I officially launched boomp.net on October 1.
It took me forever (18 months) to build it.
Most of my early customers came from search, back when everything existed on Glow Social.
Once I rebranded to boomp.net and did all the right things in order to preserve the SEO that was turning searchers into buyers, that source of customers dried right up.
It's true that customers who come from search are the absolute hands-down best customers.
The flow is easy:
- They have a problem, and they type "solution to my problem" into Google or an LLM.
- They land on a compelling enough sales page.
- Then they buy.
And if the solution they landed on solves their problem, they stick around.
That's amazing, and if I knew then what I know now, I would have made sure not to do all those right things. Instead, I would have protected that easy path to purchase like it was the precious metal it was.
Because it's gone.
And trying to get it back is expensive.
"I'd like to see you fail faster"
I had a call with someone I was referred to who focuses on viral organic content, which is absolutely not my world, so it was interesting, to say the least.
Side note: the most compelling piece of this conversation was the fact that viral content and monetizable content are not the same thing and that millions of views most often translate into diddly squat revenue-wise, which is something I've always known, but not something that was spelled out for me like that until this call. It reminded me of the time I went to a talk about how to go viral on TikTok and the answer was (I kid you not) "have a pot-bellied pig".
On these kinds of calls, I always wonder how honest to be. I decided to go for full honesty. I told him I launched in January and have 12 paying customers, 10 of whom have been with me since March.
Most people who hear that tell me that I'm off to a good start, but this guy said the opposite.
"That's six months of you trying a lot of different things to grow, and it's too much effort. I'd like to see you fail faster."
I wrote that line down.
Then he said, "Another thing I've noticed is that when you talk about your software, there isn't a lot of passion in your voice."
I agreed. "It's not the software I care about, at all. It's small businesses succeeding." I'd just thought that helping them be present on social media was an easy way to help.
"Well," he replied, "what could you do to help small businesses?"
And of course, the answer was services.
The thing I'd been trying to get away from when I leaned into software.
But what I realized is that I wanted to get away from high-ticket services. They were what pushed me to want customers instead of clients in the first place.
So I sat down with my husband and asked him what I should do.
I'd committed to going hard on selling boomp through the end of the year.
But what if, instead of that, I created some lower- and mid-ticket options for working with me?
High ticket always means high access, and that was what burned me out before. The clients themselves were lovely humans, but high access meant (at least for me) that I couldn't let "real life" things get in my way.
I could reframe that. A client that pays less than $2,000 a month does not expect me to ask how high they'd like me to jump when they email me at 10 PM.
They're likely not even thinking about me at 10 PM.
So I expanded my done-for-you offer. Made it a Goldilocks situation so there's something for every potential client.
And now I feel unstuck. I'm writing again, instead of lamenting that I'd like to be writing again.
I have boatloads of ideas for video content.
And I have a clear goal.
The software isn't going anywhere. In fact, I'll use it for every client I have.
But there's not as much pressure to get to 1000 customers as soon as possible anymore.
"I don't ever want to hear you downplay yourself in a speech ever again š"
I gave a 20-minute presentation on how to be a more effective one-person marketing team with AI.
The content was good, but a friend gave me a (relatively public!) lashing.
I'd (mistakenly) let myself believe that all of my knowledge is ordinary.
Not just ordinary, but so common that I shouldn't be rehashing it.
As if, somehow, marketing is easy and obvious for everyone. Even though I know it's not. I can't count how many people tell me they hate marketing. Most people who hate it hire someone like me to just handle it for them.
And most people haven't been working in marketing since 2010.
I have.
I need to find my confidence around that.
And I'm going to do that by starting to record some videos. I'll lower the stakes at first. I'll send unlisted YouTube videos to prospects who have submitted their URLs to my primary lead magnet. If they give me permission to post them live, I will.
Otherwise, I won't have to. Leaving a video unlisted is also fine.
The videos I record today will have one goal: get me to remember that I know a thing or three about marketing.
But first, the gym calls.