What MRR Are You Stuck At?

$0?

$500?

$1000?

$10,000?

It doesn't matter what amount you're stuck at, the reason is the same - it's because the only thing you are selling is your product.

Why does only selling your product cause you to get stuck at a certain MRR?

Because only a tiny percentage (around 1%) of those in your target audience are actively looking to buy the product you sell.

These "active buyers" are:

A) hard to find
B) in limited supply

Those of you with $0 MRR are discovering "A" the hard way - finding those active buyers is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

And those of you that have managed to generate some revenue are discovering "B" the hard way - you managed to find a way of reaching those active buyers but you've hit a limit to how many of them you can reach and convert into customers.

The answer to break out of this problem is simple: target the remaining 99%
that aren't actively looking to buy.

This is the key to finding and maintaining the growth that your business needs to succeed.

This is because they are:

A) Everywhere - your marketing/sales efforts are reaching them anyway
B) A virtually unlimited supply

But (obviously) you can't just pitch them your product.

This is because they aren't actively looking to buy what you sell and so, if you try to sell them your product, you will trigger sales resistance and they will ignore your marketing & sales efforts.

Instead, you need to find a way to get in front of them without triggering this sales resistance & then convince them to buy your solution sooner rather than later.

So how do you do that?

Well first things first, if you're stuck at $0 MRR then you first need to ensure that your solution has existing demand.

If nobody is paying money for solutions similar to yours that solve the problem that you solve then you are going to really struggle.

Make sure that others are successful selling products similar to yours. If they aren't, find products and problems that do have other businesses making money with them.

Assuming now that you have a product with existing demand, how exactly do you successfully sell to those not actively looking to buy right now?

WRONG Strategy = Traditional Content Marketing

Content marketing has traditionally been the way to sell to those not actively looking to buy.

But this is a losing strategy these days.

Why?

Well, the idea behind content marketing is that a business is able to do two things.

First, because it isn't pitching its products, it is able to capture the attention of the 99% of its target audience that isn't actively looking to buy what it sells right now.

Second, it is able to create authority in its domain of expertise thanks to the content it creates.

As a result, theoretically, when those in that 99% decide that they need to buy the product that the company sells they will choose it over its competitors because a) they have a relationship with that company already and b) because they see it as the expert on the topic.

This works very well when a company is the only one creating content on a topic.

The problem is though that this isn't the case these days.

Take an email marketing company for example. Every single email marketing company is creating educational content on the topic of email marketing.

And they are ALL saying the SAME THING.

It's therefore extremely difficult for potential customers to determine which one is the leading authority on the topic of email marketing (in this example).

The only way for any one of these companies to gain an advantage is to "outcontent" every one of its competitors - creating much more content of much higher quality than everyone else.

And this is very hard to do. It requires a lot of luck, time, skill and money. Something that most businesses don't have - especially not solo founders.

To use an analogy, it's like swimming a mile against a strong current. Can it be done?

Sure, but most will fail.

Wouldn't it be better to swim that mile with the current instead?

Here's how.

RIGHT Strategy = Create Unique Content

We need to get back to the original nature of content marketing and what makes it work - being the only company creating content on a topic.

What this means then is taking a unique perspective, one that your competitors aren't taking.

For an email marketing company for example, this means having a unique perspective on email marketing - a unique approach/methodology/belief system that its competitors don't have.

This then allows it to create unique content on the topic of email marketing because it has a perspective to share that its competitors don't.

As a result, it is easily able to position itself as the only authority on its particular approach/methodology to email marketing.

And so, its content marketing suddenly becomes a very effective tool for converting those 99% into customers.

IMPORTANT - the glue that makes this work is that the unique approach/methodology/belief must be tied to what makes the company's solution unique.

For example, when internet marketing started HubSpot started selling the belief of "inbound marketing" back in 2008, its internet marketing solution was the only end-to-end internet marketing solution.

As a result, not only was HubSpot the only authority on the topic of inbound marketing, but only its solution could help believers implement it.

This strategy is what I call The BLUNT Method because the belief/methodology/ that companies like HubSpot (as well as bootstrapped startups) sold can be summed up by the mnemonic BLUNT.

Want to learn more about this approach, read case studies of companies big and small (including indiehackers) & see how you can use it yourself to grow then visit www.thebluntmethod.com