Why Positioning beats pivoting to a quivering pulp
Published: Fri, 01/29/21
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...Launching my email list in March and sending my first of 256 straight daily emails (as of today) on the first day of Arizona’s stay at home order marked the beginning of a journey that has taught me as much about myself as it has about my tribe of followers. Most importantly I have learned that it is possible to write 500-1000 word emails every single day that entertain, inspire and motivate when you understand your audience intimately and feel the pains and problems that keep them up at night.
I would never have thought I could pull that off before Ben Settle came into my life!
Thank you for showing me the way.
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This got me thinking of something:
2020 was the Year of the pivot for a lot of marketers.
Everyone and their mother prattling on about “you have to pivot!” “here’s how to pivot!” “let me teach you about pivoting!” and so on, and so forth. And it never occurred to any of them the reason they needed to pivot when the lockdowns, etc happened is because their Positioning was weak. If your business has strong Positioning you need not “pivot” because chances are your business will only grow bigger & more powerful when economies go south, businesses are forced into lockdown, and the rest of the world grows flakier as a result.
Good Positioning means you can use the force of those hard times to grow stronger.
Hit back harder.
And profit far more easily than you ever have before.
It's proactive & strong.
Ticky-tac pivoting on the other hand?
Means you have to reactively try dance around the hard times to survive, always at the mercy of other forces in the way or flying at you... probably will still get slammed, and you're perpetually playing to not lose instead of playing to win.
If that's how you want to make your fortune, all the power to you.
But the way I see it, and have experienced it, it all comes down to balance:
One of the more interesting lessons I’ve learned from Sifu about Wing Chun over the past 6 years is how even a skinny, “wet noodle” guy who weighs 101 lbs soaking wet can hand a beat down to a 250 lbs man ripped with muscle if he put takes away his balance via superior positioning.
So it is in business.
Dennis has great positioning — thus his business grew.
My main business has great positioning — thus my business grew.
My side businesses (software) were founded with great positioning — thus grew.
Many other businesses had little or no positioning — relying on an endless series of hacks, tactics, and guru-chasing.
The result:
Flailing around, at the mercy of the forces working against them, and desperately trying to pivot to not be taken to the ground permanently.
I literally did nothing different in 2020 I wasn’t doing in 2010 & earlier:
* Send quality offers every day to receptive leads via email using the exact methods I teach in "Email Players"
* Do something every day to build my list
* Stay out of debt
* Doggedly creating & flooding my market with quality content
* Avoiding non-flakey service providers (surrounding myself only with non-flaky accountants, lawyers, programmers, printer, etc)
* Not relying on 1 of anything to the extent that is possible
* Ruthlessly curating my list, JV partners, and people I associate with
* Delivering the best & fastest customer service possible
* And the list goes on
None of this is secksy or complicated.
Yet all of those can give you strong positioning.
On the other hand:
If even one thing about your business is out of whack, your balance is compromised, and your positioning is weak, and probably flailing around & pivoting or whatever is your only chance.
All right, end of sermon.
I’ll just end with this:
Another part of strong positioning is having stronger sales copy than the other guy. Especially knowing & understanding in context the various buyer psychology secrets & applications in the February “Email Players” issue which goes to print in just a couple days.
After that, too late.
Best hurry if you want in before the deadline:
https://www.EmailPlayers.com
Ben Settle