Jab Till It Hurts - Chapter 7: Mistakes

As you grow your business, you’ll make mistakes. Forgive yourself. Then, read and re-read this chapter to avoid making more!

First of all, there’s nothing more disingenuous to me than a business that approaches you with a jab that really isn’t a jab. It’s not a give; it’s an ask. As you start your business, please be conscious of your jabbing. In the back of your mind, you must know that there is nothing coming your way from your give—and be okay with that.

Don’t Disguise a Right Hook as a Jab

Too many people give with the expectation of receiving, but if you give with the expectation of just giving, you’re going to be way happier. Sometimes you’re going to give and get nothing, and sometimes you’re going to give and get something amazing in return that you weren’t even expecting.

When you offer a jab, don’t have it be a right hook veiled in a jab. Have it be a true jab.

Often, companies reach out to me with their so- called jabs and they really are right hooks. I’ll give you an example. Recently, there was an online conversation about credit card transaction processing and who uses what service, and I had commented that we processed X dollars a month through this one platform. Someone said, “I wouldn’t use that platform, because a lot of times they have issues and they freeze money. I have a great card processor that I use for my online stuff. If you want me to connect you to them, let me know.” Interested, I said, “Sure, send me some information.” Well, they did. They sent me an affiliate link. Meaning, it’s not that it’s a great card processor. It means they get a kick-back. They get money or credit for getting another customer in their system. That’s not a jab. That’s a right hook.

When you are jabbing, make sure they are free jabs, and not attached to a right hook. Or it’ll punch you right back in the face.

The Wrong Metrics

One of the things businesses do when they first start out is they begin buying ad space on Facebook or Instagram, YouTube, or whatever platform they choose. I beg of you: please think of your strategy in two ways. First, the cost of your day to day campaigns, your ads. Keep it affordable so you can continue it for a long time. Second, don’t get hung up on vanity metrics like impressions or likes or any of those numbers, because you’re in this for the long-term play. Likes and impressions don’t matter. What matters is that you’re getting in front of customers and building your brand.

If you’re focused on the number of times people see your ad, you’re focused on the wrong thing. What you want to do is create memorable impressions, and touch consumers many, many, many times. The more the consumer gets touched by your brand, the more they remember it—the more familiar you become. The closer you get to being the Preparation-H, the Band-Aid, the Kleenex of your category.

When you just focus on the numbers, you’re going to lose out because you have to look big picture and look at the brand overall. Take the combination of creative and branding and marketing and put it all together with a long-term strategy instead of a short, narrow strategy.

If you say “I’m going to dedicate $5 a week to this,” that won’t get you anywhere. But if you say, “I’m going to put $1 per day behind this video and $5 behind that video and $10 to this one,” the long-term strategy will play out. I’m not saying these are the actual budget numbers you should run. Please don’t take that as gospel. It depends on your scale, it depends on what you do, it depends on your budget and on the depth and growth of your business. But, long-term strategy is what you should be thinking about and looking for.

Don’t get hung up on the numbers. Get hung up on making an impression that sticks.

Can’t Buy Me Love

When you first start your business, you might be tempted to “invest” money in building up some of those vanity metrics online. Look, we’ve all done it, and it’s the wrong thing to do. I did it, and it was a terrible mistake. Why? Because they’re not real. They’re not real fans, there’s no engagement from them. Vanity metrics may boost your numbers, but it’s really doing nothing to boost your brand.

If you have 20,000 followers and you’re a Matchbox collector who started a week ago, those numbers don’t jive. It’s okay to have 100 followers or 200 followers, because the ones that follow you and are genuinely connected to you are the people who are going to engage with your content and bring actual value to your business. They are the individuals who will help you grow.

Buying subscribers, buying shares whatever it is to build those vanity metrics is the wrong approach. You’re going to be tempted to do it. Lots of you might even do it because it just looks so good. But it’s all in your head and totally unnecessary. Save your money. Stop buying likes. It’s doing nothing for your brand; it’s doing everything for those companies who sell vanity metrics.

The Give is Better Than the Ask

I remember watching people in the restaurant industry, years ago, guard their secret recipes and special sauces. I thought, “God, that is so stupid. Why are you guarding this? People are never going to be able to make it to the same level and quality you do in the restaurant. You should just give it away!”

One day, I walked into a restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona called Citizens’ Public House. On the menu is this amazing chopped salad. In fact, the chopped salad is so famous it has its own Facebook page. Sure enough, when you walk into the restaurant and order the salad, you can also get a copy of the recipe. If you go online, to the Facebook page, you can get the recipe right there. Is the recipe ever going to taste the way it does when you order it at Citizens’ Public House? Hell no! Are they afraid of that? Absolutely not.

Just because you’re giving something away doesn’t mean you’re hurting your business. I find the more I give, the more value I bring, the more I help people write their ads or fix their ads, the more people order ads from us. They love our service.

Giving is not going to hurt you. In the long run, giving is going to build your business.

I didn’t always have a generous mindset. Once upon a time, I was probably the stingiest person when it came to giving and being selfless. Only over time have I learned the importance of it. I truly give credit to watching and learning from Gary Vaynerchuk. The man gives selflessly, and as he gives, I’ve watched his business explode. I’m just modeling what I’ve learned from the best. If you want to see your business grow, do the same. It will pay out in spades.

It Takes Balls to Get It Right—Bocce Balls

I met Kent Heyl, owner of Bocce Courts America. A client, Tom, who has become a friend over the years introduced me to him. Kent has an interesting business. Bocce courts, in case you didn’t know, are making a comeback as a backyard entertainment, and people are getting Bocce courts installed in their yards in place of putting greens or swimming pools. Kent’s company, Bocce Courts America, is a leader in Bocce courts for backyard entertainment.

I had a sit down with Kent. The first thing I looked at was all of this printed stuff he delivered for me to look at and review. I asked, “Who are you giving this stuff to?” He said, “Eh, no one. Because every time I give it to someone, they just throw it away.” Well, of course they do! We’re not living in the printed age. We’re living in the digital age. Just ask the newspapers that have gone out of business. Only the smart ones like The New York Times figured out how to jump on the digital subscription model and grow.

I visited the website, boccecourtsamerica.com, and what’s the first thing I see? Confusion. Because when a customer comes to your website, if your website doesn’t clearly articulate what it is your business can do for them, what it is you sell, what service you offer, they’re gone. If they’re wasting calories and brain cells trying to figure out what it is you do, your messaging sucks. In this case, Kent’s messaging was off target.

The headline when you arrived at the website was, “Do You Bocce?” It’s a question. Well, fine, ask the question. But you’re making a bold assumption that people know what Bocce is. And, I’ve got news for you, anyone who is not from the old world or is under 30 probably has no freaking idea what it is. None. So, the messaging has to be fixed. It’s not, “Do You Bocce?” it’s explaining Bocce in a quick and simple way.

Of course, there’s no one sentence that can easily explain Bocce. So, it’s about the lifestyle, about the entertainment, about the atmosphere that is created in your backyard when you have a Bocce court. Show that on the website. Put up a video, no sound is needed. In that video, you’re going to show a Bocce court, and people having fun, and drinking wine and experiencing the outdoor lifestyle that this activity brings to the backyard. That’s what this is about—a lifestyle. It’s not about selling a dirt court with balls.

Figure Out if Your Business is B2B or B2C

The other fail on the Bocce website was the mixed messaging. When you’re targeting a consumer audience, that is called B2C; you’re the business, they’re the consumer. When you’re targeting a business audience, it’s called B2B. They are two totally different audiences. You do not speak to them the same way. Kent’s website is really confusing because it talks to both audiences equally. That’s a disaster because consumers coming to the website looking for a Bocce court in their backyards are just not the same as businesses like hotels, homeowners’ associations and high-end retirement communities.

When you are talking to these two audiences, there are two very different voices you should be crafting. If you’re looking to grow your consumer first brand, your website needs to be geared toward them. Then the question arises: how do I talk to the businesses? Businesses will spend time, when they come to a website, to scroll to the navigation that is meant for them. Consumers will not. So, a couple of ways you can handle this is to create landing pages for your consumer audience and your business audience that come off of your ads. But the primary focus of your website should be consumer-facing. Then you have links, or navigation, for the businesses and what they might need, and all the options available to business customers.

If you’re going to focus on consumers, you need to dial in that messaging so it’s talking to that consumer audience. Yet the messaging is all over the place, right now, on boccecourtsamerica.com. As of the publication of this book, the website is a mess.

Kent wanted to know how a guy who started a business at 71—and he’s now 78—can grow this business in two areas: the B2B side, selling the aggregate and the components; and the B2C side, selling more installations in people’s backyards. Those audiences cannot cross over in marketing. They just can’t. It’s like having a conversation with your bro and having a conversation with your wife. You have to have two different voices when you speak to them. Consumers have one language, businesses have another language.

We had to create a plan for both business marketing and consumer marketing. You can target, by the way, businesses on both Facebook and LinkedIn. Consumers don’t care about LinkedIn. For consumers, you’d want to use Facebook and Instagram. There’s no other platform that’s old enough to have the demographic who’d purchase these courts.

So, Kent’s problem starts with his website, with the question “Do You Bocce?” But the real question is, do you know what the hell Bocce is?

Key Points from Chapter 7

  • Don’t disguise your right hooks as jabs.

  • Don’t buy followers or worry about vanity

    metrics.

  • Figure out the targeting of your website content—are you a B2B or a B2C brand?

  • Have a generous mindset.

Did You Get Value From This?

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If it did and you feel compelled to buy a few copies of my book to give away as Christmas gifts to friends, I’m okay with that!

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Ken 'Spanky' MoskowitzJab Till It Hurts, Gary Vaynerchuk, Spanky Moskowitz, TYC, Best-Selling Author