In this blog post you’re going to learn how to choose a niche, attract the right customers, increase your dollar/hour ratio AND create a profitable service that your customers want. There’s a lot to cover, so we better get started!
The biggest problem facing Divi
Websites aren’t enough any more. It’s not enough to just build a basic site with an about page, blog and contact page. Many of us have moved into “funnel” products like landing pages, email marketing and blog post optins.
The biggest problem I see Divi builders facing, is that they use a killer page builder – but no one wants what they’re offering. You can build landing pages, you can grow email lists, you can generate sales. But your customers aren’t biting.
That of course affects your profit. So you take on more work, work longer hours, take time away from friends and family…only to have your customers haggle with you over the price.
You don’t need to work harder
Where Divi builders, website builders and WordPress businesses go wrong is trying to work harder IN the business. Work more hours, charge higher prices, have more skills and offer more services.
Bit by bit we drain our time, money and energy just to scrape past the end of the month and pay our bills. We don’t have anything left over and we’re barely paying ourselves.
The secret is NOT working more or harder. It’s not about your price. It’s not about being a funnel business or a marketing website builder or a Divi funnel builder. It’s about your approach to running a successful, profitable business.
Customers make bad choices
As websites become easier and easier to create, more and more low rent players are going to enter the market. We can’t stop that, and try as we might to educate our customers on why an “AI” based page builder won’t replace us, they’ll always choose faster and more convenient over “better”.
Our expenses will continue to rise. That’s inevitable. Even if inflation is a paltry 3% (most experts put actual inflation around 10% per year), we need to become profitable now or risk dying off.
Next big thing
To top it all off? You have every internet marketing guru tell you EXACTLY where the next big thing is. First it was Facebook ads, now it’s messenger bots. Or dropshipping. Or webinars. Or affiliate networks.
Social media. SEO. Content marketing. Direct mail. Email marketing. Influencer marketing. Automation. Remarketing. The list of “secret killer marketing tactics” grows every 6 months. And of course you have to buy every single plugin, platform and software just to keep up.
Run a successful, profitable business
If you want to run a successful, profitable business selling marketing funnels to customers, using Divi – stop all this.
Stop working longer hours. Stop jumping from “next big thing” to the REAL next big thing. Your profit and success in your business will be determined by 2 things. Your willingness to commit to a market and product. And your ability to scale your business.
You could JUST deliver squeeze pages for remarketing traffic for businesses that sell RFID wallets, all using Divi.
You could JUST help audiopile bloggers grow their email list from their blog traffic with Bloom.
You already have everything you need to build a killer, profitable and successful marketing funnel business.
Best time to quit a job
In 2016 I bought a house with my partner Olivia. I also quit my high paid, low effort marketing consultant job on the day I got the keys to my house. My funnel business needed to pay our mortgage, bills and living expenses.
Now to be fair, of course Liv and I split the costs. But I didn’t want to just split the costs. I wanted to take care of the house, expenses and have something left over. I was committed to working all day and night if needed.
Of course that isn’t sustainable and before long I was struggling to keep up any payments. My funnel business (which I was promised was the next big thing) needed customer badly. I had to start making sales. But I was too busy delivering the low paying projects from previous customers. I was trapped and couldn’t grow the business, because I was too busy IN the business.
That was when I decided to deliver less work. And by less I didn’t just mean that I was going to work on fewer projects. I meant that I would accept fewer projects. I would work with fewer customers and I would work fewer hours?
Within months my business was overflowing with customers. Regular, recurring customers. I only worked with businesses that had a membership product for their customers. And I only worked with businesses with over 1000 previous customers. And they had to have over $1m in sales. And I was only going to grow their membership revenue. And I wasn’t going to do any of it.
By the end of 2016 I sold the business, we travelled over to Arizona and Tennessee and Florida to sign off the deal and meet our new partners. All from doing less and focusing more.
You deliver more than websites
You might build WordPress sites with Divi day in, day out. But you must believe that you’re delivering more than websites. Because you do.
You deliver a sales process that allows businesses to reach more customers. You create platforms that drive sales and makes people happy. Your sales pages help clearly explain how to solve a problem.
Your blog page designs allow people to freely and easily make the right choices and compare their options. Your landing pages help businesses give away free samples, find customers and grow their commerce.
It’s about way more than websites. It’s about way more than business. Imagine a teacher leaving their job to set up a business tutoring kids who struggle with math. They create a few books and worksheets to help those that schools would leave behind.
The teacher is now an entrepreneur and needs a way to reach a wider audience. You help them build a blog and sales platform. They launch to a small email list but it grows. What have you helped done?
You’ve helped kids who’d be left behind by the education system become confident, with a subject they were failing. You’ve helped parents give their kids a reason to love a school subject they used to hate. You’ve also helped a teacher create a business that now employs people and contributes back to society and the local community.
These stories are told over and over and over. By connecting to the wider impact our websites have, we see the bigger picture. We can see the potential in what we do and that gets us excited. When we’re excited, customers are excited. When customers are excited, they buy.
If you want to start attracting more customers and generating more income, get excited about what you’re delivering to customers and what you do. If you’re not excited, no one else will be.
“Small businesses” is not a niche
Now that you’re excited, we need to find someone to excite. The biggest mistake funnel businesses and website businesses make, is telling themselves that they serve the niche of “small businesses”.
I’ve written before on what a niche is and why “service based businesses” is not a niche. I know why you’ve settled on that definition. It’s a mixture of fear and being told the wrong thing.
First, your niche is not an industry. A niche is a problem you solve, or a result that you get, for a particular group of people, that other businesses don’t want to serve.
Small businesses is not a niche. It’s 45% the GDP of the USA. A niche is a problem or result, worked on for a particular type of person, that other people don’t want to serve.
Mom bloggers is an industry. Helping mom bloggers convert YouTube subscribers into first time customers by selling them splinter products for $19, is a niche.
Podcasters are an industry. Helping podcasts with over 1000 subscribers get sponsorship deal by massively growing their listenership is a niche.
Many funnel builders, marketers, website designers and Divi builders don’t WANT to serve that audience and that problem. Why? Well assuming they’re not afraid of niching down (more on that next), that’s not their skill set. Or their passion. They don’t care or don’t want to. Simple as that.
There’s really good money to be made in running a clickbait news website. I do not want to serve that market and that result, because I don’t care about it. There is really good money to be made with cold calling and marijuana. But I don’t care about those things. So I don’t serve them.
The second reason that businesses fail to attract customers, because of their wrong ideas on niching, is fear. Fear that if they narrow down their market, they’ll choke their revenue.
Let me ask you. Are you suffering from an overabundance of customers now? Are you struggling to find places to spend all the money you’re making? Probably not.
Niches are specific and specificity creates depth. It creates opportunity. The fastest way to find a customer, is to know what kind of customer you want.
You have a valuable product
Sometimes we’ll feel a bit icky about promoting our own products and services. It can feel a little tacky or gauche to promote something we provide customers.
I can even prove it to you.
What is the single most important thing that any business can do for their business?
If you didn’t answer “work we me”, then you need to work on your own belief in your business. Your business is THE most important resource in the world for your customers. Bar none.
What’s more awesome? If your business had a FOCUSED niche, problem and result you’d instantly become more valuable.
You’ve got a valuable product that customers want. If you had a classic, restored red 1960 Ferrari that needs some work, do you want to take it to any auto-body shop OR a business that JUST works on classic, restored red 1960 Ferraris?
Your deliver great work and I’ll GUARANTEE you’re a better page designer, developer, marketer and website business than me. I promise you. You deserve customers and you deserve income.
3 laws of scale
Finally, have you ever found yourself working every hour God sends. Plus your customers are already paying as much as they can. You can’t work any more hours. You can’t increase your prices. How do you grow?
You absolutely must adhere to the 3 laws of scale.
Cheeky book plug, my book From Single To Scale is available here if you want to learn more. But here’s the gist.
- Do I have to deliver the project?
- Can I handle 1000 orders tomorrow?
- Is the process repeatable?
If you can’t answer those three laws, then your business can’t grow. Simple as that. Your business delivers RESULTS, not methods. You’re more than a page builder or power user. You’re more than a WordPress business.
You’re an email list grower. You’re a revenue generator. You’re a customer magnet or a profit creator. Your Divi business can create opportunities and results for so many other businesses.
It doesn’t have to be you building the sites or pages or optins. It doesn’t have to be a website you deliver. You could build courses, videos, books, podcasts, audio programs, workbooks, instructions, blogs, networks…anything that gets those RESULTS.
It’s a big ask, I know. But a funny thing happens when you think with scale. Your mind opens up and you start to think about how you can serve more people. You can ABSOLUTELY still build sites and use Divi. But it can’t be YOU building the site. You need external people delivering a repeatable process.
Call to action
If you’re serious about attracting more customers, defining a niche and running a profitable business, you’ll want to check out our course over at Sell Your Service.
How To Build A Profitable And Successful Marketing Funnel Business helps businesses like yours reach their maximum income potential.
You don’t need any new plugins or software. You can stick with everything you’ve got already and I’m not going to tell you to focus on a new opportunity or tactic.
Next steps
Start thinking about your Divi business as an opportunity creator. It isn’t a page builder or website business. It’s a result generator and customer magnet. Think above the deliver and reflect on the benefits and results you get your customers.
But I just want to build Divi sites
Hey that’s great! Lot’s of businesses have told me the same thing. I totally understand where you’re coming from. But the key to building more Divi sites, doing what you love AND being profitable is by selling the results and benefits that your Divi sites get your customers.
Focus on a niche that has a problem and use Divi to solve that problem. Don’t sell Divi and websites, sell new subscribers or new customers. Sell traffic and leads and profit. Because that’s what customers want to buy.
So what do you think?
Has this helped? I’m always keen to hear from readers and Divi users. Shoot me an email to michael[at]sellyourservice.co.uk or message me on Instagram @funnelmike if you have any questions!
