Accomplishing the most by doing the least. I read that in Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’. It really stuck with me, even though I thought it was just lazy when I first heard it. Over time, I realised that accomplishing the most by doing the least is the ultimate leverage.
If you can get more done by doing a lot less than your competitors, you will achieve a lot more. The leverage that you have at that point is enormous. The same applies to marketing – if you can accomplish the most sales, leads, revenue, whatever by doing the least amount of work, then that’s precisely what you should be aiming for. I’m going to share my insights here on how to go about making this happen.
Minimise Your Marketing Efforts While Maximising Your Return
Over the years, I often experience, especially with new clients that come to my agency, a desire to do it all when it comes to marketing. We’ll sit down and start talking about what they want and why they’ve booked a meeting.
A lot of the time, new clients will start by telling me their list of marketing objectives. This is usually wanting a brand new website. And a Facebook campaign, a Google ads campaign, and an SEO campaign. With some email marketing to follow that all up with.
So, they often want to have all this marketing activity happening, but they don’t necessarily know why or how each part works. Often, if they just focused on one source of traffic to one of their pages on the website they already have, using one single channel with one sales funnel and a strong offer, they could exponentially grow their business.
Some of the best advice I’ve received in my 10 years of running a marketing agency is, ‘What is the least amount of work we have to do to get the result here?’ It would surprise a lot of people if they knew just how little you have to do to generate a lead or to generate a sale.
Just Give Me The Thing That’s Going To Solve My Problem
I see many of the ClickFunnels community building pretty average-looking landing pages, running pretty average ads to their page with a really good offer. I’ll buy what they are selling sometimes because there is such a great offer, even though the user experience isn’t always great.
It doesn’t bother me if the site’s design is a bit off, if I have to zoom in to read some of the text, if the URL is a subdomain of Squarespace or ClickFunnels.
“I don’t care if their email address was a Gmail address. None of that matters because, at the end of the day, as a customer, I just want the thing. Just give me the thing I’m trying to buy that will solve my problem.”
I had an experience years ago when I bought a car. It had all of these scratch marks in it. So, somebody had buffed the car with one of those electric buffers and they’d fucked it completely. There were all these little micro scratches in it and it wasn’t until I saw it in the sun after I bought it, I was like, ‘Oh man, now I know why the guys sold me the car inside a warehouse.’ Anyway, long story short, I ended up googling around, ‘How do you fix this?’
I tried to find a detailer who could fix it, and I came across this website. Nearly every website I came across was actually terrible. I came across one particularly terrible website, but the copy on the website was talking directly to me.
Having A Great Offer And Good Business Sense Can Offset Even The Worst Online User Experience
I was reading the website copy and I knew it was exactly the problem I was dealing with. And, yes, that’s my type of car. So all of the copy was talking directly to me as a potential customer. The site was super bad on mobile, it had obviously been built purely for desktop and no attention had been given to the mobile experience.
Trying to navigate that site was a nightmare. I had a lot of questions and it wasn’t easy to find anything I needed to find. By this stage, the business got what I was dealing with, but I wanted to know, who is this person? Who runs this business? How much do they charge? What do their previous clients say in terms of testimonials or reviews, things like that? So I started to try to find that information, and navigating that site was just a fucking nightmare.
The menu didn’t work. I had to click footer links. I’m sure we’ve all had that experience of engaging with a website that was just so bad, but we persevered because whatever we initially read regarding the offer and what they did was exactly what we needed.
“I decided to just go through the pain of the website to get the thing I need. I tried submitting the contact form. It didn’t work. The contact form was broken. So eventually, I rang the guy, left the message, and he got back to me immediately.”
This guy was great. He was knowledgeable. He did everything you should do as a business owner when a lead reaches out to you. You get back to them immediately. So you don’t muck around and call them the next day, whatever. If somebody wants to do business with you and you get a lead, you get on that shit immediately. It blows my mind how people leave that stuff, and they don’t get on to it. Anyway, it’s a different story.
Anyway, he got back to me immediately. He booked a time. I think he even took a deposit to kind of lock me in. And he did the job. And it was amazing. Basically, the car looked brand new after he did it. So he accomplished the most, which is he got the lead even after I looked at a bunch of other websites. He managed to get the lead because he had set up his website in a way that communicated.
The Absolute Basics Of A Purchasing Decision
To me, the guy with the car shop met the absolute basics I needed to know to make a purchase decision. Yet what I often see in marketing campaigns with companies we deal with is that they want all of this elaborate stuff when really all you need is a traffic source.
I would typically recommend starting with Google ads because that’s when you’re targeting people searching for the thing you sell. That’s always the best place to start. So start with one traffic source, Google ads, because you can get to the top immediately. You can send potential customers to a landing page that answers their questions with a very logical next step and a great offer to get them to take that next step.
If you’re a service company, for example, and people know what you do, a standard trade or a professional service, just send your traffic to a landing page with no menu for the rest of your site. Why? Because you don’t want potential new clients wandering off and going down rabbit holes on your website.
It’s got your logo and your phone number and the copy. The story that you tell on that page is the most important thing. So just focus on writing a really great story, answering a few questions and overcoming a few objections – with a really great offer attached.
“It needs to be an offer that is so good, that makes so much sense that a person on your site who’s looking for the thing you offer will say to themselves, you know what? This is a great offer. It’s exactly what I need. I’m going to call this person right now.”
Make sure your contact forms work and that you answer the phone when a potential client calls. Make sure you get back to them immediately if you miss their call. The moment that lead comes in on the phone – pick it up – or get back to them as soon as you can – at the next available moment, pick up the phone and call that person.
Don’t wait for the end of the day. Don’t wait an hour or two. Don’t wait till tomorrow. Just do it then and there. You wouldn’t believe how much business I’ve won because I was the first person who called back. Sometimes it’s just showing up.
Start With Simple – Drive Your Traffic To A Great Offer
This is what I mean when I talk about accomplishing the most by doing the least. You don’t need a 50 page website with all of this video content, tons of blogs, heaps of glossy photos, all the bells and whistles. You don’t need that.
You just need a really good offer, to use Russell Brunson’s advice. You just need a really great hook, a really great story and a really great offer. The hook is what captures their attention when they’re searching. You hook them in to visit your landing page. You then tell a story on your landing page that resonates with your audience and builds trust and connection. Then you’ve got a fantastic offer that is what your audience needs. It’s that simple. They’ll think, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m going to do – take them up on this offer’. You’ll get the business if you do everything else well after that. Answer the phone. Get back to people immediately.
You know, show up on time. All the basic stuff. When it comes to marketing, this is what I mean by accomplishing the most by doing the least. Often, you don’t need to do that much to generate a lead. Just have a good hook, a good story and a really great offer and you’ll get the business.
