I’ve said it before: Marketing is the most important function in your company. It’s even more important than delivering your product, service or information to your customer. I’m not saying those aren’t important too. They are and very much so. The issue is that that you can have fantastic marketing and have a mediocre offering and stay in business. The reverse is also true in that you can have little or poor marketing, offer the most amazing thing in the universe and you’ll almost definitely go out of business. 

There are about 30 different ways to market, from cold calls to pay per click to advertising on billboards and numerous others. I talk about many of them in the SMIC Program. A good book that covers many of them for the marketing beginner is Guerilla Marketing In 30 Days. It’s your job to pick the marketing technique you are most comfortable with (and can afford, since some are free and some are not) and hit it very, very hard until you start making regular income.

Once you reach that point, well done. It’s an important milestone in your business. But that’s just it. It’s a milestone, not a goal. You don’t want a business that relies on just one form of marketing regardless of how much money you make. Our world changes too fast. There are too many variables that can (and likely will) take your marketing method that works great today and eliminates it (or severely damages it) tomorrow.  

There were tons of guys back in the 80s and 90s who made good money advertising in classified ads in newspapers. But then the internet came along and murdered classified ads (more or less). These guys were forced to learn how to do HTML web pages and start figuring out email. Those that didn’t went out of business. 

There were guys just a few years ago making huge money doing Facebook ads or monetizing YouTube channels. Then these big companies changed the algorithms. These guys saw their incomes go from $30,000 per month to $2,000 per month overnight. And they were fucked. 

Relying on just one form of marketing is stupid. Your Alpha 2.0 business needs to be more long-term, resilient, and flexible than that. Instead, you need to rely on multiple marketing methods, not just one. 

I view this as a marketing ladder of sorts where I do this: 

1. Focus on one type of marketing and hit it hard.
2. Get to the point where that form of marketing reliably makes money whenever I execute it.
3. Automate it as much as humanly possible, removing myself from the workflow (either completely or partially).
4. Pick a new form of marketing and go back to step one to repeat the entire process.
5. Keep repeating this until I have at least 5-7 forms of marketing that I can rely upon.

Then, and only then, do I have a reliable, long-term source of income from that business.  

Most business owners don’t do any of this. They either don’t market at all (or enough) and go out of business, or they market one way, do well with it, and rely on that one way 100% until it’s ripped out from under them. 

To give you some real–life examples, here’s the marketing ladder I used for my consulting business, in the order in which I did it: 

– Cold calls 

– Referrals 

– Direct mail 

– Joint ventures 

– Radio ads 

Here’s the one I used for my Blackdragon/Alpha Male 2.0 online business: 

– Posting on forums 

– Blogging 

– Social media 

– Banner ads 

– Joint ventures 

– Pay per click 

– Affiliate programs (working on this now) 

Both of those companies were started for less than $50 and today both generate six-figure incomes for me. With all the different marketing I do, you can see why. It’s hard to not make money when you utilize a marketing ladder. 

You should have your marketing ladder mapped out in your head or on paper. Don’t focus on all of it at once. Like I said, focus on one marketing technique at a time. Don’t move to the next one until the one you’re working on makes consistent, regular money whenever you do it. Then move to the next one on your list. 

Also, be flexible about which items are on your list. Perhaps you have an online business and are mastering SEO or SEM as a marketing technique and the next item on your marketing ladder is Instagram ads. It’s possible that by the time you master SEO/SEM, the algorithms for Instagram will have changed, or some new social media platform knocks Instagram from its perch. So, make sure that your marketing ladder isn’t set in stone and leave lots of room for flexibility. 

Just make sure you do it. Marketing techniques and systems will change over time. Don’t let this discourage you like it does so many other business owners (or potential business owners). The entire point of the marketing ladder is to not have to rely on any one technique.  

With a marketing ladder in place your business will be truly bulletproof.

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