bers and a few insid­ers would get.

Really? Wow. Are we that naive?

Don’t join the club. Don’t drink the kool-​​aid. Don’t be sheeple. If you don’t know what “sheeple” means, here’s the def­i­n­i­tion. The pas­sage I like and want to note is this one:

“Sheeple: per­sons who vol­un­tar­ily acqui­esce to a per­ceived author­ity, or sug­ges­tion with­out suf­fi­cient research to fully under­stand the scope of the ram­i­fi­ca­tions involved in that deci­sion, and thus under­mine their own human individuality.”

If you want another exam­ple, read the chap­ter, titled “Cult Lead­ers,” in my wife Sylvie Fortin’s Inter​net​Mar​ket​ingSins​.com free down­load­able ebook.

Instead, be a con­trar­ian. Be unique. Be above it. Sim­ply, as Earl Nightin­gale once said, “Don’t copy. Cre­ate!” Or as I often say, “Don’t dupli­cate. Differentiate.”

Instead of pro­mot­ing the same prod­uct mega-​​launch every­one and their pet rock is pro­mot­ing, or worse yet pil­ing on bonuses — bonuses you used to sell and that peo­ple have paid full price for, no doubt — try­ing to outdo com­pet­ing affil­i­ates, why don’t you offer some­thing new? Some­thing dif­fer­ent? Some­thing better?

(And believe me, after see­ing the qual­ity of some of the infor­ma­tion out there these days, there’s def­i­nitely plenty of oppor­tu­ni­ties for some­thing better.)

Seth Godin taught us about the power of the “Pur­ple Cow.” That is, the idea that you need to be cre­ative enough to come up with a unique prod­uct, ser­vice, or offer­ing to set your­self apart from the crowd… one that can sell itself based on its own merits.

But some peo­ple on Twit­ter have remarked that it’s hard work. I agree it’s work. But you don’t have to have a “pur­ple cow.” Maybe just paint your barn doors purple.

It’s a great start.

And by gosh, why don’t you at least zoom in on your core com­pe­tency, focus on your niche, and cul­ti­vate or com­mu­ni­cate what makes you unique? I mean, there’s always some­thing unique about you. For starters, there’s only one “you!”

Or, what twist can you give your­self, your prod­uct, or your offer to make you appear unique? Even bet­ter, how can you serve your mar­ket in a unique way?

Be bold. Be dif­fer­ent. Bedazzle.

There are many exam­ples. For one, take a look at copy­writer Randy Gage’s arti­cle or visit den­tist Paddi Lund’s web­site. They dared to be different!

Stop doing what every­one else is doing. And please, stop try­ing to be all things to all peo­ple. I know it’s not easy, and it doesn’t have to be some ultra-​​targeted micro-​​niche, either. You can go after a mass mar­ket, as long as you do, or offer, some­thing different.

Unfor­tu­nately, I know peo­ple are hurt­ing right now, and some mar­keters know this all too well — never mind the FUD (i.e., “fear, uncer­tainty, and doubt”) they cre­ate in order to exploit it. Peo­ple are scared of “dif­fer­ent,” but many gurus instill this mind­set, too.

They com­pound it by say­ing the usual buzz­words or phrases peo­ple want to hear, like, “Do what is proven,” “you don’t need to rein­vent the wheel,” “I made it easy for you,” “it’s a turnkey busi­ness,” “just dupli­cate my suc­cess­ful model,” etc.

How­ever, you only have to be a lit­tle different.

Brian Tracy once said many have made mil­lions by just being 10% dif­fer­ent. Yes, just a tiny bit dif­fer­ent. A great exam­ple? Wendy’s® makes burg­ers, just like every other fast-​​food burger joint. But their pat­ties have cor­ners. They are square, not round.

I under­stand being dif­fer­ent is a risk. Pro­mot­ing the same things as every­one else has lit­tle risk, espe­cially if it’s proven to sell. But gains are com­men­su­rate with risks. The big­ger the risk, the larger the profit wind­fall. Sounds a lot like gam­bling, huh?

But the dif­fer­ence is, you’re gam­bling with your­self, not with your cus­tomers. You can win big. And sure, you can lose big, too. But you can also take cal­cu­lated risks and reduce your poten­tial down­side. Such as by taking…

… Baby steps.

In fact, right now is a per­fect oppor­tu­nity to be dif­fer­ent and go against the grain. Think about it. If every­one does the same thing, how much more eye-​​gravity, curios­ity, and inter­est can you almost instantly cre­ate by being different?

Need­less to say, some will rebut with, “But pro­mot­ing some­thing my audi­ence needs and will love, isn’t that a ser­vice and not a dis­ser­vice?” What you should ask is, are you really serv­ing your cus­tomers by forc­ing them to do what every­one else is doing?

If every­one imple­ments the new­fan­gled cookie-​​cutter strat­egy being taught in mega-​​launches, it will result in its dilu­tion, more foot­prints, greater penal­iza­tion risk (remem­ber the infa­mous “Google Slap”?), less inter­est, more com­pe­ti­tion, etc.

Some have said, “But Michel, most peo­ple who buy this stuff will never take action, which makes the strate­gies poten­tially ben­e­fi­cial for those who imple­ment them.”

True. But are we talk­ing strate­gies, here? Or tac­tics? Are we talk­ing prin­ci­ples? Or drive-​​by mar­ket­ing ploys that exploit weak­nesses rather than serve customers?

Plus, don’t be so naive to think that mar­keters expect every­one to imple­ment what they teach. In fact, they not only expect that only a few will, they also rely on it.

They also rely on the fact that many will imple­ment what they teach, and imple­ment it badly. So badly, in fact, that these mar­keters are killing their own com­pe­ti­tion.

Of course, they’re not being bla­tantly overt about it. That would be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. No, they’re doing it indi­rectly… sub­tly… incon­spic­u­ously… unsuspectingly.

So that, when every­one is doing what, er, every­one is doing, it often results in costly, lon­glast­ing, even dev­as­tat­ing ram­i­fi­ca­tions. Ram­i­fi­ca­tions to oth­ers, not them­selves. After all, they’ve made their money teach­ing you their tech­niques. They’re happy.

And when their cus­tomers even­tu­ally get “slapped” (and they all do), just look at how easy it is for them to blame oth­ers. They blame the slap­per, other cus­tomers abus­ing the sys­tem, or the cus­tomers them­selves for “fail­ing to do it right.”

So, if you’re at all tempted to join the club, copy every­one else, game a sys­tem, or gam­ble with your cus­tomers, remem­ber that famous adage, “The house always wins.”

Here’s one final issue.

Many peo­ple don’t dare to be dif­fer­ent, not because it’s risky or scary, but because it takes work. Or they’re expect­ing those they emu­late or pro­mote for will reciprocate.

Just like the whole aut­o­fol­low fiasco on Twit­ter, where peo­ple fol­low oth­ers with the sole expec­ta­tion of a follow-​​back (and this is just as disin­gen­u­ous as aut­o­fol­low), peo­ple pro­mote for oth­ers expect­ing oth­ers to pro­mote for them in return.

In most cases, that won’t ever hap­pen. Why? Because most mar­keters, who are only doing it only for them­selves, jus­tify it with, “Isn’t that why I pay affil­i­ate com­mis­sions for?”

But in other cases, it will hap­pen, thus per­pet­u­at­ing the whole cycli­cal, inces­tu­ous, let’s-all-promote-each-other, mega-​​launch mad­ness that need­lessly clogs our inboxes.

(A term of a sex­ual nature comes to mind that would befit as an anal­ogy, but I’ll refrain. I’d like to keep my blog some­what PG-​​rated. Let’s just say, it’s made up of two words that sound like a geo­met­ric shape and a Steve Mar­tin movie.)

In short, don’t sell prod­ucts, serve people.

Don’t fol­low every­one else, start your own following.

If you want some ideas on how you can be dif­fer­ent, read one of my ear­lier blog posts on how to be the first, not the best. Being dif­fer­ent nowa­days can be as sim­ple as not doing what every­one else is doing. You don’t need a com­plete over­haul, either.

You just need to, at the very least…

… Think differently.

OK, my rant’s over. So let me close by ask­ing you, what makes you dif­fer­ent or unique? Or what can you make unique? And how do you com­mu­ni­cate it? I’m listening…

UPDATE #1: Some peo­ple have com­mented that I’m against prod­uct launches. Not at all. Prod­uct launches are incred­i­bly prof­itable, for good rea­son. Prob­lem is, when every­one is in on a prod­uct launch, the signal-​​to-​​noise ratio dimin­ishes. All I’m say­ing is that I’m miffed that there’s not enough unique­ness or alter­na­tives to compensate.

Also, some peo­ple (many, actu­ally) have won­dered why I don’t name names. Some have said they want me to, to con­firm, for them, who I’m speak­ing out against. Well, I don’t want to name names for three reasons…

1. I want to refrain from fin­ger­point­ing any­one. I want to focus on bad behav­iors and prac­tices, not peo­ple. Besides, my rants won’t change these folks. They’re meant to make read­ers who are con­tem­plat­ing these tac­tics to think before they jump off the prover­bial cliff.
2. When nam­ing names, it reduces my rant to a petu­lant whine or com­plaint, with no basis or merit. I’d rather rant about what irks me, and by the same token offer an alter­nate solu­tion to counter it — just like my wife did in her Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Sins report.
3. Finally, and prob­a­bly more impor­tantly, by nam­ing names I’m pigeon­hol­ing spe­cific mar­keters (when many of them are not alone). It could be mis­lead­ing. The prob­lem with this is, read­ers will think, “He talked about guru [X], but my guru is [Y], so I guess what guru [Y] says or does is accept­able,” when it’s not.

Makes sense?

UPDATE #2: Just got this inter­est­ing video by Bryan Bliss. He makes some excel­lent points, espe­cially com­par­ing prod­uct launches to pol­i­tics. Makes per­fect sense. Take a look…

By the way, Bryan, you did pro­nounce my name right.

About the Author

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