No Control, No Sales

There is one single, fundamental, gospel-level truth about working on the internet—and actually earning money with your craft—that most people don't know:

You have to control attention.

The internet's a biiiiiig place, complete with football player muscles and a mouth the size of 4 billion Fran Dreschers all in the same room (which is how many people are actually on the internet). It also moves fast as hell, and those 4.66 billion people online are simultaneously doing one-hundred tasks at once—always in a rush, always with something else that's more pressing, always another click, another headline, another article...another comment that infuriates you and flummoxes you and makes your brain seep out of your eyeballs.

It's a busy place —worse than New York City during the holidays (which, if you've ever been, know can be literal shoulder-to-shoulder shuffling down sidewalks alongside strangers wearing bells on their boobs). There aren't any quiet, grassy knolls of peace on the internet. It really is like putting billions of people into one room and saying, "best of luck!"

Which means this:

When you set up your awesome new Etsy shop; when you design that siiiiiick-looking notebook for sale; when you start selling French tutoring services; when you set up a paid email subscription that trains park rangers what to do with a dead body...

At best? Nobody cares. (They're too busy to care.)

At worst? Nobody even noticed in the first place.

Oohhh, this is the ugly reality of it all! The very humbling fact that the things you pour your heart and hips into are, for the most part, invisible. And here's the kicker: even when you're surrounded by people who know you and love you and would pet a warthog for you—AKA your fans, followers, email subscribers, internet lovers—you're still kinda invisible. Because this is the internet! And have you SEEN all the shit you can do on the internet?! You can track sharks! Buy light-up chopsticks! Discover which Spice Girl you are! Rank your favorite cartoons! Get ordained!

Hahaha, and you think someone's going to be just so bored and overflowing with rainbows full of free time that they're just going to go leisurely clicking around your entire website and find that one, tiny little link you have buried in that nested nav at the top right of your page that somewhere, in small print, it says, "Hire Me?" "Buy Now?" "Please Like Me?"

...and then click it?

...and then actually buy it?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Like, whoa, that takes a lot of concentration. You'd have to be REAAAAALLLLLLY focused on someone to make all of that effort. (Not to mention the offer would have to be amazing too, but that's a whole other conversation.) However, the only time most of us make that effort is when it's Prime Day on Amazon and you know you're going to get bed sheets for $4. That is the only time we are that focused on any one thing.

The rest of the time?

We've all got ADD+++++ and we're ruuuuuunnnnninnngggg! So fast! Running around the internet in a giant shit storm of to-dos! Running like the Road Runner, but with our fingertips! And they're on fire, I tell you! Fire!

Frankly it's lucky any online business ever makes any money at all.

Which brings us back around to the point of today's missive: if you want to be successful online, if you want to earn money for your efforts, if you want to actually have a shot at this thing...

...you have to find a way to pull a hand brake on all the commotion. You have to learn how to guide people into your orbit. You've got to sit them down in a chair. And you've got to tell them what's happening next, what time it starts, what time the show is over, and what kind of dessert they're having thereafter.

You've got to control attention.

Consider any online launch you've ever witnessed or been a part of. I know it might cause pressure to the skull to think about the world of internet marketing—and how so much of it can be so icky—but I want you to think about the last time you saw someone launch.

Typically, you're going to see the following components:

• Ads all over the fucking place
• Leading to a very specific opt-in page (without a header or footer)
• That triggers a very focused set of emails
• That then lead to a webinar
• That then leads to an offer
• That then has a countdown timer
• And will automatically be closing in 3...2....1

Right?

You might have thrown up a little when you read the words "webinar," and I completely agree. So many people are doing these so poorly, it gives an otherwise really helpful marketing tool a bad name. BUT ANYWAY—there is a reason why this model is so successful in online business:

It takes people out of the room with 4 billion Fran Dreschers, and puts them into a room where you're the only one speaking.

Launching is how you control attention.

Launching is the most critical component of running an online business.

But—it's not because of launching at all.

The reason why launching is so effective actually has nothing to do with "internet marketing tactics" and all of that honky tonk. Nope! It's not "the launch" itself, with its landing pages and emails and webinars. In fact, it doesn't even matter if you're online or not, because in sales the sample human principle applies.

It's not the launch.

It's the fact that a launch creates an event.

And events are what focus our attention.

Think: buy-one-get-one sale; the opening of a new restaurant; the launch of a new ice-cream flavor; a festival; a benefit; an auction; a movie premiere. These are all events, and they're very, very effective for getting people who might be interested to take action. (Why do you suppose they host galas to encourage donations?)

The key components of any event:

1. A specific purpose
2. A start date
3. An end date

These three components come together to focus the spotlight. They focus our attention. They make us perk up when we see that, oh, there's this workshop on this very specific topic that I'm specifically interested in, happening. And it's happening between this date and this date. Therefore, I can't afford to ignore this—I have to pay attention, or else I'm going to miss it. And that means that any other communications that get sent about this get prioritized in the filter that is the brain. Ooo! I wanted to go to that! Good reminder!

And then that person does. They attend during that time frame because it is the only time they can attend; access has been restricted. And it's one of the most strategically important moves you could ever make in online business: strategic restriction.

Most people assume that open access and as much accessibility to a product is the way to make more sales, because that seems logical. More is more, right?

Nope.

In online marketing, more is definitely, unequivocally less. And that's because, when you just leave your stuff up and out there, available anyyyytime anyone wants it, via that cute little link at the top of your website, it becomes invisible.

On the other hand, if you can turn your product into an event and put parameters around when something is available and when it is not, you force the attention span. You introduce a necessary spotlight that draws attention to what you're selling. You give people a way to notice. And you give them a timeframe to decide.

This is controlling attention.

And, hands down, the easiest way to do it is to simply control access. When you control access, you control attention. And when you control attention, you control sales.

This, right here, is the real key to selling online.

Of course, the immediate objection is likely: oh, but that's so much work! Events?! I'm exhausted already. How will I ever keep up?

This is where the marriage of psychology and technology really come in handy. You can use psychological principles like this one, but use technology to implement in a repeatable, automated way.

If you are not using technology, you are losing 90% of your potential revenue. Because systems, once set up properly, do not take sick days. They don't take vacation days. They don't slack off at work and watch Taylor Swift music videos all day. They're mechanical in the best way, because they can control access and create events for you without YOU needing to manually pull all the levers all the time.

If creating an event around your sales process is the #1 most important thing to do to encourage sales, then making sure you KEEP ASKING is the second most important thing.

Most of us kind of figure that if we make an ask and someone doesn't buy, that it means they'll never want to buy—and therefore, we stop asking. (That whole "don't want to be a bother" creeps up.)

But actually? MOST PEOPLE don't buy the first time you ask them. 🙂 Like we began this missive talking about: people are hella busy. They're doing stuff. They're all over the place. And even when your campaign works to focus attention, sometimes the outcome is simply more awareness of your product, and moving that prospect closer to a sale next time. That's okay! This is natural! And just as important.

I always think of this like water boiling. For the first ten minutes, the water doesn't look like it's doing anything at all. It just sits there in the pot, chillin'. But what you can't see is that the internal temperature of that water is slowly rising. And then, on the 11th minute, suddenly it reaches boiling point and it's GAME ON, EGGS IN, EVERYBODY'S HAPPY.

The same thing happens with you.

Most people aren't going to buy the first time you ask. But the time you're spending making the ask is still incredibly valuable, because it's all contributing to the overall effect of a sale—it just might happen a little later than you thought.

And that's okay! Try to remember that this is a law of the universe, and not to get down on yourself if you see that your sales aren't as much as you'd hoped. Keep creating events. Keep focusing attention. Keep using technology to help you do it. (It's a LOT to launch manually all of the time.) And keep showing up and asking. All you're doing is offering to help—and that should always be your focus.

Show up and help.

Ask if they want your help again.

Ask again.

And ask again.

This is the point of any business: to be helpful.

And, of course, never forget that the mainstay of any business is all of the value you provide when you're NOT asking. (That's the role of your content.)

I hope you have a great fucking weekend,

Ash