I'm just going to say it....I hate change.
I'm one of those people who loves routine. Routine
is not a bad thing!
It keeps me focused and helps me not to forget things that have to be done.
A few months ago
I was talking to my sister and she said "Don't laugh, but I just realized I forgot to shave one leg in the shower this morning."
I laughed.....
When I asked how that happened she said it happens periodically but it always makes her mad when it does.
I was floored. Not to get too
personal here but I even have a shower routine. I've never, ever missed a step or forgotten one leg in the process.
I thought everyone took a shower that way but I was wrong. She has no routine!
BUT following the same old routine can also mean missing out on new opportunities. You've got to keep your eyes open for those changes that can be really good for you!
When I got a
private message from WarriorForum explaining that they were no longer allowing WarriorPlus buy buttons on WSOs (sales threads on the forum), I was mad.
A CHANGE! And it was being forced on me!
It meant I had to take action. I had to rethink my process. I had to make room in my schedule to deal with this unforeseen change.
Once I realized that getting mad wasn't going to get me anywhere I moved on
to disdain. Who needs them?! I'll just sell my products without them!
Darn it - disdain didn't work, either. I DO need them. Despite all the changes the forum has gone through it's still a great way to find new followers.
I decided to focus my energy on making the change as positively as I could.
I once attended a seminar where a speaker talked about the "genius of the and". He meant that the word "and" could be very powerful.
You can take two things that seem impossible to have together, put the word "and" in between and think differently. For example:
- You can make money online AND not go broke trying
- You can work hard AND have time to relax
- You can have quality family time AND time to yourself
When you put the word "and" in between two things that don't seem
to go together, it forces you to think about what you can do differently so that you can have both things.
I had to think about how I could deal with this change AND not lose sales in the
process.
Figuring out how to deal with that change has required some creative thinking because this change presents some unique challenges:
- WarriorForum will allow JVZoo buy buttons so I could remove my products from WarriorPlus and switch all of my WarriorForum buy buttons to JVZoo but all of my seller reputation is on WarriorPlus and all of my affiliates are on WarriorPlus. Removing the products from WarriorPlus would break any affiliate links that are out there and could result in a loss of future
sales.
- I could remove all of my WSOs from WarriorForum, put the sales pages on my own sites and keep WarriorPlus buy buttons and my affiliates but then I lose out on gaining new sales and followers of old products by bumping the thread. You can't exactly "bump" your own sales pages on a
website.
- I could leave the WSO threads alone on the forum and leave the WarriorPlus buttons in place. WarriorForum only seems to want you to change them if you bump a WSO back to the top of the forum. However, if I can't bump the product I don't get as many new sales.
- I could have the products in both places - WarriorPlus and JVZoo. I could use the WarriorPlus buy buttons on sales pages on my own sites and put the same products on WarriorForum with JVZoo buttons. However, WarriorForum requires the price be "a deal" - it needs to be a lower price than
is publicly available elsewhere.
That last option sounded rather appealing - having my products on multiple platforms (WarriorPlus & JVZoo) could be a good thing.
I could build my reputation on JVZoo while also gaining exposure to new customers and affiliates who only utilize JVZoo.
But, how to handle the price challenge? I'd have to use a higher price on my own website
than I'd have on WarriorForum and that just doesn't make sense to me from a customer's point of view.
My solution? Sell my products to my existing customers first through my own site and WarriorPlus with a lower price than I'd set in the future.
Once my list has had a chance to buy at the lower price, I can then list the product on WarriorForum with JVZoo. The WarriorForum price will have to be higher than the price I offered to my list and the price on my own website will have to be higher than that.
Is it ideal? I have no idea - only time and testing will tell!
There are still things to figure out and maybe doing things in the opposite
order will turn out even better - WarriorForum first and then my own site? Maybe, at some point, just using my own site will be best.
The whole thing is a process and it's going to
take time to work through a new one.
Standing still will get me nowhere, though, so I picked a path and down it I go!
However, this is why I froze the price on my PinPower Post book a few days ago. I was
preparing for another test of my new plan.
What I do know is that when I switched two older products to JVZoo and bumped the threads on WarriorForum, I saw an increase in sales. I paid almost $40 to bump those two older threads and saw sales of
$599.
I also still saw sales of those products through WarriorPlus so BOTH platforms are bringing sales.
Look at that! WarriorForum forced me to make a change and dealing with that change resulted in more sales than if I'd left things alone.
But what I really
learned was that I could have been doing something like that all along. It was only when I was forced to change that I saw there was an opportunity I'd been missing all along - at least an opportunity worth testing.
The next time you're faced with a change brainstorm all the possible solutions at your
disposal. Choose the best solution to try first. Test out your theory and monitor the results.
"Change can be frightening, and the temptation is often to resist it. But change almost always provides opportunities - to learn new things, to rethink tired processes, and to improve the way we
work."
~Klaus Schwab
Maybe you don't sell your own products but as a striving internet
marketer you are faced with change all the time. Google, Pinterest, Facebook, WordPress, YouTube, your job, your family - they are all making changes regularly that impact you.
You've got to say to yourself "I can handle this change AND make it work for me.". Then put on the thinking cap and get moving.
Better yet, PRETEND a change has been forced on your business and think about how you'd deal with that now rather than later. You may come across your own, new opportunities that have been sitting out there waiting for you all along.
Sincerely,
Erica Stone
erica@extremereviewer.com
